The recent political approval ratings have been blasted all over mainstream media the past few hours...and though each outlet fluffs the numbers in their favor, the one thing still remains the same: both political parties have approval ratings below 50%!

My question here is if the majority of americans do no approve of either political party, why do we still vote for either?

There is nothing in our constitution that states we even need to have a party system. They quite obviously are not doing the job our hard earned tax dollars are paying them for. Any more it even seems like a game between both sides to see how much slacking they can get away with, while our country rots from the policies passed to protect their friends and not our hard working citizens. What are we continuing paying them for. If we took away their paychecks and based their pay off their approval you better bet you'd see "Change you can believe in"!

Some Americans don't even realize there are other choices. So probably yes, and that's just ignoring the notion that our elections are completely rigged to begin with.

There's almost no chance any "third" party will ever be elected to the presidency unless you count the official tea party as an actual third party, and not just the GOP's warriors for Christ, and that would only happen if all of America lost it's damn mind.

Originally posted by eNumbra
Some Americans don't even realize there are other choices. So probably yes, and that's just ignoring the notion that our elections are completely rigged to begin with.

There's almost no chance any "third" party will ever be elected to the presidency unless you count the official tea party as an actual third party, and not just the GOP's warriors for Christ, and that would only happen if all of America lost it's damn mind.

I agree completely, but even if we continue with the two party system, there is nothing stopping the citizens from putting them in check, we as a country just need to grow a pair and do so. They are our elected officials, and their acts reflect directly back on the american people.

I think the thing that bothers me the most is it almost feels like the U.S. is being held hostage by them under the guize that we would some how be worse off without them...when they cause the problems most of the time to begin with.

I think your media has a lot to do with it. Presidential candidates need to raise millions of dollars to pay advertising companies to create positive adverts for them and sometimes negative ads of their opponents. They also have to pay millions to TV and cable companies to show their ads.

Being a member of the Democrat or Republican party is the only way you can get political influence. The Tea party have the right idea but they have no political ideology or new answers that appeal to many Americans.

When our favorite team wins the big game we somehow feel accomplished, like we somehow should celebrate OUR victory, when in reality, all we contributed was to sit on the couch and watch the tube. But many people have fragile and easily manipulated egos, thanks to the media and/or bad parenting, and can never think past this.
I believe for many, it's the same mentality that drives them politically. They don't see or even care about what the results of their actions are. All that matters is the simple fact that their team won this past election. (fistpump) Woof...woof...woof!!

Politics hasn't changed since there's been politics really. America's history is filled with exactly what's going on today. Every once in awhile you get somebody who makes differences by stepping out of the box, sometimes in a good way sometimes in a bad way but usually it's the same old game.

We have a two party system for the reason that most sides or opinions on any issue are either covered by the democrats on one side or the republicans on the other. There is usually not a viable third alternative to most issues therefore there isn't enough of a platform to justify a third party.

Say that Ron Paul starts as a third party you will see probably 90% of his stances on issues line up with republicans as his voting record shows or say someone like Soros ran you would see him line up with the democrats. That's a simple explanation why third party's aren't viable.

Unless they get a platform that is outside of the current two parties they are pretty much irrelevant. However a platform outside of the two parties would mean not alot of people would vote for them since it would be so far out of the mainstream.