DBWI: Keep America under a Two-Party System

[Kung Fucious]

What it says on the tin.

Today, America (like most developed nations) has a (fairly) healthy multi-party system, with the centrist/"classically liberal" GOP, the center-left Progressives, the far-right (though they deny it up and down) Liberty Party, the "big tent" populist Reform Party, to the minor/regional parties like the Upper Midwest's Farm-Labor and the traditionally Southern (though they've been making a play for the Mid-Atlantic states forever) Christian Democrat Party.

Obviously, this wasn't always the case historically; for a decent chunk of its history the US had a loose two party structure (sometimes a "Two-and-a-half") dominating national and local politics. So, with a POD from no earlier than January 1st, 1900 (just to make things harder for everyone), how do we keep the two-party system in the US intact?

 

[Galba Otho Vitelius]

I don't think you need an earlier POD than the twentieth century. Other countries with electoral systems tended to have two party systems in the nineteenth century. It was generally the rise of socialist and labor parties that made these systems multi-party.

The US is a little different, and the key factor seems for one to be one individual, Teddy Roosevelt. Not only was Roosevelt becoming President tin the first place somewhat unlikely, in 1908 he declined to run for another turn and anointed Taft has his successor, only to come back in 1912 and challenge Taft for the Republican nomination. He then runs as a "Progressive"and wins a narrow victory against Taft and Champ Clark, who actually won the popular vote. Roosevelt's margins in a lot of western states as well as Illinois were really close. Roosevelt was then able to successfully turn the Progressives into a real party, helped later by the merger with the Socialists.

That of course encourage the later regional efforts. Incidentally, its still just the plain "Democratic" party, though after their alliance with the Evangelical movement they are often popularly called the "Christian" Party, the Democratic Party is their official name as it has been since Andrew Jackson's day.