The problems that have since time immemorial faced the formation of third parties can be traced back to 1968 where the two major parties of the time; Democratic and Republican parties masterminded the making of the ballot access laws for new political parties (Bawn et al., 2012). It was mandatory that all contesting parties should have acquired ballot access in all the fifty states, a factor which most third parties could not adhere due to reasons like lack of the required registration fees and not meeting petition requirements (Bawn et al., 2012). Such a realization hindered the growth of a third political party in the United States political arena.
Secondly, the media has also played a major role in killing the hopes of forming third parties in the country (Formisano, 2015). The latter part of the 20th century has seen the number of newspapers and any other media sources being consolidated to the hands of a few individuals which have led to any new political parties facing challenges in trying to cut a niche in the political arena because of the media barriers in place (Formisano, 2015). As such, many Americans who only depend on only the mainstream media for their news needs cannot be aware of any new political parties being formed.
Thirdly, the costs that usually come with running a national presidential campaign are usually overwhelming and really require much effort in order to reach the required success levels (Jackson, 2014). As such, it is only the two major political parties in the country that have been able to build up enough links with major businesses to ensure that enough funding is sourced for the campaigns (Jackson, 2014). As such, candidates that win the party nominations for these two parties have got the upper hand in running for any office compared to any other candidate from a third party. As such, this serves as another bottleneck to the operations of third party politics in the country (Jackson, 2014).
Fourthly, the winner-take-all nomination process whereby the person with the highest number of votes is never considered a majority coupled with the Electoral College system makes it very difficult for any third candidate to have any winning chances (Inglehart, 2015). As such, it is only easy for the democrats and republicans to have any chances of winning such nominations as they make the bulk of the representation in the voting houses (Inglehart, 2015). Therefore, if a participant in the nomination process votes for any other candidate during nominations, they may as well be wasting their votes. Lastly, by the American political arena allowing the two major parties to shape their policies to an extent of even usurping policies developed by third parties, it means that the success formulae crafted by the third party can be compromised thereby making them crippled in their political ambitions (Inglehart, 2015).
Conclusively, it is worth to note that third party politics in the American system has been reduced to a mirage majorly due to the fact that the two major parties in the country have curtailed the space and freedom with which such parties can be formed and allowed to carry out their political operations. Therefore, these are the reasons why the 3rd American political party has been historically unsuccessful
References
Bawn, K., Cohen, M., Karol, D., Masket, S., Noel, H., & Zaller, J. (2012). A theory of political parties: Groups, policy demands and nominations in American politics. Perspectives on Politics, 10(03), 571-597.
Formisano, R. P. (2015). The Birth of Mass Political Parties: Michigan, 1827-1861. Princeton University Press.
Inglehart, R. (2015). The silent revolution: Changing values and political styles among Western publics. Princeton University Press.
Jackson, J. S. (2014). American Political Party System. Brookings Institution Press.
