This might sound like a quip but is it even wrong? Every wonk acknowledges that third party votes are likely to be wasted. And people get mad at you if you “protest vote”. How is that not an effective duopoly?

> that third party votes are likely to be wasted

Until they're not. There's a pretty reasonable assumption of nonviolent transfer of power to the third/fourth party should R/D lose. I cannot safely say the same about VN or CN

> Until they're not.

Aha. I see. Good refutation.

China is indeed less democratic than America. I agree. But you haven’t provided a counter-argument to the claim in this subthread.

Duopoly and dictatorships are different. The US government is always controlled by one of two political parties but that doesn't make it a dictatorship.

If every option you have is oppression, what is the point of calling it not a dictatorship? Life is shit regardless, you may as well live where it is cheap.

I guess this has less to do with the number of parties, more to do with separation of powers, horizontally via branches of the government and vertically through local autonomy, and perhaps free press

And the identity of those two parties has changed over time- when a party loses touch with its base, it can and will be replaced.

you can say the same thing about a single party system, each administration is different

And dynasties… people have kids and die.

cronyism is still slightly better than bloodline, and not worse than random selection, I mean democracy. Politicians don't spend all of their office time running instead of doing work.

> and not worse than random selection, I mean democracy.

Not worse based on what?

> Politicians don't spend all of their office time running instead of doing work.

Of course not. They just spend a ton of time on the phone with the people who are their actual constituents, i.e. their donors.

“Two party dictatorship”.