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For instance, being a third-party candidate on a debate stage alongside Republicans and Democrats is borderline impossible thanks to rules that were created through a group founded by both Republicans and Democrats. I wrote of the Commission on Presidential Debates in 2016 and how it effectively pushed out the League of Women Voters to seize control of the debate stage:
The organization itself was founded in 1987 by a bipartisan Republican/Democrat effort, and has run the debates ever since. //
Before the CPD, the debates were run by the League of Women Voters from 1976 to 1984. The League withdrew when Republicans and Democrats made a deal that would give them full control over the debates, and how they were run.
Nancy Neuman, then head of the League, called the deal “outrageous,” and noted that the Democrats and Republicans wanted to control the questioners, composition of the audience, press access, and more. All of this was done behind closed doors. By the time the deal was done, the League was presented with 16 pages of non-negotiable rules for the debates.
The League departed with a statement that called out exactly what the dual parties were doing and remains accurate to this day:
“The League of Women Voters is withdrawing its sponsorship of the presidential debate scheduled for mid-October because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter,” League President Nancy M. Neuman said today.
“It has become clear to us that the candidates’ organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and honest answers to tough questions,” Neuman said. “The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.”
Even Walter Cronkite called it an "unconscionable fraud." //
No matter how insane you might think the person is, they deserve a fair shot at winning the people's affections. The rules should not be weighted against them, and the other parties should not be able to manipulate rules to keep them from reaching the people.
It's my honest opinion that a two-party system is incredibly dangerous and limiting. If America's economic system has taught us anything, it's that competition brings out the best in people and the best people overall. Yet, we're currently tied to a dual-party system so filled to the brim with corruption that sometimes it's hard to know where one party begins and the other ends.