I believe referring to our system as a &quot;two party&quot; system is mistake.  In the United States there are far more than two political parties, although two specific parties dominate electoral politics.  BUT, continuing to refer to the system as &quot;two party&quot; simply perpetuates this belief that there&#x27;s no reason to vote for &quot;third&quot; parties, even though &quot;3rd party&quot; candidates DO get elected.  Most of them are at the city council &#x2F; county board of commissioners level, they they get elected and hold office.[1]<p>And as long as we stick to this incorrect single dimensional model, we make it even <i>more</i> difficult to talk about 3rd parties, exactly because some (many?|most??) of them don&#x27;t fit the simplistic  left&#x2F;right continuum. To continue with an earlier example, American libertarians do not fit cleanly on either side of that model.  I&#x27;m pretty sure there are other examples, but the Libertarian one is the one I&#x27;m most familiar with.<p>It&#x27;s something of a chicken-or-the-egg problem, granted, but right now it&#x27;s probably easier to start changing the language we use, than it is to overcome first-past-the-post single-member-district voting systems, etc. [2]<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.lp.org&#x2F;candidates&#x2F;elected-officials" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.lp.org&#x2F;candidates&#x2F;elected-officials</a><p>[2]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Duverger&#x27;s_law" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Duverger&#x27;s_law</a>