American politics is weird and broken. We have a system that, by design, is a duopoly. If a new party emerges, it either dies or replaces one of the existing ones. Because of that, we end up with these big tents containing lots of different constituencies and contradictory coalitions.

Take, for example, how conservative black evangelicals are pro-family, pro-life, and pro-business, but most vote Democrat because they’re turned off by Republican racism. Or consider gay Republicans like Peter Thiel, who vote in their economic interests despite it being against their safety and the advancement of the gay community.

There are many ways in which a two-party system doesn't make sense. I’ve lived in two countries with proportional representation, Uruguay and New Zealand. Both have much more stable politics and better systems of coalition-building and compromise. They’re smaller, too, but you can see the US system broken at a state level where the numbers can be similar to those in Uruguay and New Zealand.

Forcing everyone to fit their values and political aspirations into a single party is a mess.

What’s interesting is that as the US becomes more partisan, party members are more likely to adopt the party’s platform, even if it would otherwise not be in their personal or community interest. Only a small and shrinking number of true independents can focus on issues across parties.