It's called democracy

Well yes, that's what it's called. And boxley calls the bulldozed activist in Gaza a "terrorist."

The American system might better be called "duopoly," as you implicitly acknowledge in your post. Gore Vidal and others have suggested that the US arrangement is best understood as a single-party system (the "Property Party") with its two principal factions dressed up as separate entities for public consumption. That's as may be, but there are differences between the factions (which will continue indefinitely to maintain their position as the front entities for political participation here) that it's silly to deny, and the Naderites' contention that there was no meaningful distinction between the undistinguished candidates in 2000 has been amply disproved since to all save those who, like the sanctimonious Messrs Nader and Moore, are deeply in denial. What was Nader's vote in Florida? Something north of 97,000? A fifth of those--hell, a tenth of those in Gore's column--would have put the result out of reach of the hastily-improvised fraud and rent-a-mob measures undertaken by the junta-to-be.

cordially,

[edit: "in Gore's column"]