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The two-party system discourages collaborative policy-making.
The primary goal of each party is to destroy the other
Republicans would rather see the country fail than see it become Woke, and Democrats would rather see the country fail than see it become MAGA. In this sense, the only outcome both parties find acceptable is the destruction of the country, and that attitude is what many of us identify in our government's dysfunction.
The stakes of every election feel so high, because each party campaigns on an existential crisis for the version of America that their base believes in. In this world, diverse perspectives stop talking to one another.
There is a temptation to dream that maybe enough people from the other side will realize the error of their ways, and we can finally work together to create policy we all agree on. However, it should be obvious that this is a fantasy. From a practical standpoint, our current system incentivizes policymakers to dig in their heels on their positions; not to be open to change. Furthermore, if we ever actually fulfilled this dream, it would be called single-party rule, or in other words, autocracy. The implicit goal of both parties--if you pause to consider it for a minute--is exchanging democracy for one-party authoritarianism. Honoring the ideals of the Constitutional Framers means embracing democratic pluralism.
The irony is that the average American has no interest in these destructive attitudes. Over and over again, the middle of America says that it would prefer politicians who listen and are willing to compromise. The heart of America is still good. The only outcomes from our current democratic dead end are descent into oblivion, authoritarianism, or democratic reform. I think democratic reform is clearly the best outcome.
Parties focus on posturing, rather than fixing problems
Think of crises that have occurred in recent memory. While critiquing government responses to challenges is nothing new, the vitriol unleashed against the party in power is worse than ever before. The rollout of the COVID vaccine during the Biden administration was as lambasted as the development of the vaccine during the Trump administration. Hurricanes, Afghanistan, Libya, Ukraine, Israel, and the list continues. The out-of-power party is nothing but gleeful to see the United States fail so they can rub it in the face of the in-power party. They're happy to team up with foreign actors to claim that the in-power party is incompetent. This is a disaster for democratic rule.
Other, more chronic problems are also exploited to drive voter turnout. Immigration, abortion, education, gun rights, inequality, inflation, taxation, and other problems are more valuable to parties when they're getting worse, rather than getting better. It is much riskier to allow the in-power party to possibly solve the problem than it is to keep the problem as a lever to get back into power at the next election. Again, this is a disaster for democratic rule.
Primary voters prefer partisans over cooperators
Those who believe most strongly in the party agenda are the ones most likely to vote in party primaries. This creates problems in the United States, because most districts are controlled monopolistically by a single party. The party faithful--who are naturally most interested in voicing an opinion on the party's direction--have no reason to consider outside viewpoints or vote for someone who is willing to compromise with the other side.
They have the luxury of a pre-decided election, and can safely nominate the candidates who are most partisan, even though that choice poorly represents the district at large. This creates a vicious cycle of uncompromising candidates who spur the other side to elect even more toxic candidates, until we arrive at complete gridlock between the representatives of the two parties.
Hating the "other" is as effective as standing for
In two-party politics, convincing someone to hate the other team is extremely effective campaigning. In fact, shared hatred may be more effective than standing for anything in particular. A negative coalition that agrees that the other team is evil or incompetent is much easier to hold together than a coalition that tries to promote a specific policy or ideology: policy conversation is nuanced and requires engaged consideration, while every 5-second clip of the other side looking dumb increases your rage against them.
As you've read this, you've started thinking about them and how much they campaign like this instead of focusing on actual policy. However, be assured that your team does it too. In the end, it's a simple fact of a too-narrow marketplace of ideas: anyone with anything more meaningful to say has been drowned out by the system.
Bipartisanship is dangerous for politicians' careers
For elected representatives, expressing an opinion contrary to the party line is often a quick way to lose funding, lose the next primary, and ultimately their job. In recent memory, Liz Cheney and Kurt Schrader are examples of representatives who deviated from their party's stance and lost subsequent nominations.
This is not necessarily a problem: parties are important for organizing movements and focusing public opinion. The catastrophe is that breaking with your party means you lose your job. This means that risk-taking and following one's conscience against the party carries an enormous cost, one that will not be taken often. Americans want legislators who are willing to defy their team when it is called for; a two party-system incentivizes cowardice.
Washington is about take-turns totalitarianism
The policy path of toxic partisanship is to wait until your party controls the House, Senate, and Presidency, and then unilaterally ram through as much legislation as possible. The only contribution from the party that is barely a minority is to obstruct the in-party as much as possible, and to make their policy initiatives look as foolish as possible. They provide no help or input on the policy, hoping instead to leave their opponents out to dry when something goes wrong.
The problems with this approach should be self-evident. Deep down, we all feel like our party just needs to deliver one final knock-out punch to reveal its own goodness and superiority, and finally we'll convert the open-minded from the other team and vanquish the wicked. However, this governance by a slim majority is exactly what the founders most feared, and they predicted it would lead to authoritarianism.
Instead, our system of checks and balances is meant to force compromises among a variety of perspectives to democratically arrive at the best solution possible. This should help reign in the blind spots that we all possess, and it should result in the best governance we can hope for from fallible humans. However, this style of policy-making is impossible with our fully-sorted two-party system.
Whoever is not in power works to obstruct policy, instead of help
The founders intended for there to be many factions across the United States, which would be represented in its federal government. Their goal was to prevent any one faction from achieving domination and repressing the other ones.
Our Constitution relies on divided power to force compromise and prevent the creep of despotism. When each party attempts to silence the other--instead of working together to advance many perspectives regardless of who is in power--these checks and balances are frustrated. We are in danger of regressing into single-party rule.
Ideological purity kills objective policy-making
In a fully sorted two-party system, the parties need to present polar opposites to the voters. This differentiation is the most powerful tool of voter engagement: your side stands for everything right, and the other side represents everything wrong. This worldview is highly mobilizing, but it comes at a terrible cost.
Because the parties must be completely different, avoiding agreement is more important than finding truth. Regardless of the issue at stake, each party is certain to claim that their approach was definitely better, or that the other party's approach was definitely a disaster. We already know how each party will feel on every policy--simply depending on who implemented it--which means that iterative improvement based on data-driven analysis is completely ignored. We already know that both sides will cherry-pick the data that makes them look the best.
In a system like this, how could we possibly hope that policy ideas will compete on their own merits, so that we can arrive at the best path forward on an issue-by-issue basis?
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