Should the two party system be abolished?

What do you mean by that? There is no law or statute that limits things to two parties. It's just the two major parties dwarf all the others. Every Presidential election for the past 20+ years (my voting history) has had at least 7-9 candidates for President on every ballot. Should WE the PEOPLE choose a third party to replace or compete with the big dos? That's completely up to us.

LTJG (Join to see) there is nothing to abolish. The fact is that we really have a winner take all system. There is no formal arrangement that one of the two parties will win seats, and there is nothing that prevents a viable third party candidate from winning. And the parliamentary system that exists in other countries would take herculean constitutional changes to institute in the US.

As a point of conjecture it may be interesting to consider, but realistically there is very little chance and maybe even less interest in abolishing anything.

If another party can rise up and become a major player, than the two party system would abolish on its own.

It would take the 2 parties to either implode from within or be surpassed by another. With the power brokers' ability and willingness to maintain in control, both seem options seem out of reach.

With support from power players currently entrenched and mass rank & file support, a third party could emerge- but it would likely replace one of the current two in time.

It's our nature to have two teams on the field, despite more registered voters being unaffiliated than registered Republicans or Democrats combined. (I heard that stat recently, I'm not sure it's true).

For options, feel free to look into a minor part started by a few veterans, Modern Whig party. http://www.modernwhig.org/ there's no candidates yet, but you can be that rank & file that will eventually evolve into mass appeal and turn the players in the system around.

The party system was never envisioned by the founders or it would have been included in the Constitution.

I certainly would, but I suppose this depends on how you see the two-party system being abolished. If you mean "no parties", I don't think we'd ever attain that goal (although I'll admit that I detest labels that help opposition candidates use to predefine someone). If you did away with the formal party structures, I think we'd still have politicians and voters aligning via informal coalitions, using common ideologies, rather than along formal political structures. If you mean "more than two parties", I'd love to see viable options to the Democrats and Republicans. I've even voted for 3rd-party candidates in an attempt to help them get up to 5% so they can achieve Federal funds to grow their movements. Problem is...our society has shown a desire to compress their votes down to the two major options, and no viable option has ever really taken hold. And, the main reason for that is due to the two major parties ever so subtly shifting their stances to absorb any breakaway momentum. I saw it happen with the Reform Party, the Green Party, and the Libertarian Party. The Democrats and Republicans both ever so subtly shifted their platforms to absorb the breakaway movements that were gaining steam. As a society, we need to resist that temptation.

The new tactic I'm seeing is the "double label", and I'm interested in seeing how this plays out. For instance, Rand Paul and Justin Amash have openly called themselves Libertarian-leaning Republicans. That's an attempt to pull Libertarians into the GOP. I've seen Gary Johnson and William Weld call themselves former-Republican Libertarians, in an attempt to pull Republicans into the Libertarian Party. The former are trying to squelch and/or exploit the alternative, and the latter are trying to grow an alternative, both using the legitimacy of one of a major party (but in different ways).

Regardless, I'd love to see a political environment with either "no labels" or "many labels", rather than just two main labels.

Yes get rid of it

LTJG (Join to see) There are several parties as well as those with no party affiliation (independents). The problem with our current system is that there are so many SHEEP who have been conditioned to vote either R or D regardless of who those two parties parade out as candidates. Case in point one of the two horribly unqualified candidates will win the election this November because lazy Americans who don't want to think will go and vote for Chump or Swillary at a level that will give one of the two the white house.

Neither one should be acceptable to the American People. American Citizenship, in theory, requires the public to educate themselves on the candidates. Our society has become LAZY. Lazy to the point that overall people are not willing to put in the effort to be a well informed voter. A voter who is capable of voting intelligently, as opposed to voting for spoon fed option A or spoon fed option B.

I will not wast my vote on either chump or swillary. I will vote for a candidate that I actually support. Win or lose I will sleep peacefully knowing that I did not vote for a poor a candidate. I will never look down at someone who genuinely supports the R or D candidate. The ones I want to bitch slap are the ones who vote for "the lesser of two evils." Voting for a bad candidate just because they are better than another bad candidate is not a valid reason to vote for someone. I have heard people who said they will vote for swillary because she is a woman. Voting for a person because they are a "historic" candidate is also no a valid reason to vote for a candidate.

In a perfect world American voters would research the candidates ACTIONS not words, find a candidate whose record actually lines up the best with their world view, and vote for that candidate regardless of party affiliation, color, gender, religion, ethnicity, or other superficial factor. Sadly, most Americans are too lazy to do that. They will just vote for the rotting turkey carcass. Right wing, left wing. Same turkey.

Kind of go along with most of the comments that say there is no requirement for just 2 parties, so what's to abolish? Even in 2016 we have at least two other parties running, Green & Libertarian. Issue IMO is that no other party has the organization or funding to successfully challenge the majority Democratic or Republican Parties. I sort of feel that we may see the Republican Party morph into some other party or parties following this election cycle. One could even argue that the Republican Party is already two parties within itself when you consider the Tea Party. Considering the craziness surrounding the 2016 election cycle there certainly seems to be the climate for the establishment of new parties to challenge Democrats and Republicans. All that is needed is a platform or agenda that a majority of Americans can wrap themselves around, tremendous organization and big time funding.

We have a system where our politicians have more loyalty to the party than to the Nation. So, yes all parties should be abolished. Candidates can run on their record and proposed policies. Let the voters sort it out.