Permanent Solutions For Permanent Problems: bloobeary: There are two primary political parties in this country.

There begins the problem.

And the closest thing to a viable third party - and I use that term loosely - is a party whose entire platform is about implementing anarcho-capitalism.

What's interesting is that looking at American history prior to 1860, there were only two truly independent third parties (the Anti-Masonic Party and the Liberty Party).  The rest were just splitters from the original Federalists or the original Anti-Federalists.

But the parties overall have followed two tracks.  It's interesting how the Federalists evolved into the Whigs, who evolved into the Republicans after Whig splitters broke off into splitter parties (American Party, Free Soil Party, Republican Party, Unionist Party) and combined back together into the Republicans.  The Federalists were conservative in outlook, and favored a political elite controlling the government and a strong centralized national government.

Meanwhile, the Anti-Federalists became the Democratic-Republicans became the Democrats.  With some splitters who either switched to the Whigs (National Republicans) or returned to the fold after a while (Nullifier Party).  The Anti-Federalists were non-conservative in outlook, and favored populism and a decentralized republic of powerful states.

And all it took to shake that up was slavery and regionalism.