The 2014 midterm elections are nigh upon us and the “get out the vote” machines are heating up in anticipation of the canvassing season. A round of primaries have passed, and responsible voters can rest easy knowing the Tea Party was not mistakenly endorsed again. I don’t like the establishment Republicans, but any sane voter would choose them over their fringe opponents.

It will be interesting to witness how the Democrats will fare in an election cycle where they have historically underperformed. They arrive on the tailwind of President Barack Obama’s impressive voter turnout — I am biased as I was once a mere cog in that massive machine. Perhaps this year will be different.

With every election cycle comes the gripes and groans of the electorate who want nothing more than to be left alone. “Yes, I’ll vote. Stop calling me,” they’ll undoubtedly say in response to the rushed campaign calls flowing from the phone banks. I sympathize with them.

There is an inevitable call from many voters for a diversified party system where the electorate is given a multitude of platforms to choose from, much like the set up in many European countries. I find that position to be deplorable. Would you really want to receive more phone calls from even more factions than we already have?

Nonetheless, some tend to think that the voting process should have a sort of “a la carte” feel to it.

The two-party system we have in the United States is necessary. It forces party members to argue their positions within the construct of their own party. In order to defeat their opponents, a compromise must be struck between members. This leads to better, more refined legislation. Having parties helps to alleviate the tremendous difficulty of organizing the discussion of our political affairs, and concentrating resources can increase political participation. As we’ve seen, however, this concentration of resources can have a hugely negative impact on the political discussion as well.

In a multi-party system, any confrontation over a disagreement can be avoided simply by creating a new party. A fractured set of parties, though, cannot stand against a united one. This notion is best explained in Maurice Duverger’s work on the electoral basis of the two-party system. As Duverger’s Law asserts, plurality rule elections structured within single-member districts favor a two-party system. The best way to win is to unite all of the splinter groups into a single faction backing a single candidate.

With the two-party system comes great responsibility. Parties must define the alternatives of public policy. The public then participates by choosing from among those platforms. Political scientist E.E. Schattschneider claims that parties must hold a great deal of power in determining public policy because of ignorance. As Schattschneider asserts, “There is no escape from the problem of ignorance because nobody knows enough to run the government.” Some people are just a little less ignorant than others, but generally, we are all ignorant about something.

According to Schattschneider, the party system helps to make democracy possible. That suggests that democracies weren’t possible without parties — a bold claim. Democracy was actually designed to operate on the local level, not the national level — to be preemptive, yes, I know we are a republic. Schattschneider explains that the real problem is “not how 180 million Aristotles can run a democracy, but how we can organize political community of 180 million ordinary people so that it remains sensitive to their needs.” So, the problem isn’t that democracy or the “democratic process” cannot exist, but the problem is that of leadership and organization. The “theory” of democracy falls apart without political parties.

Schattschneider’s theory is possible if and only if the political environment is competitive. The two-party system gives us the greatest competition because a multitude of concerns with differing perspectives are forced together in a united front against their opposition, yielding the best possible discourse. Usually this process serves as a moderator, filtering out the fringe groups in both parties. In recent years, this clearly hasn’t worked.

Of course, all of this assumes both parties are “responsible.” Right now, we do not have responsible parties. Many different factions taking the form of parties — the National Rifle Association, for example — can even choose which candidates will survive the primaries. This makes politics less accessible and the public worse off. There is no compromise within the party if select interests have the resources and freedom to force certain issues to the forefront of our discussion. Our political discussions should arise more naturally through the party system, representing multiple perspectives, rather than through special interests which attempt to dictate politics as a means to their own ends.