Apology for the Duopoly

Notes From a Burning House provides a choice quote from Newsweek's Jonathan Alter which demonstrates the extent to which the media-government complex works to limit political discourse to the benefit of entrenched powers and the interests of the bipoligarchy.

It's in the interest of everybody that we have a strong two-party system. If we get a kind of fragmented America where we have a multi-party system, that's a recipe for chaos.

Of course, the two-party system does not act in everyone's interest, based as it is on the systematic exclusion of interests which do not coincide with those of the duopoly parties. However, the very fact that a talking head such as Alter would have to even broach the subject is a good sign, and indicates a legitimate fear among professional politicians and their enablers in the professional commentariat: the extension of representation would indeed cause chaos within the reigning political economy, and that is precisely the point, namely, to disrupt the schemes of the duopoly machine.