No, its one set of political campaign donors, not two parties.

One set of donors, hires two competing PR firms masquerading as political parties, to implement two different messages aiming at the identical goal.

Its relatively effective and stable as a technology for social control. Its also effective at benefiting the people who are running it, which is obviously not the general public or humanity overall or the environment or pretty much anyone but a couple 1%ers.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/05/wikileaks-cable...

As long as people are hoping for some politician to deliver them from government unaccountable to the people, its not going to happen.

> The big problem to solve is: how do you elect someone different?

Elections are important, but they aren't everything. More needs to be done to think about "how do we effectively hold those we do elect accountable".

> As long as the two parties get to decide who American can elect, democracy is a hollow gesture.

To the extent this is part of the problem, it is probably more tractable if you realize that it is a problem effecting many elections, isn't amenable to a quick one-step fix, and that elections to the Presidency aren't the best place to start.

Anyone who thought that wasn't paying attention, of course, but it's not like that's a new thing.

And it makes sense: it's not like your vote is actually going to do anything, so why bother paying attention? Just go vote if you remember, and pick the guy with the letter by his name that you voted for last time. (Can look up Ilya Somin's writings regarding "rational political ignorance" for more on that.)

Start by being intellectually curious about the person, who he is, what he has done on the past, what philosopies he is associated with. Quit labeling people who try to do this as wingnuts or racists or employing other logically fallacious arguments to try to shut down debate.