So people who voted for Bernie at the polls were voting for a democrat? That's probably what hurt the DNC, having two candidates on the national ballot.
I'm sorry let's recap:
You said there is only a 2 party system. I then asked how people were able to vote for an independent if they only have 2 choices. You referred to the primary and then imagined me saying there's a cohesive independent party.
My point is pretty simple: people have more than 2 choices in November. Convincing people they don't is only playing into the hands of those who've corrupted the system to benefit their parties
We still live in a democracy, despite what 2 parties have spent their history telling you. And all you need to do to prove it to yourself, is vote for something other than a D or an R every four years.
First, I never referred to the primaries. I simply referred to our system. Here, let's revisit:
We have a two-party system. This is a fact. It isn't something that can be disputed by citing the latitude to vote for candidates who don't belong to either party.
Second, Bernie ran as a Democrat because he ran on the Democratic ticket. He can call himself an "independent" all he wants, but that's insincere semantics, because that simply indicates registration, and not procedural party affiliation (i.e. the point that Independents aren't a party unto themselves). Registration determines the nature of how
he gets to vote, not the team he is playing for as a politician. That's when the primaries comes in. He deliberately aligned himself with the Democratic party.
You don't get to run on the Democratic ticket as an Independent and pretend that you represent the Republican platform with equal, impartial commitment. That's absurd, and people see through it.
If he were to function as an example of someone who truly bucked the two-party system, he would have run as a Libertarian like candidate Gary Johnson or a Green Party candidate like Jill Stein. Those are actual parties, not individuals within a major party platform. He also could have run as another unaffiliated Independent. The bar to run is quite low. He didn't. He participated in the two-party platform and ran as a Democrat because this was the
only way he had a chance to win.
Your point isn't simple. It's confounded.
The two-party system, on the hand, very much
is simple. It governs rules of registration and the voting process. It's why when you're asked at the primaries which party to whom you belong, they ask you, "Democrat, Republican, or Unaffiliated?" They don't ask you, "Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Reform, Green, Tea, etc."
Why don't those checkboxes exist when they exist in other possible systems of government? Because we run a two-party platform.
Yes, the effect of this funneling is incredibly frustrating at times, but other systems have major weaknesses, too. That doesn't mean it's some fabricated fairy tale. It's a definite approach to political procedure. Nothing more, nothing less.
Stop superfluously peacocking. Nobody is impressed. All you're demonstrating is an inability to grasp simple, concretely outlined concepts in an endeavor to seem more enlightened or important than you are. It's edgelord shit.