Fair enough, we agree on the diagnosis of corporate capture and the narrow economic Overton window. But where you see a distinct difference between “corporate capture” and a “structurally codified duopoly,” I see the former actively manufacturing the latter as a defensive strategy.

The mechanism driving us toward a de facto duopoly isn’t just legal architecture; it’s the deliberate, psychological radicalization of the electorate into strategic voting over idealistic voting. When the corporate-backed center and right consistently weaponize the “lesser of two evils” narrative, they intentionally starve third parties of oxygen. By scaring the population into believing that a vote for anyone outside the top two is a wasted vote that guarantees the “worst-case scenario,” they effectively collapse a multi-party space into a two-party reality.

This psychological funneling has the exact same structural utility as a codified duopoly. Once the electorate is successfully housebroken into accepting that only two parties can ever realistically hold power, it facilitates resistance-free codification of the corporate agenda. If power only ever fluctuates between two predictable managers who both agree on the foundational tenets of neoliberalism, like the tax cuts and oligopoly protections we just talked about, then capital never faces a true existential threat.

You are completely right that fixing this requires labor power, tenant organization, and aggressive anti-monopoly policy rather than just electoral reform. But we can’t build that movement infrastructure effectively if the political imagination of the public is perpetually trapped in a strategic voting loop. The de facto duopoly is the fortress that protects the elite consensus, and breaking the psychological hold of strategic voting is the first step to tearing it down.