Receiving support from a political party and the ability to influence policies behind the scenes requires playing the patronage game, which means protecting incumbents, especially in the Senate and presidency. Given this, I’m honestly surprised that no third parties have been able to win seats in safe districts, because doing so would somewhat fix this problem by making those representatives a genuine independent bloc able to negotiate bilaterally with the major parties. Are voters seriously content with the two-party system just because there are primaries?

If I was French and had to pick between Macron’s hand-picked successor and Le Pen, I would go insane. Vesting so much power in the presidency can only turn presidents into strongmen.