"Utopian thinking doesn't lead to improvement; it leads to people breaking things because they aren't perfect and then finding out that they can't fix them when it comes time to put them back together."
I'm not saying that robust third-parties will turn the USA into a big rock candy mountain. Rather they will increase public participation and inject new, imaginative ideas, into a system that has grown unresponsive, hidebound and sclerotic. Really, what good is the system we have now if it is not doing its job. The transmission belt between the public and its representatives (the basic concept of what makes a republic) is broken. The system we have now has become detached from the people. Parties which truly represent large segments of the American people and are not part of the current monopoly are far more likely to listen to their constitutents and less likely (not NEVER, but less likely) to be corrupted by lobbies and special interests. No one is talking about "breaking" anything. The current framework (3 branches) of the government stays firmly in place, so does the Constitution. The Constitution says NOTHING about parties, it doesn't care if there is 1, 2 or a dozen parties. Get off the sofa and don't be so timid.
"Rather they will increase public participation and inject new, imaginative ideas, into a system that has grown unresponsive, hidebound and sclerotic."
No, they won't. There's no logical basis for thinking that a third party will behave in a fundamentally different manner in that respect than either of the two current ones. I suspect it comes from having an unrestrained "imagingation".
"Really, what good is the system we have now if it is not doing its job."
Our system's job is to provide political order while not oppressing the population. By that metric, it's doing, by historical standards, a fantastic job.
"Parties which truly represent large segments of the American people and are not part of the current monopoly are far more likely to listen to their constitutents and less likely (not NEVER, but less likely) to be corrupted by lobbies and special interests."
A party that represents a large segment of the population, but not the majority, is a special interest, If you think that more third parties would be good, but that special interests are bad, then you haven't thought about this nearly as deeply as you need to before trying to argue on it's behalf.