No, it's a failure mode of first past the post election systems. Politicians are incentivized to join one of the first two parties, and voters are incentivized to vote for them.

This is not a failure of democracy. It's a failure to teach people about voting systems and game theory.

Proportional representation is the solution to this, so that new ideas can enter government incrementally instead of only when they get the majority vote, by which time it's probably too late.

But this is really hard to get through people's heads, because it is very hard to get someone to understand something, when their influence and power depends on not understanding it.

Australia isn't FPTP though, we have preference voting which often does elect third party candidates in small or local elections.

In the past decade, we've had parliaments only able to establish a majority by negotiating a deal with a third party or independents.

Germany, Italy, Greece and several other EU countries...

Portugal and Spain too, as of the last few years, though we'll see if that remains.

As are Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Ireland...

Thanks, I appreciate it, I'm not well versed in foreign politics, so digging into these examples now. Germany, in particular seems to be a great example of political plurality.

The UK hasn't been two party for the last few elections.