> IRV also has a long history – Australia has been using it at the federal level for over a century now (and at the state level for even longer than that).
If the goal is to prevent the two-party system, Australia has basically turned into that with two major parties i.e. Labor and Liberal with smaller parties choosing sides, and being negligible.
Although, IRV would generally be better than the current American system in a number of ways, but not necessarily something that would break the two-party hegemony.
> If the goal is to prevent the two-party system, Australia has basically turned into that with two major parties i.e. Labor and Liberal with smaller parties choosing sides, and being negligible.
I think minor parties and independents have played a far more important role in Australia's political history than your statements about "smaller parties choosing sides" and "being negligible" gives them credit. Consider for example, the 1999 decision of the Australian Democrats to support Howard's GST, or the role that the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) arguably played in helping to lock Labor out of the federal government between 1949 and 1972. (Although the Democrats role in supporting the GST was in the Senate, which uses STV not IRV.)
In the results of the 2010 federal election, Labor and the Liberal-National Coalition had 74 seats each, both two short of a majority. Labor managed to form government with the support of four of the six unaligned (independent or minor party) MPs. Two of the independents who supported Labor (Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor) came from a conservative political background, and they could have easily chosen to support the Liberal-National Coalition instead.
Even in strongly multi-party systems like Italy, Spain, Israel, etc, you still tend to end up with two broad coalitions anchored by the major parties of the Left and Right, plus a bunch of centrist parties that may switch between those two coalitions depending on what is on offer after each election. (And also sometimes a far-left / far-right fringe that gets locked out of government, but hopes for the day when the mainstream left/right are desperate enough to turn to them for support.)
A big obstacle that was born out of the Ross Perot "surprise" was the formation of the Committee on Presidential Debates[1]. A form of manufacturing consent.
The CPD was founded in 1987, but Ross Perot didn't run for President until 1992. How can the former be "born out of" the later, when the former happened five years before the later did?
If the goal is to prevent the two-party system, Australia has basically turned into that with two major parties i.e. Labor and Liberal with smaller parties choosing sides, and being negligible.
Although, IRV would generally be better than the current American system in a number of ways, but not necessarily something that would break the two-party hegemony.