The research of German virologist Hendrik Streeck deserves your attention.

[Iterate]

4. Sure, and there's no organic path from two-party to multi-party.

Early on, there was only the one issue that mattered most, that being slavery, and in 1860 the four party split led the south to reject the election, the proximate cause for secession. Later, I suppose the two-party system did function to iron out coalition/factional splits within the party mechanism, but that's now almost completely broken.

I don't see how we even get back to two "healthy" parties. Republicans can't give up their current base, and not many with any educated competence could be attracted to them. They've doomed themselves, but nearly doomed the rest of us too.

Another difference with Germany that I see is the attitude toward competence -it's respected. The relatively lower importance of consumerism in Germany means that the "I've got my opinion and it's just as valid as anyone else's, therefore I should fly the plane" attitude won't get you very far.

What I disliked about Markus Lanz in the interview above was mainly that he kept trying to push Streeck into political judgements, positions, and pronouncements that he was clearly uncomfortable with making. That wasn't his area of expertise, and he kept saying so.