The Senate’s failure to pass an immigration compromise bill last week was confirmation that Washington is approaching full-blown political crisis. The crisis is so serious presidential hopeful Tom Tancredo has repeatedly claimed the bill would “destroy” the GOP.

Given that the existing parties have been in control since the Civil War, prophecies of their immanent demise are worth at least some consideration.

Last week’s compromise bill certainly had little public support. A Rasmussen poll found that less than 23 percent of voters were behind the plan, while 49 percent would prefer no bill to the one being considered. And for once, the ire was bipartisan: 57 percent of Republicans opposed the bill, but so did 40 percent of Democrats.

It’s the bipartisanship that is wreaking havoc on Washington. On one side are pro-business conservatives and civil libertarians who aren’t keen on removing immigrants already integrated into the nation’s economy. They fear destabilizing the economy and further empowering an already invasive government. But on the other side, law-and-order Republicans and labor interests are unified in opposition to any “compromise” bill that could be interpreted as amnesty for lawbreakers.

So great is the political confusion that compromise, as we saw last week, appears next to impossible. And when political compromises are impossible, the political landscape becomes subject to rapid and dramatic changes. If a charismatic candidate (not necessarily Tancredo) were to run as an Independent on a strong anti-illegal immigration platform, he could conceivably draw enough votes from both party bases to win the White House.

Such scenarios are lotus blossoms for curmudgeons and cynics, but they also have some roots in fact.

Occasionally in our history, third parties have replaced existing parties. The early Federalist Party became the National Republican Party, which eventually dissolved into the Whig Party. The Whigs eventually fell apart, paving the way for the Republican Party we know today.

Many European countries have multiparty systems where parties generally become identified with particular issue or ideology. However, in the United States, these different factions are forced to work together in “big tent” coalition-based parties. Party breakups usually require a crisis of extraordinary magnitude to undermine these otherwise stable coalitions.

In the 1850s, when the GOP was born, that crisis was slavery. But since then, there has not been one issue potent enough to permanently fracture either the Democratic or Republican coalitions. Is the immigration crisis enough? Polls show that while most Americans think immigration is important, when asked to prioritize the issue among others it easily takes a backseat to the war, the economy, and in some polls health care and gas prices.

Even if there were enough unity, successfully running for president and launching a viable third-party are two different things. Perot had the most successful third-party campaign in history when he received nearly 20 percent of the popular vote in 1992. But afterward, his Reform Party floundered.

Democrats and Republicans have worked very hard over the past century to make alternative parties nearly impossible. They have redrawn election districts to eliminate competitive races in which third party candidates might have an impact. They have restricted access to election ballots, making it nearly impossible for alternative candidates to run with out spending all their resources defending themselves in court.

So while it is enticing to imagine that a single issue could be powerful enough to provide Americans with a whole new set of electoral options. The reality is that our two-party system is so entrenched it would take legislative reform to “destroy” it.

We can be certain there will be a compromise on immigration reform. We can be just as certain that large sections of the voting public will be unhappy with it. Such is the state of “representative” democracy in America. Perhaps we should question whether the political crisis over immigration is exposing a deeper crisis in our political representation.