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House Republicans are jumping off the sinking ship
(thehill.com)
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this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2023
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We need to get away from American politics and look at how coalition governments work elsewhere in the world. Yes, they can be messy, but it forces the parties to sit down and TALK to each other and make some concessions to make it work.
Just like marriage. Both people are no longer single. They are now living together, they have to make concessions and agree on a common set of rules, norms, etc. The same thing happens in a coalition government, the parties make concessions to make it work and agree on a middle way. That cannot happen in a two-party system.
Right. Coalition governments tend to have a few crazies around the fringes. The difference is that they stay at the fringes, because more reasonable heads are collaborating to form a majority. You don't have the current situation where the loons are dictating everything while being made up of about one half of the majority party.
Loons dictating everything while being barely a fraction of majority is exactly what you have in Italy and Israel, which are among the purest examples of multi-party democracy.
Italy's leader is now a literal fascist, and Israel is run by a right-wing nutjob bending the knee to nutjobs who are even more right-wing than he is.
What you're seeing are outliers. Take a look at this list of coalition governments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_coalition_governments
There are plenty of functioning European countries (since we're talking about the US) that have functioning and "normal" coalition governments.
It also depends on the parties that won and the system used to elect these officials. For example, if the most left-wing party came first, but the other two centrist parties came second and third, if the most left-wing party wants to govern, it will have no choice but to make some concessions in order to govern and put policies on the table that all parties will agree to.
Yes, you can add Hungary and Turkey to the list of fascist-enabled coalitions. And more where open fascists are elected to parliament, like the Dutch PVV and the Austrian FPO. These serve to normalize fascism even if they remain outside of the ruling coalition.
Meanwhile, two-party governments have basically no elected representatives from openly fascist parties. If third parties were viable, David Duke would be in Congress.
If you want to look at how coalition governments work elsewhere, you need to look at Italy and Israel. Those are among the purest multi-party systems.
In both countries, it is true that some parties sat down and "made concessions". But in both countries, the parties were the mainstream right and one or more fringe fascist or outright racist parties. As the price of staying in power, the mainstream right "conceded" that open fascists and racists have a legitimate place in a ruling coalition.
In a two-party system, I am at least thankful that extremists tend to paralyze government, not empower it.
The failure of the two party system, unfortunately, is the fact that one party is always the leader. In the case of the US, it's the GOP. The GOP has successfully taken control and shifted the Overton Window in the country further and further to the right since 1945. It will never reset back to an equilibrium with the structure that we have currently. Electing a Democrat only loosens the noose, it doesn't remove it.
Disagree. The GOP candidate won the national popular vote only once in the last eight presidential elections. They have not passed any significant national legislation in that time. Meanwhile Democrats have enacted health care reform, climate investment, and now pro-choice laws.
The GOP can only hold on to power via voter suppression / electoral tricks, and that strategy won't work forever.