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this post was submitted on 22 May 2024
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As another European it is difficult to see the Americans constantly fight over voting. The two party system is definitely the issue here.
Either way well said.
Technically, the Two Party system isn't actually a thing. It is instead simply the work of Market Forces. Multiple competitors in any market, shall result in that market being split between two competitors and an also ran. Then Market Power, if abused, shall prevent any actual competition to the duopoly. Something truly disruptive is required to change that. ATM the US has a pair of more or less captured political parties market. They are in no way an official part of the Government. Nothing in the Constitution empowers them. They should have no power at all. No say in who runs nor any influence beyond whatever PR for issues they advocate. However, they worked out how to make getting elected very profitable, and thus very expensive. Rather quickly money called all the shots. Then the manipulated monster these very wealthy and connected folks created to get elected, lost their minds because a "them" got elected President, and the "useful idiot" they brought in to pacify things with some good Fascism, turned out to be in multiple pockets and beholden to no one but himself. There is your US Political History tldr;
This part is kind of inaccurate. Because of the constitution, we use first past the post voting, which naturally devolves into a two party system. It's like trying to build a sky scraper out of just wood. The blueprints don't explicitly call for it to collapse, but because of the chosen materials, it is bound to happen.
While the rest of what you said is true though.
This is a myth. L'ook at the legislatures of other countries that use FPTP, and count the parties that get more than 5 seats. The UK has 6, Canada 4, Russia 5 and India, my country, 11. You certainly can have more than two parties.
No it isn't. It happens through a well known phenomenon called the spoiler effect.
The data you've just quoted doesn't support your position, and this bit about 5 seats is arbitrary.
Each of those countries has 1-2 dominant parties, with the rest being involved in name only. And as another user already pointed out to you, these countries dont use pure FPTP voting. You've also ignored prime minister/presidential positions, because those elections especially prove that it isn't a myth.
Local/smaller seat positions are significantly easier to win, as there is less competition, and therefore more opportunity for 3rd parties to win. But it isn't enough, because they still get sidelined.
The spoiler effect requires voters to vote strategically, which means no third party viability.
I never knew basic math could upset so many people.
It's truly frightening.
Fair. I had to put a cut-off somewhere.
In the UK, the Lib Dems have decided which of the 'big' parties sits in government and which in opposition. The Bloc Quebecois is one of the major parties in Quebec. In India, the two biggest parties get 50-60% of the total votes polled, and most governments are composed of multi-party coalitions. Also about a third of states have governments led by a third party.
And as I pointed out, they were wrong. The UK, Canada and India use pure FPTP, and Russia has three big parties even if you only consider the FPTP seats.
Third parties cannot win only when everyone thinks they can't win. Labour went from a small third party to forming the government in about a generation. The BJP did the same in India. At the state level, there have been many cases of a third party coming from a single-digit percentage of the vote and winning the election.
I am aware. But that doesn't really change what I've said. You're comparing smaller elections for seats with a big election like the U.S. president. Those elections still have 1-2 dominant parties, etc.
You can't just wish away the spoiler effect.
your fiction, helpfully pointed out by the star wars characters, is based on a non-falsifiable theory. it's not science, it's storytelling.
It's a graphic that shows how the spoiler effect works. Relax
it's a fiction.
It's a comparison using popular media. It being fiction is irrelevant to the point.
your comparison is also a fiction. there is no election where there are multiple candidates on the same side. cornel west is running against biden and trump and jill stein and claudia de la cruz. none of them are on the same side.
"The same side" is only a way to categorize. You can graph each party on a linear scale. Badly, but you can do it. You can make it more accurate by adding a second axis, such as with the PCT. Still bad, but better. And you can keep adding more and more defining characteristics, until you'd end up with and 8d graph or something utterly incomprehensible to humans.
So whether you like it or not, we as humans with our limited minds stick to things like the PCT, with only 2 axis, or in other words, there are sides.
You're taking up issue with semantics. I don't give a flying fuck what you think about there being sides or not. At the end of the day each party holds some amount of agreement with another.
And I agree way more with Biden than Trump, because Trump wants to kill trans people and end democracy. And I'll vote for Biden to prevent that.
it's not semantics. you're spinning a story, and i'm pointing out that it doesn't reflect reality.
he has never said this.
also, biden isn't depicted in your analogy at all. he's more like the emporer: more experienced as a statesman, older, but even more evil.
That's kind of unavoidable when comparing politicians to what ultimately equate to super heroes and super villans.
The point of that graphic is to show how the spoiler effect works, not to say that Biden is good.
Biden is old and evil, but preferable to Trump.
that's not a reason to vote for him if there are candidates i don't think are evil.
The candidates who aren't evil aren't going to win.
that's not a reason to empower evil people.
They're already empowered. We have a limited ability to influence things. Use it for good, for harm reduction.
Quit pissing away your vote. It's just going to get trans people killed when Trump wins.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=trans+flag&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image&filemime=svg
Guns didn't help the trans people in 1930s Germany.
bullshit. and godwin would like a word.
they didn't have the ar platform.
harm reduction has a specific meaning. voting is not harm reduction.
Welcome to being human, words mean different things in different contexts and can be used in new and interesting ways all the time.
https://www.indigenousaction.org/voting-is-not-harm-reduction-an-indigenous-perspective/
not my comrades.
It’s also Article 2 of the Constitution. To wit:
That last part being the main reason there’s an Either / Or in elections, e.g. two parties. Getting to First-Past-The-Post whether via electors or total popular vote turns out to be difficult for some reason. And to your point, yes, money is a major, as they say, bitch.
Small clarification:
*Article 2.
Yeek. Fixed, thanks.
Which would indeed be why it is technically, not a thing. See the natural outcome of a thing is not necessarily the intent of the thing. The two party system is as you say. But that isn't the design of the Constitutional language. It is the design of humans themselves.