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this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2024
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politics
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You know I think it is SO important that every election has more than two parties/options on the ballot.
Because if you dont, one party can simply distinguish itself from te other by being more extreme. Where this leads you can currently see with the Republicans.
As soon as you have more than two, parties need to have their own agenda to distinguish themselves, and this "vote so tue other doesn't win" thing that is currently going on for almost a decade fades away.
Sure populism will always be there but it has to compete with actual agendas.
To add on to what @halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world said, you need to change the voting system first before that becomes viable, and then it happens naturally without any manual intervention.
Take the Alaska 2022 election as an example. Before, candidates had to be extreme in order to appeal to their base, as all that mattered was making the other side look "evil". Once they switched to rank voting, all of a sudden they had to convince voters of their own worth so they'd be put in at least second or third place, if not first directly. It also meant people could safely vote third party or alternative candidates within the major parties without a spoiler effect, as if the candidate is unviable, the vote just gets transferred to the second place pick.
Tl;Dr: The real solution to what you're trying to do is abandon first past the post and adopt some kind of ranked choice voting.
Yes please
The issue is that Really only works with a system that doesn't inherently result in two viable large parties. In a first past the post system like the US, any options other than the major two just end up being spoilers, pulling voters from whichever of the main two parties they are more closely aligned with. So the least wanted set of beliefs is what actually wins in that system.
The current IS Republican party has only managed to get to the point they're at because the Democrats have also shifted right along with them. Either with the mistaken belief that they needed to follow to appeal to "centrists", who were just the right before, or because they were actually more conservative and were trying to shift the party on purpose. Add those shifts up over 40-50 years and you end up with a right wing party and a fascist party, the ones US currently has. There is no actual left leaning party in the US anymore when you view it from outside the US bubble of bullshit.
Yes, when discussing the benefits and disadvantages of voting systems, one of the touted points in favour of FPTP is usually that it's hostile towards third parties - which leads to extremist parties struggling to get a foothold. We see all over Europe that countries with party-list proportional representation l have had a surge of extremist far-right parties over the past decade or so.
Now, I'm not saying that FPTP is superior, but the issues third parties have within that system is a feature, not a bug.
I don't know how you can say this while looking at the US. Sure, other systems allow for fringe hard-core extremist parties like, say, NZ First, but the US shows that if the extremist faction isn't allowed its 10% to 20% of the vote, the extremist faction then promptly takes over the main-stream party closest to its ideology. I.E. the Alt-Right takes over the Republican Party in the US.
FPTP doesn't seem to have any inbuilt immunity to extremism, as far as I can see living in Trumpland.
Theoretically under potential proportional representation, a MAGA party under Trump with the size of his base would be a deciding vote in government - even should he fail to form a coalition government, as what is currently represented as democrats and republicans would be split into several smaller parties. In current FPTP - provided Harris wins - Trump is kept out of government.
You're completely right though that Trump has managed to radicalise one of the two major parties - and a large part of the population. The overarching voting system can't prevent the spread of ideology - far right has been making gains all over the world, FPTP or not.
For the record, I don't think FPTP is a good system, I was only discussing the merits of third party voting and it's pointlessness in a system explicitly designed to shut them out.
Conversely, the other party can get votes just by not being AS bad as the alternative, never under any pressure to actually be good. Where this leads you can currently see with the Democrats.
Ideally, yes, but in cases with a severely entrenched duopoly like in the US, it's gonna take more than just the presence of alternatives. It's a start, though.
Now explain to me how first past the post works with our electoral college.
Then explain how any 3rd party candidate gets to 270.
Yup, it's why I fucking love Canada... when the Cons and Libs fight the NDP and regional parties like BQ pick up votes.