Why not get rid of First Past the Post voting, implement Ranked Choice / Alternative voting, and then we won't have to fucking have this conversation at all?
Why not ...
Because the powers that be benefit from the status quo too much. Hell, even the Electoral College doesn't do the average person any favours, and that's still going strong
Because you can't get a message out to all 300million people normally, let alone when there are billions of dollars of propaganda working against you is very difficult. Because even if a US 3rd parties were to gain significant power they don't have the institutional knowledge to even keep the lights on, whichever opposition would eat them alive. Because if they did somehow manage to get momentum and take over they would immediately develop the exact same problems of previous political parties because these are systemic problems with your political system.
Why not invest in a strategy that doesn't makes things even worse when you fail. Political reform that would allow 3+ parties to exist are just as big of a long shot as getting a third party elected, but it doesn't split the vote and actually fixes the problem long term.
But hey I'm not an American, I have 5 viable parties to choose from. so you do you.
Can someone please explain? Does the US only have two political parties? That sounds horrendously undemocratic. I know next to nothing about US politics so I may be wrong.
Edit: Also, why is one party called "Democratic" and the other "Republican"? Does this make the Republican party non-democratic? Is this a non-official naming scheme that people created or does seriously only one of them support democracy? Thank you for the answers :)
I can't imagine anybody in the US would advocate for the nonsense in the OP above ruthlessly, relentlessly campaigning for this instead.
It's like they're cosplaying at politics.
Put simply - we have two parties, both are right wing, and while we have an established way for third parties to gain more proper/fair inclusion in the system (like debate participation, ballot access, in some cases funding) anytime a third party comes close to meeting the requirements the 2 parties mutually agree to raise the bar.
For all practical purposes yes. It sucks, but as you can see, speaking about third parties gets most people pissed off as it's considered voter suicide / throwing away your vote to vote for an extremely minor third party candidate. The financial support within these two power house parties makes it unlikely this system will ever change. As someone pointed out here, a systematic change like ranked choice voting where third parties could aggregate credit without forcing voters to abandon the two parties they are comfortable with would be the only hope of moving away from the bullshit 2 party system. However, that's not in the interest of the two parties that already run the government, so never going to happen at scale at least.
I fo think that people should vote this way to show the disagreement. Increase in votes to third parties can make more people a bit more confident in voting for them the next time right?
Let’s refine your comment.
In a majority rules, representative democracy, the peoples’ voice is heard through electing officials that promise to vote on behalf of the constituents.
This is seen to good effect in the legislative branch, where specific candidates hold office for short terms. But as empirical data suggests, the two party system is still relied upon, especially when it comes to less-than-ideally informed voters.
When it comes to presidential candidates, who wield far greater power over longer terms, voters are averse to the risk of giant, sweeping changes.
There have been numerous popular third-party candidates vying for the presidency, but none that sufficiently capture a voter base. So, therefore it is equated to throwing the vote away
But imo, long live Bernie. I would have voted with my soul
Nope that's not a refinement, thats just a new comment.
As far as less than ideally informed voters, that's a self fulfilling prophecy - why become informed when there are two parties and you are programmed to already hate one? You just vote and party lines and move on. Politicians in the US don't even have platforms anymore, they don't need to.
Well you’re right, that comment got away from me and I forgot how I started it, so that did sound pretty dumb on re-reading.
Aside from that though, let’s dig in.
Are you suggesting only the very intelligent vote? How do you propose we have an inclusive voting system while not accepting that some people will vote recklessly, mistakenly (as in understanding), or antagonistically? It is a natural trapping and I see no way of extinguishing less than informed votes.
Yes, platforms and pillars are not as finely detailed during campaigns to the greater public. But it is unarguable that the two parties branch at the question of “remain the same as much as possible” vs “progress the government to meet modern times”
Other parties generally stem from the big two. It’s been a long time since anarchy or pure communism had a seat at the table
Are you suggesting only the very intelligent vote?
Not sure where you even got that from. I just said that there is little motive for a candidate to educate themselves or for a politician to attempt to educate voters on their plans in a binary system. When you add shades of grey (other candidates / parties) there's more motivation to have tangible platforms that people can then make educated decisions on.
Plenty of other democracies have multiple parties and this idea that other parties equal pure communism and anarchy sounds like some GOP fear mongering bullshit.
This is an extremely naive take. Most people will vote for the party they have always voted for.
It's not radical at all. It's just ineffectual, unfortunately.
What if we all wrote in ourselves? That'd be pretty radical, right?
If we all did it, yes. But there's no way we'd get enough people to do it to outweigh all the people who vote party line.
I was just trying to contribute to the bad ideas.
Yeah, why don’t the other 30 million people just change the way they do it?
Because most small parties are ineffectual hobby project clown cart side shows.
How to make sure the fascist wins: get liberals to vote third party.
How to get a fascist on the ballot in the first place: keep voting for the conservative Democrat.
How to make that relevant again: Get a time machine.
The fascists are already on the ballot, in case anybody missed that detail.
I swear, this stuff barely played back when it seemed like an idle concern of the politically inclined. Today it seems entirely detached from reality.
But hey, by all means, absolutely get the kind of reform that would make this make sense again. I want a world in which this thread doesn't feel like either disingenuous trolling, a conservative psyop or entirely delusional. I want a world where Americans can vote for multiple parties and get proper coalitions and stuff.
But seriously, until that point, just vote for whoever the Democrat is.
If someone is in a swing state? Sure, vote for whoever the Democrats put up. But I think it's important to acknowledge that the Democrats are part of the problem here, not the solution. Do the Democrats want multiple parties and proper coalitions? They do not. They actively fight against those things. Anyone who blindly votes Democrat in any of the majority of states that are solidly red or blue is making the situation worse.
Anyone who blindly votes, and doesn't give strong, consistent, repeated feedback to the representative once elected, is making the situation worse. FTFY
This. There is zero chance of creating change by voting for a third party selectively in a FPTP system.
Electoral systems are known to be extremely stable because all the power is in the hands of people who benefit from the current system, again by definition. Crucially, it doesn't matter WHO they are, if they won with this system, they are for this system.
To get electoral reform you need those who benefit to find it either ethically important or politically expedient to enact reform. Right now is actually a good time to start bringing up that issue, because one has to assume there is a growing realization in Democrats and at least a segment of semi-reasonable conservatives that the current system is exposed to very, very bad things in a short timeframe.
So if the US is going to get electoral reform done without going through the process of setting the country, and subsequently the planet, on fire you need a) a Dem in power, and b) a massive consensus and outright downpour of activist pressure for this on every level of government. Probably forever, seeing how the entire rest of the system is a mess, but baby steps.
I voted already today, voted for Volt. The tenth party on the ballot.
Sounds cool.
It's not particularly radical, just betrays some youth. People aren't neeeeeaaaaarrrrly that much alike each other, except at the most fundamental levels. Beyond basic needs though, we branch way the fuck out, in a completely, terrifyingly free world where nobody has to agree with you. Your current probably fully authoritarian parental/educational environment is supposed to insulate you from this until you have better tools for handling it, because it's pretty fucked up sometimes.
You'll just never be able to change that many minds though.
So, what happens first is the spoiler gets just enough votes to swing it for the other guy, and he goes and attacks Iraq, and then Afghanistan. Or probably Mexico this time. And they remember that we attacked them, which does not make them love us more.
So, nobody really wants that. Turns American politics into a giant game of chicken on the highway, which has been the reality for the past couple decades. But we can't just "not play", because the other guys will.
Excellent example of a dilemma.
