Howso? Most people understand that third parties are counterproductive spoilers and won’t risk it. You have to destroy one of the entrenched majorities first if you want a new party to accomplish anything.
That’s the kicker. If you don’t have a clean, single-cycle transition then you’re handing control to your worst enemies.
If we’re going to fracture a party, let’s fracture the right. Destroy the worse one first, then siphon from the less worse one once the fracture takes.
Yeah, it’s an absolutely unhinged argument to suggest that the only way to a multi-party democracy is to move to a one-party system first. They haven’t thought it through at all.
You say “most people understand”, as though basically every other functioning democracy in the world doesn’t have at least five or more parties sitting in their legislature.
(edit: curious about which of the downvotes are people butthurt about their democracy sucking, which are from bots, and which are from cowardly votescolds who wrongly believe that the path to salvation is to keep whipping people into propping up a failed two-party system that has led to America now being classed as a “Flawed Democracy” for the last 9 years by the Economist Intelligence Unit)
I’m speaking specifically about the US. Do those other democracies have the same FPTP electoral system as the US, or some other system that makes third parties viable?
There’s a variety of systems, America’s is far from special beyond the amounts of money involved. The UK has FPTP and over a dozen parties in Parliament.
As far as I can tell the main blocker to a successful multi party democracy is people like you promoting a self-perpetuating circular logic.
The UK has FPTP and over a dozen parties in Parliament.
They don’t use it everywhere. And even then in the House of Commons (where it is used), out of 650 seats, only one 3rd party (and independents) is in the double digits. 80% of the seats are 2 parties, the same 2 parties that have traded power for the past century.
Some other parts of their government do have other voting methods or even proportional representation, allowing other parties to govern.
They also have recall elections(/no-confidence) and more common prime-minister resignations (and probably tons of other rules that change how political power works), meanwhile we have the Electoral College for the presidential election which further ensures a 3rd candidate can be a spoiler assuming they can even win in 1 state.
No, it’s the system. It’s basic math. Acknowledging the features of the system does not make one responsible for the existence of those features, and ignoring them doesn’t make one virtuous.
It’s certainly “basic math”, in the sense of “unsophisticated” or “simplistic”. You’re persisting in treating something as a hard truth, that categorically isn’t.
You’re getting downvoted because you think pretending the US isn’t how it actually is will change it. Either that or you actively want to help the fascists
It seems like that’s exactly the point, progressive democrats are very few and not even that progressive except for a few outliers.
I agree, that’s why we need to replace around 70% of them, maybe 80%
Sounds better to start a whole new party instead of fight the entrenched majority.
Spoiler effect means magats would just win by default if we tried
Sure, but the us election system makes starting new parties and having them matter almost impossible.
Howso? Most people understand that third parties are counterproductive spoilers and won’t risk it. You have to destroy one of the entrenched majorities first if you want a new party to accomplish anything.
Surely you destroy one of the major entrenched parties by not voting for them and instead voting for someone else who can than take their place.
That’s the kicker. If you don’t have a clean, single-cycle transition then you’re handing control to your worst enemies.
If we’re going to fracture a party, let’s fracture the right. Destroy the worse one first, then siphon from the less worse one once the fracture takes.
Yeah, it’s an absolutely unhinged argument to suggest that the only way to a multi-party democracy is to move to a one-party system first. They haven’t thought it through at all.
You say “most people understand”, as though basically every other functioning democracy in the world doesn’t have at least five or more parties sitting in their legislature.
(edit: curious about which of the downvotes are people butthurt about their democracy sucking, which are from bots, and which are from cowardly votescolds who wrongly believe that the path to salvation is to keep whipping people into propping up a failed two-party system that has led to America now being classed as a “Flawed Democracy” for the last 9 years by the Economist Intelligence Unit)
I’m speaking specifically about the US. Do those other democracies have the same FPTP electoral system as the US, or some other system that makes third parties viable?
There’s a variety of systems, America’s is far from special beyond the amounts of money involved. The UK has FPTP and over a dozen parties in Parliament.
As far as I can tell the main blocker to a successful multi party democracy is people like you promoting a self-perpetuating circular logic.
They don’t use it everywhere. And even then in the House of Commons (where it is used), out of 650 seats, only one 3rd party (and independents) is in the double digits. 80% of the seats are 2 parties, the same 2 parties that have traded power for the past century.
Some other parts of their government do have other voting methods or even proportional representation, allowing other parties to govern.
They also have recall elections(/no-confidence) and more common prime-minister resignations (and probably tons of other rules that change how political power works), meanwhile we have the Electoral College for the presidential election which further ensures a 3rd candidate can be a spoiler assuming they can even win in 1 state.
That’s an astonishing amount of pettyfogging and nitpicking, that doesn’t even come close to dismantling the underlying argument.
No, it’s the system. It’s basic math. Acknowledging the features of the system does not make one responsible for the existence of those features, and ignoring them doesn’t make one virtuous.
It’s certainly “basic math”, in the sense of “unsophisticated” or “simplistic”. You’re persisting in treating something as a hard truth, that categorically isn’t.
You’re getting downvoted because you think pretending the US isn’t how it actually is will change it. Either that or you actively want to help the fascists