myk
volveré y seré millones
Posts: 14839
Registered: 04-02 |
dew said:
go ahead and pretend your electoral system doesn't SUCK and disqualify partisan plurality.
He didn't do that, but rather thought there is such thing in the US.
Mr. Freeze said:
There is no "limited choice".
There are 5 parties outside of the Dems and Republicans with ballot access to 270 electoral votes: the Libertarians, the Greens, Americans Elect, Constitution Party, and the Justice Party. Not to mention the 16 other, smaller parties.
What aggravates me is that people turn this into a black-or-white issue. It's either Dems of Repubs, nothing else exists. God forbid you vote on a third party, your neighbors won't think you're cool or something.
There's a difference between a hypothetical or absolute limit and practical possibilities. You're reacting with an "it's the customer's fault" response. The majority of those people that have to choose belong to loose and mostly disassociated masses that, when faced with the media and publicity related to the two parties, feel it's pointless to try to vote for something else, especially when not voting at all is also an encouraged practice.
Why do people drink Coca-Cola more often than other soft drinks? Among additional factors, it's because of the dominant position of the company, that can pump out copious amounts of publicity and has an infrastructure that allows its products to get anywhere at a good price. Likewise, the two parties can get their ideas and their candidates into millions of people's minds in ways other parties can't equal.
fraggle said:
For all intents and purposes, there are only two parties, because all those other parties you mention are irrelevant to the outcome of the elections.
Yet why doesn't one or the other suffer huge electoral beatings in the long term, possibly being replaced by a third party? Why do third parties conveniently play the roles of niche extremes or specialized parties instead of tending to replace one or the other at certain points? Why not a period where one of the two wins by a good margin for more than one election and where the other is gradually replaced by a third party? (Like Libertarians or Constitutionalists overtaking Republicans). What I'm saying might be happening anyway, with Obama beating the Republicans nortwithstanding the ongoing crisis: I've read that, by following previous examples in history, Obama should probably have lost now. The Duverger's law Wikipedia article mentions the Republican Party replacing the Whigs before the Civil War, and something like this could be occurring again, with Republican policy becoming progressively more out of touch with reality.
Using First Past The Post is the main issue, but certain features of the American system (like the electoral college and winner takes all policy) make it even worse than it otherwise would be.
Other factors to consider:
- A historical policy to divide and limit mass or popular organization, by a heavy hand on protesters and restrictions on the power of workers unions and other massive organizations.
- The weight of the "military-industrial complex" on power and the president, and the contribution of the media here.
- Legislation that gives free rein to concentrated financing in elections, such as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, heightened by vote value targeting because of the electoral college.
- Term limits that don't give any administration long-term chances to set up ambitious political projects.
As an outsider looking in at the US and seeing the hostility and downright hatred between the two sides (and crazy events like the debt ceiling crisis last year), I really wonder if the two party system is possibly behind some of the biggest problems America faces, and it seems like nobody ever really seems to talk about it.
Perhaps if in Europe you also had some of this hostility, you'd wouldn't have driven so recklessly down the road of austerity. The EU is in some senses in worse conditions than the US, or is at least moving in a worse direction, and its traditional left is a joke in many countries, even compared to Democrats.
A simple change to a preferential voting system like AV or even just a two round system would probably be enough to demolish the two party system.
That is not a simple change and you're only looking at the surface because the voting system is not an accident. Factors I listed above arguably need to be faced for that change to avoid being blocked. More room for popular expression, more labor rights, restrictions on media control of information and on big money influencing elections, and reforms in the security apparatus that threatens whoever speaks up against the issue.
|
11-07-12 18:31 
