The Strange Decline of the Pax Americana
The Strange Decline of the Pax Americana
The problem isn’t weakness at the top. It’s the enemy within.
...Yet it seems safe to say that the world no longer trusts U.S. promises, and perhaps no longer fears U.S. threats, the way it used to. The problem, however, isn’t Biden; it’s the party that reflexively attacks him for anything that goes wrong.
Right now America is a superpower without a fully functioning government. Specifically, the House of Representatives has no speaker, so it can’t pass legislation, including bills funding the government and providing aid to U.S. allies. The House is paralyzed because Republican extremists, who have refused to acknowledge Biden’s legitimacy and promoted chaos rather than participating in governance, have turned these tactics on their own party. At this point it’s hard to see how anyone can become speaker without Democratic votes — but even less extreme Republicans refuse to reach across the aisle.
And even if Republicans do somehow manage to elect a speaker, it seems all too likely that whoever gets the job will have to promise the hard right that he will betray Ukraine.
Given this political reality, how much can any nation trust U.S. assurances of support? How can we expect foreign enemies of democracy to fear America when they know that there are powerful forces here that share their disdain?
You're viewing a single thread.
it’s the party that reflexively attacks him for anything that goes wrong.
No it isn't, atleast not the root problem. Root problem is the core rules etc of USA democracy and governing, which allows such dysfunctional situation to arise in the first place. The two party system, the bicameral setup leading to endless feuds and inability to pass legislation, the weird rules accepted in existence by internal procedural rules like the filibuster.
For that both parties are guilty, since I have heard neither of them go "we have a constitutional ruleset problem, we should update the constitution. The rules might have been good for 1700s and much smaller USA. This is 2000s and way bigger and different USA".
one doesn't get to claim "I'm surprised the the Leopard ate my face", if one has been feeding and raising a leopard cub for decades and hasn't decided "maybe we should send the Leopard to a zoo, maybe we should make a rule private home is not right place for Leopard to live in".
Neither party wants to change the system, since it keeps them as number 1 or number 2. You don't get to claim "we have nothing to do with the systemic dysfunctions", if one keeps propping up a dysfunctional system. Doesn't matter who specifically manifests the symptoms. Systemic dysfunctions is systemic.
Political parties are not mentioned in the constitution.
That document does need an amendment however.
The issue comes from First Past the Post voting.
There's math that shows that over a series of elections, FPtP naturally forces the creation of a two party system.
Every ordinal voting system falls prey to this issue to a greater or lesser extent, but there are cardinal voting systems that are completely immune.
My current favorite is STAR, it's dead simple. You rate each candidate on a scale of zero to five stars. Zero being the worst, five being the best.
To count the votes, you just add up the star count for each candidate. You don't need to average the count, but I'm sure that news media would.
The spectate is you take the two candidates with the highest star count and put them into an automatic runoff. You look at each ballot cast, and if either of the two candidates is preferred on that ballot (higher star rating) then the ballot goes to them. If there is no preference between the two, the vote is counted as No Preference and reported in the final tally.
Doesn't matter that parties aren't mentioned. Political parties are inevitable predictable outcome of the ruleset.
Also actually one of the biggest fixes USA could have is getting rid of single winner elections districts. Well President has to be single winner (though again why the heck electors should be single winner or even better why have electors in first place). However there is no reason to have single winner legislative body elections, since there is large number of members anyway. Only reason it is that way is, because Congress decided to make law about it.
Since one key truth is: there is only so much one can do with the ruleset to make things fairer while having just single winner. All the other votes get wasted by default, except the winner. The only amount of power one can win is 100% or 0%.
To have better proportionality one has to use multiple winners (or mixed member proportional, which is still multiple winners just indirectly via the party quotients). Since it allows dividing political power in more granular amounts than 0% and 100%. Like say 33%, 25% or 20%.
After that one can start talking, we'll how should we allocate the winner of each for example 25% share of power in the district.
This would also increase political activity, since previously apathetic voters would know "my candidate doesn't have to carry the whole district, we are just aiming to get 1 of the 5 seats. That is much more achievable. Yeah the big two probably grab say 2 each, but hey with good luck there is realistic change we get that 1/5".
Where as there was snowballs chance smaller player could take a single winner district as whole.
I honestly look at parliamentary systems and don't see them doing much better. Their coalitions are becoming increasingly fragile as everyone seems to become more polarized and less accepting of democracy and compromise.
I think the only workable option is sortition.
Root problem is the core rules etc of USA democracy and governing, which allows such dysfunctional situation to arise in the first place. The two party system, the bicameral setup leading to endless feuds and inability to pass legislation, the weird rules accepted in existence by internal procedural rules like the filibuster.
The dysfunction of our the current political system is certainly to blame for a lot of the trust that America has lost. Regarding the two party system, I'm a big advocate for supporting the Forward party as a potential way out of our mess. One of its main policy positions is pushing ranked choice voting. This hopefully allows people to break out of the myth that any vote not for a major party is a wasted vote.
They are starting by focusing locally on the state level as that is where the election laws are decided. It's certainly not a perfect organization but it makes more sense than expecting the parties to fix the flawed system they benefit from.
Fun fact, under First Past the Post voting, supporting a third party is the absolute worst thing you can do.
It's called the spoiler effect, and it often results in the absolute worst candidate winning an election.
If you support a third party that is loosely aligned with one of the major parties, you can end up in a situation where candidate A gets 40%, and your third party candidate, whose platform is closest to A, gets an astounding 15%, and they both lose to Candidate B, the most hated of both A voters and Third Party voters because B got 45%.
The classic example is the 1992 presidential election, where Clinton won with 43% of the vote.
The 2000 election is another example where Bush won* with 307 votes, far less than the 97488 votes that Ralph Nader got,
*the recount was stopped early so that Bush would win.
The point being, you cannot have a third party until you change the voting system to actually support third parties. And that means a cardinal voting system, such as STAR (my current favorite)
The point being, you cannot have a third party until you change the voting system to actually support third parties
Sorry, but that is simply false. There are 50+ third parties that have run candidates under their name in recent years Wikipedia. Ultimately who succeeds is up to who people vote for and when you categorically state you can't have third parties you are trying to tell others who they should vote for. Support who you want to support. By all means if you want the status quo to never change continue doing what everyone else does. But by supporting alternative voting systems you are already saying you think our system needs to change.
It is pretty naive to think that the existing parties will change the existing FPTP voting system that explicitly benefits them. It's like expecting a company to advocate for more paying more taxes. It's pretty unlikely to happen on a wide scale.
I am aware of how the current system, which is why I advocate for supporting a party and people who are actually advocating for changing the existing system. As my above comment mentioned, they are starting by focusing locally on the state level as that is where the election laws are decide. Just like STAR voting did in Eugene OR.
If people want to vote for a third party they can. It helps no one for you to attack people for expressing their rights in the way they choose. It is not their fault the system is rigged against third parties. By supporting a third party like Forward, they are at least expressing support for changing how the system is rigged instead of tacitly accepting that the system is rigged.
Ultimately, STAR is just another of way of reforming the FPTP system that can work if it is supported locally. That is same goal as the policy positions of Forward which includes a similar way via Ranked Choice Voting. If you support one, you should be supportive of the other since they are very similar ways of achieving the same goal. Quibbling over the details is largely counterproductive. Perfect is the enemy of good in this case. Both are good improvements to the current system.
Okay, you're not understanding the simple fact that third parties are actually harmful under First Past the Post.
You are giving people bad advice.
This is an older video that explains it quite well.
The concept talked about is Duverger's Law
Here's a scholarly article about it.
As to passing voting reform, it does happen. RCV is gaining (and losing) ground, and Approval has been used in a few elections now. STAR is just better. It's newer, so doesn't have as much of a push behind it, but there are plenty of advocates. Want to make a real difference? Advocate for voting reform.
Okay, you’re not understanding the simple fact that third parties are actually harmful under First Past the Post.
Who do they harm?
You are giving people bad advice.
Please specify
I understand the concepts but reject the idea that existing leaders will support something that will harm their party.
Want to make a real difference? Advocate for voting reform.
I am. The average American (wrongly) thinks of politics as a team sport. I am advocating for a team that supports voter reform.
Who do they harm?
In a FPTP voting system, a vote for a third party will dilute the vote of the party closest-aligned to the preferences of the voter casting it- an effect that implicitly aids the party farthest-away from the voter's preference. This means the winner doesn't need a majority, they just need divided opponents.
In a ranked-choice system, by contrast, the voter can signal their top preference without creating the spoiler-effect described above.
The existence of this spoiler effect in FPTP requires voters to vote based on how they bet other voters will vote, instead of signaling their actual preferences, in order to avoid dividing their support and throwing the election to the opposing side. This prevents the parties from knowing what voters really want, while giving donors and insiders massive leverage by way of giving them the ability to influence which candidates voters will bet 'can win'. It's harmful to democracy, to the voters, and to the public interest, but it's fantastic for party insiders and donors that want things the public doesn't want.
You just agreed with my point. Third parties harms the existing parties by adding the possibility of voters having more choice than either of the two dominant parties. Therefore it is naive to think party insiders would implement this change willingly. Hence supporting the Forward party which has committed to changing the FPTP via RCV.
You just agreed with my point.
No, I just argued that voting 3rd party in an FPTP system is bad for the voter doing it, bad for the public interest as well.
I agree on the point that RCV is needed, but I call bullshit if you're claiming I just supported Forward party (a third party, in a FPTP election) because I don't. Sure, in your opinion, I should, but I'll thank you not to put words in my mouth, it's very off-putting.
It's nice that they're promising to support RCV, but I don't believe promises like that any more than I believe promises the Democrats might make about enacting election reform like RCV. IMHO, for so long as they're running as a 3rd party in a FPTP system, they're a threat to split the left and hand an election to actual fascists.
Right now, I think the place to press for RCV is in the primaries of the major parties, and at the State and local level, not by getting people to gamble on splitting the electorate and throwing the result of a federal general election to the the party that doesn't govern and can only seem to agree that the purpose of government is punishing people that aren't like them
Yeah, I was referring to the point that third parties help to dilute the strength of the duopoly.
I can understand your viewpoint of wanting to change the system from within the parties. My viewpoint is that expecting party insiders to change the way things are done is foolish. By your own admission, current party insiders have no incentive to do so. The current system is fantastic for them.
The reason I trust that Forward would support RCV is because it is the only way they have a chance to succeed as an outside political party in the FPTP voting system.
I also get not wanting to split the vote in the circumstances outline. However, I think it is worth considering that most local elections simply do not have any competition. There are thousands of uncontested local races where no one competes with the dominant party. That just leads to the independent and loosely affiliated people that make up ~30+% of the voting populations having no voice to change how the system is implemented.
I guess you are more hopeful than me in the current state of party institutions. I view them as corrupted, dogmatic, and unyielding to any possibility change. But I applaud anyone willing to try to change them, even if I think it is unlike to work.
expecting party insiders to change the way things are done is foolish
Fair enough, but there's no law saying it has to be done from within the parties. Alaska now uses RCV in its elections- a thing the Alaska GOP does not like- largely because Alaskans voted for an initiative to do so and it stuck.
The result of its implementation? After 2 eliminations rounds of ranked-choice voting, the running was down to Mary Peltola (D) and Sarah Palin (MAGA), but enough first-and-second-round supporters of Chris Bye and Nick Begich (R) preferred Peltola to Palin. With their first-pick candidates eliminated from the running, Peltola had a majority and that ended the process.
In the same election, they re-elected Lisa Murkowski (R) to the Senate and Dunleavy (R) to the Governor's mansion. The result: it looks a lot like RCV reduces the leverage of MAGA money within the GOP, and it will be fascinating to see what effect it might have on the Dems.
expecting party insiders to change the way things are done is foolish
Eventually, things will have to change in a party that's still mostly being run by people that came of age in the Watergate era. Your Pelosis and Clintons and Bidens and Feinsteins won't hang on forever, and eventually the guard is going to change. But again, this doesn't have to be initiated from within the parties.
In a FPTP voting system, a vote for a third party will dilute the vote of the party closest-aligned to the preferences of the voter casting it- an effect that implicitly aids the party farthest-away from the voter’s preference. This means the winner doesn’t need a majority, they just need divided opponents.
In what way does addition to a third sum dilute the first two sums?
If Candidate A has one vote, Candidate B has one vote, and Candidate C has one vote, does adding one to Candidate C's sum somehow detract from Candidate A's sum?
Does it somehow give Candidate A an advantage over Candidate B, who still have equal and unchanged sums?
Of course not. That would violate basic math.
It's interesting, however, that you highlight a basic need for divided opponents as the con to a third party... yet it applies better to the current duopolistic nature where either party is increasingly dependent on nothing more than the polarized and divided voterbase. Look no further than continued blue no matter who etc. and ongoing painting of entire parties in a given light to the neglect of the actual candidates.
The existence of this spoiler effect in FPTP requires voters to vote based on how they bet other voters will vote, instead of signaling their actual preferences, in order to avoid dividing their support and throwing the election to the opposing side.
FPTP places no such requirement on voters - the only presence of such is your absurd insistence such a requirement exists.
Do you see this requirement in place in some form of legislation you must adhere to? No?
Ironically, if a voter signaled their actual preferences - to the disregard of blue no matter who and similar nonsense - it's likely third parties would be faring far better. Unfortunately, you and others here seem to be dead-set on vote shaming outside the duopoly.
This prevents the parties from knowing what voters really want
Oh? Canvassing has ceased to exist? The results of other elections - especially those in primaries where the primary differences are policy choices and messaging (to those policies) - can't serve as any form of indicator?
Interesting.
while giving donors and insiders massive leverage by way of giving them the ability to influence which candidates voters will bet ‘can win’
You once-more describe the current state of things while attempting to describe some other state of things.
It’s harmful to democracy, to the voters, and to the public interest, but it’s fantastic for party insiders and donors that want things the public doesn’t want.
The only harm here is your insistence a voter should vote how you believe they should vote to the neglect of their actual preferences - a thing that actually damages democracy.
In what way does addition to a third sum dilute the first two sums?
It's not addition, it's division . If you divide a finite pool of votes among more candidates, the effect is that candidates similar to each other will draw from the same pool of voters, while not drawing votes from the candidate most-ideologically opposed to them. Imagine, if you will, the scenario with a green and blue candidates B and C, where a third (let's call him "A", and place him close to the greens) gets in to the race.
-
A is third-party, center-green
-
B is green
-
C is blue
In this scenario, there are two candidates dividing the pool of green/center-voters between them. A and B probably aren't appealing to any of C's supporters. Let's say that A and B got 25% and 35% respectively, you've got a green-blue split of 60-40 that awards the blue candidate victory because it got the remaining 40% and A and B split a green-majority's votes enough to lose. A entering this race divided (or diluted) the greens' available votes.
Because splitting up a majority of votes can hand victory to an undivided minority party, there is very much an incentive for voters that don't want their side to lose to coordinate voting to vote on the one that "can win". This involves betting on how other voters will vote, in order to avoid splitting their majority. That in turn transforms voting from an exercise in selecting your preference into an exercise in voting where you think other voters on your side of the spectrum will vote.
A ranked-choice voting system (which allows the voter to signal their choices in ranked order) does not require them to vote in the way they imagine most of their ideological allies will vote- it allows them to send their preferences as discrete signals instead.
If you don't understand this, you don't understand it, and you would do well not to finger-wag about basic math
-
I've explained the spoiler effect of Durvurger's Law and linked to great resources, but again, under First Past the Post, a vote for a third party is almost indistinguishable from a vote for the ideologically opposite main party candidate.
In 1992, Ross Perot ran the single most successful third party campaign in US history. If he had not run, George H. W. Bush would have likely been reelected.
In 2000, Ralph Nader ran an average performing campaign and scored just over 1% of the vote in Florida, and that alone made sure that George W. Bush was elected.
Because under First Past the Post, a vote for a third party candidate is a not just a wasted vote, it actually helps your least liked candidate win. Because if you had held your nose and voted for the lesser of two evils, the lesser would have won.
Again, if you want actual change, it's only possible through electoral reform. Hell, even the stupid Forward Party that you linked to is pushing for electoral reform, because that's the only chance Yang has of being elected to anything outside of maybe a mayoral race.
I personally recommend this group. The Equal Vote Coalition.
Their site explains the spoiler effect in pictures. (calling it vote-splitting)
You answered none of the clarifications I asked for. You just repeated the same things you already said. Since your answer doesn't address the questions I asked you in a clear way, I will.
Who do they harm?
Third parties and Voting Reform both harm the existing parties by promoting more competition. That is good for the American people and democracy.
You are trying to claim third parties are bad because they split the vote. Splitting the vote is otherwise known as people voting for what they believe in. That is in no way a bad thing. It is how democracy is supposed to work. No party or person is entitled to your vote they have to earn it. It is not bad advice to support a political party or candidates that supports changing the FPTP system. In fact it is exactly what you are arguing for doing.
Third parties on a presidential scale is entirely beside the point to both changing the voting system and the Forward party. If you read through my replies you would see that Forward is starting by focusing locally on the state level so the anecdotes about third party presidential candidates are irrelevant.
There are hundreds of thousands of elected positions in the US and the majority are uncontested. That is what is bad for America. Restricting peoples choices down to at most 2 viewpoints is the problem. And the solution is electing politicians who will work to prioritize voting reform like Forward candidates.
I have no idea why you are calling a group that is pushing for the similar policies you are stupid. Seems pretty counterintuitive to me.
Who do they harm?
Their supporters. You've not been reading.
And vote splitting is fucking horrible. A vote for a third party under First Past the Post is a vote against your own interests. Even at the local level. If the election features more than two candidates, the majority will often get screwed over by FPtP.
That's why it's so important to change the voting system to one that doesn't actively punish you for supporting who you want. STAR is great for that. It's the best voting system designed to date. It's also supported by the Forward Party on the front page of the site.
The other options are still better than the horrible option of FPtP. That said, I'm not a fan of RCV (Ranked Choice, aka, Instant Runnoff). RCV shares many of the same problems as FPtP while not actually fixing the vote splitting issue. It also introduces some other wrinkles that are just bad.
Even at the local level. If the election features more than two candidates, the majority will often get screwed over by FPtP
Did you not read that the majority of local elections are uncontested? How is having another choice other than the default party bad?
They are not screwed over by FPTP but by the parties and people who benefit and refuse to change the existing system.
A vote for a third party under First Past the Post is a vote against your own interests
That assumes that the major parties have your best interest at heart. They have their donors best interests at heart. You are just someone they have to pretend to please to get you to choose them over the other team.
I never said anything against STAR voting or argued against vote splitting. I simply challenged your assumption that vote splitting is harmful.
Vote splitting is just a way of describing the phenomenon where it is harder to start a third party in a FPTP system.
I reject the idea that vote splitting should have any effect on how you cast your vote. That is essentially censoring your own vote and your own voice.
Vote splitting is just a way of describing the phenomenon where it is harder to start a third party in a FPTP system.
You misspelled impossible. See Durvurger's Law.
See video, after video, after video.
And a load of different sites.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Duvergers-law
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-0-387-09720-6_5
We can then divert into Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, but that's a bit outside this conversation.
The point being, Durvurger laid this all out. Plurality voting will strongly preference two-party dominance.
As to local politics. Again, you run into the two party system. I will admit that it's not impossible to win as an independent in local races, but the fact that we as a species are very team orientated makes it harder.
Okay, you’re not understanding the simple fact that third parties are actually harmful under First Past the Post.
What utter nonsense.
I believe you aren't understanding that third parties are necessary to bring about significant change in a duopolistic system.
The concept talked about is Duverger’s Law
Ahhh... the "law" that theorizes not that "third parties are actually harmful", but rather that "plurality would act to delay the emergence of new political forces and would accelerate the elimination of weakening ones, whereas proportional representation would have the opposite effect".
Here’s a scholarly article about it.
An attempt to provide evidence for a "law" after-the-fact? Interesting order of operations, there.
Did you have any citation from that article, or was this just an attempt to drop a pay-walled article and move on?
Want to make a real difference? Advocate for voting reform.
No form of voting reform will be allowed by either establishment party; the only way this will come about is through introduction of a third party - any third party - which can be used to force the establishment parties away from simply maintaining power.
Fun fact, under First Past the Post voting, supporting a third party is the absolute worst thing you can do.
Oh?
It’s called the spoiler effect, and it often results in the absolute worst candidate winning an election.
If you support a third party that is loosely aligned with one of the major parties, you can end up in a situation where candidate A gets 40%, and your third party candidate, whose platform is closest to A, gets an astounding 15%, and they both lose to Candidate B, the most hated of both A voters and Third Party voters because B got 45%.
I note you predicate this theory on the flawed assumption that a third party ... is loosely aligned with one of the major parties.
Which third parties in the United States would you say are loosely aligned with either the Democrats or the Republicans? Beyond the DSA, there's... nada, and even the DSA is a stretch.
The classic example is the 1992 presidential election, where Clinton won with 43% of the vote.
The 2000 election is another example where Bush won* with 307 votes, far less than the 97488 votes that Ralph Nader got,
Oh? So the fault of this is on the voter for choosing to support a candidate in alignment with their values - one who represents their interests - in an honest use of the vote, rather than the candidate failing to win over the voters?
Do you believe there's nothing a given candidate could do to, say, win over a given set of voters? No reflection and analysis to be done on why voters are voting a specific way - say, what policies are repelling them, what policies might attract them, etc? The voter is the only one able to act differently?
You seem to entirely invert responsibility.
The point being, you cannot have a third party until you change the voting system to actually support third parties. And that means a cardinal voting system, such as STAR (my current favorite)
This is an outright lie; a third party can be supported by simply attaining votes. There is no real mechanism or barrier beyond the lies and propaganda you're sharing here which discourages people from voting honestly.