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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 :)
- Get rid of gerrymandering by forcing convex districts
- Get rid of first past the post
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.
There are many parties, but because of “winner takes all” system, voting for any party other than R and D is throwing away your vote in most cases.
So, if you want your vote count, you have to agree on compromise in your head and choose R or D.
This system has advantages, for example, in multi-party system the compromise is made later, when ruling coalition is formed in parliament without voter participation . So it is arguably better (more democratic) that the voter makes the compromise selection at the ballot box, not later by politicians.