The American Two Party system

[*Wyche'sWarrior*]

(03-05-2023, 11:26 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: So, here is the issue. In a winner-take-all, first-past-the-post system, we will only ever have two viable parties. There is no chance for a third-party to form and gain traction enough to make a splash on the national scene. Typically, the only third-party candidates or independents that do well in general elections do so because they made their name as a Democrat of Republican and gained the recognition.

I think one of the things that needs to be considered in this discussion, though, is that our parties do not operate the same way European countries do. In Europe, a politician's positions are much more in step with their party. The way it has been here for the 20th century the political party's sole purpose was to win elections. That's it. In the 19th century it was more about single-issue topics. Parties coalesced over one issue and they were very ad-hoc. In the 20th they became these behemoths that just bankrolled candidates who were not at all beholden to the platform of their party. It evolved into a system where the platform doesn't matter at all, it's all about gaining power. This is evidenced by the GOP not even adopting a platform in 2020 at their meeting and McConnell saying as much: they only care about winning. Then, when they are in office, the lobbyists are writing the legislation.

There has been a brain drain in Washington. 40-50 years ago, the halls of Congress were filled with staffers that were subject matter experts working on legislation for elected officials. They knew their topics and would hammer out details, advising their bosses on the issues. However, we have seen a continual decline of staffers of DC and officials sending more staffers to their district and state offices to work on constituent services. This sounds great, right!? They are listening to their people more, right!? Nope. What is happening is that the lack of subject matter experts on staff created a vacuum filled by lobbyists for special interests. Industries are writing the legislation intended to be oversight for their own industry. CRS reports go unread or misunderstood.

In addition, we have the same number of Representatives as was set in 1911. Our population has increased by 259% since that time. We have more than three times our population but the same number of Representatives. So how effectively can our Representatives truly represent our interests when they have to cover so many people? For comparison's sake:

Germany - 83.2 million people, 736 in Bundestag, 113,043.5 people per representative (to be fair, this is the largest directly-elected legislative body out there).
Austria (choosing this for Hollo's sake) - 9 million people, 183 in National Council, 49,180.3 people per representative.
UK - 67.3 million people, 650 in the House of Commons, 103,538.5 people per representative.
Canada - 38.3 million people, 338 in the House of Commons, 113,313.6 people per representative.

Now, the US - 331.9 million people, 435 in House of Representatives, 762,988.5 people per representative.

The more people a representative represents, the less democratic the system is. It means that the voice of the citizen is diluted further and the representative has no chance of truly speaking for their constituents.

Tl;dr: Our system is broken and there are a lot of things beyond just the two-party system that needs fixing.

At one point in the 92 election, after the debate, Perot was actually leading the three way race. The next election cycle featured a much more stringent set of rules to be able to debate on the national stage enacted by the Debate Commission. Gee, I wonder why?

[hollodero]

(03-05-2023, 10:42 PM)michaelsean Wrote: My point is not more sophisticated than that. We, or many of us, can be rather sophomoric when it comes to the US. Yes we had a coup attempt that had no chance of accomplishing anything. Assholes can be assholes, but on January 20th Biden became president and it was never in doubt. I don’t mean to minimalize it, but if they went in and killed twenty senators, Biden would still have become President because there isn’t another option. We survived the American Civil War. We’ve had four presidents assassinated. If someone were to lay odds on the country surviving after having the Civil War and then weeks after it’s over Lincoln being assassinated they would not be very good.

I just bring up the moon landing and what we did to produce the weapons and everything else during WWII to show our perspective. We don’t think anything is too big to overcome. I imagine someday we will be wrong, but I don’t think this is it.

I’m not great at expressing myself philosophically. I go off on tangents and can bring up things that seem irrelevant, but make sense in my head because I have the whole picture of what I’m thinking but don’t always lay it all out.

I think hardly anyone does great in expressing ideas in a wholly understandable manner, imho it's the nature of conversation- I guess I understand the jist of your thoughts though. What I will say specifically is that in those examples of stress, like Civil war and so on, the republic wasn't, or at least wasn't just saved through unwavering optimism. I'd say it was also saved by people who understood quite well that this is far from a given and it takes some actual engagement to save the republic. Like people actually fighting for the union instead of just standing by thinking 'ah we're the USA, we exist since I was born, we always land on our feet, look at our many decades of success.'

Just on a sidenote really, I always find it peculiar how Americans bring up the civil war as example for the country's ability to survive, while not addressing so much that there was a devastating civil war to begin with. One that maybe wasn't winnable for the south, but your mythical Union president actually tried a lot to lose it anyways. Did the union win because of US greatness, maybe, but I'd make the point that it also was just good fortune.

[hollodero]

(03-06-2023, 08:10 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: I think you misunderstand me a little. I am simply pointing out that our woes go well beyond just the two-party system. I really want to change that and I think our party structure is in dire need of reform. There are just a lot of other compounding factors that we have to figure out where to start. For example, increasing the number of representatives dilutes the authority any one member of Congress holds. With that in mind, and political parties being all about gaining and holding onto power in this country rather than any sort of actual platform, could increasing the numbers in Congress then cause a party upheaval? Would it make it easier or more difficult to pass election reforms like RCV or other tools that could make third parties more viable? More Representatives also means a higher number of third-party and independent members of Congress because that is where we would see them emerge, especially in smaller districts. Do they come together and form coalitions that end up becoming closer in design to the parties we see in other WEIRD nations?

I study political science and work at a university, believe me, these are conversations I have had way too many times around here.

Yeah well, be that as it may, I am still pretty unconvinced. I don't think a huge congress (how many people would you suggest anyways) would change anything for the better regarding the two-party system, or at the very least it would not be one of my suggestions to get there. I understand some ideas there. Like the local independent person having a somewhat heightened chance to gain a seat if this person has money and influence. But I don't think much would come of it after that. As soon as this person tries to be the nucleus of a new movement, one of the parties would feel threatened, and imho that is that. The party still has all the money and all the power and can fund campaign after campaign against this person. And so will the media and public pressure. It will be just like "what, you vote for Nader, are you insane? Do you want to hand Bush the win?" - a point that besides being sad also is quite true.

Now for an olive branch of sorts, I can see the idea of having four or five seats in each electoral district instead of only one, coupled with ranked choice voting and having 20 or 25% of the total vote grant one seat to a party. But I think that is not part of your idea.

[*Wyche'sWarrior*]

(03-06-2023, 03:11 PM)hollodero Wrote: Yeah well, be that as it may, I am still pretty unconvinced. I don't think a huge congress (how many people would you suggest anyways) would change anything for the better regarding the two-party system, or at the very least it would not be one of my suggestions to get there. I understand some ideas there. Like the local independent person having a somewhat heightened chance to gain a seat if this person has money and influence. But I don't think much would come of it after that. As soon as this person tries to be the nucleus of a new movement, one of the parties would feel threatened, and imho that is that. The party still has all the money and all the power and can fund campaign after campaign against this person. And so will the media and public pressure. It will be just like "what, you vote for Nader, are you insane? Do you want to hand Bush the win?" - a point that besides being sad also is quite true.

Now for an olive branch of sorts, I can see the idea of having four or five seats in each electoral district instead of only one, coupled with ranked choice voting and having 20 or 25% of the total vote grant one seat to a party. But I think that is not part of your idea.

Ranked choice voting would be a good start, but it's unlikely to happen since it would be a detriment to the duopoly.

[SunsetBengal]

(03-05-2023, 02:19 AM)Nately120 Wrote: I was 6 years old for the 1988 election and I recall our class cutting out which candidate we wanted to win and taping him to our desk.  I was a 6 year old with Michael Dukakis affixed to the front of his crappy wooden desk.

Fast forward to the 1992 election when I was in 5th grade and I was one of the few oddball kids with Ross flippin' Perot on his desk.  I had made the 3rd party switch.  Go me.

(03-06-2023, 12:04 PM)Wyche Wrote: I was a sophomore in 1992, and our history teacher divided the class into thirds for each candidate and staged a debate. I was put on Perot's team, and have been a third party advocate ever since. A lot of what Ross said came to fruition. If only people could see past the cultism of the duopoly of corruption.

I also voted for Ross Perot, and was chided by my friends for "wasting" my vote.

[TecmoBengals]

(03-06-2023, 04:18 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: I also voted for Ross Perot, and was chided by my friends for "wasting" my vote.

Which was your fav chart?

[SunsetBengal]

(03-06-2023, 04:16 PM)Wyche Wrote: Ranked choice voting would be a good start, but it's unlikely to happen since it would be a detriment to the duopoly.

Getting rid of the RNC/DNCs would go miles toward leveling the playing field for candidates outside of the traditional R or D platforms.  With those committees controlling all of the money, it will never be likely that a 3rd party candidate that isn't tremendously wealthy to get the exposure of the others.

[Belsnickel]

(03-06-2023, 03:11 PM)hollodero Wrote: Yeah well, be that as it may, I am still pretty unconvinced. I don't think a huge congress (how many people would you suggest anyways) would change anything for the better regarding the two-party system, or at the very least it would not be one of my suggestions to get there. I understand some ideas there. Like the local independent person having a somewhat heightened chance to gain a seat if this person has money and influence. But I don't think much would come of it after that. As soon as this person tries to be the nucleus of a new movement, one of the parties would feel threatened, and imho that is that. The party still has all the money and all the power and can fund campaign after campaign against this person. And so will the media and public pressure. It will be just like "what, you vote for Nader, are you insane? Do you want to hand Bush the win?" - a point that besides being sad also is quite true.

Now for an olive branch of sorts, I can see the idea of having four or five seats in each electoral district instead of only one, coupled with ranked choice voting and having 20 or 25% of the total vote grant one seat to a party. But I think that is not part of your idea.

Actually, it is. There is no chance of an emergence of a third-party without this.

One idea I have is tying the number of Representatives to the population. Take the lowest population state and divide the total population by that amount. There is your number of Representatives. Right now, that number would be 575. Not a huge jump, but definitely an improvement. This number would then be allocated based on the percentage of the overall population each state has, rounded to the nearest hundredth, with the rounding-up for the number of Representatives being cut at 0.75.

With this being the case, for three Representatives and higher, each Congressional district in each state would contain two to five Representatives depending on the number of Representatives and the dispersion of the population. This would be determined by the states during the redistricting process. This would be coupled with RCV to allow for a more democratic process.

Believe me, I have thought this through.

[treee]

The single best way to get around the two party system is to get ranked choices voting through ballot initiatives. This doesn't cover all the states but I think it would cover a big enough chunk to fundamentally shape what the federal composition looks like. Maybe from there you could get a coalition going to increase the number of house seats.

[*Nately120*]

(03-06-2023, 03:55 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: You know I will never ever EVER vote for Trump, but I will always find it funny in a "huh, how the hell did that happen" sorta way that our unhinged orange President was likely our least war-initiating President since probably Jimmy Carter (1977-1981).

Telling voters that someone across the ocean is out to get 'em has nothing on telling voters that their fellow Americans are the real threat.  I don't think it's overly hyperbolic to say that Trump escalated and hastened America's constantly simmering war against itself.

Who needs to invade China when half the US population really just wants to see the other half of the US population wiped out in the name of defense?

[*Wyche'sWarrior*]

(03-06-2023, 04:18 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: I also voted for Ross Perot, and was chided by my friends for "wasting" my vote.

I get a lot of that shit too. I reply with "a wasted vote is a vote for the status quo if you're serious about change". They usually STFU after that. 

[*Wyche'sWarrior*]

(03-06-2023, 04:22 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Getting rid of the RNC/DNCs would go miles toward leveling the playing field for candidates outside of the traditional R or D platforms.  With those committees controlling all of the money, it will never be likely that a 3rd party candidate that isn't tremendously wealthy to get the exposure of the others.

Exactly, plus they control the debate commission. It's all a stacked deck farce.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(03-06-2023, 06:47 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Who needs to invade China when half the US population really just wants to see the other half of the US population wiped out in the name of defense?

Really Nate? You're going with "half of the US population really wants to kill the other half"?

158.5 million people voted in 2020, only 110 million people bothered to vote in the 2022 midterms. We have 330 people in this country, regardless of voter status. 34% of voters identify as Independent. We're already talking about only 1/5th of our country being actively invested enough in politics to actually vote in midterms and having ANY party affiliation. So when you split that between the two parties, we're at roughly 1/10th of the country vs 1/10th of the country, and that's still not narrowing it even further super extreme party affiliation. Even if you want to be super generous and call it 10% of each party is the extreme, all of a sudden you're talking about 1/100th vs 1/100th.

The extremes of both parties are significant in counting numbers because we're dealing with a total of 330 million, but as far as compared to non-extremes? They're a minority that is loud just because social media gives them a big 'ol echo chamber to group together rather than being spread out over 3.5 million square miles of US land. 

Even that loud minority, the number of people actually wanting to murder others based off belief? We're now talking about a fraction of a group that's a fraction of a group, that's a fraction of a group, that's a fraction of a group, etc.

Even the Jan 6th riot storming the capitol building, only 10,000 people were involved in that, and only 2,000 of those 10,000 went inside the building. You use a magical net called "The Internet" and you can gather together 10,000 assholes out of 330,000,000 on just about any topic. 10,000 people looks like a lot in a photograph, but that's 0.003%. 3.5x more people die each year in the US of Parkinson disease than participated in the storming of the capitol building. There are 36x more Amish in the US than stormed the Capitol building.

Don't get sucked into believing the internet is an actual representation of real life and give the extreme assholes magical powers that they don't have. The overwhelming majority of people just live their lives.

[*Wyche'sWarrior*]

(03-06-2023, 08:11 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Really Nate? You're going with "half of the US population really wants to kill the other half"?

158.5 million people voted in 2020, only 110 million people bothered to vote in the 2022 midterms. We have 330 people in this country, regardless of voter status. 34% of voters identify as Independent. We're already talking about only 1/5th of our country being actively invested enough in politics to actually vote in midterms and having ANY party affiliation. So when you split that between the two parties, we're at roughly 1/10th of the country vs 1/10th of the country, and that's still not narrowing it even further super extreme party affiliation. Even if you want to be super generous and call it 10% of each party is the extreme, all of a sudden you're talking about 1/100th vs 1/100th.

The extremes of both parties are significant in counting numbers because we're dealing with a total of 330 million, but as far as compared to non-extremes? They're a minority that is loud just because social media gives them a big 'ol echo chamber to group together rather than being spread out over 3.5 million square miles of US land. 

Even that loud minority, the number of people actually wanting to murder others based off belief? We're now talking about a fraction of a group that's a fraction of a group, that's a fraction of a group, that's a fraction of a group, etc.

Even the Jan 6th riot storming the capitol building, only 10,000 people were involved in that, and only 2,000 of those 10,000 went inside the building. You use a magical net called "The Internet" and you can gather together 10,000 assholes out of 330,000,000 on just about any topic. 10,000 people looks like a lot in a photograph, but that's 0.003%. 3.5x more people die each year in the US of Parkinson disease than participated in the storming of the capitol building. There are 36x more Amish in the US than stormed the Capitol building.

Don't get sucked into believing the internet is an actual representation of real life and give the extreme assholes magical powers that they don't have. The overwhelming majority of people just live their lives.

I can't vote in the primary, 'cause reasons.....

[*Nately120*]

(03-06-2023, 08:11 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Really Nate? You're going with "half of the US population really wants to kill the other half"?

Well, that was the hyperbolic part.  The thing is that the enemy has gone from being "over there" to being here, and that to me is a symptom of fear/anger being like any drug where the prior levels which got a rise out of you no longer do the trick so you have to up the dose.

[Belsnickel]

(03-06-2023, 07:19 PM)WychesWarrior Wrote: I get a lot of that shit too. I reply with "a wasted vote is a vote for the status quo if you're serious about change". They usually STFU after that. 

In a winner-take-all, first-past-the-post system like most states have, a vote for a third-party of an independent is a wasted vote at best, a vote for the major party candidate you oppose more at worst. It's a phenomenon we call Duverger's Law/Principle. It

[Belsnickel]

(03-06-2023, 05:45 PM)treee Wrote: The single best way to get around the two party system is to get ranked choices voting through ballot initiatives. This doesn't cover all the states but I think it would cover a big enough chunk to fundamentally shape what the federal composition looks like. Maybe from there you could get a coalition going to increase the number of house seats.

The problem here is that over half of the states lack a way for the public to make this happen. Twenty-four states do not allow citizen initiatives or referendums of any sort. There are two more states that only allow referendums, which are where the people get to put a piece of passed legislation on the ballot. Since there is no chance of those in power loosening their grip on it and passing legislation that would weaken the two-party status quo, the only way to make it happen would be by ballot initiatives.

[*Wyche'sWarrior*]

(03-07-2023, 09:57 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: In a winner-take-all, first-past-the-post system like most states have, a vote for a third-party of an independent is a wasted vote at best, a vote for the major party candidate you oppose more at worst. It's a phenomenon we call Duverger's Law/Principle. It

I get that.....but where do we finally draw the line? Most everyone you talk to is largely fed up with the status quo. How do we move past that if we keep voting same ol, same ol? As for me.... I'll not support the machine, anyway I can.

[Belsnickel]

(03-07-2023, 10:58 AM)WychesWarrior Wrote: I get that.....but where do we finally draw the line? Most everyone you talk to is largely fed up with the status quo. How do we move past that if we keep voting same ol, same ol? As for me.... I'll not support the machine, anyway I can.

Elections reform is really the only way we can do it.

[*Wyche'sWarrior*]

(03-07-2023, 11:34 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: Elections reform is really the only way we can do it.

Which would be outstanding....but I don't see anyone from the two corrupt parties signing up for that, which puts us back at square one. They don't want to derail the gravy train.