A: the system is able to elect candidates who win despite only getting a minority of the vote. This problem becomes worse the more parties participate.
B: in order to maximise the chance of an acceptable compromise taking office, very fringe groups must vote for a very mainstream party. Usually that leaves only two parties that make sense.
C: as these parties become the political space, voting for a specific interest can erode support for the nearest main party, guaranteeing a victory for the other main party.
Bonus: D: growing comfortable with their voter base, it is in parties’ interest to grow more radical.
In fact, without McCarthy and the Red Scare, I would find it strange that the American political scene has developed a nationalist “Republican” party and a moderately conservative “Democrat” party. Many more sane parliaments and governments develop their left to be a socialist or labour party.
So our choices in America are between conservative and slightly-less-conservative? So there’s a growing demand for a socialist party that doesn’t exist, but if it did exist it would lead to the domination of conservatives in politics?
Sounds like ranked choice voting would really help out with a lot of the issues that you presented. It’s too bad that the people who make our laws were voted in using the old system and changing that system in any way is a conflict of interest for them.
I guess things will only ever change if we force the issue.
It’s one of the reasons why I think America is institutionally fucked & rotten, that it’ll take the better part of two centuries to fix it, and that if instead we want stuff to be fixed within a generation, we may need a violent uprising.
This is dumb as shit. Democrats aren’t perfect but they do care. That is why they actively took steps to stop people from dying during COVID unlike the GOP. That’s why they support universal healthcare, unlike the GOP. That’s why they support public education unlike the GOP. That is why they support free and fair elections unlike the GOP.
Only few dems actually support universal Healthcare, unfortunately, and the majority don’t care about anything but lining their pockets. It’s the same with the GOP, of course.
That being said, of course vote for dems if your only other option is reps. What’s bad is better than what’s terrible. However, don’t simply vote and be done with it.
Educate yourself. Improve your life. Exercise, organize, teach. Grassroots praxis is where you can meaningfully improve the lives of your community, and carry that momentum elsewhere. The two party system isn’t going to be corrected purely via electoralism, it’s a stop-gap to prevent sliding into fascism.
Before I say anything else, if you’re voting, right now at a national level at least, Democrats are essentially the only option if you give a shit about democracy and aren’t an accelerationist.
That said: The GOP fucking up covid so hard is probably the only reason Trump didn’t get re-elected. Democrats as a collective do not support universal healthcare. They had the capability to pass whatever they wanted in Obama’s first term. They actively rejected even a public option. They fucked us (normal, non-rich people) hard, because, as a group, they ain’t us. They could have fixed a lot of the issues around public education that were introduced in the bush administration, but they didn’t. How’s that student loan debt forgiveness going? They, again as a group not individually, hate the idea of all those loans not getting paid. THINK OF THE BANKS! As far as free and fair elections go, they benefit from the FPTP system, they will never get rid of it unless they’re forced to.
ALL OF THOSE THINGS SAID: VOTING FOR DEMOCRATS AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL IS WHAT WE’RE STUCK WITH UNLESS WE WANT THINGS TO GET WAY, WAY WORSE.
The alternative to these fetid dickbags is fascists and yes, some literal Fucking Nazis.
In a world where the Overton window isn’t totally fucked, Democrats are center-right. They, again as a group, give zero shits about regular people.
Yep. You can vote for the bad party or you can vote for the party that wants you dead. At least if you keep voting for the bad party the other side will get less bad to get more votes. Then you vote for the less bad party and so on until they actually start being good.
It’s so easy, but general population for some reason don’t think that way.
Me: It is literally illegal for trans minors to get any gender dysphoria treatment in my state and they’re drafting bills for adult bans, please help me (and also Republicans would’ve gone even harder supporting Israel)
That’s still pretty sad, the only upside here is that one party doesn’t actively hate you. Neither gives a fuck though. It’s still a shitty choice and the point of the meme.
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