Makes for a bit of a boring hangout if you both just sit silently there through the movie. At that point might as well watch it separately and then get together to discuss it.
Cinema being different of course, you’re not supposed to talk there to begin with
Your vote can be overridden no matter what. There’s nothing saving you from that. Party platforms in any kind of system aren’t very good promises on what will happen.
I’m not sure if it was just a poor choice of words but there’s no necessity to compromise to form a coalition. A party can decide not to participate or come to the conclusion that they aren’t able to form an effective coalition (if the biggest party).
Opposition is not united in this case and can do nothing
And what, you think in two party system the opposition party can just take down the government from minority position? Of course the opposition can rally against the government and hope their lines break. Which is something that can be more likely when it’s a coalition. But it being a single or multi party doesn’t matter. If government lines hold, there’s nothing to be done other than rallying against them and waiting for the next elections.
Most likely you have like 20% and the rest are in-between to be opposed or not opposed
In my experience that is not at all the case, rather parties supporting the standing government outside of it is a rarity. Such party will most likely suffer from unpopular decisions of the government and not benefit from the possibility of being in opposition. It’s rarely a smart position to be in.
Not to mention in multi-party system, it’s not just sitting government vs opposition that are fighting, but the parties within the coalition and parties in the opposition are competing. And after elections, some government parties might end up joining the new government formed by opposition parties and so on. The whole point is that it’s not just two opposing sides, this or that, but multitude of ideologies and platforms that are competing.
I agree with that in principle, but in practice, if one party starts taking 80% of votes, the other will adjust. On top of this, this situation is no different from 80% case in multi-party system so it is not what differentiate one from another.
I’m surprised. I thought the idea that two party system meant a strong opposition was one of your main points.
They’ve already made more compromises than a smaller party typically would have to since they’re trying to cater to so many people. Of course they still have to do compromises like the mentioned senate, house, presidential thing that we don’t really have, but that’s more not really a two/multi party thing.
That, by itself, is not a good thing, since that would essentially mean that there is no strong opposition. I am of opinion that strong opposition is always needed. It keeps party in power “more honest”. This is again advantage of the two party system, as I mentioned before.
It’s a strange idea that +50% seats in two party system good but bad in multi-party system. It doesn’t mean there’s no strong opposition when there’s more than one opposition party…
Also two party system is no guarantee for a strong opposition. You can easily have a situation where one clearly dominates. Strong opposition is not a guarantee or unique to two party system at all.
Yes they do have to do compromises, they do them all the time. Compromises on who to cater to and who to piss off, what to do if they don’t have senate, house, presidency… You don’t get to decide those compromises. They might not even know they’ll have to make them or it would just look bad so they don’t mention them.
Btw you can have a party holding +50% of the seats in multi-party democracy too. Could have “best of both”, if you are worried about parties having to fit into a coalition.
If the pro-business party is making compromises or decisions you don’t like, you can switch your party. If Democrats make those compromises or decisions, where will you go?
I would say that particularly GOP is very different than it were 10 years ago, because of the Trump voters.
That’s what I had in mind too. But Democratic party is still very much the same. It takes a lot to change those parties, otherwise it’s same old same old.
There many possible coalitions, but there is actually just one with which you end up with, and into which you do not contribute.
Of course you (and other voters) contribute. The biggest party typically is one that forms the coalition and the vote share and recent performance at the poll among other things affects that.
I am not talking about compromises inside the party. I am talking about compromises that you are forced to make when you select one or another party.
They are the same sort of compromises. There’s a reason every round people are unsatisfied with the result, even if their party won.
Are you arguing that US parties are too similar?
No?? I’m saying the parties do similar sort of politics as they’ve been doing for decades. Voters swinging to the left has little effect when it’s the same Democrat party in rule. Or same for right wing. You need something dramatic for the position to actually move.
Two party system is just a bad idea if you want to have options. It’s basically left or right and if you’re not pleased by their politics, what can you do, not vote or vote the other side even further from you?
then there is only one coalition
I don’t get what you mean. There’s a huge variety of possible coalitions. All depends on who can make the 50%, if they’re going for a majority government.
So, the question is only if you are the one deciding what compromise to make, or party you vote for decides for you. There is argument to be made that it is better for democracy that you decide for that.
You are absolutely not the one making those decisions with two party system with two big tent parties. They’re making those decisions and compromises inside the party, since they have to please most of the voter base anyway and try to fish for new voters from the other side.
Each party in 2 party system tries to maximize number of votes and adjusts its position for that as well, which is similar to “power balances shift inside those coalitions”
The established party leadership in the US seem to just do similar sort of politics again and again, and reacting fairly little to that sort of stuff. It’s nowhere near the difference from voters switching to a different party altogether.
Power balances inside those coalitions (which can vary wildly depending on the votes outcome, compared to two party system) affect a lot. If the stricter left-wing party wins over the center-left party and gets to be the PM party then obviously the coalition is going to be more left-wing. And so on.
And it offers much better options for people to shop for a party they actually agree with. Having to vote either this or that is a sucky system because it offers basically two avenues for you if you are not happy with the party you voted for. Either you switch to the other side totally (which is often not at all what you want) or you don’t vote and you’ll just end up helping the other party anyway. Great options.
Similar reason, with flatpaks having codecs with them so no need for outside the distro codec repo. (Talking about openSUSE here but might be the same for Fedora)