It's amazing these people keep getting voted back in too.

> It's amazing these people keep getting voted back in too.

It's a two-party system, you have to vote for one of them!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuYsZUMuj0M, The Simpsons S8E1 - Treehouse of Horror VII - Kang and Kodos

Or more accurately, they've gotten really good at getting people to focus on hating the other guy or getting wrapped up in partisan BS.

The problem is that we do not have effective third parties, because

* elections in the US require a fuckton of spending. AOC raised millions for a House district that wasn't even competitive, meanwhile the British Parliament has a 30,000GBP spending limit. It is a lot easier for upstart parties to raise tens of thousands of dollars rather than millions.

* third parties in the US have a habit of mostly trying to go for broke and failing. The general track record of successful ones elsewhere is that they usually cut their teeth in lower levels of government before they start competing well in national elections, and on top of that the lower level elections are generally easier to win (much lower voter count = much lower spending, thinner electoral margins, etc.)

* the US lacks regional parties, which is another source of third-partyism, but depending on your views this might be a good thing.

> * the US lacks regional parties, which is another source of third-partyism, but depending on your views this might be a good thing.

IIRC, for a lot time the two major US parties were effectively federations of different regional parties (e.g. your farm-state Democrat had a very different set of positions that your northeastern urban Democrat, ditto for Republicans). That's collapsed in the last 20 years, and everything's basically national, which is a big part of the problem.

The lack of 3rd parties is not a function of spending - it's due to one-winner voting. With only one winner in each election, voters who would prefer a 3rd, 4th, or 5th place candidate quickly figure out that this is a waste of time and they had better line up behind one of the top two. This is how the US does end up with a small handful of 3rd party candidates here and there - because there were enough concentration of voters in their (usually small) district to make them the top candidate in that district. Very hard for smaller parties to have this level of concentrated support over any medium or large area.

An alternative voting system might have voting for many offices together, with many winners. In that case the winners can be distributed among the various voter preferences proportionally. Some countries already do this and therefore have reasonably robust multi-party systems - though I don't think it's at all clear that this is better at serving the needs of the public.

Eh, third parties are plenty viable in the FPTP UK, Canada and India.

It's just a feature of US politics that movements like the Tea Party or DSA decide to shake things within existing parties rather than launch new ones. Even the new ones that launch like the Working Families Party often just support two-party candidates.

I'm not from the UK, but CGP grey is AFAIK. He has a short video called "Why the UK Election Results are the Worst in History" (2015). IMO, it seems like First Past the Post voting is the problem still.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r9rGX91rq5I

I mean, there's also only one winner in French presidential and national assembly elections, and we have a lot more than two big parties.

No mention of FPTP voting system?

You can have third parties under FPTP. The UK, Canada, India to name a few have them.

So does the US, they even occasional win elections, even to Congress (historically, there is at least one case where one displaced a major national party in the state-level duopoly), that doesn't mean FPTP doesn't tend toward duopoly. (FPTP plus a strong Presidential system tends more strongly toward duopoly; FPTP plus a strong Presidential system plus an indirectly-elected President where Presidential electors are mostly elected by multimember FPTP tends even more strongly to duopoly.)

Isn't it more of a property of single-member districts rather than voting system?

No, multimember FPTP districts would be the same but worse (that's pretty much what most states use for Presidential electors, though), whereas you could construct a single-member district system with an electoral system producing proportionality and supporting multiple parties (though it would probably be ugly to administer) [0] which would not have the same problem (though it might have all kinds of other problems). It's a absolutely an FPTP problem, though most reasonable solutions also involve multimember districts.

[0] for an example of the top of my head: vote as in single-member FPTP, determine the proportion of first place votes globally by party to determine how many seats each party must win, and then globally order candidates from each party entitled to at least one seat in descending order of their vote share in their district. Starting with the party with the candidate with lowest maximum vote share, assign that candidate as the winner from their district, removing all other candidates from that district and dropping the party from further consideration if it has been assigned the number of seats it is entitled to; proceed until all seats are assigned.

> determine the proportion of first place votes globally

This sounds to me like artificially creating an election-wide multi-member district. I don't think it's standard to allow votes outside of a particular voting district to affect the results in that voting district.

I'm not claiming that making districts multi-member is a solution (as you mention, multi-member, winner-takes-all districts are also bad), just that it is a necessary condition to arrive at results that are closer to representing the choice of the voters.

Edit: apologies if this feels like moving the goal-post. I need to think a bit more about what could happen for example in single-member voting district with ranked-choice voting system - I think it would not lead to a 2-party system, so you're right here and changing the voting system may be sufficient.

> This sounds to me like artificially creating an election-wide multi-member district

I can see that.

> I'm not claiming that making districts multi-member is a solution (as you mention, multi-member, winner-takes-all districts are also bad), just that it is a necessary condition to arrive at results that are closer to representing the choice of the voters.

Ranked choice methods with single-member districts can slightly mitigate some of the problems, but yes, I’d agree that realistic solutions that do more than nip around the edges require multimember districts.

Does the 30kGBP limit include money that other people spend on you? If not, that sounds like a way to guarantee that big third parties (who can write checks independently of the campaign to support their candidates) will always be able to outspend grassroots donations organized by the campaign.

3rd parties are actually subject to stricter spending rules: https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/sites/default/files/p...

(30K GBP is an average, since consitutencies in the UK have variations in population size. Constituencies do not get regularly recalculated unlike Congress redistricting every decade.)

It's amazing that we don't have a middle ground party. The compromise between left and right since they can't compromise on their own.

A lot of people would argue that they're both middle ground parties that pretend to have big differences for the show of it.

> A lot of people would argue that they're both middle ground parties that pretend to have big differences for the show of it.

Even though a lot of people argue that, if it weren't true things would be far worse. Despite the differences, there needs to be something resembling a governing consensus.

Absolutely amazing you can look at the state of American politics and think "what we need here is more centrism".

We do have centrist parties in general elections. The non-centrist tendencies arise in the primaries. Then the non-centrist primary voters get miffed after the general election on account of the centrist lurch to collect independent votes.

Most Democrats are right of center on the political spectrum. (IMO)

“It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."

"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"

"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."

"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."

"I did," said Ford. "It is."

"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"

"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."

"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"

"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."

"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"

"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"

How many times are we going to fall for `This is the most important election of our lives!`. It's always about choosing the lesser evil. Every time. And then nothing changes.

Andrew Yang has the right idea. We need to break the duopoly by implementing Ranked-Choice Voting and Nonpartisan Primaries.

>> How many times are we going to fall for `This is the most important election of our lives!`. It's always about choosing the lesser evil. Every time. And then nothing changes.

> Andrew Yang has the right idea. We need to break the duopoly by implementing Ranked-Choice Voting and Nonpartisan Primaries.

Those sound like a technical solutions to a social problem.

Why can’t technical solutions help to simplify/ease the social problem? It’s clearly not the only thing required, but it would provide some major relief.

> Why can’t technical solutions help to simplify/ease the social problem? It’s clearly not the only thing required, but it would provide some major relief.

They can be part of a more holistic solution, but here they were presented as the solution. And if you only have half a solution, it may turn out to be half of the wrong one.

If you didn't vote for a lizard, the wrong lizard might get in!

It's actually a one party system with two divisions, as their voting record shows. [1].

[1] https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi...

You can vote for someone else in the primaries though, can't you?

How would that help?

Open primaries would permit centrist voters to 'shave off' what they see as fringe positions prior to the general election.

It's the same old problem. Everyone hates Congress, but loves their own Congressman. And tribal politics being what it is, nobody wants to throw away their vote on a third-party because they're worried that will cause The Other Side to win.

I mean that's literally true though. Every election in the foreseeable future will pretty much always be won by one of the two parties. As the parent comment points out they've got millions of dollars put in to generating tons of outreach. Do you honestly believe an internet comment is comparable?

Your plane will likely crash if you don't toe the line.

edit: Tow => toe

the phrase is "toe the line"

oof. thank you lol.

Most people vote against the other other guys. I don't think anybody really wants Pelosi or Biden but they just look at the alternatives. It's a sad state of affairs that you can only choose between two bad choices.

If I have a choice between someone who used insider trading to make money and someone who lied about election fraud, a direct attack on democracy, I choose the least evil (or best of) the two people. I wish there was a third party system.

The fact that you felt compelled to say what you just did (which is patently absurd) is why our democracy is failing.

Just wait...the geriatrics will die soon enough as they necessarily do, and then all of the resources they've squirreled away will be inherited by their heirs who have even fewer scruples or talents than their parents.

gerontocracy: Government based on rule by elders.

What's wrong with a gerontocracy and how does that relate in any way to stock trading?

Folks who are over 60 years of age should not be making and setting rules for an entire country to follow. When you're that old, you're stuck in the past and the laws don't move forward with the public. Think of how many times you've to explain to your grandparents how "things are different now".

A gerontocracy doesn't directly relate to stock trading, but this old woman is saying very absurd things.

I agree. I am in my 50s and I can barely relate to the world my younger colleagues in their 20s live in. I can't even imagine how far people in their 70s and 80s are removed from the reality of younger people. They shouldn't make any decisions for the future of a country.

This is ageism, folks.

This descriptor is idiotic, although the assumption that 30 year old senators would fare better on corruption accounts is as well.

What do you find gross about that? That there are people suffering while others are well-off? That rich, powerful people are friends with other rich, powerful people?

Not seeing how that makes Pelosi particularly "gross."

> That there are people suffering while others are well-off?

See, you got it in just a single guess. Good job!

How does that make Pelosi particularly gross? That applies to any person that’s well off.

Because she, in particular, is in a position to do something about it.

Yes, and she has done more about it than the vast majority of not just people, but public servants. She has helped pass a ton of legislation as Speaker of the House. You might not agree with her politics, but she has done a lot.

Social spending can't solve San Fran's social problems.

It's her sanctimony that settles it. Claiming to be righteous in the face of Trump/Republicans' sins (and believe me, I have no special love for that). Similar with people like Hillary acting like they are owed the election. Meanwhile people in the heartland are pissing in bottles, hoping to get another dollar per hour, and getting killed by tornadoes because they are not allowed to leave their shift at the warehouse. While she's defending grift to earn millions more. It's filthy. So this is how we go out, not with a bang but with a whimper. So much for "all men (and women) are created equal".

> It's filthy. So this is how we go out, not with a bang but with a whimper.

agree. and we just have to watch

>So much for "all men (and women) are created equal"

created equal != retain equal value