Current Events > It's REALLY weird for Americans. Only two viable political parties.

(+) Yeah! (+)

That kind of, well, binary choice. There must be many people in America who feel that neither particularly reflects their beliefs or worldviews. Many countries, including my own, have 3 or 4 viable parties. That's a proper choice.

Americans, how do you feel about the system you live within? Fit for purpose? Dislike it? So used to it it doesn't occur to you things could be any different?


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The main reason we don't have other political parties nowadays is the main two will often usurp the policies of the third party, essentially making that party redundant. Third parties used to win many states back in the 60s and before. Teddy Roosevelt even won a few with his own party.

You may think "hey, there are so many issues, how could just two parties reflect the variance in political views?", but I don't know that the issues are particularly independent. My guess is that political beliefs can be represented very low-d without much loss, due to underlying pervasive views about what society is for.

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Both parties seem to be welcoming the "extreme" elements into the fold. It's disassociating people like me who may be more moderate in the party they support.

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We have a regional-based, winner take all system via districts. Under this, yes, two party is the equilibrium. Contrast this to something like looking at the state or country as a whole; Texas for example has 36 congressional seats. If 44% of Texas voted republican, 44% voted democrat, and then ~3% voted for four different political parties, all would be represented to some capacity under a proportional system. Instead we just get 23 repubs (64%) and 13 dems (36%) despite the voting breakdown being 52% repub and 43% dem.

I see it as pretty much the same thing as for why we continue to use the godforsaken imperial system. It's a massive culture shift and great expense so we as a whole opt for the shortsighted solution of keeping up what we've always done. Same as why we'll opt to built a 24th lane on I10 instead of funding public transportation. (Coupled with Gerrymanding, which is a vile practice.)
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philsov posted...

Same as why we'll opt to built a 24th lane on I10 instead of funding public transportation.

Until the bus goes to Taco Bell at two in the morning, it's useless.
(Yes, that's an absurd simplification, but it points out the root issue better than twenty links to various articles and PDFs ever could)

who cares i can buy 64 different varieties of mustard at the store

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America's voting is a system called "First Past The Post" which prevents 3rd parties from effectively winning anything besides extremely small local elections. The problem isn't that we only have two parties because we don't. The problem is there is no way for alternative parties to ever gain any momentum.

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voting system is set up in such a way that if you're not voting strategically then you're wasting your vote. and you're not voting stratigically when you throw in your vote behind a guy you cant expect to get more then a tiny percentage of the overall count.

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Questionmarktarius posted...

Until the bus goes to Taco Bell at two in the morning, it's useless.
(Yes, that's an absurd simplification, but it points out the root issue better than twenty links to various articles and PDFs ever could)

The lane widening is only necessary to burden traffic during peak commute times.

The root issue is that "it's just one more lane" every time we do it, which is cheaper at the time than getting a larger bus fleet with some park and ride commuter lots. But then you add another lane in two years, and another, and at some point we really ought to have just gotten a larger bus fleet and saved a lot of money and real estate.
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"That kind of, well, binary choice. There must be many people in America who feel that neither particularly reflects their beliefs or worldviews. Many countries, including my own, have 3 or 4 viable parties. That's a proper choice."

I feel like this is the kind of thing you might have posted about 18 years ago, and if not you, then certainly your buddies chickenboy and LITTLEGUIDO might have posted the same thing

And yet since then both the United States and United Kingdom as well as so many other countries of Western Europe have changed in the same ways and faced the same challenges and developed the same problems

Choice in mass elections is the illusion of choice, especially at scale, and you will notice the population of the United States is far greater, more diverse, and more spread out than what you have in the UK and in Europe. Someone mentioned Roosevelt above, who split the Republican vote by running on the Progressive ticket in 1912 and enabled Wilson to win with 41% of the vote. Socialist Eugene Debs also won 6% of the vote that year. The US population was already 95 million at the time -- 50% more than what you have in the UK today.

There will probably be more parties in some of the countries that the US eventually dissolves into. Alternatively, Donald Trump unites the country under an American Principate and he and Barron create a new era of peace and stability, but that seems unlikely

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MeIon Bread posted...

Many countries, including my own, have 3 or 4 viable parties. That's a proper choice.

What is this nonsense? We all know you're in the UK. Where at a general election level it has become a 1 party state due to a heavily right wing media

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The two parties in the US are closer in scope to coalitions in other Western countries. Democrats have leftists, demsocs, neoliberals, etc. and Republicans have neocons, evangelicals, libertarians, etc.
Not really that different from other countries

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3 and 4 are kinda few as well.

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MeIon Bread posted...

Many countries, including my own, have 3 or 4 viable parties.

Lol if you think anyone but Labour or Tories are the viable parties here now.

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both parties are monsters, but they are all we got :3

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Why have many party when 2 party do trick?

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MeIon Bread posted...

Many countries, including my own, have 3 or 4 viable parties.

lol the tories have been the governing party for 28 of the past 40 years.

Broseph_Stalin posted...

lol the tories have been the governing party for 28 of the past 40 years.

And I'm guessing the remaining 12 are entirely, if not almost entirely, Labour.

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To be fair, Lib Dems used to actually be a "viable" 3rd party, but basically destroyed themselves when they formed a coalition with the Tories.

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Americans are too stupid for more than 2 parties. If they had it their way it would be one party.

imagine posting on facebook/gamefaqs.gamestop while streaming media from youtube, amazon, apple, or netflix after getting home from a black lives matter rally and thinking you don't live in america

you may not be an official us resident and you may get to choose--for now--among any number of parties, but it doesn't matter, your country has become america anyway

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rivers posted...

you may not be an official us resident and you may get to choose--for now--among any number of parties, but it doesn't matter, your country has become america anyway

...whut

Hinakuluiau posted...

The two parties in the US are closer in scope to coalitions in other Western countries. Democrats have leftists, demsocs, neoliberals, etc. and Republicans have neocons, evangelicals, libertarians, etc.
Not really that different from other countries

This, people sort of underestimate how much the two US parties are really just broad coalitions.

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Most of the US doesn't even vote

The other half of the country that does vote never shuts the fuck up about how the other side is wrong

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