US Politics: Are TWO Parties Enough to Represent the Complexities Found in our Nation

[npts2020]

Mr Skeptic; I disagree that you need political parties to figure out who to vote for unless are you looking at the candidates for the first time on the ballot while in the voting booth. One can always go to an organization they like that rates political candidates (there are many that do this) and get their information there, not to mention that newspapers, magazines and organizations frequently endorse candidates outright.

[iNow]

I think, in all truth, that zero parties is the same as 1 party(assuming there is no other party to compete against).

 

This is very thought provoking. Would you be willing/able to elaborate a bit? I'd like to explore this a bit further and examine some of the intricacies of your point.

[waitforufo]

In representative democracies, coalitions generally must be formed to create a majority group to govern. So where do you want these coalitions formed?

 

Multiparty parliamentary systems do this after elections, part in public, and part in private negotiation. This system preserves more passion because each party can continue to publically push its own independent ideas, but to preserve these governing coalitions sometimes strange laws are passed. For example in Israel, during Shabbat, elevators stop on every floor. This is done so that orthodox religious observers don't have to worry about purposefully making a spark, a form of making fire, in violation of Shabbat religious rules. This law by the way is considered nonsense by a vast majority of Israelis (at least all the ones I know.). But the orthodox religious parties in Israel always align themselves at the last minute with the near majority coalition, so that their minority religious rules can be enforced as law.

 

In two party systems like ours, coalitions are formed prior to elections within the structures of the two parties. Since both parties are coalitions, and coalitions cannot be formed without compromise, the result for both parties is often a rather unappealing washed out dispassionate one. Also much of our partisanship is a result of the way we form coalitions. Each coalition, formed in compromise, has topics that are divisive to unity. Generally they would rather not talk about these topics. So that's all the other party wants to talk about. Also I think our two parties approach how they build coalitions differently but perhaps that is too broad a topic for this post.

 

I see pluses and minus of both systems (the multiparty system and the two party system). Both systems it seems to me fail when the coalitions formed have no true common unifying agenda.

[Kaeroll]

Responding more to the op than the rest of the thread here...

 

I'm not a US citizen, indeed I've never been to the US, but your two-party system does seem awfully dominant in discussion. The number of blogs, forum threads, newspaper editorials, etc. I've seen where the prime method of argument seems to be, "X is a [bleeding heart liberal Democrat/rich white male Republican], therefore Y is wrong," is staggering. As is the number of times I've been challenged on a forum to declare my allegiance to one party.

 

This seems to happen the moment I make a point someone dislikes- rather than respond to the argument, they come out with something to the tune of, "Which party do you support? You seem like a dirty Democrat to me," presumably to be followed up with, "You're all that's wrong with the world," etc etc - without ever addressing the point. I think this kind of mentality is used very much to the advantage in US politics; forget logic, appeal to emotion - that candidate is a damned Republican who would see the rich richer and the poor poorer; she's a Commie Democrat who would see God taken off the dollar bill; etc.

 

Painting opponents with the broad brushstrokes of US and THEM is really not a great way to go about any area of life - let alone politics affecting the whole world. Despite my distaste for UK politics, I take some comfort in the notion that our politicians use this less than the US. That being said, a (Labour-organised) debate I attended last night had the word "Thatcherism" and its derivatives thrown around every other sentence. Needless to say, I wasn't too happy.

[ParanoiA]

This seems to happen the moment I make a point someone dislikes- rather than respond to the argument, they come out with something to the tune of, "Which party do you support? You seem like a dirty Democrat to me," presumably to be followed up with, "You're all that's wrong with the world," etc etc - without ever addressing the point. I think this kind of mentality is used very much to the advantage in US politics; forget logic, appeal to emotion - that candidate is a damned Republican who would see the rich richer and the poor poorer; she's a Commie Democrat who would see God taken off the dollar bill; etc.

 

For a non-resident of the US, you sure have a good handle on our politics. Absolutely spot on. The appeal to emotion is extremely effective here. Just try opposing something they've associated with "the children", or education, or any previously disparaged minority group, and you'll get responses just like you entertained above.

[iNow]

And yet it's generally the lack of quality education in US schools that allows simple "argumentation by label alone" to persist and continue to be effective. Fancy that.

 

People are primed for "us/them" mentalities by the rampant religiosity in our country...

 

 

Hmmm... Let's see how many more inflamatory statements I can make with single sentences.... time to stop travelling that path for now.

 

I have hope, though, that we are living through another enlightenment, carried forward by our global communication with other people via the internet. If that doesn't result in new parties, new ideologies, and more complex grouping methods... then I really don't know what will. Although, in the spirit of Carl Sagan, maybe it will greatly simplify our grouping methods by reminding us that we're all humans living on a rock suspended in a sunbeam amid a moat of dust.

[Mr Skeptic]

...I'm not a US citizen, indeed I've never been to the US, but your two-party system does seem awfully dominant in discussion.

...

This seems to happen the moment I make a point someone dislikes- rather than respond to the argument, they come out with something to the tune of, "Which party do you support?...

 

*Mr Skeptic adds "partisanship" to the list, next to "think of the children" and "fighting the terrorists"

 

On the bright side, that lets you know when you are talking to someone that you would waste a bunch of time talking to anyways, since they likely have little of interest to say and are unlikely to change their minds regardless of how good an argument you present.

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And yet it's generally the lack of quality education in US schools that allows simple "argumentation by label alone" to persist and continue to be effective. Fancy that.

 

People are primed for "us/them" mentalities by the rampant religiosity in our country...

 

Well, I know you have a thing against religion, but the us/them mentality has nothing to do with religion. If you dress a bunch of people in two different colors, they will start competing against each other with no other encouragement. Us vs Them is quite ingrained...

 

Hmmm... Let's see how many more inflamatory statements I can make with single sentences.... time to stop travelling that path for now.

 

Well, you didn't get very far. Just as well.

 

I have hope, though, that we are living through another enlightenment, carried forward by our global communication with other people via the internet. If that doesn't result in new parties, new ideologies, and more complex grouping methods... then I really don't know what will. Although, in the spirit of Carl Sagan, maybe it will greatly simplify our grouping methods by reminding us that we're all humans living on a rock suspended in a sunbeam amid a moat of dust.

 

Changing the voting system is the only way I can think of that would be an easy (relatively), simple, and stable solution.

[iNow]

Well, I know you have a thing against religion, but the us/them mentality has nothing to do with religion. If you dress a bunch of people in two different colors, they will start competing against each other with no other encouragement. Us vs Them is quite ingrained...

I think we're pretty closely aligned on this point, I'd just like to remind you that every religion is a "different colored shirt." You have your catholics, your protestents, your baptists, your methodists, your jehovah's witnesses, your born agains, and your "I really don't give a damns."

 

I'm just saying, you're correct about us/them stemming from simple things. My point is that the wide selection (and preponderance) of religions (and religious people) only exasserbates that phenomenon.

 

 

Changing the voting system is the only way I can think of that would be an easy (relatively), simple, and stable solution.

 

(IINM) I recall you used to have a quote in your signature that discussed this. Something about how to change our system of voting to something more stable. Since that's TOTALLY on topic, I wonder if you might expand on that some here (unless it was someone else's sig I'm remembering... In which case, never mind )

[Pangloss]

I think we're pretty closely aligned on this point, I'd just like to remind you that every religion is a "different colored shirt." You have your catholics, your protestents, your baptists, your methodists, your jehovah's witnesses, your born agains, and your "I really don't give a damns."

 

Amen!

 

[Mr Skeptic]

I think we're pretty closely aligned on this point, I'd just like to remind you that every religion is a "different colored shirt." You have your catholics, your protestents, your baptists, your methodists, your jehovah's witnesses, your born agains, and your "I really don't give a damns."

 

I'm just saying, you're correct about us/them stemming from simple things. My point is that the wide selection (and preponderance) of religions (and religious people) only exasserbates that phenomenon.

 

Yup, religion is one trigger for us vs them behavior. But so are sports teams. As I understand it, soccer has the highest casualty rate of all sports ... among the spectators

 

(IINM) I recall you used to have a quote in your signature that discussed this. Something about how to change our system of voting to something more stable. Since that's TOTALLY on topic, I wonder if you might expand on that some here (unless it was someone else's sig I'm remembering... In which case, never mind )

 

I still do, in fact.

 

The voting system we have now is good in theory, and especially back then when simplicity was vital. Just vote for one person, no more, no less, and whoever has the most votes wins.

 

But now we have two parties that are extremely powerful, and have won all the elections since their formation. So now people can guess which two candidates are going to come up on top among however many candidates there may be. And then they think to themselves, if I vote for a third party candidate, who won't win anyways, I might as well have thrown away my vote. I ought to vote for one of the top two candidates, since that will actually make a difference. And if they don't think that to themselves, soon enough a Republican or Democrat will outright tell them not to waste their vote on a third party candidate.

 

A fun side effect is called splitting the party. If you can get someone similar to your opponent to run, many of the people who would like either of them to win won't know which of them to vote for. In the worst case scenario, half vote for each similar candidate, causing each one of them to get half the votes they would have gotten if only one of them ran. This means anyone who runs on a platform similar to either Republicans or Democrats actually weakens the position they are most similar to, which seems a little broken.

 

Finally, party similarity. It turns out Republicans are quite similar to Democrats. Oh, they'll tell you otherwise, but if you compare their differences to parties that run with a different voting system you'll see what I mean. This is simply a side effect of politicians wanting to win votes. Consider where people stand on each of the "issues" and where each party stands. People stand along a continuum, from extremely, 100% in favor to extremely opposed, and anywhere in the middle. If one party were to take a side 90% toward one extreme, then the other party takes a position 80% toward that extreme, and you assume people favor the party with a position most similar to theirs, then you end up with all the people 0% to 85% in favor of the position favoring the more moderate position, and the people 85% to 100% in favor favoring the more extremist position. Odds are, this will not favor a party extremely in favor or extremely opposed to a position. While both parties will choose different positions on the issue, both will be close to what the average voter wants. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it also means that there is effectively one Republicrat party with two factions (Republican and Democrat) quibbling about the details.

 

Summary: Due to our voting system, no one votes for third party candidates ("strategic voting"), few people run as third party candidates since doing so weakens the position they favor ("splitting the vote"), and the two parties we have are extremely similar (the "Republicrat Party" ).

 

See wikipedia for more on our voting system, the plurality voting system. Be sure to take a look at the disadvantages sections.

 

But is there a better alternative? Actually, there are lots, and I'm not sure which is best. Consider for example range voting. It would make for a longer ballot but be more intuitive. You just write down how much you are in favor of each candidate, eg 50% in favor of McCain, 70% in favor of Obama, 60% in favor of Clinton, 90% in favor of Bob Barr, etc. You state your likes or dislikes for each of them, and most importantly, it does not hurt waste your vote when you vote for a third party. So this voting system does not favor the two party system, and would allow us to vote for a third party candidate without any penalty. And if you feel nostalgic for the old way of doing things? Just vote 100% for your favorite candidate and 0% for the others, and you effectively have what you had before.

 

Another side effect is that you vote for candidates instead of against them, so partisan hostility is going to loose approval and not make it up by harming their opponent, since that only works in a two party system.

 

Finally, the question is, can we make this happen? Range voting is used all the time for judging sports, online ratings of movies, games, etc, and determining which students pass or fail when using curved grades. But we have Republicans and Democrats in power, and there is really no reason for them to sabotage the sweet two party system they have going for themselves. Of course, the first step is to get people to see that we have a problem, since the Republicrats will need some persuasion from many voters to change anything. The second step? I'm open to ideas...

Edited March 1, 2009 by Mr Skeptic

[iNow]

Of course, the first step is to get people to see that we have a problem, since the Republicrats will need some persuasion from many voters to change anything. The second step? I'm open to ideas...[/QUOte]

Hence, my opening of this thread. Thanks for the nice post, Mr. S.

[npts2020]

Another system I kind of like is where instead of voting for a single candidate (you could anyway if you liked) you vote for all acceptable candidates with the highest total winning. That way you could vote for both John McCain and Bob Barr with no penalty for doing so. The problem with this system is correlating vote totals with voter turn out, IOW there would have to be high confidence the system couldn't be rigged.

[iNow]

I like the "ranking system" of voting idea. You actually put in order of first to last each candidate.

 

This person is my top choice.

This other person is my second choice.

This one is my third choice.

And this one is my fourth.

 

Then, they aggregate all of the ballets and each choice level gets a certain number of points, like "10 points for first, 5 points for second, 3 points for third, 2 points for fourth, and 1 point for anything lower..."

 

 

 

However, will such a system be adequate to wrestle away the existing dominance of two parties and introduce new ideas and approaches into our governing process? Although I like this alternate approach to voting and candidate selection, I really don't think it will change the larger two party controlling dynamic we have now.

[Mr Skeptic]

A while ago, I also thought the ranked voting the best. However, a better way then what you describe of giving each rank a certain value, is to determine the winner using a Condorcet method.

Summary

 

* Rank the candidates in order (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.) of preference. Tie rankings are allowed, which express no preference between the tied candidates.

* Comparing each candidate on the ballot to every other, one at a time (pairwise), tally a "win" for the victor in each match.

* Sum these wins for all ballots cast. The candidate who has won every one of their pairwise contests is the most preferred, and hence the winner of the election.

* In the event of a tie, use a resolution method described below.

 

A particular point of interest is that it is possible for a candidate to be the most preferred overall without being the first preference of any voter. In a sense, the Condorcet method yields the "best compromise" candidate, the one that the largest majority will find to be least disagreeable, even if not their favorite.

[iNow]

Perhaps another way to ask this same question is this...

 

 

Is our representative democracy still performing in such a way that it is accurately representative of its constituency?

[iNow]

Anyone interested in re-evaluating their position or contributing something fresh to the thread?