No. Most third parties in the US are single-issue parties and it is generally a bad idea to elect single-issue parties to govern an entire nation.
2018 U.S election
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No. Most third parties in the US are single-issue parties and it is generally a bad idea to elect single-issue parties to govern an entire nation.
Timsup2nothin
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I think someone said "viable and successful." That suggests that they weren't looking for the current lame, single issue, nonsense "parties" to get elected.
onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
It's the nature winner takes all elections. Two parties at most are viable. At the local and state level, sometimes not even two.
J
But why do we really need more than two parties? I remember a while back someone in a different thread talking about how there's really no need for more than two parties in the US because the two we have already have become giant umbrella parties that offer something for everyone.
I remember disagreeing with that at the time, but after thinking about it, I starting to come around to that way of thinking. Even single-issue voters can find more value in voting for either Democrats or Republicans than for any other party since there is likely a faction within one of those two parties that will champion your cause and they actually have a chance of getting elected since they are part of one of the two major parties.
So I guess in that way, you could say the US does have more than two parties in kind of a weird roundabout way. While there are officially only two viable parties, the factions within those two parties kinda create the same effect as having more than two parties.
Timsup2nothin
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I routinely defend the two party system, so that may have been me.
I was just pointing out that "our third party options suck" is not really a rejection of the idea that a viable and successful third party would be a good thing, it's just an acknowledgement that we don't currently have anything like that.
Zkribbler
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The US forms its coalitions before the elections. European parliamentary governments form their coalitions after the elections.
Timsup2nothin
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The US forms its coalitions before the elections. European parliamentary governments form their coalitions after the elections.
I might have said something that @Commodore remembers the way he described. What you just said I know, for a fact, I have said verbatim. More than once.
mitsho
Deity
Because there‘s a difference between left policies focused on the Social System and one on the Environment. Because in such a huge country as the US, there will be differences what Green means between Florida and Oregon, LA and Boston.
Because there‘s a difference between an parties on the righ focused on patriotism, on a de-regulated economy and one one „family values“. There will also be mixed ones taking ideas from here and there.
If you had the choice between 4-5 people in the last vote in 2016, neither Trump nor Hillary would‘ve been elected. Having more than two choices gives freedom. It makes people vote for who they truly like, not against someone else. And it makes it so that every vote matters in the sense that it will be visible, and not vanish under a huge umbrella. Transparent candidate selection is another thing, though not necesarilly linked to two-party.
And lastly, you can have shifting coalitions in the parliament, the far right and the far left for example killing a proposed law together because neither is happy (too far <-> not far enough). It‘s a small thing, but it can lessen polarization.
Because there‘s a difference between an parties on the righ focused on patriotism, on a de-regulated economy and one one „family values“. There will also be mixed ones taking ideas from here and there.
If you had the choice between 4-5 people in the last vote in 2016, neither Trump nor Hillary would‘ve been elected. Having more than two choices gives freedom. It makes people vote for who they truly like, not against someone else. And it makes it so that every vote matters in the sense that it will be visible, and not vanish under a huge umbrella. Transparent candidate selection is another thing, though not necesarilly linked to two-party.
And lastly, you can have shifting coalitions in the parliament, the far right and the far left for example killing a proposed law together because neither is happy (too far <-> not far enough). It‘s a small thing, but it can lessen polarization.
The US forms its coalitions before the elections. European parliamentary governments form their coalitions after the elections.
Except in France where we have coalitions forming before, during and after the elections. They also break up sometimes, like the greens leaving government in the middle of Hollande's presidency. Not saying it's better , but you can have presidential elections and direct election of representatives without having a 2 party system.
Zkribbler
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Timsup2nothin
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The counter to this is that if I want to support conservative economics and vote for the appropriate party I think it is fair to know before the election that their path to control is going to involve a coalition with the white supremacist party. By having the coalition identified beforehand the two party system puts each voter to the test as to whether their preference is strong enough to accept the dirtiness of the deal required to get their point made.
Patine
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And the reason most Third Parties are single-issue is because the whole American electoral coverage, voting system, donor system, promotional system, voter education (including learning about U.S. politics in American schools), and every other aspect of the American election engine so GREATLY and BLATANTLY favours and is biased toward - in fact, I'll even go so far as to use the word "rigged" here, a word usually reserved for corrupt Third World elections - the entrenched party Duopoly - and even the courts, who would rule on corruption and rigging in the U.S. electoral system and cases brought therefore, are all partisan judges, blatantly so, for the two big parties - that, in this corrupt, rigged, unfair system, where all parties outside the Duopoly are INSTITUTIONALLY marginalized, by underhanded and corrupt means, they use being one-issue vehicles of points they feel are most blatant as the big parties to scream for attention against this wall and block of electoral rigging and oppression, which is like in Russia, but if there were two United Russias, but every other party still got screwed by the electoral engine that way, more or less.
Patine
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Because the two parties in the U.S. have become complacent, and hidebound, and their once "big tent" mentality is tightening, in both cases, to moving toward being as specific in scope as European parties, and thus REAL electoral choice is strangled away and the political is forcibly narrowed, with those presenting viewpoints outside the current "American left" and "American right," by stricter growing definition (including, more and more, sensible, level-headed, practical centrists willing to compromise and take moderate to actually get legislation for their CONSTITUENTS, and not LOBBY GROUP DONOR MASTERS and POLITICAL PURITY, passed) are being more and more persecuted and ostracized over time. I don't see this situation ending well, to be honest...
Patine
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Thank all for reciting from your brainwashed political sheep handbook a very good reason WHY the two-party was failed UTTERLY, COMPLETELY, and ABSOLUTELY in the U.S., and has become so entrenched in the electoral procedures, the institutions of power, and the mindset of most of the voters, that the two main parties just smugly, complacently, and arrogantly sit and watch as the voters, who themselves may have griped just recently about those parties, crawl to the ballot box to put the two corrupt Mafia families back into power across various offices, because there's no perceived realistic choice in the matter, and so many have been brainwashed to believe only two choices are realistically possible at all, as though it were a law of physics or the will of God (depending on which you take on that one).
sophie
Break My Heart
They don't really offer me anything, though. The 2-party system serves, in essence, to turn me into a single-issue voter. ]
Neither party is going to:
1) Implement a comprehensive and well-funded welfare system
2) Reduce military spending
3) Push aggressively for an easier and more open immigration process
4) Declare amnesty for existing undocumented immigrants
5) Make minimum wage consistent with a living wage
6) Champion worker's rights and push for increased union representation
So basically I end up voting for the Democrats because the Democrats are pro-choice (kinda, sorta, most of the time), and because Democrats don't think LGBT people are degenerates who belong in mental wards.
The same is true of this most recent election. I imagine the vast majority of the Republican party doesn't not openly wish for the eradication of minorities, they may indeed not even wish for the expulsion of undocumented immigrants, they probably don't care for a self-serving narcissistic serial adulterer who lies constantly and embarrasses the country on a weekly basis, but they voted for him anyway because they know he'll nominate a judge that's going to advance "religious freedom". The whole point of a "big tent party" is accepting the 95% of things on their platform that you don't agree with because they're the only of the two options that are going to advance that 5% that you do agree with.
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Patine
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Patine
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Also, other things the two major U.S. parties will never do either, but I believe are in dire NEED of being done:
7)End international military interventionism
8)End elected officials kowtowing to corporate and special interest donors by ignoring their own constituents' wishes
9)Have all Federal judges be required to hold a neutral, non-partisan, non-ideological record of rulings
10)End corporate welfare, including "trickledown" and other proven failed economic stimulus programs
11)Reform education to something competitive internationally
12)Stop sending endless amounts of military, political, and economic support to "black hole" international allies like Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, and Israel
13)Allow all U.S. war criminals and criminals against humanity to be tried by a neutral and binding tribunal, and encourage ALL such criminals, regardless of their country of origin and the political of that country (probably every country with a significant military and a significant history of military of activity in living memory) to face just trial as well
14)Build trade policy around the good of the consumers, not corporate greed or government pissing matches
15)Reform the electoral system so it's not rigged and corrupted so Democrats and Republicans always win, outside a few regional flukes and protest votes, no matter what.
Moderator Action: Patine, please use the multi-quote feature rather than making multiple posts. Thank you
mitsho
Deity
Good point, it is always tricky having to rely on what the politicians tell you beforehand. The thing is though that most of the times you will vote for people with a similar moral compass than yourself so they really shouldn't go into coalition with the white supremacists. And most probably, they will not do it twice as voters will punish them the next time or when they have to break the coalition early.
The better counter to that though are checks and balances on the outside. Like a second or third chamber of parliament consisting of the governors of the state, the threat of a people's referendum / veto on certain proposals or other mechanisms that force a certain kind of concordance.
But yeah, there's no perfect system. the US one though has such obvious flaws (other than the two.party system) one has to look hard for why it doesn't get changed (in short: too many people profit from the way it is now and the institutional rules are not adaptive to temporal change; the pressure at the bottom is not hard enough).
Kozmos
Jew Detective
When you have multiple parties the power is less concentrated and coalitions have to be formed based on compromises. I recall some political research that governments based on such multi-party coalitions have higher development statistics compared to those that don't.
In the US system however you have Republicans who always toe the party line because that's the nature of 'conservative' brains and Democrats who don't because of their 'liberal' brains. That makes voting for either extremely frustrating for centrist voters.
