8 ms·

This kind of change could only happen in Europe, due to the multi-party system. In America, as has so often been proven, the system is rigged to prevent alterna

• grosun 10y ago
  Definitely agreed re. the inflexibility of the US system, but "Europe" contains a multiplicity of different parliamentary systems. The UK for instance is sadly almost as stuck in a bipartisan world as the US, which makes change a slow and painful process (or quick and painful wrt this year's referendum!)
  • Finbarr 10y ago
    That's true for the Westminster elections but Scotland has a proportional representation system for its devolved parliament.
  • xenobioticants 10y ago
    Yes, but most of the mainland countries have multi-party systems. Hell, the parliament of the Netherlands at one point consisted of 16(!) parties.
    • tremon 10y ago
      To put that in context: that is one party per million residents.
      • rvense 10y ago
        When you put it like that, it doesn't really sound like that many parties...
        • kriro 10y ago
          To me it actually sounds like more. That would mean about 324 parties in the USA.
          • bobwaycott 10y ago
            I like the sound of that.
      • gpvos 10y ago
        When that happened, there were fewer residents, so it was more like one party per half million.
        • tremon 10y ago
          Ah, I thought the GP was referring to when the LPF split into individual fractions.
          • gpvos 10y ago
            If I count correctly, the 2003-2006 Tweede Kamer had 9 party fractions in it at the start and had 5 split-off groups, so there were 14 fractions in the end. Maybe there were more somewhere in the meantime? But of course I don't know what xenobioticants was thinking about.
    • gpvos 10y ago
      17; that was in 1918. They quickly increased the electoral threshold to 75% of a seat then. Then, in 1933 when there were 14 parties in parliament again, they increased it to 100%. After that, it has always hovered around 10 parties, and it's still one of the lowest electoral thresholds in the world; most countries have it at 5%-10% of the total vote.
• deleted 10y ago
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• kahrkunne 10y ago
  Dutch here. We need at least 5 parties to make a government in the next election. Nothing ever changes here because everything has to go through many iterations of compromises if it even wants to leave the negotiation table. I wish we had a system like the USA.
  • izacus 10y ago
    A system where you'd only have two prepackaged choices for ALL the possible complicated state issues? O.o Those proportional system compromises aren't half as bad.
  • jacquesm 10y ago
    > Nothing ever changes here because everything has to go through many iterations of compromises if it even wants to leave the negotiation table. That's a feature, not a bug. > I wish we had a system like the USA. You are missing the wood for the trees. The last thing you want in a country is an effective government that can push through it's majority agenda at the expense of the minority. That's why EU countries are as a rule quite far ahead on the curve of progress, see: abortion, euthanasia, LGBT rights and so on. It's also a way to keep religion out of government as much as possible, you won't see the separation between state and church in a country where the dominant political parties all have to nominally support the dominant religion. So please, no system 'like the USA' in Dutch politics, though, you may get your wish soon enough. Personally I'd much rather have us adopt the very opposite, the Swiss system which requires a much more active electorate and a much more educated one too.
    • macspoofing 10y ago
      >That's why EU countries are as a rule quite far ahead on the curve of progress, see: abortion, euthanasia, LGBT rights and so on. Except those are controversial with Americans. I'm not seeing how the system is to blame. Making the electoral process 'more democratic' isn't going to change that. It might make things worse ...
      • tremon 10y ago
• jamnik 10y ago
  Simply not true. In two party system radical ideas are taking over the parties and changing their agenda. It's not like OWS has no influence in the Democrat Party. Or Tea Party in thevRepublucan Party. Both are mainstreamed by the parties, but that's a good thing. By civilizing radical elements you can actually still enjoy democracy vs having it destroyed by radicals like nazis or communists. Never thought why US never voted communists or nazis into power? Two party system. That's why it is superior. It civilized and mainstreams radical elements.
  • severine 10y ago
    Sorry, off-topic, but thanks to your unexplained acronym I've just realized the coincidence of initials between Occupy Wall Street and Open Whisper Systems.
  • vlehto 10y ago
    I don't think it's that clear cut. Germany had multiparty system before turning fascist. But in early 30's elections in Germany, the communist and the fascist had combined popularity of over 50% on two elections. These parties could have been under same flag in two party system. It's completely possible that similar autocratic popular vote in USA would have resulted similar shit-show. Alternatively fascist could have sided with SDP if the communist are too bad. And this time we have over 50% popularity in all of the elections in early 30's.
• mseebach 10y ago
  > In America, as has so often been proven, the system is rigged to prevent alternatives to the established parties. But the difference is that the parties in the US and the UK aren't very powerful in their own regard. Trump wasn't even a member of the republican party until very recently, and he won the nomination -- and Sanders forced Clinton very far to the left before dropping out. On the other hand, the leaders of european parties are mostly selected through opaque backroom deals and yet are very powerful (through "party discipline", another throughly undemocratic concept, all but unheard of in UK/US parties). Policy is made by these leaders (or their appointed nominees) meeting each other and negotiating a compromise, and then (except in very rare cases) every MP of the parties in this negotiation defends in the media it as a solid and credible response to the issues faced by the country (despite, often to great hilarity, the compromise being orthogonal to several very firm positions and red lines drawn by that very same politician just days before) and then votes for it. The mechanism for this power is that few individual MP carry their own seat, they're assigned proportionally, according to the national share of votes won by the party. Party leadership wields significant influence over who runs where (especially who runs in "safe" seats), and thus who gets in. MPs who cause too much trouble will find themselves campaigning in a difficult district, or next to a more popular/well-known candidate.
  • cabalamat 10y ago
    > But the difference is that the parties in the US and the UK aren't very powerful in their own regard. Trump wasn't even a member of the republican party until very recently, and he won the nomination -- and Sanders forced Clinton very far to the left before dropping out. True in the US, not true in the UK -- May and Corbyn had been MPs and members of their parties for years before becoming leader. > "party discipline", another throughly undemocratic concept, all but unheard of in UK/US parties Again, not true in the UK
    • philjohn 10y ago
      Indeed, the whip.
  • walshemj 10y ago
• maeln 10y ago
  Depends where in Europe. In France, it's the same two party since a long time. One of them just change name from time to time (UDF, then RPR, then UMP, then Les Republicains).
• mac01021 10y ago
  All the time these days I here people describe economies and political systems as "rigged". Do you actually mean the US political system was deliberately lain out by a mastermind with the goal of preventing the emergence of alternative parties? Or just that the system has evolved (without design) to be hostile to minority parties? If the latter, the word "rigged" seems misleading and inflammatory to me. If the former, where should I look to learn more about this conspiracy?
  • thechao 10y ago
    I've participated in Independent, Republican, and Democratic campaigns. The US system at the local level (at least Houston, Austin, and central east Texas) is actually pretty solid. Once you realize there's a fairly good sized contingent of busy-bodies who just want naked power, regardless of political position, it's pretty easy to see how things work. OTOH, the state- and federal- levels felt fairly divorced from their contingent. Except for the platform "branding" they're virtually identical. This is the reason I think it's so important to keep as many of the functions of the state at the local level, with rational oversight from the top in terms of protecting positive rights, i.e., restrictions of the powers of government.
  • aedron 10y ago
    The impression I got from studying the subject is that it is actually rigged, as in deliberately designed like that. Unfortunately I usually don't remember the details, only my takeaway, but I read very good objective treatise on the subject, I think it was in A People's History of the United States. I highly recommend it for a balanced and critical look at American history.
• adrianratnapala 10y ago
  There are advantages and disadvantages to all systems. In European PR systems where many parties routinely end up in parliament, the real governing is done by elites stiching up a deal between themselves and all the proportinal voting just slightly alters the barganing chips brought to the table. The biggest case of this is Germany, which will be ruled by the grand-coalition for the forseeable future, more or less regardless of what happens at elections. This has worked OK in countries where people mostly trust their elites. But it is still not particularly democratic.
  • Synaesthesia 10y ago
    To be honest, it's quite similar in the US too. That's why there isn't much difference between the Obama administration and the previous Bush administration - there was a real continuity in most respects. And even if Trump got elected, not much would change either.
    • RandomName2020 10y ago
      Dunno, if "drain the swamp" passes, that'de be a very significant change.
    • RandomName2020 10y ago
      Dunno, if "drain the swamp" passes, that'de be a very significant change.
    • adrianratnapala 10y ago
      But I am talking about a different thing. In any place where the big parties are old and "respectable", there will be a lot of similarities between them. But even if they are identical, they still compete with each other for power. In a PR system, they compete less intensely. Indeed in Germany, with Merkel so firmly on top, the SPD leadership seems to be evolving to maximise its power as #2 rather than trying to win outright.
• mratzloff 10y ago
  This could easily happen in the US if a preferential ballot were adopted. (Rank candidates in order of preference.) The Republican Party would immediately split into at least three parties and the Democratic Party would probably follow by splitting in two not long afterward.