4 ms·

I think this phenomenon is the fundamental problem of any two-party system and is one of the issues in American politics. The "us vs them" feeling is a lot less

by yoran 9y ago

I think this phenomenon is the fundamental problem of any two-party system and is one of the issues in American politics. The "us vs them" feeling is a lot less strong when there are multiple parties. This feeling leads to more divisiveness in politics and eventually trickles down to the whole population.

labster 9y ago
Yeah, but the problem is caused by Them, not Us.
thomastjeffery 9y ago
It's a catch 22, since that divisiveness strengthens the divide, and that divide strengthens the two parties. The biggest thing we are missing in the fight against the two party system is confidence. We need people to be confident that they can elect someone from outside the two parties, and that those people can effect change in politics. The problem is that individuals see greater participation by others as a dependency for their own participation. Because people wait for that dependency, they refuse to act until there is a significant participation, and they themselves are no longer needed. To tell someone otherwise is (or seems to be) to tell them that their vote does not effect the result, which is untrue, and undesirable. I'm not really sure how to express this problem, or its solution.
- r00fus 9y ago
  No, the biggest thing we're missing in the fight against 2-party system is an actual representative voting scheme. A first-past-the-post [1] voting scheme will always result in 2 parties (assuming it doesn't collapse into a single-party autocracy) due to the spoiler [2] 3rd party vote problem. It's not psychology but basic probability math and game theory. Why is not fixed? Because this is the cheapest way for the moneyed elite to both a) wield power, and b) prevent that power from getting concentrated (which could result in a powerful dictator who doesn't listen to them). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoiler_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoiler_effect
  - thomastjeffery 9y ago
    I think it's both. What I was unclear about is that our best method for fighting the current system is to convince a significant portion of the electorate to vote for a third party candidate. Because we all know the system is against us, we are afraid to work together to circumvent it. We can't replace the system until we use our votes to do so.
    - r00fus 9y ago
      A third party is always a spoiler in the current electoral system. We can only fix the problem by using the current system or exploiting it to apply the agenda. We need main 2-party candidates like Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders (who understood that running as an Independent is mathematically impossible in any meaningful election so switched their party affiliations).
  - clairity 9y ago
    > “It's not psychology but basic probability math and game theory.” while it’s true that a system set up that way with the given behavioral preconditions likely devolves into those stable solutions, you have the causality backwards. the math is descriptive of a behavioral phenomena, rather than prescribing the outcomes. human behavior seems fixed but it’s highly adaptive. just when you think you’ve figured it out, the system changes on you.
  - ScottBurson 9y ago
    Although I agree with you that the plurality voting system (aka FPTP) is a big problem, I think your theory of why it isn't changed is silly and overlooks the very real difficulties. One of those difficulties is that there isn't a clear winner among the alternatives. Approval voting, the STV(/IRV), and the Borda Count all have adherents, who disparage the other two. Worse, none of them is perfect. For example, STV and BC are both susceptible to strategic voting. I recall reading about some municipality that decided to try STV. IIRC, in the very next election they had two competent but extreme candidates at opposite ends of the political spectrum, and a centrist generally regarded as less competent (and who got a much smaller number of first-place votes than either of the others). The electorate was so evenly divided that the centrist won; the voters were so upset with this outcome that they ditched the STV and went back to PV (plurality). Evidently they would have been happier with one of the two extremists, even though that would have been the "wrong" choice for almost half of them. We could object that none of the three candidates was obviously a great choice, and that if voters really preferred their opposite-extreme candidate over the centrist, they should have voted that way. But it's easy to see why they didn't. We could also object that AV would have given a better result in this case, picking whichever extreme candidate got the most votes and ignoring a widely-disliked centrist. But STV tends to be an easier sell, perhaps because it maintains the notion of "one person, one vote". And finally, we could object that they were too quick to pull the plug and should have given STV another chance, having learned a lesson about the importance of finding competent centrist candidates. But their conclusion was, they tried an alternative system and it didn't work. I tend to favor AV personally, as it's relatively resistant to pathological outcomes, but have to admit that it has another problem: it's the least tamper-resistant. With PV and STV, the total number of votes counted shouldn't be greater than the number of voters. AV has a much looser and less useful bound: the total number of votes shouldn't be greater than the product of the number of voters and the number of candidates. That leaves a lot more room for manipulation. In a world where our voting systems are already not as trustworthy as they should be, this is a problem.
alexandercrohde 9y ago
I think Us-Them is much larger than two-party. When you look at countries with multiple parties it doesn't seem their political systems are wildly more efficient. I think US vs THEM is incomparably bigger than the question of politics. Would 9/11, Vietnam, Iraq, hollocaust, or most wars for that matter have been possible without Us vs them? What about most corruption? What about class systems?
bluthru 9y ago
>I think this phenomenon is the fundamental problem of any two-party system and is one of the issues in American politics It's a factor, but it wasn't as bad in the past. A larger factor is multiculturalism.

by yoran 9y ago

labster 9y ago

Yeah, but the problem is caused by Them, not Us.

thomastjeffery 9y ago

It's a catch 22, since that divisiveness strengthens the divide, and that divide strengthens the two parties. The biggest thing we are missing in the fight against the two party system is confidence. We need people to be confident that they can elect someone from outside the two parties, and that those people can effect change in politics. The problem is that individuals see greater participation by others as a dependency for their own participation. Because people wait for that dependency, they refuse to act until there is a significant participation, and they themselves are no longer needed. To tell someone otherwise is (or seems to be) to tell them that their vote does not effect the result, which is untrue, and undesirable. I'm not really sure how to express this problem, or its solution.

r00fus 9y ago
No, the biggest thing we're missing in the fight against 2-party system is an actual representative voting scheme. A first-past-the-post [1] voting scheme will always result in 2 parties (assuming it doesn't collapse into a single-party autocracy) due to the spoiler [2] 3rd party vote problem. It's not psychology but basic probability math and game theory. Why is not fixed? Because this is the cheapest way for the moneyed elite to both a) wield power, and b) prevent that power from getting concentrated (which could result in a powerful dictator who doesn't listen to them). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoiler_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoiler_effect
- thomastjeffery 9y ago
  I think it's both. What I was unclear about is that our best method for fighting the current system is to convince a significant portion of the electorate to vote for a third party candidate. Because we all know the system is against us, we are afraid to work together to circumvent it. We can't replace the system until we use our votes to do so.
  - r00fus 9y ago
    A third party is always a spoiler in the current electoral system. We can only fix the problem by using the current system or exploiting it to apply the agenda. We need main 2-party candidates like Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders (who understood that running as an Independent is mathematically impossible in any meaningful election so switched their party affiliations).
- clairity 9y ago
  > “It's not psychology but basic probability math and game theory.” while it’s true that a system set up that way with the given behavioral preconditions likely devolves into those stable solutions, you have the causality backwards. the math is descriptive of a behavioral phenomena, rather than prescribing the outcomes. human behavior seems fixed but it’s highly adaptive. just when you think you’ve figured it out, the system changes on you.
- ScottBurson 9y ago
  Although I agree with you that the plurality voting system (aka FPTP) is a big problem, I think your theory of why it isn't changed is silly and overlooks the very real difficulties. One of those difficulties is that there isn't a clear winner among the alternatives. Approval voting, the STV(/IRV), and the Borda Count all have adherents, who disparage the other two. Worse, none of them is perfect. For example, STV and BC are both susceptible to strategic voting. I recall reading about some municipality that decided to try STV. IIRC, in the very next election they had two competent but extreme candidates at opposite ends of the political spectrum, and a centrist generally regarded as less competent (and who got a much smaller number of first-place votes than either of the others). The electorate was so evenly divided that the centrist won; the voters were so upset with this outcome that they ditched the STV and went back to PV (plurality). Evidently they would have been happier with one of the two extremists, even though that would have been the "wrong" choice for almost half of them. We could object that none of the three candidates was obviously a great choice, and that if voters really preferred their opposite-extreme candidate over the centrist, they should have voted that way. But it's easy to see why they didn't. We could also object that AV would have given a better result in this case, picking whichever extreme candidate got the most votes and ignoring a widely-disliked centrist. But STV tends to be an easier sell, perhaps because it maintains the notion of "one person, one vote". And finally, we could object that they were too quick to pull the plug and should have given STV another chance, having learned a lesson about the importance of finding competent centrist candidates. But their conclusion was, they tried an alternative system and it didn't work. I tend to favor AV personally, as it's relatively resistant to pathological outcomes, but have to admit that it has another problem: it's the least tamper-resistant. With PV and STV, the total number of votes counted shouldn't be greater than the number of voters. AV has a much looser and less useful bound: the total number of votes shouldn't be greater than the product of the number of voters and the number of candidates. That leaves a lot more room for manipulation. In a world where our voting systems are already not as trustworthy as they should be, this is a problem.

alexandercrohde 9y ago

I think Us-Them is much larger than two-party. When you look at countries with multiple parties it doesn't seem their political systems are wildly more efficient. I think US vs THEM is incomparably bigger than the question of politics. Would 9/11, Vietnam, Iraq, hollocaust, or most wars for that matter have been possible without Us vs them? What about most corruption? What about class systems?

bluthru 9y ago

>I think this phenomenon is the fundamental problem of any two-party system and is one of the issues in American politics It's a factor, but it wasn't as bad in the past. A larger factor is multiculturalism.