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So, I am going to put political parties aside and focus on the purely American absurdities. * We live in a two party system. China has one party only and other
by austincheney 6y ago
So, I am going to put political parties aside and focus on the purely American absurdities.
* We live in a two party system. China has one party only and others are not allowed. Most countries have multiple polical parties. In the US it comes down to money. It take a huge amount of money to become a political party with access to various jurisdictions and media influence which is more challenging than it sounds because funding is required via donations only and donations are limited by campaign finance laws. A two party system is limiting to us versus them arguments, which are often invalid and absurd.
* People don’t pick presidential candidates. Political parties do. This occurs via primary elections that differ from the general election that really matters. Primaries are scattered so that political parties can experimentally field test their candidates among their primary constituents. These constituents are often not the general voting body comprised of moderate people. This is often how candidates emerge that are generally unpopular and/or incompetent, because it’s a reflection of party tooling opposed to actual voter concerns.
* Even with the support and nomination of a political party candidates need more money to compete. Generally the candidate that raises the most money performs better. Therefore the ingredients to become president are party nomination and fund raising.
- jelliclesfarm 6y agoI can’t get over the amount of money spent on elections. If we give everyone an unique national ID and enable online/digital voting on issues, I feel we can cut a lot of bloat and move things faster.
- austincheney 6y agoYou don’t even need that. Make the primaries the only election. People choosing their favorite candidate without any filter and put all the primaries on the same day.
- quickthrower2 6y agoThat’s be pretty advantageous for the sitting president. Unless there is a preference system.
- jelliclesfarm 6y agoI guess my other question was: why do we even need a president? Or a head of state? Why not a board? Corporations are run better than countries. We could have a Wall Street like ticker for issues that needs votes. A public channel for everyone to get an opp to pitch their POV.
- munchbunny 6y agoIf we give everyone an unique national ID and enable online/digital voting on issues, I feel we can cut a lot of bloat and move things faster. Even though I dislike the US's two-party system, your suggestion just shifts the spending to other places. Cambridge Analytica didn't need political parties in the system in order to be effective.
- TheAsprngHacker 6y agoThe two-party system is not a consequence of the lack of access to money. It is a consequence of the first-past-the-post system, which will always trend towards two parties (as a matter of game theory). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law. The problem of primaries selecting for extremists could be partially alleviated with ranked-choice voting, so an extreme candidate with a significant minority of supporters can't win against a divided field of moderates. This is how Trump won the 2016 Republican nomination and how Sanders almost won the 2020 Democratic nomination before the establishment candidates dropped out and endorsed Biden. Or, we could try open primaries so independents can give input on the desired candidate.
- Someone 6y agoIndia has first past the post. Over 25 different parties got a seat in 2019 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Indian_general_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Indian_general_election) I think having political alliances (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_alliance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_alliance) helps in that. Now, whether that’s a good idea is debatable. https://web.archive.org/web/20081220163843/http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12749771 https://web.archive.org/web/20081220163843/http://www.econom...: “Of the 522 members of India’s current parliament, 120 are facing criminal charges; around 40 of these are accused of serious crimes, including murder and rape. Most Indian politicians are presumed to be corrupt, which is less surprising. In India’s poor and fractious society patronage politics is inevitable“
- danbolt 6y agoOne thing that has surprised me about the US is the lack of political parties with regional interests given how large and diverse the place is. Or, having grown up in Canada, it wasn't uncommon[1][2][3] to see a political party have its mandate and goals being focused around the interests of people to a particular region. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Party_of_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Party_of_Canada [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloc_Québécois https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloc_Québécois [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Farmers_of_Alberta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Farmers_of_Alberta