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I hate what the Democratic party did to Bernie Sanders in both 2016 and 2020; It was profoundly caustic. However, a political party's primaries are its own busi

I hate what the Democratic party did to Bernie Sanders in both 2016 and 2020; It was profoundly caustic. However, a political party's primaries are its own business and they are free to run them as un-democratically as possible. Even without the "cheating", the Democratic party already has a goofy system of superdelegates, caucuses, and other things that skew things away from the will of the voter. I think a lot of this is perhaps a function of the fact that the US electoral system is really only built to support 2 parties. The Democratic party knows it has a captive audience of voters sympathetic on social and economic issues that it is under limited obligation to deliver on because of its opposition.

esarbe 5y ago
> I think a lot of this is perhaps a function of the fact that the US electoral system is really only built to support 2 parties. As far as I know, the electoral system wasn't built to support two parties. George Washington famously was against having any party system at all. The two party system is - to my understanding - the undesirable consequence of the first-past-the-post voting system. Nowadays of course the political parties are well entrenched and pretend that everything is working the way "The Founders" intended it. In that they are supported by pretty everyone in the political establishment.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > As far as I know, the electoral system wasn't built to support two parties It was built in a way which structurally encourages duopoly, and largely modeled on a preexisting system in which such duopoly was observed. Yes, Washington in particular railed against partisanship, but the framers as a whole knew what they were building; they weren't idiots. > Nowadays of course the political parties are well entrenched and pretend that everything is working the way "The Founders" intended it. Washington aside, the Founders (well, the Framers more accuratt, but there is significant overlap though the latter acted a decade and half later) not only built the system which structurally drives toward and preserves duopoly, they almost immediately created the first two parties while the ink was still wet on the Constitution.

esarbe 5y ago

> I think a lot of this is perhaps a function of the fact that the US electoral system is really only built to support 2 parties. As far as I know, the electoral system wasn't built to support two parties. George Washington famously was against having any party system at all. The two party system is - to my understanding - the undesirable consequence of the first-past-the-post voting system. Nowadays of course the political parties are well entrenched and pretend that everything is working the way "The Founders" intended it. In that they are supported by pretty everyone in the political establishment.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> As far as I know, the electoral system wasn't built to support two parties It was built in a way which structurally encourages duopoly, and largely modeled on a preexisting system in which such duopoly was observed. Yes, Washington in particular railed against partisanship, but the framers as a whole knew what they were building; they weren't idiots. > Nowadays of course the political parties are well entrenched and pretend that everything is working the way "The Founders" intended it. Washington aside, the Founders (well, the Framers more accuratt, but there is significant overlap though the latter acted a decade and half later) not only built the system which structurally drives toward and preserves duopoly, they almost immediately created the first two parties while the ink was still wet on the Constitution.