> This is why "democracy all the things" is kind of a shitty system. Primaries push the adults out of the room and give extremists too much say, which then requ

> This is why "democracy all the things" is kind of a shitty system. Primaries push the adults out of the room and give extremists too much say, which then requires toxic behavior to salvage an overall victory. I'd say this has a deeper root cause - first past the post voting. Since merging your votes is a winning strategy, it just naturally tends towards a two party system. And once you have only two serious contenders on the ballot, you have to choose them somehow... And having that decided by a central committee, of which you have two, sounds like an even more slippery slope than primaries. The most annoying bit is the two parties. You either religiously belong to a blue tribe or a red tribe, or you're resigned to picking which of your values to sacrifice to have representation aligned with the others. STV seems to make things much better. Look at the current composition of Dáil Éireann - three large parties capturing a bit above 20% seats each, then almost as many independents, then a bunch of smaller parties. And every voter can truthfully say that their vote contributed to the elected candidate they liked most, not against a candidate they hated.