6 ms·

American's lax attitude towards cultivating more than two parties is literally killing the republic from the inside.

airstrike 4y ago
You'd think a country that played a central role in a global, decades-long unstable regime of bipolar power that routinely pushed mankind to the brink of nuclear oblivion would know better than to have a bipolar electoral system
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  > routinely pushed mankind to the brink of nuclear oblivion I'm struggling to think of a reason why this is anything but bad faith nonsense.
  - weaksauce 4y ago
    have you never heard of the many times we almost came to setting off full scale nuclear warfare because of the bipolar power war of the ussr v usa et.al.? the only thing that saved us was cooler heads that prevailed on both sides.
    - emodendroket 4y ago
      Why would throwing more actors with similar capabilities into the mix make the situation any more stable though? That seems like basically the old European Balance of Power, which broke out into open conflict more frequently.
      - airstrike 4y ago
        I take the view that the European balance of power probably broke out into open conflict often because of hidden alliances that made it hard for states to correctly gauge the costs of engaging in such conflict. In the field International Relations, there's lots of discussion around the stability (or instability) of a bipolar distribution of power. Your stance is closer to neorealists, mine is maybe closer to classical realists. Have fun reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarity_(international_relations) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarity_(international_relati... and related links But from a game theory perspective, having only two powers turns everything into a zero-sum game. I argue that leads to less cooperation and increased divisiveness. Not agreeing with Republicans means you must be a Democrat in their eyes. This "us versus them" mentality is somewhat tribal and leaves little room for nuance. If I had a magic want, the US would have a 4 party system. Like a cartesian plane with civil liberalism <-> conservatism on one axis and economic liberalism <-> conservatism on the other axis
        emodendroket 4y ago
        > Classical realist theorists, such as Hans Morgenthau and E. H. Carr, hold that multipolar systems are more stable than bipolar systems, as great powers can gain power through alliances and petty wars that do not directly challenge other powers; in bipolar systems, classical realists argue, this is not possible. I suppose they must account for this somehow but isn't that exactly what a series of proxy wars in far-flung places between the United States and the Soviet Union were?
        airstrike 4y ago
        It's been almost 20 years since I studied any of that, but those proxy wars in far-flung places did directly challenge other powers because of the Domino theory I don't necessarily agree with Morgenthau and Carr as I think most IR Theory is bullshit made up by academia... particularly the stuff around how players "gain power" So I make my own argument which mostly hinges on the idea that two powers really means "my power" vs. "everyone else" which is not a recipe for peace
        robertlagrant 4y ago
        Isn't World War 1 a counterexample? Lots of parties, but they aggregated into two competing coalitions.
      - myko 4y ago
        This balance is the central theme of the seminal work in the field (https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5vm52s https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5vm52s). It may or may not be correct but is one of the most influential texts on the subject.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      I've not heard how many times, no. How many times was it?
      - mandmandam 4y ago
        [dead]
      - airstrike 4y ago
        Luckily there's a whole article on it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls
        robertlagrant 4y ago
        That's all nuclear incidents ever, not just US/USSR. US/USSR count from that page is more like 10 incidents across 40 years. Some of them occuring within days of others, they're that fine-grained. I wouldn't call that a "routine" matter.
hraedon 4y ago
It isn't an attitudinal problem, it is the logical outcome of our political systems. In political science it is known as Duverger's law: single ballot, winner take all systems inevitably tend toward a two party equilibrium. Changing this requires states to adopt alternative systems, which can sometimes mean amending state constitutions. It isn't easy or straightforward, and the general sense is that there are better things to spend that effort on.
- noizejoy 4y ago
  > single ballot, winner take all systems inevitably tend toward a two party equilibrium. I'm not convinced it's quite that simple. For example, Canada also has a first-past-the-post electoral system - yet political parties here have come and gone. And continue to do so.
  - tialaramex 4y ago
    Parties come and go, but there will be two major parties. In fact under such as system if you're in one of those two big parties and you see a third party rising you need to figure out whether it's you or the other guys getting replaced, 'cos it won't stay a three party system for long. For example in the UK, the Tories ("Conservative and Unionist Party") and Labour are currently the biggest parties, but a hundred years ago this was a novel situation, Labour were seen as a third party, while the Liberal party (which was eventually absorbed into what is today "Liberal Democrats") had seen success over decades and were often in government prior to that point.
  - emodendroket 4y ago
    I mean we're on the sixth "party system" in the US too, if that's your standard (it's a new "party system" when there's a significant realignment of which interests find themselves in which parties, either by a reshuffle among existing parties, or by new parties rising and old ones falling). Have you heard much about the Federalists or Whigs lately?
    - AmericanChopper 4y ago
emodendroket 4y ago
In some other countries the different interest groups sort themselves into two factions after being elected but I don't know that it is really that different in practice.
- TillE 4y ago
  It's not different, or rather it doesn't produce meaningfully different outcomes. I'm not aware of any parliamentary system with a wonderful diversity of thought and a long record of positive accomplishments. You end up with ruling coalitions which are typically pretty awful. Ironically, America has one of the most open political systems. You register as one party or the other and vote in primaries. This has lead to a huge variety of people replacing hated mainstream politicians. That's way more than you can say for many other countries.
  - soderfoo 4y ago
    The two parties are essentially coalitions. Anecdotally, a recurring theme in conversations I've had while living abroad is the desire to prune or consolidate some parties. While both sides in the US have big tents, they are effective in whipping votes when things need to get done. It also helps that detracting coalition partners can't torpedo their leadership. Historically, factions within a party, like Blue dog dems or Tea partiers, had to wait for an election to litigate their grievances.
    - emodendroket 4y ago
      Well, yes, this was where I was going. The coalition is just formed before the election takes place. I live in a city with "nonpartisan" elections and I feel like it mostly just makes it difficult to understand what candidates in local elections even stand for.
      - soderfoo 4y ago
        Agreed, when I lived in Austin the non partisan elections for city council made me feel ill informed come election day. It just fueled apathy for me: there's only so much research one can do with limited press coverage and personal time constraints. Shrug.
djbusby 4y ago
IIRC Some states you cannot vote outside your declared party (Washington)
- favorited 4y ago
  That's only for primaries, which traditionally were only open to members of a party.
variant 4y ago
It's just different order of operations on coalition building. Other systems divide into a majority and opposition at some point. In the US it just happens earlier, but there is the same diversity of opinions within those groups.

You'd think a country that played a central role in a global, decades-long unstable regime of bipolar power that routinely pushed mankind to the brink of nuclear oblivion would know better than to have a bipolar electoral system

robertlagrant 4y ago
> routinely pushed mankind to the brink of nuclear oblivion I'm struggling to think of a reason why this is anything but bad faith nonsense.
- weaksauce 4y ago
  have you never heard of the many times we almost came to setting off full scale nuclear warfare because of the bipolar power war of the ussr v usa et.al.? the only thing that saved us was cooler heads that prevailed on both sides.
  - emodendroket 4y ago
    Why would throwing more actors with similar capabilities into the mix make the situation any more stable though? That seems like basically the old European Balance of Power, which broke out into open conflict more frequently.
    - airstrike 4y ago
      I take the view that the European balance of power probably broke out into open conflict often because of hidden alliances that made it hard for states to correctly gauge the costs of engaging in such conflict. In the field International Relations, there's lots of discussion around the stability (or instability) of a bipolar distribution of power. Your stance is closer to neorealists, mine is maybe closer to classical realists. Have fun reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarity_(international_relations) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarity_(international_relati... and related links But from a game theory perspective, having only two powers turns everything into a zero-sum game. I argue that leads to less cooperation and increased divisiveness. Not agreeing with Republicans means you must be a Democrat in their eyes. This "us versus them" mentality is somewhat tribal and leaves little room for nuance. If I had a magic want, the US would have a 4 party system. Like a cartesian plane with civil liberalism <-> conservatism on one axis and economic liberalism <-> conservatism on the other axis
      - emodendroket 4y ago
        > Classical realist theorists, such as Hans Morgenthau and E. H. Carr, hold that multipolar systems are more stable than bipolar systems, as great powers can gain power through alliances and petty wars that do not directly challenge other powers; in bipolar systems, classical realists argue, this is not possible. I suppose they must account for this somehow but isn't that exactly what a series of proxy wars in far-flung places between the United States and the Soviet Union were?
        airstrike 4y ago
        It's been almost 20 years since I studied any of that, but those proxy wars in far-flung places did directly challenge other powers because of the Domino theory I don't necessarily agree with Morgenthau and Carr as I think most IR Theory is bullshit made up by academia... particularly the stuff around how players "gain power" So I make my own argument which mostly hinges on the idea that two powers really means "my power" vs. "everyone else" which is not a recipe for peace
        robertlagrant 4y ago
        Isn't World War 1 a counterexample? Lots of parties, but they aggregated into two competing coalitions.
    - myko 4y ago
      This balance is the central theme of the seminal work in the field (https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5vm52s https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5vm52s). It may or may not be correct but is one of the most influential texts on the subject.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    I've not heard how many times, no. How many times was it?
    - mandmandam 4y ago
      [dead]
    - airstrike 4y ago
      Luckily there's a whole article on it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls
      - robertlagrant 4y ago
        That's all nuclear incidents ever, not just US/USSR. US/USSR count from that page is more like 10 incidents across 40 years. Some of them occuring within days of others, they're that fine-grained. I wouldn't call that a "routine" matter.

hraedon 4y ago

It isn't an attitudinal problem, it is the logical outcome of our political systems. In political science it is known as Duverger's law: single ballot, winner take all systems inevitably tend toward a two party equilibrium. Changing this requires states to adopt alternative systems, which can sometimes mean amending state constitutions. It isn't easy or straightforward, and the general sense is that there are better things to spend that effort on.

noizejoy 4y ago
> single ballot, winner take all systems inevitably tend toward a two party equilibrium. I'm not convinced it's quite that simple. For example, Canada also has a first-past-the-post electoral system - yet political parties here have come and gone. And continue to do so.
- tialaramex 4y ago
  Parties come and go, but there will be two major parties. In fact under such as system if you're in one of those two big parties and you see a third party rising you need to figure out whether it's you or the other guys getting replaced, 'cos it won't stay a three party system for long. For example in the UK, the Tories ("Conservative and Unionist Party") and Labour are currently the biggest parties, but a hundred years ago this was a novel situation, Labour were seen as a third party, while the Liberal party (which was eventually absorbed into what is today "Liberal Democrats") had seen success over decades and were often in government prior to that point.
- emodendroket 4y ago
  I mean we're on the sixth "party system" in the US too, if that's your standard (it's a new "party system" when there's a significant realignment of which interests find themselves in which parties, either by a reshuffle among existing parties, or by new parties rising and old ones falling). Have you heard much about the Federalists or Whigs lately?
  - AmericanChopper 4y ago

emodendroket 4y ago

In some other countries the different interest groups sort themselves into two factions after being elected but I don't know that it is really that different in practice.

TillE 4y ago
It's not different, or rather it doesn't produce meaningfully different outcomes. I'm not aware of any parliamentary system with a wonderful diversity of thought and a long record of positive accomplishments. You end up with ruling coalitions which are typically pretty awful. Ironically, America has one of the most open political systems. You register as one party or the other and vote in primaries. This has lead to a huge variety of people replacing hated mainstream politicians. That's way more than you can say for many other countries.
- soderfoo 4y ago
  The two parties are essentially coalitions. Anecdotally, a recurring theme in conversations I've had while living abroad is the desire to prune or consolidate some parties. While both sides in the US have big tents, they are effective in whipping votes when things need to get done. It also helps that detracting coalition partners can't torpedo their leadership. Historically, factions within a party, like Blue dog dems or Tea partiers, had to wait for an election to litigate their grievances.
  - emodendroket 4y ago
    Well, yes, this was where I was going. The coalition is just formed before the election takes place. I live in a city with "nonpartisan" elections and I feel like it mostly just makes it difficult to understand what candidates in local elections even stand for.
    - soderfoo 4y ago
      Agreed, when I lived in Austin the non partisan elections for city council made me feel ill informed come election day. It just fueled apathy for me: there's only so much research one can do with limited press coverage and personal time constraints. Shrug.

djbusby 4y ago

IIRC Some states you cannot vote outside your declared party (Washington)

favorited 4y ago
That's only for primaries, which traditionally were only open to members of a party.

variant 4y ago

It's just different order of operations on coalition building. Other systems divide into a majority and opposition at some point. In the US it just happens earlier, but there is the same diversity of opinions within those groups.