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> The resulting fragmentation has to be later recomposed with alliances to form a government, which will go on bickering constantly; I mean what are political

> The resulting fragmentation has to be later recomposed with alliances to form a government, which will go on bickering constantly; I mean what are political parties under FPTP other than alliances to form a government? Bickering is rather common within them. Democratic politics always requires a broad coalition of different interests and groups to assemble a majority. I'm not convinced voting system changes that much, but tensions may erupt in different ways under different systems.

toyg 3y ago
> Bickering is rather common within them. "Within" being the key word. It's a completely different level, believe me. The last 6 years of UK political life have been exceptional, and the overall sentiment is that they were pretty bad. They were also absolutely run of the mill from a PR perspective: a new executive every few months, elections every 3 years or so, a constant fight to reconcile fundamentally un-reconcileable positions, extreme public brinkmanship, etc etc. PR will fix nothing of that, it will only make it worse.
- shkkmo 3y ago
  I would point out that some of the issues you've called out are particular to a parliamentary system. The USA forms executive governments differenty. The closest analogy would be the speaker of the house, where the USA has already seen significant infighting recently. Where I think a broader range of parties would benefit the US system is reducing the degree by which measures and bills are passed and opposed along consistent party lines. With more parties, there would be coalition building that would encourage more negotiation and cooperation.
  - ensignavenger 3y ago
    The US House Speaker was voted out primarily by Democrats, not Republicans. There were only a handful of Republicans that voted to remove McCarthy. It took the Republicans a while to get enough voted to replace him. Certainly plenty of infighting in both Democrat and Republican parties, but the Speakership contest was the entirety of the House Democrats allying with a very few extremest House Republicans.
    - shkkmo 3y ago
      Yes, that's useful information to those who aren't familiar with the situation but I would say that the way the Democrats voted in lockstep is a great example of the partisan lack of compromise that a two party system encourages.
SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
Indeed and it’s also good to not look at the grandparent comment and draw any sort of false equivalence here. The sort of problems grandparent describes certainly do exist in PR systems, but GP is describing a system that gets it something like 90% right vs FPTP which is completely and utterly broken beyond repair

toyg 3y ago

> Bickering is rather common within them. "Within" being the key word. It's a completely different level, believe me. The last 6 years of UK political life have been exceptional, and the overall sentiment is that they were pretty bad. They were also absolutely run of the mill from a PR perspective: a new executive every few months, elections every 3 years or so, a constant fight to reconcile fundamentally un-reconcileable positions, extreme public brinkmanship, etc etc. PR will fix nothing of that, it will only make it worse.

shkkmo 3y ago
I would point out that some of the issues you've called out are particular to a parliamentary system. The USA forms executive governments differenty. The closest analogy would be the speaker of the house, where the USA has already seen significant infighting recently. Where I think a broader range of parties would benefit the US system is reducing the degree by which measures and bills are passed and opposed along consistent party lines. With more parties, there would be coalition building that would encourage more negotiation and cooperation.
- ensignavenger 3y ago
  The US House Speaker was voted out primarily by Democrats, not Republicans. There were only a handful of Republicans that voted to remove McCarthy. It took the Republicans a while to get enough voted to replace him. Certainly plenty of infighting in both Democrat and Republican parties, but the Speakership contest was the entirety of the House Democrats allying with a very few extremest House Republicans.
  - shkkmo 3y ago
    Yes, that's useful information to those who aren't familiar with the situation but I would say that the way the Democrats voted in lockstep is a great example of the partisan lack of compromise that a two party system encourages.

SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago

Indeed and it’s also good to not look at the grandparent comment and draw any sort of false equivalence here. The sort of problems grandparent describes certainly do exist in PR systems, but GP is describing a system that gets it something like 90% right vs FPTP which is completely and utterly broken beyond repair