6 ms·

I wish we had more responsible grownups in the government.

Ekaros 3y ago
Blame the voters... They keep selecting people from same two groups... That is definition of insanity, repeating same thing and expecting different outcome.
- Wowfunhappy 3y ago
  It's a collective action problem. As an individual voter—or a group of voters, or even an extremely large group of voters—supporting a third party candidate means throwing away your political power, because your group simply will not be large enough to win a plurality. If we want a third party, we need to switch away from first-past-the-post voting systems. Having more than two political parties does not make mathematical sense in the current system.
  - pjc50 3y ago
    One thing I've always wondered: the UK has FPTP, but there are about a dozen political parties with sitting MPs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MPs_elected_in_the_2019_United_Kingdom_general_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MPs_elected_in_the_201... Why? Because local politics is not the same as national politics. Local parties exist. The Lib Dems are effectively a "local everywhere" party who have lots of councillors but few MPs. But the US, despite the much stronger Federal/State distinction and longer lists of elected posts, seems not to have local politics? Why are there no distinctive state level parties, in either large or small states? (The UK list has an anomalously high number of "independents", but those are just people who have been expelled from their party for gross misconduct and will be binned at the next election)
  - lesuorac 3y ago
    I mean you don't have to support a third party candidate in the actual election. What would be a third party candidate are now running under the two major parties. There's a reason people say things like "Social Democrat" or "Tea Party Republican" and those candidates are effectively third-party candidates; they run under the parties banner but don't share all of the same viewpoints. The real issue is that a minority of people vote in this country so "fringe" groups can easily win a primary by just showing up [1]. A secondary issue is the first-past-the-post system. [1]: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/07/12/voter-turnout-2018-2022/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/07/12/voter-turnou...

Blame the voters... They keep selecting people from same two groups... That is definition of insanity, repeating same thing and expecting different outcome.

Wowfunhappy 3y ago
It's a collective action problem. As an individual voter—or a group of voters, or even an extremely large group of voters—supporting a third party candidate means throwing away your political power, because your group simply will not be large enough to win a plurality. If we want a third party, we need to switch away from first-past-the-post voting systems. Having more than two political parties does not make mathematical sense in the current system.
- pjc50 3y ago
  One thing I've always wondered: the UK has FPTP, but there are about a dozen political parties with sitting MPs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MPs_elected_in_the_2019_United_Kingdom_general_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MPs_elected_in_the_201... Why? Because local politics is not the same as national politics. Local parties exist. The Lib Dems are effectively a "local everywhere" party who have lots of councillors but few MPs. But the US, despite the much stronger Federal/State distinction and longer lists of elected posts, seems not to have local politics? Why are there no distinctive state level parties, in either large or small states? (The UK list has an anomalously high number of "independents", but those are just people who have been expelled from their party for gross misconduct and will be binned at the next election)
- lesuorac 3y ago
  I mean you don't have to support a third party candidate in the actual election. What would be a third party candidate are now running under the two major parties. There's a reason people say things like "Social Democrat" or "Tea Party Republican" and those candidates are effectively third-party candidates; they run under the parties banner but don't share all of the same viewpoints. The real issue is that a minority of people vote in this country so "fringe" groups can easily win a primary by just showing up [1]. A secondary issue is the first-past-the-post system. [1]: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/07/12/voter-turnout-2018-2022/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/07/12/voter-turnou...