4 ms·

If you're not American, then you may not understand the way the American voting system works. We only have two parties. (Technically, there are some third part

by danaris 10mo ago

If you're not American, then you may not understand the way the American voting system works. We only have two parties. (Technically, there are some third parties, but they're effectively worse than negligible—voting for them is guaranteed to either do nothing or harm the cause you're interested in, unless the candidate is already a member of a major party and merely cross-endorsed.) This means that if you care about one thing that one of the two major parties ostensibly supports (or is ostensibly better at than the other), more than any of the things on the other side, you have no choice: you have to vote for that party's candidate. We also have a mainstream media landscape that is fully captured by the wealthy on the right. It is hard to overstate the extent to which our media carries water for the Republican Party. And finally, we have absolutely abysmal civics education. It has been steadily gutted over the course of decades. To some extent, this is a deliberate move to make it easier to use the aforementioned media capture to control the average voter. So if you're a low-information voter, you think the economy is bad, and you want to fix that, you're going to vote for the candidate of the major party that media has been telling you for 50 years is the party that's good at the economy, despite the fact that every time they're in office the debt goes up, regular people's lives get worse, and more protections go out the window.

padjo 10mo ago
That is exactly the problem. The first past the post single representative systems all have this feature. It seems almost inevitable that they will just because of that. Some sort of representative system will reduce this disconnect between what voters want and what they get because it allows more parties to flourish. The downside is that you end up with coalition governments. These are seen as “weak” although I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.
socksy 10mo ago
> If you're not American, then you may not understand the way the American voting system works. This is incredibly unlikely, given how pervasive American politics is, and how much the results of the American elections affects the rest of the world. Additionally, having a two party system is unfortunately pretty common.
- throwawayqqq11 10mo ago
  As a german, i can assure you, GPs comment was spot on and is very transferable to germany, no matter how many serious parties are listed on the ballots. Its is the elites, slowly undermining democracies and public/private institutions all over the western world in similar ways.
- antonvs 10mo ago
  I've seen plenty of comments from people outside the US that clearly don't understand how the US system works. For that matter, that's not limited to people outside the US.
- danaris 10mo ago
  I've talked with a number of people online from Europe (particularly the UK) who came in with the assumption that a parliamentary system was the default. (I don't consider this a mark against them: everyone is likely to start out with the assumption that the first thing they learn about is the default. They were just part of that day's lucky 10,000.) There are a great many reasons why people might misunderstand why so many people voted for Trump, and most of them start with assuming your own experience is universal, at least in certain realms. I suspect that, for people outside the US, not really understanding our voting/electoral system is one of the top ones, and it's a very understandable one. I prefer to go for it first, because the one I consider next most likely is a bit less charitable: assuming that everyone shares your privileges. (ie, "surely no one could possibly be so uneducated as to think that Trump was anything but a liar and a fascist." Buddy, you can't even imagine how bad the American education system can be, or how hard it is to care about anything other than the bare necessities when you're poor...)
ElectronCharge 10mo ago
… TBC

by danaris 10mo ago

padjo 10mo ago

That is exactly the problem. The first past the post single representative systems all have this feature. It seems almost inevitable that they will just because of that. Some sort of representative system will reduce this disconnect between what voters want and what they get because it allows more parties to flourish. The downside is that you end up with coalition governments. These are seen as “weak” although I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.

socksy 10mo ago

> If you're not American, then you may not understand the way the American voting system works. This is incredibly unlikely, given how pervasive American politics is, and how much the results of the American elections affects the rest of the world. Additionally, having a two party system is unfortunately pretty common.

throwawayqqq11 10mo ago
As a german, i can assure you, GPs comment was spot on and is very transferable to germany, no matter how many serious parties are listed on the ballots. Its is the elites, slowly undermining democracies and public/private institutions all over the western world in similar ways.
antonvs 10mo ago
I've seen plenty of comments from people outside the US that clearly don't understand how the US system works. For that matter, that's not limited to people outside the US.
danaris 10mo ago
I've talked with a number of people online from Europe (particularly the UK) who came in with the assumption that a parliamentary system was the default. (I don't consider this a mark against them: everyone is likely to start out with the assumption that the first thing they learn about is the default. They were just part of that day's lucky 10,000.) There are a great many reasons why people might misunderstand why so many people voted for Trump, and most of them start with assuming your own experience is universal, at least in certain realms. I suspect that, for people outside the US, not really understanding our voting/electoral system is one of the top ones, and it's a very understandable one. I prefer to go for it first, because the one I consider next most likely is a bit less charitable: assuming that everyone shares your privileges. (ie, "surely no one could possibly be so uneducated as to think that Trump was anything but a liar and a fascist." Buddy, you can't even imagine how bad the American education system can be, or how hard it is to care about anything other than the bare necessities when you're poor...)

ElectronCharge 10mo ago

… TBC