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Democracy won’t be restored until we increase the number of political parties in this country and fix how our officials are elected. I wish I had the answer on

Democracy won’t be restored until we increase the number of political parties in this country and fix how our officials are elected. I wish I had the answer on how to solve this, but alas… I’ll defer to people who are smarter than me.

nomel 7mo ago
No hope even with that, as long as Citizens United is still alive and kicking.
gottorf 7mo ago
> Democracy won’t be restored until we increase the number of political parties in this country Parliamentary systems with many parties run into a different kind of dysfunction. Belgium didn't have a government for like two years relatively recently because they couldn't form a big enough coalition. In a democracy, there is no magic bullet that does not involve the quality of the demos. What is your idea of democracy that needs to be restored in this country?
- deafpolygon 7mo ago
  More power to voters; make their votes count. Encourage run-off voting, etc. We don’t need to turn the US into a parliamentary government. Those are different matters. Things like ranked-choice voting, proportional representation, multi-member districts, electoral college reforms. We don’t necessarily need a large number of parties… At this point, the political parties are incentivized to suppress votes and/or redistrict things to make voting favorable for their party. Negative partisanship becomes a too-effective political strategy. There are other issues such as focusing on swing state politics (rather than representing their constitutents) and primary capture of ideologically committed voters (reinforcing and/or encouraging extremism). I agree, there is no magic bullet... but a two-party system has a tendency to devolve into a winner-takes-all mentality. It also increases polarity in every country where a two-party system has ever existed (primarily US, UK, Canada). What happens when the two party no longer represents the majority of Americans and American interests?
  - rjrjrjrj 7mo ago
    Canada doesn't have a two party system.
    - deafpolygon 7mo ago
      neither does the US, but effectively? it’s not as polarised as the US
      - rjrjrjrj 7mo ago
        It is not effectively a 2-party system at all. 6 of the last 8 federal elections have resulted in minority governments.
mindslight 7mo ago
You're selling yourself short here given that your response is the most intelligent of its 8 siblings.

nomel 7mo ago

No hope even with that, as long as Citizens United is still alive and kicking.

gottorf 7mo ago

> Democracy won’t be restored until we increase the number of political parties in this country Parliamentary systems with many parties run into a different kind of dysfunction. Belgium didn't have a government for like two years relatively recently because they couldn't form a big enough coalition. In a democracy, there is no magic bullet that does not involve the quality of the demos. What is your idea of democracy that needs to be restored in this country?

deafpolygon 7mo ago
More power to voters; make their votes count. Encourage run-off voting, etc. We don’t need to turn the US into a parliamentary government. Those are different matters. Things like ranked-choice voting, proportional representation, multi-member districts, electoral college reforms. We don’t necessarily need a large number of parties… At this point, the political parties are incentivized to suppress votes and/or redistrict things to make voting favorable for their party. Negative partisanship becomes a too-effective political strategy. There are other issues such as focusing on swing state politics (rather than representing their constitutents) and primary capture of ideologically committed voters (reinforcing and/or encouraging extremism). I agree, there is no magic bullet... but a two-party system has a tendency to devolve into a winner-takes-all mentality. It also increases polarity in every country where a two-party system has ever existed (primarily US, UK, Canada). What happens when the two party no longer represents the majority of Americans and American interests?
- rjrjrjrj 7mo ago
  Canada doesn't have a two party system.
  - deafpolygon 7mo ago
    neither does the US, but effectively? it’s not as polarised as the US
    - rjrjrjrj 7mo ago
      It is not effectively a 2-party system at all. 6 of the last 8 federal elections have resulted in minority governments.

mindslight 7mo ago

You're selling yourself short here given that your response is the most intelligent of its 8 siblings.