UPSB v4
Serious Discussion / US Politics - would a single- or multi-party system work better?
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Date: Mon, Nov 19 2012 04:10:17
I watched with interest as Obama won most of the electoral votes but could only garner little over 50% of the popular vote. Although Obama was re-elected, the population doesn't seem united given the strong divide between supporters of opposite parties. First, since house and senate members are voted in separately, then why not have the popular vote - not the number of electoral votes - determine the president? Second, why are the only options two diametrically opposed parties? Why not have a single-party system where people are voted in based on their ideas, not some label? Democrats and Republicans collaborate on important legislation anyway. Although without an opposition party some other sort of accountability system would need to be put in place. Another possibility is having more than 2 parties so that there are more options available.
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Date: Mon, Nov 19 2012 07:29:17
Because americans are to stubborn to comply with a group of people they were raised to disagree with.
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Date: Mon, Nov 19 2012 10:08:16
Popular vs electoral vote. This is the story you hear at every US election. I personally find it bizarre that such a system is used and that the popular vote should definitely be used! The US system currently, can lead to the candidate who got the most votes and therefore who most people want in power, to not become president (in fact, I believe this happened to Al Gore when he ran against G.W.Bush?). It seems like a crazy system and I haven't seen a convincing argument yet for keeping the electoral vote in place. As for parties, any US citizen can run for president and it's not quite a two party system. You have the liberationists (is that what they are called?) and other independents. It's just that an independent runner hasn't mounted a serious challenge since Washington. Here in the UK, we have a multi-party system, with generally Labour or the Conservatives taking power and the Liberal Democrats taking a fairly large section of vote (our current parliament is Conservative + Liberal Democrat coalition after the election lead to a hung parliament). Other parties, such as UKIP and the Green party for example, are also starting to take up a reasonable percentage of votes. What does this lead to? Unfortunately, in the UK, it leads to a bit of a mess, as many of the independent parties have similar goals and the Conservative party remains the only one dedicated to looking after the richest people. It means that the Conservative parties' voter base is unchanged, while the main opposition to that party is having voters taken away to other independents. I believe, this is leading to the Conservative party often being in power, when in fact, general opinion is that they shouldn't be and that people would prefer them not to be. So, two major parties might not be so bad after all.
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Date: Mon, Nov 19 2012 11:47:26
a huge amount of presidential elections end up being pretty damn close in reference to popular vote. i think the electoral college just makes it seem like every year this person won by a greater margin than they actually did. its more or less how mats put it: crazy and lacking support. george washington stated when he left office that there should not be any political parties in the U.S. of course the next election did the exact opposite. i think people just like to be in a big group to feel safer or like more people agree with them. and even though we have other parties in the U.S. aside from democratic and republican, they really dont count for that much. sure, the tea party may take away what would be some republican votes, but in the end those small parties dont even have much impact on the country during campaigning so not many people care. i think we should have taken washington's advice and just be a united nation, but with individuals with their own beliefs. these parties basically tell you what you believe and what your going to stand for. "oh you're a catholic? you must be a republican" "you're pro-choice? you must be democrat" why should things like that determine what and who you stand for? i know what i believe in and you cant tell me to join your group because we have a few of those things in common.
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Date: Mon, Nov 19 2012 20:28:46
1) Multiple candidates. 2) No propaganda/political commercials. 3) Present the facts/candidates' views to the voter. 4) Make sure voters are educated (see above). 5) Use popular vote. 6) Work together to provide a better life for the people. So much money is spent just dissing the opposite party. Spend that money in a better way by funding bipartisan efforts to better the economy (or one of the many other problems the US is facing).
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Date: Mon, Nov 19 2012 20:41:44
This should either answer your question or confuse you more. This may also help. Also, imatts the party is called Liberal, whom are typically democrats.
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Date: Mon, Nov 19 2012 21:43:42
astronaut wrote: This should either answer your question or confuse you more. This may also help. Also, imatts the party is called Liberal, whom are typically democrats.
Awesome video. Bonus points for the chessboxing picture featured at about 6:03!! -
Date: Tue, Nov 20 2012 01:45:41
Dictatorship is probably best. It sucks if you aren't the dictator and the dictator is evil but if you're that dictator then it would be awesome whether or not you're evil.
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Date: Tue, Nov 20 2012 02:12:05
Awesome wrote: Dictatorship is probably best. It sucks if you aren't the dictator and the dictator is evil but if you're that dictator then it would be awesome whether or not you're evil.
Only if you're willing to export oil at a low price, otherwise you may find yourself being an ex-dictator! -
Date: Wed, Nov 21 2012 03:12:08
Tialys wrote: I watched with interest as Obama won most of the electoral votes but could only garner little over 50% of the popular vote. Although Obama was re-elected, the population doesn't seem united given the strong divide between supporters of opposite parties. First, since house and senate members are voted in separately, then why not have the popular vote - not the number of electoral votes - determine the president? Second, why are the only options two diametrically opposed parties? Why not have a single-party system where people are voted in based on their ideas, not some label? Democrats and Republicans collaborate on important legislation anyway. Although without an opposition party some other sort of accountability system would need to be put in place. Another possibility is having more than 2 parties so that there are more options available.
I learned about why popular vote for a president ie a direct democracy wouldn't be that good in my government class last month Something to do with the founding fathers not trusting the public, due to people being uneducated (but you need to be somewhat educated to register to vote right), in general or about the candidate's views/stand, and people voting to mess with the end results like trolling so some random third party candidate wins or something who has views on nothing related to the common interest of Americans. Your "single-party" system sounds more like a direct democracy than a representative democracy, so it would just be people representing their own views. There are 2 large parties rather than a bunch of individuals trying to get their idea out in the public because people with similar ideas grouped together to form these premature parties, which would become the majority of the ideas represented. There is the ability to have more than 2 political parties, but generally the ideas these smaller third-parties bring up are adopted by the larger party that is willing to acknowledge and represent their issue, and that there are apparently many laws governing the ability to make third parties, so they don't thrive that well in our bi-partisan government. -
Date: Wed, Nov 21 2012 23:19:48
MightAsWellGG wrote: I learned about why popular vote for a president ie a direct democracy wouldn't be that good in my government class last month Something to do with the founding fathers not trusting the public, due to people being uneducated (but you need to be somewhat educated to register to vote right), in general or about the candidate's views/stand, and people voting to mess with the end results like trolling so some random third party candidate wins or something who has views on nothing related to the common interest of Americans.
Sounds like a good way for the government to keep the system as is. Teach in schools the benefits of the current system, while ignoring the clearly better system's positives![quote] Your "single-party" system sounds more like a direct democracy than a representative democracy, so it would just be people representing their own views.
So you would rather people did not represent their own views? :?There is the ability to have more than 2 political parties, but generally the ideas these smaller third-parties bring up are adopted by the larger party that is willing to acknowledge and represent their issue.
I'm not sure where you got this idea, but it's totally false. It's as though you are assuming all ideas have a yes or no or a spend or a not spend binary way of thinking about them. Most issues are very complex and here in the UK, it's very rare to see the larger 3 parties take on the same policies of any of the smaller ones. -
Date: Sat, May 4 2013 18:24:55
I'm gonna do my best to be nonpartisan here, but here's the issue with the way US politics is set up (warning long politics rant coming up): First, the electoral college may have had a purpose when it first was created, but now all it does is give empty states more power per person than much more densely populated states. This is an effect of how electoral votes are distributed, and is unfair to those living in places like New York or California or Texas. This makes a voter in Wyoming's vote worth more than a voter in Ohio's vote. If this is a way to run a democracy, please, explain it to me. Second, congressional gerrymandering is an issue. There are much better ways to deal with it than we have, but sufficed to say we have districts set up so that it's rare for a district to "swing", or to change party, which means that any candidate of the opposite party isn't going to win. The problem with this lies in the fact that, since district races aren't close, congressional representatives have to worry only about a primary challenger. This offers an incentive for representatives to BE AS PARTISAN AS POSSIBLE AND NEVER EVER COMPROMISE. Both parties do it. That's the main reason Congress does nothing. Third, the voting system punishes third parties. The idea behind the 1-person-1-vote system leads to any third party hurting the mainline party its proponents would likely associate with. Any time a third party gets a serious portion of the vote, that is mostly taken from the party that is, in their minds, the lesser of two evils. Luckily, there is a simple way to fix this. The alternative vote system (explained here) is a simple way to deal with this .
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Date: Sat, May 4 2013 18:58:04
Singe party would work better since there would be only one option an a united force which can bring about changes much easier. On the other hand the individual opinion is of less importance. With multiple parties the time needed to bring about changes is much longer. However every opinion is considered and often a compromise is trying to be found to statisfy the ruling parties and the opposing parties.
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Date: Tue, Jul 8 2014 05:30:26
Solution: ban political parties, because they are just stupid. No more large, rich organizations to advertise themselves, promising this and that, then they get elected, get their paycheck from hardworking taxpayers, and just not doing anything other than arguing on issues that aren't as important as others. I dont even want multiple parties(like maybe 5 or 6 political parties that gets an rough even split in the congress), because that would be an organization sponsoring adds with flawed arguments (such as NOT presenting counter-arguments) but here's a basic problem: how do you get candidates? anyone want to expand on this? or was the stuff i rambled above complete shit? @Fuse if the political parties work together, they will eventually morph into one party (and look at the shit Chinese people have to endure from the CCP) sry, more rambling :/
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Date: Tue, Jul 8 2014 14:38:53
To change the party system you have to change the election system. And the US-election system is so bad, holy shit it's unbelievable how bad it is. [quote=kchspinna16] if the political parties work together, they will eventually morph into one party[/quote] No this doesn't happen. Parties are created along conflict lines/cleavages (center-periphery, owner-worker, urban-rural, church-state). In a real democracy (China is not a democracy), these parties emerge because there are interests/cleavages in society which need to be resolved via the political system. If you have a multy-party system then yes, partys create coalitions to get a majority in the parliament and to provide the government but they won't merge into one party because there are still conflicting interests at work. So back to my point. You can't just change the party system, it is a result of various factors in the political system of the specific country. One of the factors is the election system which has a big influence on the party system. There are rules like Duverger's law which states that "that plurality rule elections structured within single-member districts tend to favor a two-party system" so you can assume that a proportional system leads to a multi-party system on the other hand. People like to apply it to the national level (although that isn't technically correct), so to extend that thought: You'd have to create a proportional-election-system to have a multi-party-system. There is still a debate going on in political science if Mixed Member Proportional representation (mmpr) which is a mix of the two systems might be the best of both worlds. It does works in Germany and New Zealand and they have multi-party-systems with coalitions. Personally I prefer the mmpr because it gives a proportional representation in the parliament for every party but on the same time you can elect a candidate for the constituency you live in; the districts interests are represented as well with this. The problem in the US is imo not necessarily the party system (although I don't like two-party systems) but the election system. Candidates need tons of money to be a candidate, gerry mandering is rampant (like @Haumea already said) and the election system is just "Perpetual Campaigning in the Absence of Competition". Politicians constantly have to worry about collecting money to stay in office because elections are every two years and the election season starts early. Third-party candidates have a hard time even being allowed to be on the ballot (democracy much?) and the first-past-the-post leads to that the majority of the votes are not represented because a candidate with 30 percent of the votes can take the seat and so the votes of the 70% others are thrown down the drain. I also think that the senate with its unequal representation (two senators per state) is a problem. In comparison to that you have the Bundesrat in Germany and the european parliament where you have more seats depending on how populated the federal state (germany) or the country (EU-parliament) is. In germany it is 3 (e.g. bremen) to 6(e.g. bavaria) seats, in the EU parliament it is 6 (e.g. malta) to 96 seats (germany). Both of that is still not equal representation and in the case of the Bundesrat it also favours the city-states and small federal states but it is a start. Obviously it is questionable how to implement these things since the US has 50 states, that is a bit more than the 16 federal states in Germany. Any questions? Also sorry for potentional long sentences and such things, english no first language, yo.