this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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It doesn't have to be this way
But no one will seriously confront it until there's competition from other parties, you can't have real competition for votes in a 2 party system.
More parties can be viable if the USA can shake off FPTP voting. Some states have already.
The existing 2 parties have entrenched themselves like ticks. Here's just 1 example of how they are dug in https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2251&context=caselrev
That's why I vote single issue for better representation. Whatever other issues we think are important simply will not happen until FPTP is gone. Without better representation, any progress we make on other issues will simply be undone.
We have a ton of problems. This not being a democracy is the problem.
I don't know exactly what voting single issue for representation means. To me it sounds like voting for women and people of color believing they will be more sympathetic to our causes, but then I see people like Kyrsten Sinema, Clarence Thomas and I think - that shit don't work. But maybe that isn't what you mean. (also, not that I don't vote for women and POC, but I don't vote for them BECAUSE of that anymore, integrity, knowing their incentives, and actions are all I care about)
Now I think of the whole thing as a system and I seek to put in place incentives that push the representatives to fight for our approval. Right now we fight for their attention. If there's 5, 6, 7 viable political parties and few barriers to entry, any time they get off the rails into lala land we can vote for whoever is choosing to make sense that cycle. With 2 parties, extremism is incentivized.
(Silent_clash answered correctly)
Only right extremism is incentivized, with the other party being center-right. There is basically no far left in the USA. Being for sale gives candidates a competitive advantage.
We fought hard to elect a man who stood for "hope and change", only to see him build the surveillance state and tax the poor for the private medical industry. And we thought he was too far left.
They mean any alternative to first past the post, options being STAR voting, approval voting, or ranked choice. Basically anything that means a 3rd party vote isn't a "wasted" vote.
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In America, it must.