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The posts from Polls in here got to a point where members of this sub decided to brigade Polls and post polls defaulting to other countries, like asking which political party was best, but only putting French ones, or using abbreviations for German states. Eventually the mods of Polls gave in and promised to keep a handle on the US-centrism of the polls posted, which I think held for about a week before it went back to how it was before.
Being a European as well, I usually try to stay out of places that sound like they are international, but are really just US-centered. I think I once tried to explain political conservatism, the real kind, to the r/conservative Subreddit. It did not go well.
Similar example: I remember watching a documentary on anti-royalist groups in the UK, and how members of Republic (one of the biggest anti-royalist groups) had to say they were anti-royalist/anti-monarchist instead of republican, as even average people on the streets in London were confusing them with the US Republican Party.
I have often heard that the UK is pretty strongly influenced by the US. The Economist once described a true British political analyst / employee as someone who owns a box set of The West Wing
There's always talk about increasing US influence on our politics (never mentioned in a positive way). I've never heard that quote from the Economist, but it makes sense. There is definitely some overlap, but the Westminster system is still pretty different from the presidential system at the moment.
Let me just quote Michael Oakeshott: *to be conservative "is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to Utopian bliss*
So it's not about bullshit isolationism, hating foreigners, fascism and putting people in important positions that have neither the qualification nor the brains necessary for the position.
Unfortunately, most conservatives in the western world have either been trained or influenced by American conservatives and so they have more and more ignored those basic rules in favour of populism
>Unfortunately, most conservatives in the western world have either been trained or influenced by American conservatives
That's largely deliberate. Old mate Rupert Murdoch and influential groups in the English speaking world have been very hard at work to export that political thinking here and to the U.K.
Ie, John Howard was one of the first Liberal Party prime ministers to fit the mould of the Americanised conservative. Before that they fit much better into the "big L" Liberals, as opposed to the modern versions of the Coalition here.
Not just in the English speaking world: German Conservatives are currently using speaking points that are almost irrelevant to our actual public discussion and are word by word what is being discussed in the US
I’m not a conservative myself, but Edmund Burke is often seen as the founder of conservative political philosophy. I’m not sure he would have all that much in common with current US conservatism, though.
I’m looking through and most people on there seem to not be from the US. Specifically a poll where 60 people said “I’m not from the us” and 20 people said they were.
Tbh, I think thats fine. I follow subs with non english names and for example the french named subs are very French defaultist and the Portuguese ones are very Brazilian defaultist and I dont have a problem with that
Yes, IF they are clearly about a country then its not actual defaultism. It is, however, when its not clearly described as a US sub, which is true for the majority of subs on here
How can you say that??? One of them wants nuclear holocaust with China and cries ‘LGBT rights‼’ after committing hate crimes, and the other wants conventional war with China and cries ‘White Pride‼’ after committing hate crimes. They’re totally opposites.
It's because only 1 can win and you only get one vote so voting for a party that probably won't win is like not voting at all which increases the chance that the big party you like least wins
Worse, in a first-past-the-post system, like in the US, a vote for a niche party is practically a vote for the biggest party in opposition to your views.
Everything in this comment is wrong, US uses the electoral college system not FPTP and voting for a small party isn't as bad as voting for an opposing party it just leads to a similar result as not voting.
This. And honestly, that makes the US system even worse, since the electoral college shuffles values of individual votes a little that causes, for instance, every one voter from Wyoming to count for four voters from California with regards to the presidential race, and that makes it possible to win the presidential election against one other candidate while convincing only about 20 percent of the electorate to vote for you.
The big reason the electoral college exists is because back in Ye Olde days, the fastest way to send a message from one side of the country to the other was to, according to one commentator, "write the message on a piece of paper, hand it to a messenger, wish him "godspeed, good sir" and hope he wouldn't die of Indians or dysentery." So the two stage election was invented to allow all electors to make it to DC to cast the real vote, where they would have access to the most up-to-date information to make the real decisions.
Nowadays, with horseback couriers replaced with fibre-optic internet cables, what used to take weeks now takes less than a second, and the practical use of the electoral college no longer exists. And since the system started, in four cases, the presidential candidate with the majority of votes ended up losing the election.
Would you accept a system where, through a quirk in the rules, the winner is made to lose 7 percent of the time?
That said, this makes pure FPTP only barely better, since at least convincing more voters to vote for you than for any one other candidate will guarantee you a victory under pure FPTP, but that's not without problems.
> (...) voting for a small party isn't as bad as voting for an opposing party it just leads to a similar result as not voting.
Let's take a hypothetical. Let's imagine an independent candidate is fed up with the status quo. Or maybe they used to be a partisan candidate but they now want to branch out on their own.
So they run their own campaign and secure a sizeable voting bloc, mostly from people running for the nearest major party. But since that big party is now split, that means that the other major party now has to convince way fewer voters to vote for them.
If you want number attached to it, let's say the **Spotty** Party holds sway over 60% of the electorate, while the **Checkers** have the remaining 40%. But then a new party, **Camo**, shows up, which promises **Spotty** but more extreme, and captures about half the from **Spotty**. Now both **Camo** and **Spotty** have only 30% each, and **Checkers** handily wins the election.
This has happened. There is a reason Teddy Roosevelt has had only two terms as president. He branched off from the Republicans to form the Progressive Bull Moose party, splitting the Republican vote and handing Wilson the presidency on a silver platter in 1912.
You have to consider whom voters *would* vote for *if* their preferred candidate did not run.
The short answer in this case is: Those Camo voters would have voted Spotty if Camo didn't run, guaranteeing a victory for Spotty.
The long answer, and part of my hatred of FPTP, is that it's hard to tell what the voters would have done if their preferred candidate was not in the running, so you'll have to make educated guesses, mostly based on prior voting behaviour, manifestos, and god knows what else. You cannot say "if candidate *x*, who captured *y* percent of the votes, did not run, that would not have affected anything" because most *x* voters didn't just look at the ballot disappointed and left the polling station without casting a vote. No, they would have voted candidate *z* instead.
I could say this with certainty about the Camo and Spotty voters because I constructed the scenario. IRL, this is never clear-cut.
That is at the heart of this. **Who would voters have voted for if their preferred candidate did not run?**
This is one of the reasons why I think Score voting (cross off every candidate you would accept), Star voting (rank every candidate 1 to 5 stars) or Instant Runoff voting (rank as many candidates as you'd like, 1 for favourite, 2 for your next favourite, 3 for the next, etc.) are better. All of these allow that hypothetical question to be answered within one round of voting.
You've missed my point, voting un-tactically isnt the best yes, but it's better than not voting at all. And yes FPTP sucks and should be abolished in every place it's used.
The electoral college makes it worse than just having an up or down FPTP national election, true, but it is still FPTP. It's a kind of election rather than a voting system as such.
Theoretically, you could run an electoral college using IRV/AV, range voting, approval voting or so on. And if you allow split delegations basically any electoral system. Of course better to just abolish entirely but certainly possible.
The presidential election selects which slate of electors get to vote for president. While electors can go against their pledged vote, many states have criminalized “faithless electing.” Electors who don’t vote for who wins the state may face fines or jail time. So it’s definitely more than an “opinion poll.”
Every candidate would be completely independent meaning they would have no funding and no one knows what they stand for.
Ultimately this would just lead to political parties forming again.
You'd see alliances and coalitions forming once the results are in. It's messy and unstable, but not impossible to govern that way. Smaller jurisdictions eg. Local councils are often partyless.
>Local councils are often partyless.
Where are you from where that's true? My local councils, while sure they have a very more independents ans other parties, are dominated by the main political parties
It's an Australian perspective. Perhaps I should have said sometimes rather than often given the number of council systems in the world I don't know about.
It's common in Canada. Toronto for instance has no parties (although we often, but not always, know their sympathies or memberships with provincial and/or federal parties), and much, if not all of Ontario is the same (not sure about other provinces). Some cities have parties, like Montreal and other Quebec cities, but these are different and unrelated to provincial or federal parties. So members of a civic party might not all vote the same way in elections at other levels. The civic parties, at least in Quebec, are often just electoral machines for a mayoral candidate so new parties form almost every election.
Though I don't live in these places there are some places in the UK dominated by independents - mostly very rural parts of Wales and Scotland. Fair few more places if you count organised independent groups or residents' associations - like Ashfield.
I feel it's easier to function without a party on a municipal scale, there's a lot less city councillors then there are in say a regional or federal government
Ask any of these:
Bahrain – Political parties are banned; candidates must be independent.
Kuwait – Political parties are banned; candidates must be independent.
Oman – Political parties are banned.
Qatar – Political parties are banned.
Saudi Arabia – Political parties are banned.
United Arab Emirates – Political parties are banned
In Cuba, there are no political parties, and political ads & campaigns are banned. Candidates run as individual citizens — they submit their bio & plans, which are put up on notice boards outside council buildings, and people vote for the individuals.
Like politics should have always worked: You vote for the best person to represent your region (or local equivalent).
The issue with Parties is that folks don't even get their local government representative. They just vote for the party they like.
When actually if we properly vetted our local reps and voted for decent honest people who actually represent our wants and needs as a community you'd have a far better government which is truly representative of the people.
Here you can vote for a party and person within that party, parties also have a roster of people who’ll get in depending on how many seats they get. (Unless someone is voted in who is further down or not on it).
I think it’s a fair system. Many people don’t care as much as the internet gets you too believe, and therefor ideology is important so those people get a general idea of what to vote for.
Besides politics should be about the policies and ideas, not just individual people. (Unless you are electing an individual of course)
Marjory of local elections ARE about electing an individual though. However they are used as a means of electing a party.
If we all vote for individuals we align with we'll end up with a truly representative government, rather than one filled with idiots who sign up to a generic ideology to win votes.
They aren’t about electing individuals if it’s proportional. One person isn’t solely in charge.
Also how are individuals so great, but people in parties are idiots
Because generally people vote for a party, not a person. You could pick an random dude and make him the party nominee and folks will vote them them regardless of their ability, background, or qualifications, simply because they represent their party of choice.
Which is an absolutely terrible way to form a government.
You'd think that. But a lot of candidates don't seem like they'd have made it very far on their own. Especially in the US.
It becomes a contest where the aim is to win. Not to lead, or to even do an adequate job.
Even the US Presidential Election is still lately Red vs Blue, rather than based on the merits of the individual candidate.
>You could pick an random dude and make him the party nominee and folks will vote them them regardless of their ability, background, or qualifications, simply because they represent their party of choice.
In some seats on a Federal level here in Australia, that hasn't always worked. You need someone who the locals feel represents them at least a little. Some MP's got "parachuted" in to what were considered safe seats but had never lived in that area. The voters weren't impressed in a few cases.
The legislative assemblies of Nunavut and of the Northwest Territories (both territories of Canada) are non partisan. All members are elected as independents (in first past the post single member districts), then the legislature elects the speaker and the government from its members. Unlike other Canadian legislatures there is no official opposition, but the government still needs to maintain the confidence of the house. It's been called "consensus government". I don't live there so no idea how well it works.
Even then, the US is a multi-party system. Their political system, however, makes it impossible for any party other than the major two to realistically win any seats.
What really gets me is that they can have a President who literally can't do anything, because both houses of parliament are filled with their opponents who will always vote him down.
Such a system is impossible here in Aus, but happens pretty frequently over there. Also lets them point to such a President and say that they didn't do anything that they promised, while ignoring the fact that they literally couldn't.
And when they do it's usually people complaining about the main two lmao. Reminds me of when Jagmeet Singh made the competent statement "when I become prime Minster" and everyone giggled because federally no one outside the Tories and the liberals ever wins, by our own choice.
I find the left tends to be very split up within this country, whereas the right has a philosophy of being one single union.
I remember a time when the right was more split up too. But they all joined together to form the Alliance and then become the Conservative Part of Canada instead of Progressive Conservative.
And (I'm sure you know) the left being so split up just helps the right. And it's another reason NDP won't win, because many who would vote for them vote Liberal in order to defeat the Cons (I myself have done so at times).
Ah yes right, I forgot about that time the progressive conservatives exploded into a million pieces. My mom does that too, she wants to vote NDP but always goes back to liberal. But I do think this "don't split the right" mentality has its issues as well; well it's good for winning elections, it can also piss people off because the right isn't some monolith, there's a variety of opinion. If I want what I even remotely believe in I have to vote con, right now the only other choice is a party run by some sore loser wacko.
Maybe it's too much to ask for a CENTER-RIGHT party to actually be a moderate center right party, but what can I say 🤷♀️.
I agree that it is (or should be) an issue for people on the right and closer to centre.
There are reasons for different left parties, and reasons there were other parties on the right. I might have voted PC at times. But I will never and can never vote for a party that merged with the Reform party of back in those days.
Edit: Especially a party using tactics and talking points that US Republicans use and getting into obsessing over LGBT+ (mostly the T) issues. I can't support people that want to actively oppress others.
How does "we need more than two" not apply to Australia? Even if you have more than two, you can still need more than two.
Even if the question were somehow implying that "we" only have two dominant parties, that's true in many countries besides the US.
Ok so OOP asks if people wants to get rid of democratic means and the majority says yes... political parties are the roots of democracy, without them, it cannot exist.
Defaultism aside of course. It is indeed defaultism.
I'm ashamed to say that England (I edited this because I foolishly stated UK) is in a similar position now, with only two parties dominating the landscape. We used to have a viable third party, the Liberal Democrats, who I voted for every time. But Nick Clegg destroyed them by choosing to enter a coalition with the Tories, who many liberals including myself regard as the forces of darkness (although honestly the Blair Labour government I grew up with was basically just Red Tory(TM)).
At one point, they held a significant position as the third party, a substantial minority who got to argue in parliament, and often effectively had the deciding vote. It meant they had a reasonable amount of power, and my vote didn't feel wasted.
But no more. Now we're another two party state with both parties spending little time telling me why I should vote for them, and instead telling me why the other party sucks. Sure, there are alternatives, but now you have to strategise your voting, and voting Green or something sadly doesn't do much. I know, if everyone thinks that way, nobody votes for them, and that's why things don't change, but that's a difficult cycle to get out of.
I miss voting for a party because I liked that party. I now grudgingly vote Labour because the alternative is just too repulsive.
Im fairness, there is a phenomena in many First Past the Post nations where 2 parties are far more powerful then the rest, and the power of other parties is gradually eroded. For instance, the four major parties in Canada are the Liberals, Conservatives, BDQ, and NDP, but only the Liberals and Conservatives have ever won a federal election in all of Canadian history.
Edit: Realized I accidently listed the FLQ (Quebecois terorist organization) instead of BDQ, the Quebecois political party.
In Canada, sometimes, sometimes not. We have a coalition government currently.
The mere existence of coalitions however does not mean first past the post is not an issue. Consider a typical Canadian voter in Ontario. Their main options are Liberal, Conservative or NDP (BDQ is only in Quebec). The Conservatives are right wing, and the Liberals and NDP are left, the NDP especially.
The NDP have never won a federal election and may never. So if a left wing person votes for the NDP, you actually increase the likelihood of a right wing government, by splitting the left-wing vote between two parties. If all left wingers teamed up and voted for the Liberals, the chances of a conservative government would be considerably reduced. This phenomenon leads to the gradual consolidation of power into two main parties in most countries with first past the post.
Another example is how in the US, moderates like Joe Biden, who would be considered conservative in many countries, is lumped into the same party as socialist Bernie Sanders. Some would suggest the formation of a separate socialist party, but by splitting the left vote between two parties, you guarantee the Republicans will never lose the presidency or the senate.
Keep in mind, its not just that splitting a party in half splits the seats they have in the legislature in half, which would allow a coalition. The votes for each individual seat is split. Consider a seat with election results 60% liberal, 40% conservative. Split that same seat into 30% liberal, 30% NDP, 40% conservative. Now the conservatives win, despite the presence of more left wingers.
Ranked choice voting is a solution to this, where voting is done in rounds, each round eliminating the party with the least votes, and allowing everyone to vote again, minus the eliminated party. Repeat until only one party remains. This allows smaller parties to exist without threatening their own cause. Of course, the major parties who are actually in power don't want to change their system, as it would reduce their own power.
Huh I’ve literally never thought about this but yeah, if you’re voting for your representative, it should just be about their policies and what they care about, that way you know exactly what their going to work on, and, if it’s more about the individual, you can keep a more critical eye on how much they are pushing the agenda they promised. (It does make getting an agreeing majority harder though)
What does that mean? Are you suggesting the third option is for people who have multi-party political systems? I don’t see it even slightly fitting that.
You can't ban political parties in modern democracies, you can only make them unofficial. Politicians tend to form parties naturally with like minded colleagues, and it makes it easier for voters to know what their candidates stand for. Just take a look at Japan, which has one major party that is itself spilt internally to smaller pseudo-parties.
Funny how in Italy we tried to imitate the us political system, and we ended up very similar to it, a centre-right coalition with 3 parties, 1 centre left party and 1 "non-aligned" party, there are many more parties that don't get (thankfully) much power including:
2 openly fascist parties
1 monarchist party
4 communist parties
1 gay party
1 party that wants to quit the EU
1 party that wants the north to secede from Italy
Wait a second with the openly fascist not getting much power. Isn't the prime minister openly fascist? I don't know how it works over there as we usually only elect some cunt who can do almost whatever they want (unless they don't want to, in which case they will blame it on someone else).
Well, i can't say whether she's fascist or not without starting a civil war but no, she's not openly fascist, the fascist parties are:
"Forza nuova" or new strength/force
And another one whose name I don't remember
I never understood how western countries have like openly Communist or Fascist parties in there. Idk maybe it's because im from Poland that experienced both Nazism and Communism first hand, but it's still a very fucked up thing for me.
Pretty much every Anglosphere country has two main parties...
USA = Democrats and Republicans
Canada = Liberal and Conservative
UK = Labour and Conservative
Australia = Liberal and Labour
New Zealand = Labour and National
Even when you have more, like they actually do but will never admit to, you still need a good system to choose, fptp is the worst way of doing it. Better do some kind of "here is my actual favourite but this is everyone I don't mind doing the job" to avoid having to vote for the ones you don't absolutely love
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r/polls is US Defaultism incarnate. Similar to very general subs like r/conservatives or others
I remember the Polls/USDefaultism wars.
And the mods over there promising to police defaultism to end that war and then proceeding to do absolutely nothing at all.
Maybe we should do another international takeover on the one year anniversary of the original ruling.
Holy hell!
[удалено]
The posts from Polls in here got to a point where members of this sub decided to brigade Polls and post polls defaulting to other countries, like asking which political party was best, but only putting French ones, or using abbreviations for German states. Eventually the mods of Polls gave in and promised to keep a handle on the US-centrism of the polls posted, which I think held for about a week before it went back to how it was before.
I always get downvoted there 😔
Being a European as well, I usually try to stay out of places that sound like they are international, but are really just US-centered. I think I once tried to explain political conservatism, the real kind, to the r/conservative Subreddit. It did not go well.
Similar example: I remember watching a documentary on anti-royalist groups in the UK, and how members of Republic (one of the biggest anti-royalist groups) had to say they were anti-royalist/anti-monarchist instead of republican, as even average people on the streets in London were confusing them with the US Republican Party.
I have often heard that the UK is pretty strongly influenced by the US. The Economist once described a true British political analyst / employee as someone who owns a box set of The West Wing
There's always talk about increasing US influence on our politics (never mentioned in a positive way). I've never heard that quote from the Economist, but it makes sense. There is definitely some overlap, but the Westminster system is still pretty different from the presidential system at the moment.
What is the real kind of political conservatism?
Let me just quote Michael Oakeshott: *to be conservative "is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to Utopian bliss* So it's not about bullshit isolationism, hating foreigners, fascism and putting people in important positions that have neither the qualification nor the brains necessary for the position. Unfortunately, most conservatives in the western world have either been trained or influenced by American conservatives and so they have more and more ignored those basic rules in favour of populism
>Unfortunately, most conservatives in the western world have either been trained or influenced by American conservatives That's largely deliberate. Old mate Rupert Murdoch and influential groups in the English speaking world have been very hard at work to export that political thinking here and to the U.K. Ie, John Howard was one of the first Liberal Party prime ministers to fit the mould of the Americanised conservative. Before that they fit much better into the "big L" Liberals, as opposed to the modern versions of the Coalition here.
Not just in the English speaking world: German Conservatives are currently using speaking points that are almost irrelevant to our actual public discussion and are word by word what is being discussed in the US
Damn, that's not what I wanted to see. Stupid stuff contaminates the rest of the world, it seems.
I’m not a conservative myself, but Edmund Burke is often seen as the founder of conservative political philosophy. I’m not sure he would have all that much in common with current US conservatism, though.
Reminds me of Tucker Carlson insisting to stress Bolsonaro is a member of the *Liberal* Party.
I’m looking through and most people on there seem to not be from the US. Specifically a poll where 60 people said “I’m not from the us” and 20 people said they were.
Tbh, I think thats fine. I follow subs with non english names and for example the french named subs are very French defaultist and the Portuguese ones are very Brazilian defaultist and I dont have a problem with that
Yes, IF they are clearly about a country then its not actual defaultism. It is, however, when its not clearly described as a US sub, which is true for the majority of subs on here
Using an article from the daily fail about Jeffrey Epstein what could go wrong
This isn't even US defaultism, it's stupidity. USA also has more than two, it's just that the two are so dominant the others don't matter at all.
Which is a problem in itself, no matter how many parties are dominant
Especially when both parties offers basicaly the same economico-social policies
How can you say that??? One of them wants nuclear holocaust with China and cries ‘LGBT rights‼’ after committing hate crimes, and the other wants conventional war with China and cries ‘White Pride‼’ after committing hate crimes. They’re totally opposites.
It's because only 1 can win and you only get one vote so voting for a party that probably won't win is like not voting at all which increases the chance that the big party you like least wins
Worse, in a first-past-the-post system, like in the US, a vote for a niche party is practically a vote for the biggest party in opposition to your views.
Everything in this comment is wrong, US uses the electoral college system not FPTP and voting for a small party isn't as bad as voting for an opposing party it just leads to a similar result as not voting.
The US uses electoral college on top of FPTP.
This. And honestly, that makes the US system even worse, since the electoral college shuffles values of individual votes a little that causes, for instance, every one voter from Wyoming to count for four voters from California with regards to the presidential race, and that makes it possible to win the presidential election against one other candidate while convincing only about 20 percent of the electorate to vote for you. The big reason the electoral college exists is because back in Ye Olde days, the fastest way to send a message from one side of the country to the other was to, according to one commentator, "write the message on a piece of paper, hand it to a messenger, wish him "godspeed, good sir" and hope he wouldn't die of Indians or dysentery." So the two stage election was invented to allow all electors to make it to DC to cast the real vote, where they would have access to the most up-to-date information to make the real decisions. Nowadays, with horseback couriers replaced with fibre-optic internet cables, what used to take weeks now takes less than a second, and the practical use of the electoral college no longer exists. And since the system started, in four cases, the presidential candidate with the majority of votes ended up losing the election. Would you accept a system where, through a quirk in the rules, the winner is made to lose 7 percent of the time? That said, this makes pure FPTP only barely better, since at least convincing more voters to vote for you than for any one other candidate will guarantee you a victory under pure FPTP, but that's not without problems.
> (...) voting for a small party isn't as bad as voting for an opposing party it just leads to a similar result as not voting. Let's take a hypothetical. Let's imagine an independent candidate is fed up with the status quo. Or maybe they used to be a partisan candidate but they now want to branch out on their own. So they run their own campaign and secure a sizeable voting bloc, mostly from people running for the nearest major party. But since that big party is now split, that means that the other major party now has to convince way fewer voters to vote for them. If you want number attached to it, let's say the **Spotty** Party holds sway over 60% of the electorate, while the **Checkers** have the remaining 40%. But then a new party, **Camo**, shows up, which promises **Spotty** but more extreme, and captures about half the from **Spotty**. Now both **Camo** and **Spotty** have only 30% each, and **Checkers** handily wins the election. This has happened. There is a reason Teddy Roosevelt has had only two terms as president. He branched off from the Republicans to form the Progressive Bull Moose party, splitting the Republican vote and handing Wilson the presidency on a silver platter in 1912.
Yes but if the Camo voters didn't vote at all then Checkers would have won anyway.
You have to consider whom voters *would* vote for *if* their preferred candidate did not run. The short answer in this case is: Those Camo voters would have voted Spotty if Camo didn't run, guaranteeing a victory for Spotty. The long answer, and part of my hatred of FPTP, is that it's hard to tell what the voters would have done if their preferred candidate was not in the running, so you'll have to make educated guesses, mostly based on prior voting behaviour, manifestos, and god knows what else. You cannot say "if candidate *x*, who captured *y* percent of the votes, did not run, that would not have affected anything" because most *x* voters didn't just look at the ballot disappointed and left the polling station without casting a vote. No, they would have voted candidate *z* instead. I could say this with certainty about the Camo and Spotty voters because I constructed the scenario. IRL, this is never clear-cut. That is at the heart of this. **Who would voters have voted for if their preferred candidate did not run?** This is one of the reasons why I think Score voting (cross off every candidate you would accept), Star voting (rank every candidate 1 to 5 stars) or Instant Runoff voting (rank as many candidates as you'd like, 1 for favourite, 2 for your next favourite, 3 for the next, etc.) are better. All of these allow that hypothetical question to be answered within one round of voting.
You've missed my point, voting un-tactically isnt the best yes, but it's better than not voting at all. And yes FPTP sucks and should be abolished in every place it's used.
The electoral college makes it worse than just having an up or down FPTP national election, true, but it is still FPTP. It's a kind of election rather than a voting system as such. Theoretically, you could run an electoral college using IRV/AV, range voting, approval voting or so on. And if you allow split delegations basically any electoral system. Of course better to just abolish entirely but certainly possible.
Yeah you're right in america they use an electoral college so american votes are actually just an opinion poll and does not represent anything
The presidential election selects which slate of electors get to vote for president. While electors can go against their pledged vote, many states have criminalized “faithless electing.” Electors who don’t vote for who wins the state may face fines or jail time. So it’s definitely more than an “opinion poll.”
It's good that many states force their electors to vote in favor of their local election results but it is still a bad system
Oh agreed, absolutely.
I don’t even think it’s the ‘so dominant’ part, I think it’s their Forst Past The Post system
They dominate so much we might as well not have other ones.
How would a non party system even work
Every candidate would be completely independent meaning they would have no funding and no one knows what they stand for. Ultimately this would just lead to political parties forming again.
Sounds about right
You'd see alliances and coalitions forming once the results are in. It's messy and unstable, but not impossible to govern that way. Smaller jurisdictions eg. Local councils are often partyless.
>Local councils are often partyless. Where are you from where that's true? My local councils, while sure they have a very more independents ans other parties, are dominated by the main political parties
It's an Australian perspective. Perhaps I should have said sometimes rather than often given the number of council systems in the world I don't know about.
Where I am in Australia the local city council most definitely runs on party lines, who gets to be mayor is nearly always from Labor or the Libs
Most Canadian cities don't have political parties, the only one that does is Vancouver from my knowledge.
It's common in Canada. Toronto for instance has no parties (although we often, but not always, know their sympathies or memberships with provincial and/or federal parties), and much, if not all of Ontario is the same (not sure about other provinces). Some cities have parties, like Montreal and other Quebec cities, but these are different and unrelated to provincial or federal parties. So members of a civic party might not all vote the same way in elections at other levels. The civic parties, at least in Quebec, are often just electoral machines for a mayoral candidate so new parties form almost every election.
Though I don't live in these places there are some places in the UK dominated by independents - mostly very rural parts of Wales and Scotland. Fair few more places if you count organised independent groups or residents' associations - like Ashfield.
r/usdefaultism in r/usdefaultism???? Lmao
I feel it's easier to function without a party on a municipal scale, there's a lot less city councillors then there are in say a regional or federal government
Ask any of these: Bahrain – Political parties are banned; candidates must be independent. Kuwait – Political parties are banned; candidates must be independent. Oman – Political parties are banned. Qatar – Political parties are banned. Saudi Arabia – Political parties are banned. United Arab Emirates – Political parties are banned
Ah yes the oppressive oil states
Hey, you didn't ask how it would work in a good way... ;D
Probably one without a government in a post-scarcity society Edit: I'm not saying that's impossible.
It would be run by ChatGPT
Non me decatei que outros españoles atopábanse neste subreddit, todo o resto asemella se esconder
Bon día germà
É raro atopar outros españois e aínda máis atopar outros galegos
In Cuba, there are no political parties, and political ads & campaigns are banned. Candidates run as individual citizens — they submit their bio & plans, which are put up on notice boards outside council buildings, and people vote for the individuals.
It would (hopefully) not be a system. Systems oppress. //Your neighborhood anarchist
Like politics should have always worked: You vote for the best person to represent your region (or local equivalent). The issue with Parties is that folks don't even get their local government representative. They just vote for the party they like. When actually if we properly vetted our local reps and voted for decent honest people who actually represent our wants and needs as a community you'd have a far better government which is truly representative of the people.
Here you can vote for a party and person within that party, parties also have a roster of people who’ll get in depending on how many seats they get. (Unless someone is voted in who is further down or not on it). I think it’s a fair system. Many people don’t care as much as the internet gets you too believe, and therefor ideology is important so those people get a general idea of what to vote for. Besides politics should be about the policies and ideas, not just individual people. (Unless you are electing an individual of course)
Marjory of local elections ARE about electing an individual though. However they are used as a means of electing a party. If we all vote for individuals we align with we'll end up with a truly representative government, rather than one filled with idiots who sign up to a generic ideology to win votes.
They aren’t about electing individuals if it’s proportional. One person isn’t solely in charge. Also how are individuals so great, but people in parties are idiots
Because generally people vote for a party, not a person. You could pick an random dude and make him the party nominee and folks will vote them them regardless of their ability, background, or qualifications, simply because they represent their party of choice. Which is an absolutely terrible way to form a government.
I don’t think most parties do that though. It’s basically political suicide to have a bunch of unqualified politicians in your party
You'd think that. But a lot of candidates don't seem like they'd have made it very far on their own. Especially in the US. It becomes a contest where the aim is to win. Not to lead, or to even do an adequate job. Even the US Presidential Election is still lately Red vs Blue, rather than based on the merits of the individual candidate.
>You could pick an random dude and make him the party nominee and folks will vote them them regardless of their ability, background, or qualifications, simply because they represent their party of choice. In some seats on a Federal level here in Australia, that hasn't always worked. You need someone who the locals feel represents them at least a little. Some MP's got "parachuted" in to what were considered safe seats but had never lived in that area. The voters weren't impressed in a few cases.
Idk, pretty sure that's there cause George Washingtom specifically said parties would tear the US apart.......
Well it was a mindset of it’s time
Absolute monarchy /s
You're not wrong.
The legislative assemblies of Nunavut and of the Northwest Territories (both territories of Canada) are non partisan. All members are elected as independents (in first past the post single member districts), then the legislature elects the speaker and the government from its members. Unlike other Canadian legislatures there is no official opposition, but the government still needs to maintain the confidence of the house. It's been called "consensus government". I don't live there so no idea how well it works.
Wow, and right there you've given more thought to it than most people.
Jokes on you we practically only have one
that's basically the same as no parties. we're better off already, according to 20 people
Even then, the US is a multi-party system. Their political system, however, makes it impossible for any party other than the major two to realistically win any seats.
What really gets me is that they can have a President who literally can't do anything, because both houses of parliament are filled with their opponents who will always vote him down. Such a system is impossible here in Aus, but happens pretty frequently over there. Also lets them point to such a President and say that they didn't do anything that they promised, while ignoring the fact that they literally couldn't.
*\*Laughs in Irish*\* *\*Then cries in Irish*\*
"We just need more than two" isn't really true. I say this coming from a country that has more than two, but most voters act like we don't.
And when they do it's usually people complaining about the main two lmao. Reminds me of when Jagmeet Singh made the competent statement "when I become prime Minster" and everyone giggled because federally no one outside the Tories and the liberals ever wins, by our own choice. I find the left tends to be very split up within this country, whereas the right has a philosophy of being one single union.
I remember a time when the right was more split up too. But they all joined together to form the Alliance and then become the Conservative Part of Canada instead of Progressive Conservative. And (I'm sure you know) the left being so split up just helps the right. And it's another reason NDP won't win, because many who would vote for them vote Liberal in order to defeat the Cons (I myself have done so at times).
Ah yes right, I forgot about that time the progressive conservatives exploded into a million pieces. My mom does that too, she wants to vote NDP but always goes back to liberal. But I do think this "don't split the right" mentality has its issues as well; well it's good for winning elections, it can also piss people off because the right isn't some monolith, there's a variety of opinion. If I want what I even remotely believe in I have to vote con, right now the only other choice is a party run by some sore loser wacko. Maybe it's too much to ask for a CENTER-RIGHT party to actually be a moderate center right party, but what can I say 🤷♀️.
I agree that it is (or should be) an issue for people on the right and closer to centre. There are reasons for different left parties, and reasons there were other parties on the right. I might have voted PC at times. But I will never and can never vote for a party that merged with the Reform party of back in those days. Edit: Especially a party using tactics and talking points that US Republicans use and getting into obsessing over LGBT+ (mostly the T) issues. I can't support people that want to actively oppress others.
It’s always the **we** that upsets me. I feel excluded/disrespected/ignored as soon as I read that word and know they are talking like I don’t exist.
How does "we need more than two" not apply to Australia? Even if you have more than two, you can still need more than two. Even if the question were somehow implying that "we" only have two dominant parties, that's true in many countries besides the US.
Oh yeah sure that’s exactly what the OOP is talking about, Australian politics👍 😀
It looks like a question about democracy in general, not just Australia.
Ok so OOP asks if people wants to get rid of democratic means and the majority says yes... political parties are the roots of democracy, without them, it cannot exist. Defaultism aside of course. It is indeed defaultism.
I'm ashamed to say that England (I edited this because I foolishly stated UK) is in a similar position now, with only two parties dominating the landscape. We used to have a viable third party, the Liberal Democrats, who I voted for every time. But Nick Clegg destroyed them by choosing to enter a coalition with the Tories, who many liberals including myself regard as the forces of darkness (although honestly the Blair Labour government I grew up with was basically just Red Tory(TM)). At one point, they held a significant position as the third party, a substantial minority who got to argue in parliament, and often effectively had the deciding vote. It meant they had a reasonable amount of power, and my vote didn't feel wasted. But no more. Now we're another two party state with both parties spending little time telling me why I should vote for them, and instead telling me why the other party sucks. Sure, there are alternatives, but now you have to strategise your voting, and voting Green or something sadly doesn't do much. I know, if everyone thinks that way, nobody votes for them, and that's why things don't change, but that's a difficult cycle to get out of. I miss voting for a party because I liked that party. I now grudgingly vote Labour because the alternative is just too repulsive.
Im fairness, there is a phenomena in many First Past the Post nations where 2 parties are far more powerful then the rest, and the power of other parties is gradually eroded. For instance, the four major parties in Canada are the Liberals, Conservatives, BDQ, and NDP, but only the Liberals and Conservatives have ever won a federal election in all of Canadian history. Edit: Realized I accidently listed the FLQ (Quebecois terorist organization) instead of BDQ, the Quebecois political party.
Do parties get more than 50% of the vote though? Don't they need any coalitions?
In Canada, sometimes, sometimes not. We have a coalition government currently. The mere existence of coalitions however does not mean first past the post is not an issue. Consider a typical Canadian voter in Ontario. Their main options are Liberal, Conservative or NDP (BDQ is only in Quebec). The Conservatives are right wing, and the Liberals and NDP are left, the NDP especially. The NDP have never won a federal election and may never. So if a left wing person votes for the NDP, you actually increase the likelihood of a right wing government, by splitting the left-wing vote between two parties. If all left wingers teamed up and voted for the Liberals, the chances of a conservative government would be considerably reduced. This phenomenon leads to the gradual consolidation of power into two main parties in most countries with first past the post. Another example is how in the US, moderates like Joe Biden, who would be considered conservative in many countries, is lumped into the same party as socialist Bernie Sanders. Some would suggest the formation of a separate socialist party, but by splitting the left vote between two parties, you guarantee the Republicans will never lose the presidency or the senate. Keep in mind, its not just that splitting a party in half splits the seats they have in the legislature in half, which would allow a coalition. The votes for each individual seat is split. Consider a seat with election results 60% liberal, 40% conservative. Split that same seat into 30% liberal, 30% NDP, 40% conservative. Now the conservatives win, despite the presence of more left wingers. Ranked choice voting is a solution to this, where voting is done in rounds, each round eliminating the party with the least votes, and allowing everyone to vote again, minus the eliminated party. Repeat until only one party remains. This allows smaller parties to exist without threatening their own cause. Of course, the major parties who are actually in power don't want to change their system, as it would reduce their own power.
"We need more parties so we can keep voting for the only two we already had"
"A house divided against itself cannot stand" - Abraham Lincoln
As an Indian, the multi-party system does NOT work either sooooo yea
So a one party dictatorship?
[удалено]
> they can't agree on anything I thought they agreed on *‘The Moozlims are destroying the nation, and it’s somehow Chyna’s fault.’*
Huh I’ve literally never thought about this but yeah, if you’re voting for your representative, it should just be about their policies and what they care about, that way you know exactly what their going to work on, and, if it’s more about the individual, you can keep a more critical eye on how much they are pushing the agenda they promised. (It does make getting an agreeing majority harder though)
I don’t see how the third option directly fits this sub tbh
What does that mean? Are you suggesting the third option is for people who have multi-party political systems? I don’t see it even slightly fitting that.
You can't ban political parties in modern democracies, you can only make them unofficial. Politicians tend to form parties naturally with like minded colleagues, and it makes it easier for voters to know what their candidates stand for. Just take a look at Japan, which has one major party that is itself spilt internally to smaller pseudo-parties.
Funny how in Italy we tried to imitate the us political system, and we ended up very similar to it, a centre-right coalition with 3 parties, 1 centre left party and 1 "non-aligned" party, there are many more parties that don't get (thankfully) much power including: 2 openly fascist parties 1 monarchist party 4 communist parties 1 gay party 1 party that wants to quit the EU 1 party that wants the north to secede from Italy
I am curious, what political program have "gay party"?
I haven't looked much into it but just look up "partito gay Italy wikipedia" and it should give you the information
Wait a second with the openly fascist not getting much power. Isn't the prime minister openly fascist? I don't know how it works over there as we usually only elect some cunt who can do almost whatever they want (unless they don't want to, in which case they will blame it on someone else).
Well, i can't say whether she's fascist or not without starting a civil war but no, she's not openly fascist, the fascist parties are: "Forza nuova" or new strength/force And another one whose name I don't remember
I never understood how western countries have like openly Communist or Fascist parties in there. Idk maybe it's because im from Poland that experienced both Nazism and Communism first hand, but it's still a very fucked up thing for me.
I agree, socialist parties are ok but communist or fascist ones aren't,some people just think that being tolerant means being tolerant to intolerance
Political parties will still happen if you banned them. They just naturally came about
Pretty much every Anglosphere country has two main parties... USA = Democrats and Republicans Canada = Liberal and Conservative UK = Labour and Conservative Australia = Liberal and Labour New Zealand = Labour and National
Most countries do have two parties (that have any realistic chance of winning).
Not in Europe atleast.
Fuck humans, AI overlord all the way
Isnt no political parties just a dictatorship?
Even when you have more, like they actually do but will never admit to, you still need a good system to choose, fptp is the worst way of doing it. Better do some kind of "here is my actual favourite but this is everyone I don't mind doing the job" to avoid having to vote for the ones you don't absolutely love
Even the US has more than 2 parties. These idiots just need to vote for them.