[Loughla]

No, it is very unpopular in the US in those who regularly vote in primaries. The primary decides the race, for many, many elections. The presidential race is not exempt from this, either. To draw enough primary voters to make the ballot in one of the two major parties, candidates are, increasingly, needing to take extreme stances on most social and economic issues. (for example, look at how many people came out for Trump in the 2016 primary. In my parents' county in their Midwest state, the polling place literally ran out of republican ballots)

Pandering to the extremes, and the movement of many politicians toward extreme views is a symptom of the disease, not the disease itself.

[ordinaryradical]

Yang explains this exact issue so well here: https://youtu.be/-2O3JYaELW0?t=1038

This is part of the reason he and others will be pushing for structural changes, including open primaries, as central to the platform. Changing the mechanics of the elections is the only way to enable a return to centrism in the US.

[dragonwriter]

> Changing the mechanics of the elections is the only way to enable a return to centrism in the US.

There is no centrism to return to. The post-WWII age of bipartisanship wasn't one of centrism, it was one where the party split didn't align with the ideological divide. It was jist as much a period of competing ideological extremes (and governing from ideological polarized positions, which is why it featured the US military being used to enforce the federal will against US state governments.)

Changing the mechanics of elections to artificially favor centrism is...opposed to the kind of changes that would expand the scope of meaningful choices and improve representation.

[holywar20]

Americans feel unrepresented. This makes us despair and forces us into increasingly unpopular, existential crisis, that are good for no one.

I do not believe the problem is we aren't progressive enough. The problem is no one trusts the goverment. And no one trusts the goverment is because no one in goverment is accountable to the majority and no one governs the way we would like to be governed.

Frankly it's not about 'centrism'. It's about the fact the parties do NOT represent the diversity of opinion in America. there pro-choice republicans, pro-life democrats, republicans who like trans-rights, pro-capitalism democrats, pro-gun democrats, anti-trump Republicans ... But despite all this diversity of opinion, you have a system that forces binary choices between slates of options.

We are a very diverse country - ethnically, politically, socially. It's beautifully diverse. Among the most diverse in the world. I do not believe the current political system reflects that diversity accurately.

Which is why voter participation in America is low, and most elections across the country do not matter. This is wrong. Every district in America should be competitive.