[zusammen]

This is the sad reality of oligarchy. Red/blue culture wars appeal to some people because they would prefer an authoritarianism that at least pretends to have their back 50 percent of the time over rich people (their employers) who have their back 0 percent of the time.

No one wants (and I don’t think anyone should want) bipartisanship, not really. Bipartisanship means the rich get everything they want—efficiently. It means the meetings of the club we aren’t in happen on time and no one ends up with a black eye. That’s also an unacceptable outcome. Of course, it can be argued that the outcome we are getting is basically the same thing, but with cheap depressing entertainment and widespread governmental dysfunction.

Of course, anyone who thinks voting for any of these right-wing figures will end oligarchy is delusional. Their charisma comes from the fact that, because they hate basically everyone, they also incidentally hate many of the other oligarchs. But nothing good happens when people vote for hate, and none of these pricks will ever end oligarchy since they are all part of it. The Nazis truly did present themselves as somewhat socialist (it was in the name) in the early 1920s to gain their first followers, but as soon as they were in power, they realized they had more to gain by siding with the industrialists and against labor, which is of course what they did.

[intended]

Bipartisan efforts are what makes Congress work.

It’s this loss that plagues Congress.

Bipartisanship is what was jettisoned by the republicans to ensure that they would always be able to blame democrats for the failure of the government.

Even during Obamacare, when they adopted a Republican plan, Romney had to distance himself from it. Despite all the efforts for Bipartisan outreach - for all the concessions, the republicans couldn’t stand with the dems.

The Dems must always be wrong.

Bipartisanship means you have to spend more effort to get more people on your team.

Partisanship means you just have to get on board with one party.

So how is bipartisanship the problem?

[dgb23]

Looking at this mess from far away in Switzerland.

I'm so glad we have a consensus democracy. We're a small country but I don't see any reason why a more moderate, consensus based system couldn't be adopted by larger ones. In fact I think this centralization of power around one person doesn't scale.

I'm also glad that we have the direct vote in order to reign in our government whenever they overreach or turn too far away from our interests. That seems much harder to implement in larger countries, but it's an excellent tool to course correct a government.

[hammock]

Why so two-party system?

[drivers99]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

> political systems with single-member districts and the plurality voting system, as in, for example, the United States, two main parties tend to emerge. In this case, votes for minor parties can potentially be regarded as splitting votes away from the most similar major party

If a third party grows it will either shrink again as voters realize they are splitting their vote against their biggest common opponent, or the third party replaces one of the two existing parties. Either way, you get two main parties.

[unethical_ban]

I don't normally "this" a comment, but "this"!

The most effective single thing to promote a multiparty system is to switch to ranked-choice or approval voting (if staying with single-member districts) or to switch to multi-member districts with some kind of proportional representation. That would be where, say, everyone in Texas votes for their preferred party, and the 34 seats get allocated proportionally to party results.

Honestly, implementing Ranked Choice is the best compromise.

  * Meaningfully improves the ability of minor parties to succeed
  * Removes the concept of "wasted vote" so that citizens can vote their conscience
  * Electoral results are more informative of the positions of the electorate
  * Candidates have to compete more on ideas and policies than attacking opponents
  * Conceptually easier to understand than other systems
  * Maintains single-member districts (I don't like this, but I think trying to change the House to multi-member districts is too radical for us)

[sph]

The big issue, fatal even, is that the parties that can enact this change, those currently in power, are those that stand to lose the most from it.

So we're stuck with this joke we call democratic elections. Also seen in the UK with its abysmal first-past-the-post system.

[mike_hearn]

The UK isn't a two party system though. It has at least 5 parties in play right now (Lab, Con, Reform, LibDem, SNP). Reform is only small but is currently polling higher than any other parties, so their number of MPs would go up a lot if an election was held today.

FPTP isn't sufficient to get a two party system. The US has such a system because it combines FPTP with open primaries. In the UK the right is trying to rebuild a new party from scratch, because the Conservative party has no working mechanisms that would allow it to have its direction changed by its members. Whereas in the US open primaries give members a great deal of control, and that kills the incentive to create new parties. The current Republican administration is run by a group of former Democrats who came into the GOP from the outside - this isn't possible in the UK system.

[gs17]

Yes, which reveals how serious they really are about third parties as "spoilers". An alternative voting system could eliminate that as a possibility entirely.

[dragonwriter]

> The most effective single thing to promote a multiparty system is to switch to ranked-choice or approval voting (if staying with single-member districts) or to switch to multi-member districts with some kind of proportional representation.

The single best is to switch to multimember proportional for the legislature (which can remain candidate centric using, say, 5 member districts and STV), and that gets even better (though procedurally more difficult to adopt in the US) if you were to switch the Presidential election from a single winner two-seat President and Vice President to ranked choice two-sequential winner system (e.g., IRV or Bucklin, but after you pick a winner, eliminate that candidate, and tally again without them for a second winner as VP) where each party is structurally incentivized to compete for both spots. These not only make more parties viable they also each offer more election-day choice among candidates of the same party, denying incumbents of favored parties an uncontested sinecure.

[Aloisius]

Where has the adoption of ranked choice with single member districts resulted in a switch from a two-party system to a multiparty one?

It hasn't happened anywhere in the US as far as I know, despite being adopted by various local governments.

Ranked choice's major benefit is that it reduces the effect of spoilers. Third parties are the spoilers.

[bluGill]

When the national elections are still two party local, and the two big parties have any interest in the local election, those two parties will win local as well because they have some much more mind share. Many people decide who to vote for in the national election and then vote the same party all down the ballot without knowing what any of the other players stand for, thus giving the major parties a big advantage when one of those down ballot races is a different system. If you are not the big party in those other systems you still have a harder time because people don't understand how the local system is different.

[gs17]

> implementing Ranked Choice is the best compromise.

Approval voting is the better compromise IMO. It has most of the same benefits, except that it's even easier to understand, and attacking opponents is even less valuable. You don't get as much information about opinions from the result, but you do still get more than the current system (assuming statistics are made available). You don't have to worry about people wasting their vote because they don't understand the new system, voting for only one candidate is a valid approval voting vote, it simply implies a higher threshold.

[ClayShentrup]

approval voting gives you MORE information about opinions, even if this is counterintuitive.

this is because:

1. the IRV tabulation algorithm discards a lot of useful information. (there are better ways to tabulate ranked ballots.)

2. strategic exaggeration of rankings is more distortionary than with approval voting.

https://medium.com/@clayshentrup/expressiveness-6ef8c034bc65

[mindslight]

Ranked Choice (ballots) meaning Ranked Pairs (decision process), of course. Instant Runoff Voting is still thoroughly an artifact of the two party system.

[throwway120385]

I want bipartisanship. Consensus and a willingness to concede are the only way to govern fairly. Anything else is just naked fiat, which is another word for authoritarianism.