@1dalm @brianklaas telling people to vote for a person because he's not The Other Guy is not a good enough reason. Don't force feed me crumbs and pretend it's good enough. Find a better candidate to run.
That's the problem with white liberals these days y'all a bunch of vote scolds. You'll find out ✊🏾
@cinnarose @1dalm @brianklaas You want a different result, change the electoral system in your country to make it possible.
@resuna @1dalm @brianklaas what do you think I'm trying to do? Of course that's the answer.
I mean, really 🙄
@cinnarose @1dalm @brianklaas Looks to me you're trying to tell people to bash a different head against the wall instead of tearing the wall down.
@resuna @1dalm @brianklaas your reading comprehension sucks.
You're not going to get a third party in the US without going to something like the Westminster Parliamentary System and transferable votes.
It's not going to happen. The entire system is rigged against it.
@resuna but throwing in a third party is just more bashing the head against the wall, that you mentioned above.
The problem isn't the lack of third parties. That's a solution, or at least a mitigating response, to the electoral system.
You're right to point to changing the electoral system, but the real change is implementing ranked choice voting.
The first past the post electoral system risks wasted votes which leads to a two party system as people organize themselves in response.
And no, a parliamentary system doesn't fix this either. Rather, it undermines accountability by breaking the link between a voter and their representative.
@volkris @cinnarose @1dalm @brianklaas I guess you missed this bit:
> and transferable votes
No I saw it, like I said above, parliamentary systems bring in their own problems so adding transferable votes to a parliamentary system won't fix this.
@volkris @cinnarose @1dalm @brianklaas I didn't suggest adding it to the parliamentary system to fix the system, I suggested it as a good in and of itself.
Parliamentary systems have way fewer problems than the mess the US puts up with and they encourage cooperation and coalition which is kind of essential for a multi-party environment.
@resuna you said, "something like the Westminster Parliamentary System and transferable votes"
The "and" there meant you weren't suggesting it as good in and of itself. If you didn't mean "and" that's fine, but the "and" did lump the two together.
You really seem to be putting parties ahead of other legislative functions in your comments. You focused on having third parties, and now you're bringing up multi-party environments.
But I'd say that focus on party overlooks the more important role of representing people, ahead of party, that we tend to want in our democratic processes.
@volkris @cinnarose @1dalm @brianklaas Oh please.
And third parties require a multi-party environment or they will collapse into two again as happened more than once in US history.
In case I haven't been clear, I don't care about third parties. In fact, that third parties collapse into two naturally is a huge sign of how misguided it is to focus on that.
Third parties don't serve voters well considering the problem of split votes and wasted ballots given the standard election method in the United States.
So again, I see you're focused on parties instead of voters, and I think that's really the wrong thing to focus on.
I want to serve voters and support the democratic process. I think that would be healthy for society. I don't really care about parties beyond the way they serve voters.
So I don't care about third parties except to point out that they can be bad for voters.
@volkris @cinnarose @1dalm @brianklaas Third parties collapsing into two is a specific problem in the US, it is by no means universal.
The US was also created assuming that the utopia you imagine where political parties are not an essential part of reality was possible.
This is not a coincidence. Washington got particularly salty when he caught on, but responded as you are by demanding that the reality of factions be somehow denied.
Again, it seems to be that you're so focused, even obsessed, with parties that you're missing how voters are impacted.
Third parties collapsing into two is only a problem if you're focused on there being third parties.
But if you focus on voters, as I do, that collapse isn't a problem but a solution as voters mitigate vote splitting and ballot wasting of the US voting system.
You seem to see it as a problem because it doesn't match your biases. But really, it's a solution, not a problem, if we consider the real people of the country.
@volkris @cinnarose @1dalm @brianklaas
Have you ever lived outside the USA?
@resuna no, and that's why I'm focused on the USA.
I'm certainly aware of that other countries have governments that aren't so focused on their people, but I think core to the US design is a focus on the democratic process. The US government was set up from scratch with a focus on giving people seats at the table.
I think that's a good thing, and sure, other cultures may have different opinions, but I've been clear that that's where I'm coming from.
So again, you focus on parties, and that's fine, but it's not my personal prioritization when I think about governance.
@volkris @cinnarose @1dalm @brianklaas
The US model started falling apart in Washington's lifetime, he railed against the way the country was splitting into two factions. Because the two party system does a worse job at giving the people seats at the table than any other country, because it gives them a choice of two representatives who each have to get half the voters to decide they're the lesser of two evils.
@resuna this has nothing to do with any other country, as other countries have different voting systems and different cultures and different representative systems. So comparing to another country is apples and oranges. There's no point to it.
But, ABSOLUTELY the two party system allows people to choose the lesser of two evils. The problem is that having more parties than that undermines that ability.
Given the US propensity for first past the post voting, additional parties mean that voters are disempowered from voting for the lesser of two evils. At that point, they're likely to vote for the greatest of three evils.
And that's a step backwards.
Again, the reason we have two parties is to solve the problem of the voting system, to avoid wasted ballots.
Voters organize themselves into two parties because the voting system sucks. With more than two parties, we still have the sucky voting system, but we no longer can mitigate its problems.
Of course, this only matters if you care about voters.
If you only care about parties then ok.
@volkris @cinnarose @1dalm @brianklaas
OK, I'm done here. Plonk.
@resuna That's a shame because it seems like you had at least an interest in discussing this.
Really it comes down to whether you value voters or political parties as the core element of the political system.
If you really just want a third party for some reason, then sure, we can talk about ways to generate and safeguard a third party even though that is bad for voters under the US voting system, but we need to be clear about that being the goal.
My goal is to improve democracy and improve the representation for voters, and I don't care about whether there's a third party or not when that doesn't benefit voters.
If your goal is just to have a third party for some reason, fine. That's not my cause, but everyone has their own values.
