“Things are not working well, for years I’ve been voting for the guys who claimed they wanted to repair it. Now I’m voting for the people who want to smash everything…”
“… because I’m too dumb to realize that re-creating from scratch is far more difficult and even less likely to succeed”
they can’t get representation like they could have if they had their own party and could win their own seats
Run-off voting would prevent the worst by turning the presidential elections into FPTP while the rest remain free to vote for your preferred party
For example, you could vote for Somalia Concerns Concord and it could win a seat or two from new York or California, then vote for Democrats when the 2nd presidential vote is held because no party had a majority beforehand
I think Britain uses this system for something to research if you’re interested
They do and it’s absolute dogshit, as a country that has more than 2 parties present in Parliament, which a healthy democracy should have, mathematically majority of the country is going to end up with an unwanted prime minister, usually 1 of the 2 largest parties. CGP Grey n veritasium explained the maths behind it and why it’s mathematically less democratic than proportional representation
The states have it as well but on the extreme end, where it’s a duopoly shared by two both shit and corrupt parties.
If the UK had PR the country would never have a stable enough Government to be able to do any kind of internally consistent planning or policy. Having a government that has the ability to take executive actions and pass legislation is kind of important, otherwise you get into a mess of every individual bill getting co-opted and twisted by wildly different competing interests, all of whom are required to get it over the line. The Cabinet would become functionally useless, since none of the Transport, Education, Health etc secretaries would have the power to enact anything.
The one time in recent history that we did have a hung parliament, the Lib Dems’ participation in it was considered a massive betrayal that killed their support for a whole decade. This is what we’d be forced into every time under PR. (EDIT: oh wait I forgot the DUP, which was an even bigger shitshow of a tiny bunch of hatemongers suddenly arbitrarily getting to punch above their weight, ironically very undemocratically)
The system is working as designed, and it was designed to prefer stability over representation.
It’s also misleading to suggest PR wouldn’t also result in “mathematically majority of the country is going to end up with an unwanted prime minister”, since it’s always going to be the case regardless; the best you can do is some mathematical jiggery-pokery to force people to choose between two candidates they didn’t want in the first place, so you can turn around and say hey look you got who you voted for. Now which country does that remind us of?
Yeah, it’s ass, I was thinking of CGP Gray when I thought of Britain, but I would say it isn’t as ass as USA, the there are obvious and large® alternative parties available if they ever become big enough
Real question, i can’t seem to figure out.
How did the left abandon these people?
Gay rights, they’re a religious group that is just as intolerant as the Saudis or Pakistan.
They can honestly get fucked.
Yeah. I dunno why nobody else brought up the correct answer.
America doesn’t have a mainstream left party.
It has a status quo party (Democrats) and a fascist party (Republicans).
Clearly the status quo sucks for most Americans, so they’re more tempted by fascist alternatives.
“Things are kinda bad, maybe they’ll get better if they get worse.”
that’s the gist of it.
“Things are not working well, for years I’ve been voting for the guys who claimed they wanted to repair it. Now I’m voting for the people who want to smash everything…”
“… because I’m too dumb to realize that re-creating from scratch is far more difficult and even less likely to succeed”
they can’t get representation like they could have if they had their own party and could win their own seats
Run-off voting would prevent the worst by turning the presidential elections into FPTP while the rest remain free to vote for your preferred party
For example, you could vote for Somalia Concerns Concord and it could win a seat or two from new York or California, then vote for Democrats when the 2nd presidential vote is held because no party had a majority beforehand
FPTP is a trash system
you didn’t read anything I said
They do and it’s absolute dogshit, as a country that has more than 2 parties present in Parliament, which a healthy democracy should have, mathematically majority of the country is going to end up with an unwanted prime minister, usually 1 of the 2 largest parties. CGP Grey n veritasium explained the maths behind it and why it’s mathematically less democratic than proportional representation
The states have it as well but on the extreme end, where it’s a duopoly shared by two both shit and corrupt parties.
14 parties in parliament is not at all bad going.
If the UK had PR the country would never have a stable enough Government to be able to do any kind of internally consistent planning or policy. Having a government that has the ability to take executive actions and pass legislation is kind of important, otherwise you get into a mess of every individual bill getting co-opted and twisted by wildly different competing interests, all of whom are required to get it over the line. The Cabinet would become functionally useless, since none of the Transport, Education, Health etc secretaries would have the power to enact anything.
The one time in recent history that we did have a hung parliament, the Lib Dems’ participation in it was considered a massive betrayal that killed their support for a whole decade. This is what we’d be forced into every time under PR. (EDIT: oh wait I forgot the DUP, which was an even bigger shitshow of a tiny bunch of hatemongers suddenly arbitrarily getting to punch above their weight, ironically very undemocratically)
The system is working as designed, and it was designed to prefer stability over representation.
It’s also misleading to suggest PR wouldn’t also result in “mathematically majority of the country is going to end up with an unwanted prime minister”, since it’s always going to be the case regardless; the best you can do is some mathematical jiggery-pokery to force people to choose between two candidates they didn’t want in the first place, so you can turn around and say hey look you got who you voted for. Now which country does that remind us of?
Yeah, it’s ass, I was thinking of CGP Gray when I thought of Britain, but I would say it isn’t as ass as USA, the there are obvious and large® alternative parties available if they ever become big enough
(I am not British nor American)