Hillary Clinton's evisceration of Donald Trump

Discussion in 'Political Discussions' started by Abner, Jun 3, 2016.

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  1. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I agree that "first past the post" leads to what we have now, and that a change to proportional representation would lead to a multiparty democracy that was... well, perhaps less brazenly oligarchical, at least.

    It would be interesting to see what would happen if a state changed its lower house to be seated through party lists, and kept its upper house in single member districts.
     
    SteveFoerster, Jun 7, 2016
    #21
  2. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    In a parliamentary system, with no separate Executive, multiple parties can exist because even small minorities can result in valuable seats used for compromise legislation and even coalition governments. But in the U.S., third-party candidacies are usually "one-and-done," with "one" meaning the candidate, not the specific election period.

    Teddy Roosevelt and George Wallace are two more-recent examples of people who ran third-party candidacies that resulted in Electoral College votes. Ross Perot, on the other hand, won 18% of the popular vote in 1992 with zero Electoral College votes. Nader in 2000 is/was considered to be a spoiler for Gore, taking away popular votes and swinging Electoral College votes to Bush.

    Even if the GOP were to blow up after this election, it would soon be replaced by one new party. If it stayed fractured, very few would win seats in the House, none in the Senate, and none would ever have a chance at either legislative power or the Presidency. They would, naturally, aggregate as the new opposition, perhaps losing some (moderate Republicans) and gaining some (angry old Democrats?), but it would very quickly look very much like it does right now.

    Meet the new boss, same as the old boss......
     
    Rich Douglas, Jun 7, 2016
    #22
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