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As a German I don't understand why the USA basically do have two political parties. I know there are technically other parties but they have no impact.
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Because first past the post electoral systems always result in a 2 party system due to defensive voting.
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Because Americans didn't listen to George Washington, when during his farewell address he strongly cautioned against "alternate domination" of a 2 party system.
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Because Americans are woefully uneducated, dis-interested, and preoccupied.
And because now that it's entrenched, the two parties will collude even past the death of the country to keep it that way
This comment from another post here on Lemmy says it all.
I was listening to the 5-4 podcast recently and they repeatedly stressed the point that Trump has lost ≈90% of lower court decisions and won ≈90% of Supreme Court decisions, which is an absurd swing. I’ll try to dig up a source on it though. Still it’s blatantly obvious that the SC has completely abandoned the rule of law and the constitution.
Without rule of law, we're no longer a country.
Reading actual SCOTUS rulings can be pretty wild. The one for the 2000 presidential election basically said "we're giving this to Bush for no particular reason but this is a one-time decision that should never in the future be used as a precedent" despite the fact that precedent from previous rulings is pretty much their whole thing. Even the stay they issued to stop the recount in Florida early in the process basically said "the recount must stop because it would impair the legitimacy of a Bush presidency".
The ruling against Roe v. Wade was just comedy. They were using English law from centuries before the United States even existed as precedent for their decision.
There’s some structural reasons (the senate, primarily) that American politics will almost inevitably devolve into two parties.
If I could do one thing to fix American politics it would be to abolish the senate, which gives low population states an insanely unbalanced level of influence over national politics.
It drives me ls me crazy that Alaska gets the same amount of senate votes as California when we’re fifty times their population.
Wyoming too, which has even fewer people than Alaska.
(the senate, primarily)
Fair point! In Canada our senate is appointed by the Prime Minister and the position is lifetime. They rarely reject bills from the lower house.
Wow, I didn’t realize there even was a Canadian senate, I only ever hear about parliament and figured it was all MPs.
Exactly lol. All commonwealths have an upper and lower house just like the USA. I believe their senates are appointed as well, though I have not verified that.
Because first past the post electoral systems always result in a 2 party system due to defensive voting.
Nope. FPTP is the norm worldwide and two party systems very much the exception. Even in the US, it's only been the last third or so of the country's history that two have managed to become so all-conquering in spite of being so unrepresentative.
George Washington, when during his farewell address he strongly cautioned against "alternate domination" of a 2 party system.
Pretty sure he was very much against the concept of political parties in general, rather than having any preference as to how many.
But yeah, the two major parties HAVE pretty much embodied all his worries and more..
Because Americans are woefully uneducated, dis-interested, and preoccupied.
That's a big part of the problem, sure, but the issues of regulatory capture and the two parties themselves being in charge of how the entire system works (including the barriers to entry for everyone else) is MUCH more critical.
Most countries have FPTP but manage to have many parties in their parliaments/congress/diet. And I don't think the US is any more disinterested than most countries.
The main difference is the US has an insane amount of money at the top level, to the extent that it's basically impossible to participate in national level politics without both (a) a few billionaires backing you, and (b) the rest of the billionaires not objecting too hard.
Didn't Jackson warn about point 2 as well? Or was it Jefferson? Someone did, and it also went unheeded (or used as a blueprint.)
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It is actually 2 flavors of the same party. The USA is a one-party state, controlled by the capitalist party.
EDIT: lol you can downvote me while you decide whether you want to vote for the Israel-defending-capitalist-that-ran-on-"securing"-the-border or the other Israel-defending-capitalist-that-ran-on-"securing"-the-border 🤪
two the two people who downvoted this person, it's true though. any two party system is a one party system where all government decisions are made long before we find out about them as the politicians form coalitions within their parties. the republicans didn't become MAGA in 2016. they became MAGA in 2014 and 2015. 2016 was just them announcing their coalition
"Winner takes it all" makes it inherent to the system. They really really need to change that. But that is hard, when it keeps the only two relevant partys in power.
Google "Gerrymandering". It'll all come together.
We have first past the post voting, not ranked choice or star voting