Hard to elect good people when you don’t get good options.
Neither of the main parties have transparent and tamperproof primaries and one of the few things they consistently agree on is keeping third parties and independent candidates out of power whenever possible.
The American parties don’t need to spend any effort suppressing third parties, the constitution does that for them. First past the post always leads to two parties.
Suppose Bernie Sanders went independent and campaigned for president, and he got half of the votes that the democratic party would have got otherwise. If that happened, the Republicans could win with as little as 40% of the vote. Even if 60% of people were leftist, if 30% vote democrat and 30% vote bernie, then Trump still wins. It’s always in your best interest to have as few parties on your side as possible, and that means there can only be two parties.
In an instant runoff system, I can vote for the communist party first, the legalise weed party second, and the moderate left party third. If the communists and stoners don’t get enough votes, my votes will still go to the moderates and stop the reactionaries from winning. That means it’s safe for me to vote third party. A luxury Americans don’t have.
And we keep electing them.
Hard to elect good people when you don’t get good options.
Neither of the main parties have transparent and tamperproof primaries and one of the few things they consistently agree on is keeping third parties and independent candidates out of power whenever possible.
The American parties don’t need to spend any effort suppressing third parties, the constitution does that for them. First past the post always leads to two parties.
Suppose Bernie Sanders went independent and campaigned for president, and he got half of the votes that the democratic party would have got otherwise. If that happened, the Republicans could win with as little as 40% of the vote. Even if 60% of people were leftist, if 30% vote democrat and 30% vote bernie, then Trump still wins. It’s always in your best interest to have as few parties on your side as possible, and that means there can only be two parties.
In an instant runoff system, I can vote for the communist party first, the legalise weed party second, and the moderate left party third. If the communists and stoners don’t get enough votes, my votes will still go to the moderates and stop the reactionaries from winning. That means it’s safe for me to vote third party. A luxury Americans don’t have.