As a European I always wonder why Americans don’t create an alternative party to the Democrats
The average American is too stupid to handle more than 2 options. American’s like everything easy and straightforward. Black and white. Good and evil. They have a very simplistic world view.
Or maybe we are stuck with the two parties we have.
For a third party to appear, one of the current ones has to fracture. Neither party is willing to do that because fracturing your own party guarantees the other party wins due to FPTP.
Right now especially, noone trusts the republicans to run the country while the democrats re-sort themselves into their new parties.
Even then, it might be those two Democrat parties splitting their own vote for many elections to come, essentially conceding the country for a decade or more.
If the parties we had now were more moderate and closer together on everyday issues, it wouldnt feel like picking between shit and poop, it would feel like choosing between vanilla and chocolate ice cream, which both are valid and good and have their own merits.
Americans aren’t stupid, we are frustrated, and in some states there is still a strong pressure from religion, school, and government that causes people to learn the wrong ideals, and in some cases complete falsehoods. My favorite is the states that contradict themselves or avoid logic at all turns.
We recently had a state pass a law including the ten commandments in every classroom in the state, but the approved list they are putting up is ELEVEN items long.
I was probably all over the place in this reply but I hope I made some sense towards your post.
Oh fuck off, the reason is we have FPTP elections and there’s too much hanging on an election to justify fracturing the country for four years while we establish a viable 3rd party.
I don’t know, I have never lived in the United States, but I would like to think that there are still enough intelligent people for a third party to position itself as a real alternative and end up completely replacing the Democratic Party, which will leave two parties again, now that I think it
Wall yourself through the process of creating this third party. Let’s say its this leading edge european-style-leftist party that cares about people, for real this time.
This party starts growing slowly, but where do the people come from? Maybe some people who avoided politics altogether until this new party came along, but most people will likely come from the Democratic party.
So the party is building and the democrat party is shrinking, while the republican party stays the same. They may even see some growth from the “fracturing” of the Democrat party. They start winning more and more elections as instead of a race coming out 46% to 44%, it comes out 46% to 36% to 10%.
That ratio keeps building in favor of the new leftist party, but we lose seats and elections every cycle. And then eventually (maybe stupidly hopeful?) The new left party completely takes over the democrat party which ceases to exist.
Now we are back at a two party system, but have lost the country for maybe 5, 10, 20+ years? You could argue this is a better idea than what we currently do, which is try to change the party you are part of slowly over time with voting and campaigning, but I personally wouldnt say that myself.
Well, I don’t know, like I said before I’m not American and I don’t know all the ins and outs of the American electoral system, but if this is really impossible, I’ll just stop thinking of the United States as a democracy in any way.
Changing the democrats party from within has proven impossible since Hillary’s rigged election in 2016, moving her policies to the left runs into a constant wall of “this is how we will lose the center”, well, I don’t know, I just think the system is so broken that either something different is done or it’s not going to be fixed
The average American is too stupid to handle more than 2 options. American’s like everything easy and straightforward. Black and white. Good and evil. They have a very simplistic world view.
Or maybe we are stuck with the two parties we have.
For a third party to appear, one of the current ones has to fracture. Neither party is willing to do that because fracturing your own party guarantees the other party wins due to FPTP.
Right now especially, noone trusts the republicans to run the country while the democrats re-sort themselves into their new parties.
Even then, it might be those two Democrat parties splitting their own vote for many elections to come, essentially conceding the country for a decade or more.
If the parties we had now were more moderate and closer together on everyday issues, it wouldnt feel like picking between shit and poop, it would feel like choosing between vanilla and chocolate ice cream, which both are valid and good and have their own merits.
Americans aren’t stupid, we are frustrated, and in some states there is still a strong pressure from religion, school, and government that causes people to learn the wrong ideals, and in some cases complete falsehoods. My favorite is the states that contradict themselves or avoid logic at all turns.
We recently had a state pass a law including the ten commandments in every classroom in the state, but the approved list they are putting up is ELEVEN items long.
I was probably all over the place in this reply but I hope I made some sense towards your post.
Oh fuck off, the reason is we have FPTP elections and there’s too much hanging on an election to justify fracturing the country for four years while we establish a viable 3rd party.
I don’t know, I have never lived in the United States, but I would like to think that there are still enough intelligent people for a third party to position itself as a real alternative and end up completely replacing the Democratic Party, which will leave two parties again, now that I think it
Wall yourself through the process of creating this third party. Let’s say its this leading edge european-style-leftist party that cares about people, for real this time.
This party starts growing slowly, but where do the people come from? Maybe some people who avoided politics altogether until this new party came along, but most people will likely come from the Democratic party.
So the party is building and the democrat party is shrinking, while the republican party stays the same. They may even see some growth from the “fracturing” of the Democrat party. They start winning more and more elections as instead of a race coming out 46% to 44%, it comes out 46% to 36% to 10%.
That ratio keeps building in favor of the new leftist party, but we lose seats and elections every cycle. And then eventually (maybe stupidly hopeful?) The new left party completely takes over the democrat party which ceases to exist.
Now we are back at a two party system, but have lost the country for maybe 5, 10, 20+ years? You could argue this is a better idea than what we currently do, which is try to change the party you are part of slowly over time with voting and campaigning, but I personally wouldnt say that myself.
Well, I don’t know, like I said before I’m not American and I don’t know all the ins and outs of the American electoral system, but if this is really impossible, I’ll just stop thinking of the United States as a democracy in any way. Changing the democrats party from within has proven impossible since Hillary’s rigged election in 2016, moving her policies to the left runs into a constant wall of “this is how we will lose the center”, well, I don’t know, I just think the system is so broken that either something different is done or it’s not going to be fixed