Also from EU, additional tidbit: Not being a first-past-the-post two-party system allows for political parties to be more nuanced than a simplified left-right spectrum.
It depends on the country though. France is effectively first-past-the-post. Technically (rarely in practice) you can even get 3-4 candidates in the second round if the turnout is very high.
Two-round is not fundamentally a huge improvement and de facto is what US has with party primaries (of course unlike in France third parties can't really survive in such a system).
Arguably of course having a three way stalemate might be occasionally preferable than 1 party having near absolute control because of controlling 50%+1 seats.
Thankfully US has all sorts of checks and balances and it might take a while for a single party to get control of the House, Senate, White House and the Supreme court (for instance in the UK where there are basically no checks an balances and the parliament has absolute power if a pseudo-Fascist party somehow managed to win they could more or less do anything they wanted and they'd only need 30-40% of all votes for that).
IMHO electoral systems matter but extreme polarization is the real problem. Back in the 70s even a Republican president like Nixon could somewhat effectively work with the Democrat controlled congress. Yet now a split congress can't even pass legislation that technically both parties support (e.g. the border billy)
> Thankfully US has all sorts of checks and balances and it might take a while for a single party to get control of the House, Senate, White House and the Supreme court
The fact that "it is good when government is deadlocked and ineffective" is an actual argument people use is baffling to me, but for the sake of the argument and out of assumed mutual respect, I'll do my best to stay objective for following:
> IMHO electoral systems matter but extreme polarization is the real problem
I absolutely agree that extreme polarization is a major issue.
I believe that FPTP inevitably leads to extreme polarization, when given enough time: FPTP inevitably converges to a two-party system (due to strategic voting), and a two-party system inevitably leads to extreme polarization (due to strategic politicians playing into strategic voting).
The argument for the latter goes something like this: Disenfranchised voters can be coaxed to vote for a least-worst option when the most-worst option looks worse enough. So it becomes more politically effective to demonize your opponent rather than argue your own politics.
Additionally, it is politically beneficial for you when things stay bad while your opponent is in charge, and especially so if things get worse. You can use their perceived incompetence as ammunition to further demonize them. So it becomes beneficial to use what government power you might have in order to hinder your opponent's attempts at improving things, even if what they're trying to do is something you agree with and would yourself do if you were the one in power.
Depending on your preferred political party, I'm sure you can think of examples of the above.
Wytwwww|1 year ago
It depends on the country though. France is effectively first-past-the-post. Technically (rarely in practice) you can even get 3-4 candidates in the second round if the turnout is very high.
Two-round is not fundamentally a huge improvement and de facto is what US has with party primaries (of course unlike in France third parties can't really survive in such a system).
Arguably of course having a three way stalemate might be occasionally preferable than 1 party having near absolute control because of controlling 50%+1 seats.
Thankfully US has all sorts of checks and balances and it might take a while for a single party to get control of the House, Senate, White House and the Supreme court (for instance in the UK where there are basically no checks an balances and the parliament has absolute power if a pseudo-Fascist party somehow managed to win they could more or less do anything they wanted and they'd only need 30-40% of all votes for that).
IMHO electoral systems matter but extreme polarization is the real problem. Back in the 70s even a Republican president like Nixon could somewhat effectively work with the Democrat controlled congress. Yet now a split congress can't even pass legislation that technically both parties support (e.g. the border billy)
onetoo|1 year ago
The fact that "it is good when government is deadlocked and ineffective" is an actual argument people use is baffling to me, but for the sake of the argument and out of assumed mutual respect, I'll do my best to stay objective for following:
> IMHO electoral systems matter but extreme polarization is the real problem
I absolutely agree that extreme polarization is a major issue.
I believe that FPTP inevitably leads to extreme polarization, when given enough time: FPTP inevitably converges to a two-party system (due to strategic voting), and a two-party system inevitably leads to extreme polarization (due to strategic politicians playing into strategic voting).
The argument for the latter goes something like this: Disenfranchised voters can be coaxed to vote for a least-worst option when the most-worst option looks worse enough. So it becomes more politically effective to demonize your opponent rather than argue your own politics.
Additionally, it is politically beneficial for you when things stay bad while your opponent is in charge, and especially so if things get worse. You can use their perceived incompetence as ammunition to further demonize them. So it becomes beneficial to use what government power you might have in order to hinder your opponent's attempts at improving things, even if what they're trying to do is something you agree with and would yourself do if you were the one in power.
Depending on your preferred political party, I'm sure you can think of examples of the above.