• skisnow@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    You say “most people understand”, as though basically every other functioning democracy in the world doesn’t have at least five or more parties sitting in their legislature.

    (edit: curious about which of the downvotes are people butthurt about their democracy sucking, which are from bots, and which are from cowardly votescolds who wrongly believe that the path to salvation is to keep whipping people into propping up a failed two-party system that has led to America now being classed as a “Flawed Democracy” for the last 9 years by the Economist Intelligence Unit)

    • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      I’m speaking specifically about the US. Do those other democracies have the same FPTP electoral system as the US, or some other system that makes third parties viable?

      • skisnow@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        There’s a variety of systems, America’s is far from special beyond the amounts of money involved. The UK has FPTP and over a dozen parties in Parliament.

        As far as I can tell the main blocker to a successful multi party democracy is people like you promoting a self-perpetuating circular logic.

        • insomniac_lemon@lemmy.cafe
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          2 days ago

          The UK has FPTP and over a dozen parties in Parliament.

          They don’t use it everywhere. And even then in the House of Commons (where it is used), out of 650 seats, only one 3rd party (and independents) is in the double digits. 80% of the seats are 2 parties, the same 2 parties that have traded power for the past century.

          Some other parts of their government do have other voting methods or even proportional representation, allowing other parties to govern.

          They also have recall elections(/no-confidence) and more common prime-minister resignations (and probably tons of other rules that change how political power works), meanwhile we have the Electoral College for the presidential election which further ensures a 3rd candidate can be a spoiler assuming they can even win in 1 state.

          • skisnow@lemmy.ca
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            2 days ago

            That’s an astonishing amount of pettyfogging and nitpicking, that doesn’t even come close to dismantling the underlying argument.

        • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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          2 days ago

          No, it’s the system. It’s basic math. Acknowledging the features of the system does not make one responsible for the existence of those features, and ignoring them doesn’t make one virtuous.

          • skisnow@lemmy.ca
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            2 days ago

            It’s certainly “basic math”, in the sense of “unsophisticated” or “simplistic”. You’re persisting in treating something as a hard truth, that categorically isn’t.

            • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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              2 days ago

              You are incorrect. It is basic math in that the principles that govern its behavior are fairly low-order and easy to understand. You are not utilizing more “sophisticated” math, you’re just ignoring simple facts. A truth being simple does not make it less true.

    • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      You’re getting downvoted because you think pretending the US isn’t how it actually is will change it. Either that or you actively want to help the fascists