Thursday 28 July 2016
Why are third parties in American politics so neglected ?
I have a naive question for my American friends. I see that quite a lot of angry people have decided that Hilary is worse than a pustule on Satan's backside and are going to switch from Democrat to Green. My question is, why isn't there more of a drive to build up support for other parties outside the main campaigning season ? From my naive, distant perspective it looks like supporters want the Greens to go from zero to running the country in, like, three minutes. Why is it President or bust ? Why isn't there more of a movement to win seats in government before taking a stab at the top job ? As far as I can tell, even though a President has a lot more powers than a Prime Minister, they're not an elected dictator. So why fight the totally lost cause of getting the Greens into government instead of just winning seats, where they could still wield significant political power ?
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Another question: is there some section of their constitution that says there are only allowed to be two parties?
ReplyDeleteI'm not really sure why, but probably a lot of it is lack of support and lack of funding. As far as I'm aware there's never even been a green party candidate for any of my local elections.
ReplyDeleteOverall though I think the two party thing is just the equilibrium of how the voting works. Any third party is going to be similar to one of the two main parties on certain issues. It will split the vote of whichever party it is similar to, getting the other party elected. To avoid losing all the time people with similar interests have to compromise to get someone most like them elected. This naturally results in a two party system. Who the main two parties are could theoretically change, but I think the strategy behind it all prevents any third party from being popular.
The Greens have been party building in Minnesota for decades. It's just ridiculously difficult breaking through with a standard ballot and plurality wins.
ReplyDeleteThe alternative parties are not being represented in the media here. Until a week ago, I had not even heard of the Green Party, and Jill Stein.
ReplyDeleteThis is an election year, when the mainstream media only reports on the two main political parties, they are obscuring alternative solutions to existing problems that may be much better than the (non) solutions being presented by these two corrupt major political parties.
This election is a train wreck, with no good candidate to represent us, except perhaps Jill Stein. The candidates here feel that they are representing what is right for the U.S., in reality they are both republicans and democrats are representing for a very, very small minority of the total U.S. population.
Also the rules for getting on the ballot have been so completely corrupted that it is actually impossible for candidates without a broad organization in place to get on the ballots in the first place.
No representation, or more representation for a select few entrenched political parties.
Ah... Rhys. Here's your problem, your misperception: you're making far too much sense. Americans do not understand the scrum. The politicians do, obvious. The people do not.
ReplyDeleteThe American only understands the offensive and defensive lines of American football, where the O and D lines provide what we call The Pocket: time and space for a quarterback to modify the big decision, based on where his receivers and runners have gone, in the tumult of the first two seconds of the play.
Johnathan Chung So, the rich have fixed it so that they choose who you get to choose from?
ReplyDeleteChris Blackmore The illusion of choice is an important marketing tool. Won't do to have just one widget for sale. You need an upscale widget and a bargain widget.
ReplyDeleteRhys Taylor
ReplyDeleteIf you'd have to choose between Farage and Blair, I think you'd look at other options too. I know I would.
Teodor Poparescu Given that choice, I'd off myself.
ReplyDelete