this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2024
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So many downvotes, and so few willing to even speak up and say why.
Fwiw I think you are right, and moreover I am glad you have offered a civil conversation throughout.:-)
I have heard people ask the following question - though I have never heard of an answer (if you know I'd love to hear an answer): what country throughout history has ever survived devolving into a purely 2-party system? It has the effect that neither party actually needs to step up and DO anything, thus both devolve to simply slinging insults at the other one. e.g. Biden was elected b/c he was "not Trump", and before that Trump was elected for being "not Clinton". Obama was different, in his second term - many people had real hopes it seems, though Congress killed them all.
One of the worst parts of that effect is that it kills the desire to actually ACCOMPLISH any task at all, b/c when you do SOMETHING you can then be criticized for that. Whereas if all you do is halt what the other side is doing then you have succeeded at your objective (or like, at least you tried I suppose?).
Obstructionism kills governments. I legit doubt that democracy will survive in the USA, in another 10 years or so.
But yeah, I agree that if Biden wins, it will almost certainly be a Trump-blessed nominee who wins the next one. That said, there is a very non-negligible chance that Trump himself will personally win this one - some even say quite strong, if the poll numbers mean anything at all (debatable:-P). Like Clinton, some people may vote for the other side just to protest the situation of supporting Israel (never mind the fact that Trump would have supported them even harder).
Ehh, this is Lemmy, I shower in downvotes here lol.
For your question about surviving two party systems - I don't really know. From my understanding, this system is sort of a run off from British colonies and how their governments were setup. So I'm not sure if this is just a (relatively) modern issue that we need to overcome, or if it's happened before.
Yeah the contrarian effect is real, and that's part of the sluggishness of democracy. Dictatorships are horrible (obviously), but they can pivot on a dime compared to the democratic beaurocracy where there's 1000 checks and balances for every decision that just have never ending opposition.
That's part of why I was saying a third option might be a good choice here, because the two current political parties can't agree on anything to make good changes happen, it's almost in their benefit that it doesn't. If they're both making lots of money/connections for themselves while doing it, why change anything?
Maybe inserting more competition for these parties will help the people get their leaders to listen a bit more, and help mediate a middle ground to get shit done. Again, I could be wrong, but I don't think it's a crazy idea
It's only crazy because it's not feasible. If we get rid of the winner take all voting systems, it would be a good change.
A third choice would not only be good, but is mandatory for survival, as we are both saying. It's just a matter of getting to there from here, but yeah totally. Or better yet, 5, 20, 50, even 200 - having real options would be great.
What I know about the history of democracy is that ancient Greeks tried it, but they had more of a "direct" democracy, whereas America used ideas by like French philosophers such as Locke. Note that at the time the USA was founded, England was still a strict monarchy. Then America's success, later repeated in France, led to democracy spreading all over the globe, and at some point wrapping back around to the UK which despite retaining the monarchy at least introduced a Parliamentary system.
So now, many of the most successful nations on earth, like Germany, have some forms of democratization, which has refined and reimplemented the idea and put in different kinds of checks and balances... whereas the USA has left it mostly alone, so we are running on like Democracy 1.0, without the advantages of e.g. ranked choice voting that other nations use.
Some additional context to this discussion is that (a) Americans are really stupid. That sounds mean to say but, as one myself, it really is the biggest elephant in the room - like that's not just an invective, it's a diagnosis, and it terrifies me to say it, bc it's true. And (b) also greedy and vindictive, but that relates back to the former, so mostly what's important is (c) automation and globalization have changed things. The rich do not need factory workers, hence when COVID happened the plan was to just let them die. But also they don't need many worker class people anymore either - which isn't entirely true yet but is in the process of becoming more so all the time. Doctors? There's an app for that. Artist? Song-writer? Billionaires such as Bezos and Musk do not see the value in supporting anyone else, and more important the millionaires who want to become billionaires want to pay lower taxes, no matter how much they benefit from them.
The USA, like many Western nations, seems to me to be coasting along on past successes, thus continues to succeed now bc that's just how things work, but in spite of our current systems not because of them.
To reiterate: it literally does not matter what system of governance would be "best" - facts have little to nothing whatsoever to do with this conversation, where misinformation reigns king.:-( We are like those zombie animals that have been taken over by a parasitic fungus or some such (I mean the irl kind, but the movie versions work just as well), where we no longer act according to our best interests, but instead to whoever is pulling the strings now, behind the scenes.