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Both instances are a huge fucking problem though. The first people who made the USA warned against a two party system.
I agree, but the reality is that it's the system we have right now. We can try to change it. But sitting this election out or voting for a third party will only help Trump get elected. I said in another comment (and got downvoted for it) but I would vote for a ham sandwich over Trump.
The issue is that we're not in this situation accidentally. Every 4 years we say "I know it sucks, but for now we just have to vote out the lesser evil, then we can focus on change" then go 4 more years without making any changes. We'll always just be voting for the lesser of 2 evils, whether for this election or the 2064 election. Everyone with any real say in the government loves how things are working out right now, and has no intention to allow us to truly vote for anyone other than 2 candidates that have been vetted by the oil companies.
Push for ranked choice voting for your state, and if we can get that implemented nationwide then we might be going somewhere.
Ranked choice voting is great because it enables votes to go to smaller parties. To get it passed, you'd need to get lawmakers to alter the laws. Those lawmakers are either Republicans or Democrats. Both benefit from first-past-the-post, and neither benefits from ranked choice. Good luck getting ranked choice passed.
I absolutely agree with pushing the issue at a local level, however we should probably be aiming for approval or STAR voting:
https://dividedwefall.org/star-and-approval-voting/
RCV is way better than our current system, but even RCV has flaws.
We also need regulation requiring election reform within party primaries, because as of right now it is a clown show.
It's already going to be a hugely heavy lift to get RCV, so no need to complicate the effort by suggesting alternatives to RCV.
Just don't think there's room for that conversation in our political environment today. And yes, I hated saying what I just said, but still.
Arguably, RCV is just as complicated as STAR, and approval is simpler than RCV. And part of the difficulty in the heavy lift to get RCV is that it has some pretty rough flaws, flaws that don't exist within the alternatives.
And the political environment is easing up to the idea of moving towards better voting methods. I'm not saying we should let perfection be the enemy of progress. All I am saying is that if we are going to be making changes, we should at least attempt the better options.
I'll take your word for it, sincerely, as I'm not familiar with STAR, but was speaking more from a social 'selling it' point of view. Simplicity tends to sell better than complexity, and RCV is the one that's known of already.
What we citizens need to do now is get our elected officials to start talking about the pros and cons of STAR versus RCV, etc. So far they've been more than happy to ignore everything except the status quo, unfortunately.
Agreed. And that's why I think approval is such a big improvement over ranked choice.
"Tell us who you approve of, candidate with the most approval wins"
Is a hell of a lot simpler than
"Rank every candidate without ranking multiple as the same level, then we check if any candidate has a 50% majority, if not, the lowest candidate gets booted and the next wave of second choices comes in, repeat until there is 50% majority."
And that's before the peripheral benefits.
Agreed. It's honestly sad.
My city/state has been warming up to these kinds of talks and candidates at least, which gives me a glimmer of hope. But for now it is not enough.
>But sitting this election out or voting for a third party will only help Trump get elected.
only a vote for trump helps trupm get elected
Mathematically, the system they set up - the first past the post system - will always devolve into a 2-party contest.
Strategically, it only counts for you to vote for one of the top two choices, and then only sometimes.
Even so, still vote against fascism. Every time.
The two party system is the "vote against" system.
In a multi-party system, you have multiple options you can vote for who are not fascists. Unfortunately, true multi-party systems are rare. Even when there are other parties, there are often two dominant parties and then lots of other small parties who are brought into coalitions.
Sorta. It was actually Washington who warned against a two party system, because one was already forming from everyone else.
It's more like the first people who made the US devolved into this same tribalism, and Washington tried to warn them it was bad.