| sethnintendo said: It is pretty obvious that most people are sick of the Democrats and Republicans in the USA. However, I believe with the current winner takes all system that it is almost impossible for other parties to get elected in state and national elections. If I wanted to vote libertarian or another party then my vote would most likely be worthless. It would be nice to know that my vote actually means something rather than be tossed out. I believe that we need to go from a winner takes all system to proportional representation. I view the electoral college, winner takes all and two party systems in a very negative light. I was wondering what you guys think would be the best way to solve this problem? |
We are not a winner-take-all system of government.
A WTA system of government is one in which the party with the greatest percentage of elected officials controls government. That's not the case in the US. Republican's may, for example, currently control the House of Representatives, but they don't control the Senate or the Executive branch. Therefore, you still have checks and balances.
While we may appear to be a two party system, we aren't entirely two party. There are in fact independents in both the Senate and House, and third parties do often win elections on the local or state level. The problem typically with third parties are the fact that they have a tendency to make promises that they just can't fulfill. Not because people object to what they believe or have proposed, but because what they've proposed usually won't work or will break more than it will fix.
The UK has a Winner-Take-All system of government. Once a party wins a majority or once a coalition of parties is formed, they can pretty much do anything they want. Same way with local councils. Councils work on the majority rules principle and if Labour wins the majority then they can set the agenda and govern the local area the way they want.
And third parties don't always do well with their intentions. Look at the LibDems in the UK, they formed a coalition government with Conservatives and it ended up hurting them in the long run rather than securing more power for the future (as they had hoped). The Tea Party was initially a boon for the Republican ticket as many Tea Party people aligned themselves with Republicans, however they've since hurt the Republicans by fracturing the party even worse than it was during the 2008 election.
The problem with Republicans are simply that they have considerably aligned themselves away from the Roosevelt Republicans of the early 20th Century to the right. First with McGovern Republicans, then Reagan Republicans, and now a mutated abomination given birth by Rove and Bush.
The odd consequence of this is that it's actually shifting the Democratic party to Left-Center, making it a more moderate party than in the 1980's.
What will ultimately happen is that a party will form to the left of the Democratic Party, the Republican Party will disintegrate and become a shell of its former self, and for a while we'll have a three party system with the Democratic Party being largely moderate but progressive, the Republican Party being arch-conservatives much like the Tea Party is today, and on the far left a Liberal party far more socialistic than the current Democrats.
