| DarthMetalliCube said: Interesting to see all of the parties as an American, where we pretty much have had a constant Republican vs Democrat duopoly (or equivilant in the past) for most of our history. Though, our two main parties seem to be breaking off somewhat based on this recent election - Bernie (more classical liberal, working class) vs Hillary (more centrist, globalist) Dems on the left, as well as the traditional Cruz/Bush Repubs vs Trump and Tea Partiers on the right. So I'm hoping soon our political system can take on something more similar to this (although it sounds like you guys still only have 2 or 3 candidates who have a realistic chance to win) at least there seems to be more political parties with a greater foothold. We do have the Libertarian Party (probably where my views are more closely aligned, combined with Bernie-esque classical liberalism). Then we've also got the far more radically liberal Greens, but both - especially Greens, are so insignificant they may as well not exist, as these two third parties usually drawing like 3% of the vote COMBINED.. |
The only reason Britain has so many viable parties right now is because Labour kind of destroyed its unity during the New Labour days, and because Britain is a parliamentary system there is a bit less regional interest to vote for one of two national parties. The U.S has had similar points in its history, for example when the Whig party split and it was Democrats vs. many parties until the Republicans were created around the two issues of anti-slavery and anti-polygamy. The British system still trends toward a two party system because the voting system is first past the post (like the majority of U.S states.)
This tendency is called Duverger's Law.
In order to get a real multiparty system in the United States (not what Britain has, but something more like what the Swiss have) we need to promote voting reform in each individual state towards either a proportional, approval, or ranked-choice system.
I'd also like to replace the presidency with a directory (group of presidents), but that would require a constitutional amendment, and therefore won't happen.
Also Bernie isn't a classical liberal, he used to be a Democratic Socialist (he called for nationalizing the oil and telecoms in the 70's and 80's) and now seems to have moderated to supporting a moderate social-democracy as the American population move rightward since.
