RolStoppable said:
When it concerns the American election procedure, I think it's necessary to reiterate that a third party has no realistic chance under the current rules of "winner takes all." While what you say is correct about the current rules, it's also true that the rules would need to be changed. But once you change from an electoral college vote to the popular vote, you might as well adopt the run-off rules if no candidate attains a majority of the votes in the first round. Obviously, it's extremely hypothetical to talk about viable third parties, because neither the democrats nor republicans who would have to write such a change into law have no interest whatsoever in doing this. As for the end of Trump's reign, it's unfortunately not so simple. Trump's first tenure was one hell of a mess as he and his yes-man went into the presidency very unprepared. But this time around there is a plan and there's already the advantage of a supreme court stacked in favor of MAGA. The plan includes getting rid of RRs in federal institutions to replace them with MRs. This means there's a high chance that RRs will be done for good by 2029. And do tell why you voted Al Gore. |
What people don't seem to grasp about the US political system is that it's a two-party system based on people lumped together in largely arbitrary geographical blocs whose citizens often have very little in common with one another, and the winner in each of these arbitrary blocs of geography gets all the power. There's no shadow government (in the sense that this term is understood in countries with parliamentary governments) and no shadow president (also in the same sense).
Take Oklahoma. It's one of the most heavily Republican states in the country. Even so, 30-35 percent of the state votes Democratic and supports Biden. If representation in Congress were truly proportional, Oklahoma would have 3-4 Republican representatives in Congress and 1-2 Democratic representatives. Instead, it has 5 Republicans and 0 Democrats in Congress. The state legislature is similarly lopsided, comprised of 80 percent Republicans. The other 20 percent are from districts the Republicans couldn't quite gerrymander into Republican district. Democrats in Oklahoma are effectively disenfranchised and are basically hostages to the whims of the OKGOP. The OKGOP has a more iron grip on Oklahoma than Fidesz does in Hungary. Thanks to that fact, Ryan Walters has now issued a mandate that the Bible be kept in every classroom in Oklahoma and taught as history in every grade. Any teacher who refuses to comply will have their teaching licenses revoked by the state.
Even if a third party could somehow become viable, in all but the 2-3 states which have runoff elections, it wouldn't matter. Let's say a state has 11 Congressional districts. If the Republican House candidates get 33 percent + 1 person of the vote in each district, the Democrats get 33 percent of the vote, and the Libertarians, Greens, whatever, get 33 percent of the vote, that state will have 11 Republican congressmen, 0 Democratic congressmen, and 0 third party congressmen, despite the fact that 66 percent of the population voted against the Republican. Yes, I'm aware that a result that close would be recounted to the moon and back, but the result would be the same.
Last edited by SanAndreasX - 4 days ago