Comments by "Luredreier" (@Luredreier) on "Senate to take up voting rights bill l GMA" video.
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@minitrow46 No, voter apathy isn't the problem.
It's the symptom of the real problem.
Neither the democrats nor the republicans represents the views of the average American.
On average in most other countries about 1/3rd of the population votes for other parties then the big two, give or take quite a bit.
In Norway we have 10 political parties in our parliament right now, the biggest one of those only has 26,3% of the votes.
And the two biggest combined has 46,7% of the votes here, the remaining half voting for other parties.
So quite a bit more then 1/3rd of the voters don't vote for the big two.
In the US it also fluctuates a lot.
But because of the first past the post system essentially giving two parties a monopoly on ruling for so, so long, you've ended up with a situation where people are fed up.
Even republican voters and democratic voters that do vote for the two parties often believe in something completely different.
And at times the US peaks at as high as 2/3rd of the population wanting to vote for completely different parties then the big two.
But as you mentioned, 2/3rd of the American people still voted, most of them for the big two.
Meaning that half of all the people voting for either of the two big parties only did so because they essentially where forced to to avoid what they percieved as a even worse outcome.
In other words, they didn't vote for either party, but against the other.
It's a wonder that you guys still manage to reach 2/3rd voter participation...
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@bolekpieczonka5822 That's more true in a proportional system.
Yes, the parties have a platform.
But the de facto political platform varies greatly depending on what candidate is running.
My country uses a party list proportional system.
Here people who genuinly dissagree are in different parties and it's the voters who choose witch one of the parties that has their vision represented.
Those primaries being all about person is a huge issue in my view.
Same with a real choice between just two parties.
Neither of them representing most Americans.
I mean, sure, for the house of representatives you might technically have a "independent" or a "third party" candidate in the race in some states occationally.
But in reality they're a non-choice.
And for the two options that you are given.
Voting for them isn't even voting for the party program to begin with, be it a vote for the house of representatives, for the sentate, for the electoral college or for the state legislature...
At all levels you'll have candidates deviating significantly from the party program.
And I have no problem at all with their views being represented, but it shouldn't be in the same bloody political party as that party program.
Yet, if they where to be thrown out the two parties would end up suffering from the spoiler effect when these candidates runs against the big parties, leading to the big parties in question losing voters to the local candidate that's the closest to them in political alignment since the vote is split.
So the opposite side would win.
Hence these candidates are taken in by the two big political parties, despite not representing their views at all.
Then they start changing the overton window within these parties.
This all leads to US and UK politics just being way more unstable and less nuanced then politics in other countries with actually functioning electoral systems.
The thing is, if you guys had a proper proportional electoral system with many different political parties both to the left of, right of and in between the two big parties you'd make better laws, you'd have more reliable and engaged voters, you'd avoid most of the attempts at tampering with the election through measures like gerrymandering etc, you'd avoid the stale mate situation you keep finding yourself into.
And honestly, being a left wing European, I can tell you, if the republican party was split into multiple political parties I can easily see myself finding common grounds with many of them and actually get work done.
Even with the extremists within the republican party you can find common grounds if you work hard enough.
My ex-gf used to be a American republican.
And my sister and her family who lives in the states supports the democrats (although they of course don't have voting rights yet)
The thing is, Europeans often understand the American political system better then American politicans do themselves...
You got your incentives all messed up.
And you look at all the wrong thing when you try to fix your systems.
Your think that voter supression, gerry mandering, corruption, or right wing extremism is the problem in America.
But it is all a symptom caused by your first past the post electoral system.
In a proportional system republicans would benefit from right wing voters in more popolous left leaning states even if they do not get a majority there.
And there would be other right wing parties that could compete with the left for marginal groups like the latin american population for instance, so there would be less incentive towards supressing these voters.
With alternative right wing parties that is not seen as racist extremists that the republicans could enter into coalition with minorities would be seen as a opporturnity instead of a group that should be supressed at all cost.
Speaking of "all cost".
That's part of it.
Because first past the post ends up being a binary result, you either "win" or you "lose" with no in between state of gaining or losing influence without outright winning or losing you end up with politicans that will do anything to win, because no matter the cost, winning is all in such a political climate.
However in a proportional system the incentives are changed dramatically compared to that.
Here gaining voters as a party isn't even a gurantee of winning a election, because if you do so at the cost of a coalition partner you might end up losing the overall election.
Or you might win a election while losing voters yourself, because your coalition as a whole gain power.
And who are the best at negotiating new deals and getting results ends up winning most of the time.
But if voters don't like those results they'll change who they'll vote for, and they'll have plenty of options, including alternatives they actually like who might work with the opposing coalition alternatives.
In essence it leads to people taking a more chill approach to the whole "winning" or "losing" side of things and focusing on what they genuinly believe in and trying to find solutions to problems within the constrains available.
Extremists will of course still exist in the political landscape, but their relative power will be decided by the voters, instead automatically ending up as candidates to avoid splitting the vote.
As a result, the extremists can easily be outmaneuver politically by cooperating with alternatives till they're willing to make concessions of their own becomming viable coalition partners.
As for the voters and how likely they are of voting extremists...
Sure, some will always do that.
But by having more political parties on all sides of the political spectrum the debate becomes more nuanced and people will get more realistic political points of view, simply because they see more aspects of the topic at hand from other politicans that they respect even if they don't always agree.
So for instance a semi-extreme "republican" could dissagree with a truly extreme "republican" and present what they genuinly believe in since they'd be in different political parties, instead of just agreeing on everything to avoid losing the shared voter base of the republican party, required to defeat the shared democratic voter base in a first past the post electoral system.
Gerry mandering essentially wouldn't be a issue since regardless of how you draw the borders there's going to be some voters of all types there and they'll all count.
Sure, you could go for relative proportionality, so some areas having more value pr vote then others (something I honestly think would be a good idea in the US to ensure that all points of view are well represented, from the republican point of view this would mean more weight to rural communities, for democrats this would entail more weight for minorities), but even then the impact of how the borders are drawed would be fairly limited, and leveling seats could be employed to ensure that the overall balance of power between the political parties wouldn't change too much from a proportional system based on the total vote at a national level.
Corruption also would make less sense if you have more political parties.
You'd have people to call you out on your own side politically, people who would have credibillity and legitimacy within your own voter base yet still not have any party allegiances to you.
In essence having more political parties would reduce corruption.
Not eliminate it, just reduce it.
Besides, both companies and individuals would have more options for who to donate money to, so things wouldn't be as clear cut with everything ending up in the hands of two political parties.
And if a company actually bribes a party of its members there would always be other parties you could vote for.
Or indeed since the barrier of entry is lower for smaller parties in a proportional system you could create new parties and they'd actually have a shot at being elected replacing anyone that's truly corrupt.
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