Comments by "Luredreier" (@Luredreier) on "How to break the two-party hold on American politics" video.

+ Akshat Chaaras Actually, having more parties would probably increase the likelyhood of the US political parties comming to an agreement and getting stuff done instead of causing stale mates like the current two party system does. Because if one party don't support a policy then you can just turn to another party. In the norwegian system a political party isn't required to always vote alongside the views of the cabinet they supported, and a cabinet can be replaced midterm without a new election taking place, just with shifting aligances. Having a multi-party system the parties are closer together politically and you can always find someone you agree with that also understand the ones you don't agree with as the parties makes a continuum. As a result the political debate ends up being more nuanced with parties even at the extreme end of the spectrum able to cooperate to some degree. Also, in elections all the parties are subject to attacks also from similar parties that they need to maintain good relations with to gain power so taking too hard a swing at another party often expose you to counter attacks from a party you didn't take a swing at. As a result our elections tends to be more civilized too. That's a result of systematic differences, not differences in population sizes.
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Actually, people voting for parties instead of individuals isn't really the main problem. As for the Danish and Norwegian system, I'd say that such coalition negotiations is a strength not a weakness of the two nordic countries. It means that on the whole political power is shifted based on the balance of power between different parties, but also that political parties have to maintain good relations with other political parties including the opposition or risk reducing their options at the negotiation table both in terms of cabinet coalition negotiations and for individual laws. And it means that we're not limited to just two political blocks but can actually have three or more political factions and even minority cabinets that represents a good balance between the views of different voters like the Bondevik 1 and Bondevik 2 cabinet in Norway, both lead by the political center without either of the two biggest political parties actually taking part in the cabinet but both negotiating with them and as a result the majority view of the parliament was represented also in the cabinets policies indirectly increasing the chances of the peoples will actually being represented fairly.
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+Akshat Chaaras If a party with 10% of the votes wins then that's for a good reason. They have policies that's a good compromize between the various parties in the parliament and are therefore able to make coalitions with more other parties then more extreme parties at either wing. With our system even if you don't vote for that 10% party they end up in power because the coalition they represent ends up being the closest to what the most people can agree on. With the US system you could theoretically become president with 21,9% of the votes behind you and the rest voting for someone else... And you're essentially blackmailed into voting for one of two parties that you hate the least as voting for any third one essentially becomes a indirect vote for the party that you agree the least with meaning that the party you agree a bit less with and don't want to vote for but that does have more support then your prefered party would lose because of your choice to not vote for them but your actually prefered party. That makes quite a lot of people feel like they don't have any say in the matter of who runs their own country. The whole point with elections is not to get the best leader that's possible, but the one that the least people possible dissagree with having in charge. With a multi-party system based on proportional elections like the Norwegian system then yes we can have things like the Bondevik 1 and Bondevik 2 cabinet. In the 1997 election Kjell Magne Bondevik the leader of the Christian Democrats won the election and became the Prime minister, his political party had 13.7% of the votes and lead a cabinet together with the liberals (4.5%) and the center party (former peasants party, who had 7,9% of the votes). Since no cabinet proposal suceeded with any of the bigger political parties in charge the christian democrats ended up in power without any crises like the US keeps experiencing. And they did a good job getting reelected in the next election instead of a cabinet lead by the labour party or the conservatives. They where simply the best compromise on the table compared with the labour party or conservatives.
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+JonasMewto The problem in the Weimar Republic was that it was a new state with a lack of a democratic tradition where the checks and balances usually found in multi-party systems still not being fully fleshed out. A nation that had major political problems caused by issues not related to the election system but rather by social issues following the first world war. Whatever you may think about Trump, him being elected is essentially the same exact issue as Hitler being elected, it just happened in a different way. Same with Brexit and a number of other elections that has been happening across the world lately.
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+James Cooper You're right that you don't vote for a prime minister directly in a multi-party system. But you do know roughly what prime ministers are the most likely based on what party you do vote for and that the policies you care about instead of the ones picked by a political party you don't care about are the ones being represented by your votes. If you vote for a left wing party then they're not likely to support a right wing cabinet. If you vote for a right wing one they're not likely to support a left wing one. And if you vote for someone in the center then you're probably increasing the chance that whoever do end up in power represent your interests more then who would end up if you just had two political parties to vote for even if they might not be from your party themselves.
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+Daniel That's your loss. While our system does have its flaws the US would be much better of with our system, and there's mechanisms already built into our system that takes care of the concerns that are used as justification for the Electorial College in the US far better then the US system does. I'm sure that it would need modifications to suits American needs, but still.
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+Edbert Kang I prefer the Norwegian approach better for how to balance the size of parties. We use a modified Sainte-Laguë method to calculate the quotient for each party with V/1,4 for the first seat of each party. Also, unless you get 4% of the total votes in the country you do not qualify for the representatatives that's correcting the difference between the national results and the local ones, meaning that parties with more then 4% of the votes can actually get something done. My favorite party in this election only failed to get the 4% in question by a few thousand votes so they ended up with one representative instead of say 5 or 6, but that also means that we have a good balance in the cabinet with parties including the small ones that are actually powerfull enough to get something done with without lots and lots of tiny ones that essentially have no political power. I hope that my own party ends up above 4% in the next election, but I still think our system works the best despite it not favoring my own party in this election.
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+MC_Master "+Luredreier But my point is that the two "factions" have equivalent power. therefore, everything that gets suggested turns into endless bickering instead of actually legislating anything. while the US actually has a system where one party can actually make a decision either through the president supporting that party or holding the majority in congress or both for that matter" This description fits the US system, not ours. You're assuming that the same parties will always work together on the same things, but aligances shift for different suggested laws and with multiple parties there's no loyalty to a single faction like that. For instance here in Norway, when the center party suggested immigration reforms during "the immigration crises" the labour party, progress party and conservatives all cooperated with them in making a deal limiting immigration to Norway making compromises with the more immigration friendly parties like the christian democrats and liberals. The Green party and the socialist left party did not take part in that deal, despite the socialist left party actually being a part of the cabinet at the time. Also, when the labour party failed to make sufficient compromises with its coalition partners the voters for those parties simply switched to other parties that where not as wedded to cooperating with them but that still wheren't on the right wing, losing them the election in 2013 leading to the current conservative-progress party cabinet winning with support from two parties in the political center, they've won two times in a row now, but if they fail to keep the support of the parliament they do risk to be replaced midterm, no election required, just the parliament voting to replace them. A law is passed if a majority of the representatives in the parliament votes in support of a motion. Sometimes a majority is reached with the three biggest parties going together about something, in other cases the smaller parties cooperate with one or more of the big parties to get something done. The socialist left party (far left) and the progress party (far right) have actually made political deals about individual laws getting them through the parliament together with individual members of other parties who voted according to their own beliefs and not according to the party whip. Some political parties care about urbanization, others about decentralisation. Some about increasing public spending (including some on the right as far as taxation goes) some want to reduce public spendings. Some care about the elderly, some about the young, some about parents, some about the schools, some about the enviroment, some about deregulation and so one and so forth. Each of those different axis got people with different opinions. And because there's not two party whips but several what suggestions get a majority shifts in each of these fields. Sometimes the labour party gets a bill about workers rights or pensions for the elderly through, sometimes the conservatives get a pension reform through, both during the same term. Changes are made as compromises first and formost, pretty much no law survives without modifications, but they all keep nudging our society in various directions depending on what people vote. I can't remember last time we had a gridlock of any kind...
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+John Alexander In some cases that 1% of voters should have the final say. It's a matter of balance of power. Sure that individual party might have few voters, but that combination of parties have a majority. Each of those parties is required in one way or another to come into power. Also, if you look at the system here in Norway those small parties while powerfull are not required as a part of the cabinet coalition. You can make deals with other parties on a case by case basis to get things done without their support meaning that you're getting closer to the results you'd get from a referendum in parliament votes. After all, no-one agrees with everything that a party believes in. Most of the time you just pick what you're the closest too. With our pr system you get more parties to pick from so even though the individual party might have little support the combination of parties with small and big parties both that has those views have a majority, or at least who don't think those views are unacceptable.
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Different systems do have their flaws, that's true. I'd like the system used in local elections in Norway to be used instead in the national one. That way we'd be able to change the party lists, moving candidates up and down the list and even replacing a candidate for a party with one from another party. The list would still be the default but with the equations used to calculate representatives into our parliament I still think that would work at a national level.
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+rKhighlight I much prefer a system where a 50% of the votes are not required for a cabinet. Allow minority goverments to rule with support parties that's not a part of the cabinet and you get a much more fluid/dynamic majority that will change depending on the relative strength of different parties and therefore to some degree on peoples actual views. Basically the oppositions views also matter as they may form a part of the majority in individual cases, and if the cabinet screws up they can be replaced as soon as the parliament can agree on an replacement (no re-election needed within the same term), this encourages cooperation even with with oposition, with political parties that dissagree with you in almost every way, as you may get their support for a few individual things even if you dissagree about 90% of their politics.
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They would with such a system, however with a proportional system that allows a minority cabinet no-one that unpopular would get in power as other political parties would block them from the role of president/prime minister.
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+MC_Master The Belgian parliament kind of ends up as a "two party" system anyway (except it's factions instead of parties) because of the cultural and linguistic trends of that country. The US would not face those issues and a multi-party system would actually loosen up the stale-mate that has been created in that country...
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+Rasmus Elbæk Andersen Agreed... Belgium doesn't really make sense as it stands. And since the Benelux countries have such a high degree of cooperation anyway I don't really see the problem with them simply being different countries that's still member of the various benelux agreements and work together when needed while still maintaining their own independence with different laws as needed and desired...
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+Sharann That 51% rule is one of the few things I think is wrong with the german election system. Here in Norway the result of the 97 election was that Kjell Magne Bondevik, the leader of the Christian Democrats won the election, but he and his two coalition partners together only had 26,1% of the voters behind them directly with the rest of the voters voting for political parties that either only accepted that cabinet or failed to come up with a viable alternative. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_parliamentary_election,_1997 If the cabinet had lost the support of the parliament and the parliament where able to offer another alternative with more representatives behind it then a new cabinet would take power without any election needing to take place. Basically our political parties know that they have to work with the election results at hand. And parties don't have to keep supporting a cabinet all the way through a term. Of course if something makes them change their mind but the cabinet get the support of another party instead they stay in power. Also, political parties won't dethrone a cabinet just for minor issues, they have to lose the trust of the majority of the parliament to lose power and a viable alternative has to be presented at the same time. If you don't like what the cabinet is doing but can't make a deal with other parties to create a different cabinet, then tough luck, they're staying in power, but you don't need to support them in every single case. You can vote for a different budget proposal then the one presented from the cabinet, you can vote for different laws etc... That leads to a very dynamic parliament and cabinets that know how to cooperate with the different political parties in the parliament. The "Jamaika Coalition" mentioned above could for instance exist without Die Grüne" actually taking part in the cabinet, but just accepting a minority cabinet in return for political favours and then they could work together with CDU, FDP or SPD + other parties on a case by case basis if you guys had our system. Or perhaps FDP could be left out. Heck, if CDU where to do a good enough job of horse trading they could perhaps even lead alone. The labour party has done so plenty of times with roughly that amount of voters behind them.
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+erickofspirit Yeah, if more states in the US would just go over to a proportional system you could perhaps fix the mess that the country has become... :-/
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+BlueSkyEntertaiment "Yeah. In Germany we maybe get new elections because the parties cannot agree. So there are disadvantages too" That's not a feature of proportional systems as much as its a feature of the german decision to make majority goverments a requirement. Allow minority goverments to exist and don't do re-elections and that issue is pretty much solved.
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9 parties in the norwegian parliament? Yes. We actually have 26 parties in total running for parliamentary elections in one part or another of the country, 17 of them have zero representation in parliament though. Of those 9 there's 2 in the current cabinet, an additional 2 that's in constructive opposition, cooperating with the cabinet ensuring that they (most likely) do end up in power for another term although they might switch at some point later, 1 is neutral and the three are in oposition and where running on another cabinet coalition proposal and the last party is firmly on the left politically even if the labour party would prefer not including them in a cabinet... The two parties in the cabinet and the two parties supporting them in constructive opposition combined have exactly the number of representatives needed to put a right wing coalition into power in cabinet provided that every single representatives from those four parties votes in favor of such a proposal. But the left can get a majority in parliament for any law where less then 100% of the right wing cabinet and their allies in a constructive opposition oppose them. Unfortunatly for me my prefered party that's the neutral one in the above list did not end up with a balance of power like we long through they'd get during the election, still, they might get some work done.
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+Koninkrijk der Nederlanden You also have a higher population then us as well as more representatives in the parliaments (if you add up both of the chambers)
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+AMECP Your "solution" doesn't solve the main issue of first past the post, namely that people don't feel that they're represented by the political parties that have any chance at all of being elected. Basically the US first past the post system with an electorial college is a election system that's likely to sooner or later cause enough people to feel that their views are not represented to lead to civil war. A proportional system while also flawed at least does allow everyone to vote for someone who have views fairly close to their own views and people get a sense that the will of the majority actually is represented by the parliament. It simply has more legitimacy, and legitimacy and a feeling of representation is the whole point of democracy.
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kim jong Ill India and the UK both have multiple parties because of the huge regional difference. But the election system still doesn't do the country many favours...
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