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

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  3. +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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  8. +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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  15. +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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