From John Quincy Adams to Charlie Angus, voices past and present warn that our duopoly fuels corruption, impunity, and climate collapse and why ranked-choice voting might be the only way out.
I enjoy your commentaries But I beg to differ when you say the two capitalist parties are "beholden" to corporate power. They are capitalist parties and represent the interests of the capitalist class. Nancy Pelosi respond to that naive young DSA member who raised the issue of democratic socialism, "we are capitalists" she reminded him. The desire for a new party is very strong. Almost 100 million don't vote in national elections and only one in four eligible voters voted for Trump. An independent party of working class. people, based on our organisations and our communities is what is needed.
Duverger's Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law) predicts a two party duopoly in political systems with "first past the post" voting. This has been explored in a number of theses and dissertations around the world, but never solidly refuted. The key is that it holds true for preference voting, but less for strategic voting, the difference being that strategic voters ignore candidates who might better represent their position, but stand slim chance of winning.
The polluting aspect of course is money. Voters only get to check the box once, whereas wealthy donors get to flood the political space, whether with reasonable arguments or with lies and confusion.
OMG, this makes sense! I've always like the idea of ranked choice voting, but I didn't see the "real" value as Mary writes here. This is a game changer, I believe.
I spent much of yesterday introducing ranked-choice voting to people at Coos Pride. We concocted a ballot of gay rights issues and asked people to rank their top 3 in order of importance. It was very popular! I think people would really embrace it if we could get past partisan messaging and let people try it in the real world.
I voted straight Democratic party for 40 years. My first vote was for George McGovern, who championed labor unions, public schools and many of the original Democratic party values from the early half of the 1900's. When we got towards 2016, I started to have issues with Hillary Clinton. I felt that she was often lying to us, she was a hard nose on foreign policies, and she acted like she deserved the Presidency instead of having to work for it. I was really having a hard time deciding what to do. I ended up voting for Jill Stein. The people who gave me the most shit for doing so were my Democratic friends, who were appalled that I wouldn't vote blue no matter who. Some actually ended their friendship with me over it. I registered Independent. In 2020 I became active in phone banking for Bernie Sanders. Most of those involved in that were young people and they were very excited about his candidacy. Then we watched the DNC put all their muscle into destroying him. It was disgusting. NOW look what we've got! And Bernie stills draws 30,000 at rallies, but the Dems still don't get it and refuse to even incorporate his ideas into the platform. This is why we see the popularity of Mamdani in NYC. I don't know what is going to happen in the mid-terms, but I am hoping two things....that there are really good solid young Dems who run for office and focus on core issues so we don't have to hold our noses again....AND that the old guard Dems, like the ones pushing for sexual predator Andrew Cuomo in NYC lose their power in the party.
Both major parties in the USA are responsible for the political and existential crisis facing this country. Our only long-term path out of this quagmire is either a strong third party that can challenge both of the major parties (unlikely) or a complete change to the way elections are conducted. Ranked choice voting (RCV) is the most viable path for true reform of the two-party system that is destroying our government.
I'm not a fan of the two-party system but it's what we're stuck with for the foreseeable future. I've long thought that if you're planning to vote for someone who doesn't have a realistic chance at reaching 270 EVs you should just stay home. Yes that means "vote blue no matter who" but it also means it's worth the effort to recruit better Democrats, and to support them when they do good as well as challenging them when they don't.
Voting 3rd-party is taking a vote from whichever major-party candidate the 3rd-party is trying to distance themselves from - consider Nader in 2000: he wasn't chasing Bush voters, he was trying to appeal to Gore voters. The result being that Nader cannibalized Gore votes, costing Gore the election. Same playbook for Stein vs. Hilary (trump won) and Perot vs. Bush I (Clinton won) and arguably even Wallace vs. Humphrey (Nixon won). Fun fact: Wallace was the last 3rd-party candidate to get *any* EVs. Even Perot, who got 15% of the vote, didn't get any EVs
Bingo. We live in a colorful world yet our two party system gives us black and white choices. Hence the party loyalists have to toe the line and lie. They lie about what they believe to stay in power.
As long as it’s party loyalty over principles, integrity is absent, and we are doomed to repeat this nightmare.
As long as we keep electing leaders who both lie and use power to inflict retribution we will keep mired in our current political pig sty.
Could love fix the world for all to acknowledge and act accordingly…let it be. That so many I enjoy have given long years to making things better, in no way acted better than any other , and helped some who struggled -they wandered across our path…and we just did what we could…it was just a natural gift ..the best part was them that rose up and sailed.
We have the same problem in the UK. 'First Past the Post' makes it very difficult for any Party other than the two main ones, Conservative and Labour, to make inroads. It is common for an MP to be elected on a (so-called) majority of, say, 10 and yet if you add up the votes of people who didn't want him or her we finish up with an MP who has minority support.
I enjoy your commentaries But I beg to differ when you say the two capitalist parties are "beholden" to corporate power. They are capitalist parties and represent the interests of the capitalist class. Nancy Pelosi respond to that naive young DSA member who raised the issue of democratic socialism, "we are capitalists" she reminded him. The desire for a new party is very strong. Almost 100 million don't vote in national elections and only one in four eligible voters voted for Trump. An independent party of working class. people, based on our organisations and our communities is what is needed.
Duverger's Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law) predicts a two party duopoly in political systems with "first past the post" voting. This has been explored in a number of theses and dissertations around the world, but never solidly refuted. The key is that it holds true for preference voting, but less for strategic voting, the difference being that strategic voters ignore candidates who might better represent their position, but stand slim chance of winning.
The polluting aspect of course is money. Voters only get to check the box once, whereas wealthy donors get to flood the political space, whether with reasonable arguments or with lies and confusion.
Excellent thoughts here. Going to share with my subscribers tomorrow.
I like STAR voting over RCV, but will take whatever I can get.
OMG, this makes sense! I've always like the idea of ranked choice voting, but I didn't see the "real" value as Mary writes here. This is a game changer, I believe.
I spent much of yesterday introducing ranked-choice voting to people at Coos Pride. We concocted a ballot of gay rights issues and asked people to rank their top 3 in order of importance. It was very popular! I think people would really embrace it if we could get past partisan messaging and let people try it in the real world.
I voted straight Democratic party for 40 years. My first vote was for George McGovern, who championed labor unions, public schools and many of the original Democratic party values from the early half of the 1900's. When we got towards 2016, I started to have issues with Hillary Clinton. I felt that she was often lying to us, she was a hard nose on foreign policies, and she acted like she deserved the Presidency instead of having to work for it. I was really having a hard time deciding what to do. I ended up voting for Jill Stein. The people who gave me the most shit for doing so were my Democratic friends, who were appalled that I wouldn't vote blue no matter who. Some actually ended their friendship with me over it. I registered Independent. In 2020 I became active in phone banking for Bernie Sanders. Most of those involved in that were young people and they were very excited about his candidacy. Then we watched the DNC put all their muscle into destroying him. It was disgusting. NOW look what we've got! And Bernie stills draws 30,000 at rallies, but the Dems still don't get it and refuse to even incorporate his ideas into the platform. This is why we see the popularity of Mamdani in NYC. I don't know what is going to happen in the mid-terms, but I am hoping two things....that there are really good solid young Dems who run for office and focus on core issues so we don't have to hold our noses again....AND that the old guard Dems, like the ones pushing for sexual predator Andrew Cuomo in NYC lose their power in the party.
That is convincing! Kudos to you and the new MacBook, Mary
Both major parties in the USA are responsible for the political and existential crisis facing this country. Our only long-term path out of this quagmire is either a strong third party that can challenge both of the major parties (unlikely) or a complete change to the way elections are conducted. Ranked choice voting (RCV) is the most viable path for true reform of the two-party system that is destroying our government.
I'm not a fan of the two-party system but it's what we're stuck with for the foreseeable future. I've long thought that if you're planning to vote for someone who doesn't have a realistic chance at reaching 270 EVs you should just stay home. Yes that means "vote blue no matter who" but it also means it's worth the effort to recruit better Democrats, and to support them when they do good as well as challenging them when they don't.
Voting 3rd-party is taking a vote from whichever major-party candidate the 3rd-party is trying to distance themselves from - consider Nader in 2000: he wasn't chasing Bush voters, he was trying to appeal to Gore voters. The result being that Nader cannibalized Gore votes, costing Gore the election. Same playbook for Stein vs. Hilary (trump won) and Perot vs. Bush I (Clinton won) and arguably even Wallace vs. Humphrey (Nixon won). Fun fact: Wallace was the last 3rd-party candidate to get *any* EVs. Even Perot, who got 15% of the vote, didn't get any EVs
Bingo. We live in a colorful world yet our two party system gives us black and white choices. Hence the party loyalists have to toe the line and lie. They lie about what they believe to stay in power.
As long as it’s party loyalty over principles, integrity is absent, and we are doomed to repeat this nightmare.
As long as we keep electing leaders who both lie and use power to inflict retribution we will keep mired in our current political pig sty.
Could love fix the world for all to acknowledge and act accordingly…let it be. That so many I enjoy have given long years to making things better, in no way acted better than any other , and helped some who struggled -they wandered across our path…and we just did what we could…it was just a natural gift ..the best part was them that rose up and sailed.
We have the same problem in the UK. 'First Past the Post' makes it very difficult for any Party other than the two main ones, Conservative and Labour, to make inroads. It is common for an MP to be elected on a (so-called) majority of, say, 10 and yet if you add up the votes of people who didn't want him or her we finish up with an MP who has minority support.