Two party system
The post you wrote
While there are many parties in America, only the Democratic and Republican parties have consistently performed well in elections. While these other parties are well known and have produced notable leaders, the Republican party and the Democratic party have dominated the Congress and the Senate and have produced almost all presidents except in a few instances. That being the case I think the US is pretty-much a two-party system. I think there is need to introduce a different voting system that will encourage equal participation of other political parties.
Although this might not be a big problem like some people would like us to believe, I think it has few limitations that are worth our attention. For example, the two-party system offers limited options to voters from which to choose their leaders from. Nobody stops anyone from vying for an elective seat on a different party other than the Democratic and Republican parties. However, they are less likely to win given the logistical capacity and the dominance of the two parties. Voters are less likely to vote for another party since they know that the candidate may not win. The two-party system locks out a significant part of the population that does not align with the ideas of the two major parties (Beregovskiy, 2019). Due to the domination of the two major parties the agenda of smaller parties do not see light of the day. Consequently, issues that affect the members of the minority parties are not effectively tackled. This leads to voter apathy during elections and lower turnouts of total eligible voters. The two-party system also leads to inconsistent governing. When one party loses power in a two-party system, their policies are often reversed since the other party usually takes an opposite stand (Drutman, 2020). For example, President Trump’s Republican administration rolled back the Paris climate agreement signed by Obama and his Democratic party only to be reintroduced again by president Joe Biden under the Democratic party. If there were many medium-sized parties, such erratic decisions and international embarrassments would not be possible as any major decision would require support of several parties or coalitions.
Therefore, I think the only way to defeat the two-party system is to amend the constitution to allow for the alternative vote system in which case voters rank candidates for each seat. The winner is the candidate who gets a majority of first-preference votes. If no candidate wins, the last-placed candidate is eliminated and that candidate’s second preferences are reapportioned to others and so on until a winner is found (Passarelli, 2020). This system has proven to work in Australia where the legislators are elected this way. Today Australia is one of the greatest democracies in the world whose politics features several vibrant political parties where all have a fairly equal chance of getting to power. Borrowing of this system would lead to a fairer representation and would certainly shake up the two party hold on American politics.
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1st post to reply:
After learning about the issues with first-past-the-post voting, I seem to get the idea that the two-party system is here to stay. It was interesting seeing how seven parties turned into two parties(CGP Grey). And it made sense to me how that would occur especially when minorities do not think they had a chance. The lack of representation is the foundation for which two parties dominate politics. This leads to two dominant parties ruling either because the smaller parties vote to spite the other party or because they believe it is their only chance to get something they want out of it. The sway in how much representation each party gets is what decides which parties survive to be the top two. It was visually pleasing to see it all set up as I am a visual learner. I don’t know if we could get rid of this two-party system. As it is a very mainstream tactic for a party to maintain superiority. And it would be difficult to disperse two main parties with such power into a third party that couldn’t financially or politically keep up with campaigning. If people are so set on keeping this two-party system there would be no change in how representation fluctuates as it will flow to only two parties instead of five or three.
2nd post to reply:
In electoral votes in many different countries around the world, it seems that the United States is the country with the most competitive and controversial elections in the world. When there is high competition between the parties to win in the states with the largest population, it will make them more likely to win the election. Especially in 2020, when the two-party election with close votes, this inadvertently causes controversy for the unelected party. However, controversies after US elections are not uncommon, because most of the elections are followed by extremists and the articles are harsher about the election. Perhaps because of these controversies, many people choose to stay out of the parties, that is, choose not to follow any party to avoid the noise of the election, those who do not follow any election party that does or does not participate in the vote is called a third party. I think that there is no right or wrong to be judged on 3rd parties, just because they do not see what they have in common with the people running for office, so I think that being a neutral against with their own opinions and thoughts is a completely normal things. However, there are arguments for third party members from the other two parties, it means Democrats and Republicans will sometime argue that neutrals will be the danger to the victory of the other party. So in my opinion, neutral party should still be kept and maintained, partly to show respect for people’s thoughts and feelings about their beliefs, moreover the neutral party also can help make decisions about what is right in elections.
