Duverger's Law says that in a first-past-the-post system, you'll eventually end up with 2 political parties. And, 2 political parties is a terrible state for a country.

Also, you're eventually going to get political parties even if you try to ban them. They'll just become "clubs" or something. A group of people agreeing to act together (say a union) is always going to have more power than a bunch of people acting individually.

I would hope that any country thinking of creating a new political system, or making major updates to theirs would hire a lot of game theorists to figure out how the rules could be abused and what the system might look like in 250 years.

[–] LillyPip@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

And that’s the thing many people don’t seem to get: the US is not a 2 party system by design – there are actually many parties in the US, including Green, Libertarian, Constitution, Forward, No Labels, Working Families, Alliance, etc, many of which have been on the national ticket. Darrell Castle (Constitution Party) was on the presidential ballot in 2016, for example (I included him in a satirical anti-trump graphic I made in 2016).

The problem isn’t a lack of parties, but that the mathematics of FPTP means they literally can’t gain purchase. If you want 3rd parties to matter, instead of protest* voting or abstaining, start working towards replacing FPTP now for future elections. These conversations only seem to happen in autumn of an election year, which is far too late.

Put your effort into something like FairVote Action so we don’t have to deal with this nonsense forever.

e:*

[–] Auli@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago

How could you not have a FPTP system in America? Your voting for a president, person with most votes wins, I know electoral college is involved but they should get rid of that.

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