• StThicket@reddthat.com
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    4 months ago

    It amazes me that one of the largest countries in the world, with the most diverse demographics, can only chose between two candidates. This is not democracy. It’s a shit show that has been going on for far too long.

      • pingveno@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        Said by a man who ran a country that outlawed all but the party he was prime minister of. He was probably a little salty about criticism over the lack of democracy in his country.

    • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Just mention an alternative and you’ll will quickly understand why.

      The parties have done the most amazing job in pretending the world will end at every election if they are not chosen.

      • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        It is kind of amazing how even those disenfranchised voters will rally to support the hegemony of the “two party” corporatist rule. I suggested recently we could consider rallying behind a single issue 3rd party candidate who would end the legalized bribes and replace FPTP with a more democratic alternative, and was immediately downvoted and told it’s not possible due to FPTP.

        facepalm

        • glitchdx@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          In order for a 3rd option to be viable, the entire system must change. I’m not holding my breath.

          Between now and then, all we can do is vote for the less bad of two evils.

        • helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          It is theoreticaly possible, but praticaly speaking it would be near impossible.

          To acomplish this, you need to get 51% of the population (who actually vote) to all vote for one person. However, with FPTP, you get one choice on the ballot. Is the average voter going to risk their vote on a 3rd party, or vote for who they belive to be the “lesser evil” of the two that have a shot at winning?

          Even if you do manage to get 51%, there’s the electoral collage. Never forget, our democracy has built in the ability to overwrite the presidential vote.

          Your first hurdle is getting any one to name an independent candidate.

          Edit: adjusted some wording to be better.

      • pastabatman@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I agree with this. But also, this time is the closest to “end of the world” stakes we’ve had in recent memory. We have a literal criminal, rapist, and fraudster who already tried to overthrow the government once leading the polls.

        • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          2016 called they want their gaslighting back. Trump isn’t the final form of Fascism. He’s getting close but he ain’t it.

      • capital@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Is that a 3rd option in a first past the post system?

        Hmmmm… what could be the issue there I wonder.

          • capital@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            There is absolutely an issue with first past the post voting systems. And frankly I think you know what the problems are.

            • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              That people are so desperate to keep it in place.

              FTFP is never going go away if you keep voting for it lol.

                  • pingveno@lemmy.ml
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                    4 months ago

                    That’s not how it works. As long as FPTP exists, it will lock us into two parties. We have had multiple party systems that all demonstrated this principle. Some places are experimenting with alternatives on the state and local level, but it will take time.

                  • capital@lemmy.world
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                    4 months ago

                    You’ve already got one response to this which is correct. I want to add to it to help explain how FPTP voting systems result in a 2 party system and simply voting for another party does not solve the issue.

                    But first you’re either aware of the problem and want to encourage people to vote third party while pretending not to know how the system works or you’re actually just ignorant to the issue.

                    I don’t normally like video links in discussions like this but this one is especially good and is only 6.5 mins.

                    https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo

        • Hirom@beehaw.org
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          4 months ago

          That’s interesting. Thanks for pointing it out.

          My point is having a very old constitution isn’t much of a boast if keeping it as-is causes political issues.

        • xor@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          4 months ago

          Presumably what the other commenter was referring to is the US having the oldest codified constitution

          • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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            4 months ago

            Which is honestly meaningless but very convenient for US narrations. There were also older de facto constitutions, which are usually forgotten like the Henrician Articles of P-L Commonwealth. US constitution is famous because it was the one which was loudly proclaimed and imitated later.

    • ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      didn’t you vote in the primary? why not?

      Americans got to choose between many candidates, and out of those, it’s down to 6, and of those 6, it’s only really likely 2, that’s true.

      But it isn’t quite like you imply.

          • StThicket@reddthat.com
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            4 months ago

            I understand what you are trying to say. Ultimately, there are only two to vote for. Ideally, there should be more than two parties, and more than two candidates. That’s how democracies work. What you have is a dysfunctional system that divides people in two groups, and there are no incentives to cooperate between parties. Proper voting is also suffering due to the two-party system.

            https://youtu.be/yhO6jfHPFQU

            In my country, the parties with the majority of votes and the ability to cooperate gets to form a government. We also try to make it easy to get people to vote, insted of your system of gerrymandering.

      • nobody158@r.nf
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        4 months ago

        The shitty thing is by the time my states primary pretty much every else has dropped out. We need to run the primary like a real election not piecemeal.

      • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        The RNC never intended to run a candidate other than Trump because he controls MAGA, which is what remains of their energized base. The primaries they held were “just in case” Merrick Garland actually did something useful and successfully prosecuted Trump for insurrection, which never came to pass.

        The DNC did everything they could to prevent primary elections from occurring in various states, and bullied anyone who was floating a run into submission. This included the state dept making calls to state DNC committees to cancel primaries, or remove certain candidates from their ballots. According to them, it was an insult to Biden admin and their legacy to even suggest another candidate should run. And now look where that’s gotten us.

        So no, we didn’t actually vote in primaries this year because the establishment refuses to relinquish the status quo.