this post was submitted on 22 May 2024
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This is a myth. L'ook at the legislatures of other countries that use FPTP, and count the parties that get more than 5 seats. The UK has 6, Canada 4, Russia 5 and India, my country, 11. You certainly can have more than two parties.
No it isn't. It happens through a well known phenomenon called the spoiler effect.
The data you've just quoted doesn't support your position, and this bit about 5 seats is arbitrary.
Each of those countries has 1-2 dominant parties, with the rest being involved in name only. And as another user already pointed out to you, these countries dont use pure FPTP voting. You've also ignored prime minister/presidential positions, because those elections especially prove that it isn't a myth.
Local/smaller seat positions are significantly easier to win, as there is less competition, and therefore more opportunity for 3rd parties to win. But it isn't enough, because they still get sidelined.
The spoiler effect requires voters to vote strategically, which means no third party viability.
I never knew basic math could upset so many people.
It's truly frightening.
Fair. I had to put a cut-off somewhere.
In the UK, the Lib Dems have decided which of the 'big' parties sits in government and which in opposition. The Bloc Quebecois is one of the major parties in Quebec. In India, the two biggest parties get 50-60% of the total votes polled, and most governments are composed of multi-party coalitions. Also about a third of states have governments led by a third party.
And as I pointed out, they were wrong. The UK, Canada and India use pure FPTP, and Russia has three big parties even if you only consider the FPTP seats.
Third parties cannot win only when everyone thinks they can't win. Labour went from a small third party to forming the government in about a generation. The BJP did the same in India. At the state level, there have been many cases of a third party coming from a single-digit percentage of the vote and winning the election.
I am aware. But that doesn't really change what I've said. You're comparing smaller elections for seats with a big election like the U.S. president. Those elections still have 1-2 dominant parties, etc.
You can't just wish away the spoiler effect.
You are right. There is a difference between parliamentary and presidential systems. Parliamentary systems reward parties that are locally strong. Presidential systems require a party to have a national base. So then, the problem is not with FPTP per se, but with Presidential forms of government.
I have already shown multiple examples of third parties under FPTP systems. I don't know what other evidence you expect.
It's a combination problem. There is only one seat available, and the race is done with FPTP, meaning the spoiler effect is especially strong.
If we switched to approval or star, no such effect would take place. Of course there is other election reform needed to make third parties viable, but there is no such thing as a simple solution for this problem.
And those parties wield very little power. There are still parties that dominate the elections. No one party should have anything even remotely close to 50% of the seats.
also, biden isn't depicted in your analogy at all. he's more like the emporer: more experienced as a statesman, older, but even more evil.
That's kind of unavoidable when comparing politicians to what ultimately equate to super heroes and super villans.
The point of that graphic is to show how the spoiler effect works, not to say that Biden is good.
Biden is old and evil, but preferable to Trump.
that's not a reason to vote for him if there are candidates i don't think are evil.
The candidates who aren't evil aren't going to win.
that's not a reason to empower evil people.
They're already empowered. We have a limited ability to influence things. Use it for good, for harm reduction.
Quit pissing away your vote. It's just going to get trans people killed when Trump wins.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=trans+flag&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image&filemime=svg
Guns didn't help the trans people in 1930s Germany.
bullshit. and godwin would like a word.
they didn't have the ar platform.
harm reduction has a specific meaning. voting is not harm reduction.
Welcome to being human, words mean different things in different contexts and can be used in new and interesting ways all the time.
https://www.indigenousaction.org/voting-is-not-harm-reduction-an-indigenous-perspective/
not my comrades.
your fiction, helpfully pointed out by the star wars characters, is based on a non-falsifiable theory. it's not science, it's storytelling.
It's a graphic that shows how the spoiler effect works. Relax
it's a fiction.
It's a comparison using popular media. It being fiction is irrelevant to the point.
your comparison is also a fiction. there is no election where there are multiple candidates on the same side. cornel west is running against biden and trump and jill stein and claudia de la cruz. none of them are on the same side.
"The same side" is only a way to categorize. You can graph each party on a linear scale. Badly, but you can do it. You can make it more accurate by adding a second axis, such as with the PCT. Still bad, but better. And you can keep adding more and more defining characteristics, until you'd end up with and 8d graph or something utterly incomprehensible to humans.
So whether you like it or not, we as humans with our limited minds stick to things like the PCT, with only 2 axis, or in other words, there are sides.
You're taking up issue with semantics. I don't give a flying fuck what you think about there being sides or not. At the end of the day each party holds some amount of agreement with another.
And I agree way more with Biden than Trump, because Trump wants to kill trans people and end democracy. And I'll vote for Biden to prevent that.
it's not semantics. you're spinning a story, and i'm pointing out that it doesn't reflect reality.
he has never said this.