Two Party political systems

I think of this topic nearly every time American politics is discussed here, because I think it's involved in a great deal of the problems in American politics. I don't think I've seen a discussion really dedicated to it here though.

The two party system is something I've never been able to wrap my head around. How did it get established, and why is it still here? Why does the media seem so invested in keeping it this way? Is it even real democracy?

I don't have answers for any of that. My last question is probably even pretty contraversial, but bare with me for a moment. Let's say you decide that you don't like Obama's policy on warrantless wiretapping. What do you do? Do you vote republican? They are the ones who established the policies in the first place. Basically, once one party gets away with something, the other party will get away with it too because there's no threat of a third party showing up and successfully campaigning against it.

In a two party system, it really seems to me there is little consequence to governmental action. No matter how badly the Republican party pisses the American public off, they know that there's plenty of people that will keep voting for them anyways, just to keep the democrats out. This will lead them to winning again within a few elections. The same is true of the Democrats, of course.

That's not how it works in Canada. In the 1993 federal election, Canadian politics got shook up. The Progressive Conservative party had been in charge in Canada for about 8 years, and during the last couple years of their reign, they had seriously pissed off Canada. So, Canadian conservatives voted for the new guy, the Reform Party. That election destroyed the Progressive Conservative party, and made the Reform party into a legitimite force in Canadian politics. The Progressive Conservatives only won 2 seats in that election, and they never recovered. They had been a strong force in Canadian politics for close to 150 years. Then they pissed Canadians off, and they were done in a single election.

Why doesn't this happen in the US? It's mindboggling to me that the Republicans left office with a 22% approval rating, yet scored over 40% of the popular vote. Granted, there wasn't a good conservative 3rd party candidate, but why wasn't there one? Personally, I give alot of the blame to the American media. I recall back when Nader was making his big presidential push. The media constantly told voters that if they voted Nader, they might as well be voting Republican, because those votes should have been going to the Democrats if they wanted to prevent the Republicans from winning. The American media, for whatever reason, has dedicated itself to maintaining the two party status quo. At best, voting for a third party is treated as "throwing your vote away", as though your vote is somehow wasted if you didn't vote for the winning team.

This post is fairly long, so I guess I should draw it to a close. There seems to a growing amount of conservatives disatisfied with the Republican party. What will they do about it? What will it take to get them to vote for somebody else?

I realize the neighbour's grass is always greener, but we have about 10 or more different parties in our parliament, which means that no party is strong enough on its own, or even with another "allied" party to form a coalition. What it creates is a lot of pressure on the prime minister/president to keep satisfying those party whom he had to bring into his coalition.

That is just a huge waste of public money and as a result (among other things), the government changes here about every two years instead of four as it should stand.

The system we have here, two strong parties (Labour and the Tories) a third party to be reckoned with (the lib dems) and some minor parties works pretty well.

To be honest, I'm actually against the political party system, and believe that how we do things here (the whip system) is a lot less democratic than having everyone as an independent.

There's massive changes coming to our political system, due to the sheer enormity of the expenses scandal, so I hope things will be nicely shaken up.

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Originally posted by khaltek
The system we have here, two strong parties (Labour and the Tories) a third party to be reckoned with (the lib dems) and some minor parties works pretty well.

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Yeah, this is what it's like in Canada as well. We've got Liberals and Conservatives strong, with the NDP as a lesser third party that does well enough that it can't be safely ignored, along with various minor parties. Optimally, I think there should be a second conservative party around the strength of the NDP as well. The Conservative party tries to serve both fiscal conservatives and social conservatives, and I think Canadian conservatives would be better off being able to vote for one or the other.

But, the 1993 election proved that it's quite possible for a new party to become a major force within a couple of election cycles. I don't think it should happen often(as Jidoe's 10 party woes seem pretty crappy), but I really like that it's possible. Once voters feel like a party no longer represents what they want, it opens the door for somebody new to come in and take all those voters for themselves. That gives consequences to the actions of political parties, and means they have to actually give a shit about what voters think instead of paying lip service to it.

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Originally posted by khaltek
To be honest, I'm actually against the political party system, and believe that how we do things here (the whip system) is a lot less democratic than having everyone as an independent.

There's massive changes coming to our political system, due to the sheer enormity of the expenses scandal, so I hope things will be nicely shaken up.

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The cynic in me says it's unlikely for the system to change that much, but hey. My cynic has been wrong enough times recently, maybe it'll be wrong again.

The abolition of the party system featured in one of the Yes Prime Minister episodes. If you haven't seen those brilliant political commentaries, you should... they're good British comedy AND they're highly accurate. The fact is, though, that the party system has quite a few odd benefits that mean that nobody wants to be the one to abolish it:

* Voters get to, in effect, vote for a Prime Minister instead of voting for a candidate

* Candidates get elected simply because they're under the X banner, even though they didn't really have enough to offer on their own

* Prime Ministers can lean on their members to vote for/against certain bills regardless of their own thoughts, which means the PM can pretty much count on X votes for and Y votes against (because he knows the opposition will all be against it)

One of the hidden benefits of a two-party system is that if once you can get both parties to promise the same thing, it's pretty certain to happen. I know that doesn't sound very common, but we had a prime example here a couple of years ago. Our metropolitan ticketing system originally had three fare zones, but Zone 3 was only in the southeast extremities. (Also, it was noted that people were often driving to the Zone 2 boundary and catching the train there.) The Liberal Party promised that they would abolish Zone 3 and just make it all Zone 2, which was popular with the people who lived/travelled across that border, but apparently not popular enough as they didn't win. Then four years later, it came up again... and the Labour Party took it up as well. Result: After the election, it did happen. Didn't matter who won.

(For the curious - I found some details of that particular issue. http://www.robx1.net/victkt/metcard/html/zone3.htm has everything.)

If every candidate had to make his own promises, then campaign promises would all be local matters - you couldn't have Party X promising to fund roads across the state, and Party Y pledging a billion dollars to improve old folks' homes. All they could promise would be to seek this or that. Actually... that would give them a level of protection that they'd probably appreciate - they can promise to seek something, get elected, and then that something doesn't happen. Although that happens already, and people still vote for the same bunch of crooks, so I guess it's not such a big thing after all.

You make some good points, but these:

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* Candidates get elected simply because they're under the X banner, even though they didn't really have enough to offer on their own

* Prime Ministers can lean on their members to vote for/against certain bills regardless of their own thoughts, which means the PM can pretty much count on X votes for and Y votes against (because he knows the opposition will all be against it)

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I definitely consider those detrimental and undemocratic, to be honest.

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Originally posted by leira
Is it even real democracy?

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The U.S. is not, nor has it ever been, a democracy. The word 'democracy' is nowhere in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. The country was founded as a republic. You might be able to get away with calling it a 'democratic republic,' but that would just be redundant and, again, give the (incorrect) impression that the U.S. operates as a democracy.

"Is our system working as intended?" would be a more appropriate question.

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Originally posted by khaltek
You make some good points, but these:



I definitely consider those detrimental and undemocratic, to be honest.

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I never said they were beneficial to the public - only that they're beneficial to the subject of the sentence. It's nice for a candidate to be able to be elected more easily, and it's nice for a PM to, in effect, run the country on his own, instead of being just another vote in the parliament. I'd say that the first one, the benefit to the voters, is also bad for the country and for the concept of democracy.

But... what IS democracy? Literally, leadership by the people. Of course that's impractical for something the population of a country, so we have representative democracy. But even if we assume that every MP represents the same number of people (which won't work... maybe if each MP's vote counted according to the number of people who voted for him, but that has its problems too), parliament is still not democratic. And it will never be. Look at any society committee - there must always be a chairman or president, it's never truly democratic.

The fact is that when human beings are involved, equality is a myth. There will always be something to disrupt it. If nothing else, people's personalities differ, and one person will dominate simply by virtue of talking more glibly, or thinking faster, or being able to phrase proposals in a more convincing manner.

The nearest thing to true democracy is the very expensive operation of a referendum. Every single citizen gets gets to vote on a specific item of legislation. Completely impractical, and even then imperfect.

What we currently have is rule by two parties. Abolishing parties would give us - what? Would it really be better? And... would it devolve right back to the two-party system anyway?

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The nearest thing to true democracy is the very expensive operation of a referendum. Every single citizen gets gets to vote on a specific item of legislation. Completely impractical, and even then imperfect.

What we currently have is rule by two parties. Abolishing parties would give us - what? Would it really be better? And... would it devolve right back to the two-party system anyway?

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Well, nearer to democracy is for one to elect a representative who represents one's views and not those of any kind of party.

There's certainly no need to abolish parties, but there's a need for people to recognise that their wants and needs may be better served by an independent who works towards what they said they would, rather than being bound by the whip system.

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Originally posted by khaltek
Well, nearer to democracy is for one to elect a representative who represents one's views and not those of any kind of party.

There's certainly no need to abolish parties, but there's a need for people to recognise that their wants and needs may be better served by an independent who works towards what they said they would, rather than being bound by the whip system.

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Parliament has what, a couple hundred members? England's population is 60 million. Each MP has to represent, therefore, at least 100,000 people. Is it possible for 100,000 people to agree on one representative for their views? And since MPs represent on the basis of geography, chances are that you'll find Fred Nurk over in another electorate would be the perfect person to represent you, but you can't vote for him, and he ends up not getting elected. (I'm not knocking the electorate system here, by the way; it's as good as any. There's no way to select perfectly.)

The only real way for it to work is for parliamentarians to listen to their people. In practical terms, though, that means listening to political lobbyists, which will unduly empower those that are highly vocal, or have the time and energy to keep pushing issues through all the time, or whatever. However, if a politician would take serious note of a voter's appeal, especially a petition with X signatures, then it'd improve matters a lot. Unfortunately, politics is a line of work for people with big egos, and people who think they're better than everyone else. So it's not likely to be improved. Oh well.

Edit: I just wiki'd the Parliament of Great Britain, and apparently there's 646 MPs, not counting the unelected Peers. So my figures above aren't too far off, but it's actually more like 94,000 average representation.

Good points!

But i'd add to this:

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Parliament has what, a couple hundred members? England's population is 60 million. Each MP has to represent, therefore, at least 100,000 people. Is it possible for 100,000 people to agree on one representative for their views? And since MPs represent on the basis of geography, chances are that you'll find Fred Nurk over in another electorate would be the perfect person to represent you, but you can't vote for him, and he ends up not getting elected. (I'm not knocking the electorate system here, by the way; it's as good as any. There's no way to select perfectly.)

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All this stands, no matter what, but if you can subtract yet another voice from the MP's ear (in this case their leader/whip) which detracts from the need of the constituents and adds to the need of a party to get elected then I think it can only be a good thing.

One bad point, when you say "England" I believe you mean "The United Kingdom". England has a population of 50,000,000. The UK has 60,000,000.

I know you fine well know the difference, and it's just a slip, but a lot of people don't and it's really annoying.

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Originally posted by Jyn
The U.S. is not, nor has it ever been, a democracy. The word 'democracy' is nowhere in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. The country was founded as a republic. You might be able to get away with calling it a 'democratic republic,' but that would just be redundant and, again, give the (incorrect) impression that the U.S. operates as a democracy.

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Of course the United States is a democracy, and the absence of that particular word from either of the documents you mentioned is irrelavent. Your claim seems to make even less sense because you firstly state that the United States is not a democracy, and then state that it is a republic, and then claim that 'democratic republic' is redundant, which suggests that 'republic' implies a democracy.

In the United States, citizens have the power to decide their own government, which is as a fundamental definition as you can have of what constitutes a democracy. The way in which representatives are chosen, and the distribution of powers among those representatives serves as the United States' particular implementation of democracy, but these details vary greatly between all democratic nations. Perturbing these details may result in a nation being "more" or "less" democratic than others, but to say that the United States is not a democracy at all is simply absurd.

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Originally posted by Snrrub
Of course the United States is a democracy, and the absence of that particular word from either of the documents you mentioned is irrelavent.

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Irrelevant? You really think you can just brush off "the documents" I mentioned? Those documents are the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They aren't just documents. They established the very intentions, existence, and identity of the U.S. as a sovereign nation. The founders of the the United States explicitly wrote that the country is a republic. Republic /= democracy. Please explain why/how you can possibly think this is irrelevant.

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Originally posted by Snrrub

Your claim seems to make even less sense because you firstly state that the United States is not a democracy, and then state that it is a republic, and then claim that 'democratic republic' is redundant, which suggests that 'republic' implies a democracy.

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Again, a republic is not a democracy. However, there are many facets of a republic that are inherently democratic, hence the redundancy. For example, the most publicized part of American politics are probably the elections. They are probably why you thought the U.S. is a democracy, as they are a democratic process (muddled a bit by electoral votes, but that's a different debate). It is perfectly possible for a country to have certain facets of its government subject to democratic process without making the overarching government a democracy.

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Originally posted by Snrrub

...but to say that the United States is not a democracy at all is simply absurd.

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I said it was not a democracy, but a republic. If you want citations, I have 2 founding documents as sources. They were mentioned in the first paragraph. I'm pretty sure they'd be adequate.

None of that means that there is absolutely no democracy inherent to a republic. If the wording of my original post implied this, then I apologize.

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Originally posted by Jyn
Irrelevant? You really think you can just brush off "the documents" I mentioned? Those documents are the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They aren't just documents.... Please explain why/how you can possibly think this is irrelevant.

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I did not say that the documents were irrelavent, I said that the fact they did not explicitly label the United States as a democracy is irrelavent to the consideration of whether the US is a democracy.

Those two documents also don't ever use the word 'nation' in referrence to the United States. Does that mean the US is not a nation? Those two documents do not use the word 'capitalist'. Does that mean the US is not a capitalist society?

Why are you assuming that every property of the United States has to be explicitly stated in those two documents for it to be true?

This is the definition of democracy according to the Oxford English Dictionary:

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1) Government by the people; that form of government in which the sovereign power resides in the people as a whole, and is exercised either directly by them (as in the small republics of antiquity) or by officers elected by them. In mod. use often more vaguely denoting a social state in which all have equal rights, without hereditary or arbitrary differences of rank or privilege.

b)A state or community in which the government is vested in the people as a whole.

2. That class of the people which has no hereditary or special rank or privilege; the common people (in reference to their political power).

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The United States is quite obviously a democracy according to the definition of the word. The Constitution of the United States quite specifically describes exactly how its democracy is to be implemented, and so on. The Constitution therefore certainly does define the political system of the United States as a democracy, but the fact that it doesn't use that word explicitly doesn't make the slightest difference.

[edit] I notice also that in your posts you offer to explanation as why the US might not be a democracy, except by labelling it as a republic instead - and then suggesting that a 'democratic republic' is simultaneously redundant and contradictory.

[edit 2] Here is the definition of 'republic', also from the Oxford English Dictionary

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1. The state, the common weal. Obs.

2. a. A state in which the supreme power rests in the people and their elected representatives or officers, as opposed to one governed by a king or similar ruler; a commonwealth. Now also applied loosely to any state which claims this designation.

b. Applied to particular states having this form of constitution.

c. Without article: Republican constitution or government. rare{em}1.

3. fig. and transf. a. Any community of persons, animals, etc., in which there is a certain equality among the members.

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Originally posted by khaltek
All this stands, no matter what, but if you can subtract yet another voice from the MP's ear (in this case their leader/whip) which detracts from the need of the constituents and adds to the need of a party to get elected then I think it can only be a good thing.

One bad point, when you say "England" I believe you mean "The United Kingdom". England has a population of 50,000,000. The UK has 60,000,000.

I know you fine well know the difference, and it's just a slip, but a lot of people don't and it's really annoying.

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Correct on both points. Yes, I should have used "United Kingdom" everywhere, but I'm sloppy and tend to use "England". Sorry. Both figures (population and MP count) applied to UK, though.

The same concept applies to every representative democracy, and the figures are going to be just as daunting whether it's 94K to 1 or whatever... even 20K to 1 would be pretty bad, in terms of what I said, and that would mean a thousand MPs governing Australia, which would be way too many to deal with.

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Originally posted by Snrrub
This is the definition of democracy according to the Oxford English Dictionary:

(snip)

The United States is quite obviously a democracy according to the definition of the word.

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Actually, I would describe the US as a presidential form of government. As I see it, the only real power a US citizen has is to cast a vote for one president or another (muddied a bit by the electoral college system; and I'm not looking at local governments here, only federal). The president appoints his cabinet* and he and the cabinet rule the country, in theory. Of course, in practice there's plenty else, like the Civil Service running itself as a meritocracy, but if you factor that in, no form of government is ever pure.

* Side point: In Australia, and presumably in all other Commonwealth countries, the Prime Minister appoints departmental ministers from among the MPs who were elected by the people. I was led to believe that the US President could appoint anyone at all to the cabinet. Is this true?

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Originally posted by Rosuav
Actually, I would describe the US as a presidential form of government. As I see it, the only real power a US citizen has is to cast a vote for one president or another ...

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I think you're entirely forgetting about every member of congress and every senator, and every governor, and every mayor, and the state legislatures, and judges, and school boards, and so on.

So really, the only "real" form of power the citizens have is being able to elect - for fixed term lenghts - nearly every person who has legislative or administrative powers, and a large number of those that have judicial powers as well.

The United States has a presidential form of government rather than a parliamentary one, but is a democracy nonetheless.

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Originally posted by Snrrub
I did not say that the documents were irrelavent, I said that the fact they did not explicitly label the United States as a democracy is irrelavent to the consideration of whether the US is a democracy.

Those two documents also don't ever use the word 'nation' in referrence to the United States. Does that mean the US is not a nation? Those two documents do not use the word 'capitalist'. Does that mean the US is not a capitalist society?

Why are you assuming that every property of the United States has to be explicitly stated in those two documents for it to be true?

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I'm not assuming that at all. The difference is that being a republic and being a democracy is mutually exclusive. The Constitution does not explicitly say the U.S. is not a democracy. It does, however, explicitly say that the U.S. is a republic, and therefore not a democracy. That is what the founders set up. They specifically went out of their way to avoid democracy.

You seem to be having trouble realizing what the difference between the two is. Your definitions are too modern. They've changed. If you're going to try to understand what the Constitution actually means, then you need to take it in reference to the time period.

Democracy, in actuality, is majority rule. Plain and simple. 51%+ wins. They are historically extremely unstable and abusive of their power. A republic is the the rule of law. This topic and its nuances alone could fill another thread.

But don't take my word for it. Let's hear what some of the founding fathers have to say.

James Madison:
"Democracy is the most vile form of government... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention: have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property: and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."

Alexander Hamilton:
"Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate government."

"It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of society against the injustice of the other part."
(This is in reference to majority rule. Historically, the U.S. has acted more like a democracy than a republic in regard to its civil rights. Majority rule on gay marriage, for example. If we'd have been acting more like we're supposed to, as a republic, the popularity of religious marriages would have 0 effect on the ability of same-sex couples to marry. Again, a tangent that could fill a thread.)

John Adams
"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."

Thomas Jefferson:
"Government in a well constituted republic requires no belief from man beyond what his reason authorizes."

These are just a few quotes to emphasize that the founding fathers did what they could to emphasize a difference between democracy and republic. Here's a site you might get more info and perspective from. Most of the quotes can be found there, too.

http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/dvsr.htm

It also has a more accurate definition of democracy, in the context that the founding fathers and I am using it.

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Justifiably Afraid Of ‘Democracy' — Indisputably, this nation was founded as a republic and its leaders were justifiably afraid of "democracy," lest it destroy the nation they had risked their lives to establish.

And thus it officially was for a century and a half. As recently as in a 1928 U.S. Army training manual it was described thusly:

"Democracy: A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting or any form of ‘direct' expression. Results in mobocracy. Attitude towards laws is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it is based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice or impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences. Results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy."

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Originally posted by Jyn
You seem to be having trouble realizing what the difference between the two is. Your definitions are too modern.

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I would hope that all the definitions I use are modern ones, because I communicate with modern people - not people from hundreds of years ago. You should probably adopt modern definitions of words, too, lest people misunderstand everything you say.

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Originally posted by Rosuav
Actually, I would describe the US as a presidential form of government. As I see it, the only real power a US citizen has is to cast a vote for one president or another (muddied a bit by the electoral college system; and I'm not looking at local governments here, only federal). The president appoints his cabinet* and he and the cabinet rule the country, in theory.

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Wrong, as we also have the House of Representatives and the Senate at the Federal level. Out of the three branches of Federal government, the people are in charge of electing two.

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Originally posted by Snrrub
I would hope that all the definitions I use are modern ones, because I communicate with modern people - not people from hundreds of years ago. You should probably adopt modern definitions of words, too, lest people misunderstand everything you say.

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There is a problem with the popular redefinition of the word 'democracy.' People seem to be using in place of republic now, when the two words have never been interchangeable in the past. You can't take the Declaration or the Constitution and replace republic with democracy everywhere the word is found. The original wording will always use the definitions from the time period. So, the problem with changing the definition in this particular way is obvious and potentially dangerous.

The average person who reads either of those documents is not going to know what a republic is in relation to a democracy. The average person who reads any of those quotes from the founding fathers is going to be very confused. "Wait, our founding fathers hated democracy? Why did they make one, then?" Except they didn't.

The distinction between republic and democracy is something that needs to be maintained. People can't keep having the word democracy shoved down their throats like you can't get enough of it. Yes, the power of the people in general is a good thing, but the people need to be reminded that the will of the majority needs to be tempered. Without that reminder, we simply have mob mentality (51% of the population agree with me, that means I must be right in doing whatever I'm doing). That is the kind of attitude the founders spent as much time trying and planning to avoid as they did tyranny. The power of the people needs to be balanced as much as the power of the government if the country is to avoid slipping toward tyranny on one end or anarchy on the other, but that mentality just isn't something you see instilled in the population along with their daily dose of democracy.

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Originally posted by Snrrub
I think you're entirely forgetting about every member of congress and every senator, and every governor, and every mayor, and the state legislatures, and judges, and school boards, and so on.

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You may note I specifically said in my post that I was talking only about federal government. Yes, a US citizen has the right to elect the school board, the dog-catcher, and the garbage collector, but that has nothing to do with whether or not the USA goes to war against Iraq, or builds a new cyclotron, or allows Australian tourists to enter the country without the hassle of a visa.

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Originally posted by Marah
Wrong, as we also have the House of Representatives and the Senate at the Federal level. Out of the three branches of Federal government, the people are in charge of electing two.

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How do those work? I never hear about their powers in the public press; do they have the power to modify/block bills? If so, and if they're directly elected by the people, then yes, the people do have another line of power.

The point still stands, though, that the people don't rule the country, they only have the power to choose who does, and from a pretty small set of options (given that, for the most part, it only matters what party you're voting for). That's not democracy.

And as Jyn pointed out, pure democracy is a bad thing, as well as being completely impractical.

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Originally posted by Rosuav
How do those work? I never hear about their powers in the public press; do they have the power to modify/block bills? If so, and if they're directly elected by the people, then yes, the people do have another line of power.

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Congress is VERY powerful and what's scary is that, like you, most people seem to think it's who's President that's important.

The US Congress makes the laws. Granted, the President can override them but Congress, in turn, can override his veto. They have the power to declare war as well. If you want to know more, google! ;)

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Originally posted by Marah
Congress is VERY powerful and what's scary is that, like you, most people seem to think it's who's President that's important.

The US Congress makes the laws. Granted, the President can override them but Congress, in turn, can override his veto. They have the power to declare war as well. If you want to know more, google! ;)

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Also take into account that the President is often someone from Congress. Whenever a President elected from one party has a Congress controlled by people from the same party, I consider it a scary time for the country. You may as well be removing an entire segment of the checks and balances. We can only hope the Court does its job with integrity at that point.

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Getting the thread back on track, the above could be seen as a huge con for our 2 party system. The 2 sides create a huge illusion of competition to the point where you're expected to conform to every party belief and vote down the lines. It's either us or them, and if you don't fit, you're made to fit. If you still won't fit, you're ostracized.