US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1108

On June 12 2014 11:05 zlefin wrote:
While I agree that the "fringes" tend to get ignored; I'd say a 2 party system favors a bipolar distribution of influence around the 30 and 70 (out of 100) marks, and the moderates are at a less prominent point; rather than a unipolar one where the moderates are at the high point.

On June 12 2014 09:48 farvacola wrote:
Replaced the OP's image with something more appropriate :D

On June 12 2014 11:05 zlefin wrote:
While I agree that the "fringes" tend to get ignored; I'd say a 2 party system favors a bipolar distribution of influence around the 30 and 70 (out of 100) marks, and the moderates are at a less prominent point; rather than a unipolar one where the moderates are at the high point.

On June 12 2014 11:10 Nyxisto wrote:


That's true. It's crazy to see how much influence groups like the Tea party have in the US because they kind of 'inflitrate' one of the two big parties. Here in Germany our more "radical" two opposition parties are holding about 7-8% of the seats each which actually accomplishes.. nothing.

On June 13 2014 00:38 Yoav wrote:


I appreciate that you're patriotic Nyxisto, and have nothing but respect for it, but it is generally accepted that 2-party systems serve to marginalize the political power of extremists (and all other 3rd parties). You can look at it as a good or bad thing, but the object in a 2-party system is to establish a broad electoral coalition under a single party's umbrella in order to win more votes than the other party. When an extremist faction rises up, it has choice between advocating goals the coalition finds reasonable (and entering into the political mainstream) or trying to maintain some kind of ideological purity. Thanks to primaries, extremists trying to maintain purity can attain some success, but eventually get ironed out (or else contribute to a losing streak of their party-mates). The Republican party is beginning to realize shots have been fired and the tea-party movement has to be crushed.

In multiparty systems, by contrast, you often do have tiny, very fringe parties dictating huge parts of the national agenda, without any electoral mandate. I'll steer clear of the most famous example for fear of Godwin's law, but this is, for instance, behind some of the nonsense in Israel right now. In the U.K., at some later election where the UKIP has some power and Labor and the Conservatives both fall short of a majority, the UKIP could demand all sorts of things before giving the Conservatives the election.

As a slight addendum, modern Germany has a highly unusual voting system; there really aren't a lot of countries on its model. It also has a distinct culture of political moderation, which helps in electing reasonable (though generally uninspiring) leaders.

On June 13 2014 00:38 Yoav wrote:


I appreciate that you're patriotic Nyxisto, and have nothing but respect for it, but it is generally accepted that 2-party systems serve to marginalize the political power of extremists (and all other 3rd parties). You can look at it as a good or bad thing, but the object in a 2-party system is to establish a broad electoral coalition under a single party's umbrella in order to win more votes than the other party. When an extremist faction rises up, it has choice between advocating goals the coalition finds reasonable (and entering into the political mainstream) or trying to maintain some kind of ideological purity. Thanks to primaries, extremists trying to maintain purity can attain some success, but eventually get ironed out (or else contribute to a losing streak of their party-mates). The Republican party is beginning to realize shots have been fired and the tea-party movement has to be crushed.

In multiparty systems, by contrast, you often do have tiny, very fringe parties dictating huge parts of the national agenda, without any electoral mandate. I'll steer clear of the most famous example for fear of Godwin's law, but this is, for instance, behind some of the nonsense in Israel right now. In the U.K., at some later election where the UKIP has some power and Labor and the Conservatives both fall short of a majority, the UKIP could demand all sorts of things before giving the Conservatives the election.

As a slight addendum, modern Germany has a highly unusual voting system; there really aren't a lot of countries on its model. It also has a distinct culture of political moderation, which helps in electing reasonable (though generally uninspiring) leaders.

On June 13 2014 01:05 Gorsameth wrote:

Your theory sounds good but it totally debunked by reality.
Your saying extreme groups hold little power in a 2 party system while we recently watched a fringe group shut down the national government. How does that line up in any way with what your theorizing.

On June 13 2014 00:56 mcc wrote:

Nice in theory, in practice it seems to work exactly the opposite way. But that might be more due to the system of primaries than due to 2-party system. Your political scene seems much more polarized than many multi-party systems and fringe groups have disproportionate power over elections. But as I said it might have more to do with primaries.

And your analysis of the multi-party system can also be reversed. The fact that in those systems coalitions have to be established necessitates compromise between different parties thus representing average voter more. But all this is speculation, both yours and my analysis is just talk. Empirical observation is necessary to validate them and currently US has rather polarized political atmosphere, far beyond anything in stable countries with multi-party systems.

On June 12 2014 11:37 IgnE wrote:


That couldn't be further from the truth. Maybe if you said it was a 10-90 distribution it could be further.

On June 13 2014 01:34 aksfjh wrote:

Sort of. The issue with the U.S. isn't the two party system, nor is it the nature of primaries. The real issue is voter turnout (which may be indirectly caused by the winner-take-all approach). Right now, one party relies heavily on lopsided turnouts in the electorate. The Republican party is at odds with every demographic apart from rich, white, male protestants. We see this in poll after poll when bills are broken down into individual parts or are presented with an independent lense. However, they are masters of creating anger and fear towards their opponents on single issues, which, it turns out, is a great motivator to get people to the polls or to vote just once against an opponent. Sadly, those most easily angered and feared also aren't the most rational citizens, and end up cannibalizing their own party from paranoia at times and force untenable positions (no raising taxes, deportation only, anti-establishment politicians, etc.).

The polarization is not a phenomenon of the system, but the result of a single political strategy on one side, being responded to in kind by the other. Of course, there's also the secondary: gerrymandering in Red states, which have eliminated right-leaning Democrats.

On June 13 2014 00:45 Nyxisto wrote:
I wouldn't actually consider myself a patriot, don't know how you would deduce that from my post :o I still don't see a lot of marginalization in US politics though, it seems like for the last few years the Tea party has effectively driven the GOP to the right. That's not happening to any major party over here in Europe, in fact most of the big social democratic or conservative parties have largely given up social or cultural conservative stances and have become a little more progressive, in the US it seems to be the other way around.

The thing is if a fringe party gets 4% or 5% more votes because the "mainstream-right" switches over doesn't actually mean anything in most multi-party systems. They're not going to be part of the government anyway, no matter if they score 5% or 10%.

With these grassroots influences in the US that happens with these groups inside of the big parties it's way easier to drag them into one direction or the other.

On June 13 2014 01:21 farvacola wrote:
Who let the dogs out? The Republicans did, and now they can't get them back in the cage.