Why a two-party system is almost inevitable

[acri1]

I haven't really gone in on this subject too much, but I see a lot of people that seem to misunderstand why we (and many other nations) end up with a two-party political system. People tend to blame things such as corruption, stupid voters, the media, corporations, etc.

But in truth, the reason we get stuck with two parties is much simpler. It's also much more insidious and more difficult to deal with. We use what's called a first-past-the-post voting system. It's a very simple concept, it just means that the candidate with the most votes wins the election. One vote, one person. This seems like a simple and commonsense concept, but over time it pretty much ALWAYS results in a two-party system, even if voters are completely rational. Why? Well, like I said, the answer will scare some people, but the reason is none other than -

Spoiler

Math.

The short explanation is that people abandon weaker parties on the basis that they have no chance of winning. Here's a short video (one I'd suggest everyone checks out) that gives a really good explanation -




So my point here isn't that I'm against 3rd-party voting or anything like that, but I think people should be realistic. Even if Green Party candidates, Libertarian Party candidates, etc., were allowed in national debates, it'd still probably come down to Republicans vs. Democrats. The voting system would have to be fundamentally changed (in ways that some people may be uncomfortable with) for the result to be any different.

 

[Beegio]

Pass that shyt breh

I feel like waxing poetic too

 

[Sensitive Blake Griffin]

the reason it's a two-party system is because we don't have a proportional representation system breh. It is that simple. Smaller parties don't stand a chance against the already established parties. But with proportional representation the people that did vote for smaller parties HAVE to be represented in congress/the house based on the % that voted for them, regardless if they won the majority vote or not. Because currently, if you want to vote for someone that isn't in the two major parties, your vote is essentially useless, because a minority party will never win a majority in a state.

 

[acri1]

the reason it's a two-party system is because we don't have a proportional representation system breh. It is that simple. Smaller parties don't stand a chance against the already established parties. But with proportional representation the people that did vote for smaller parties HAVE to be represented in congress/the house based on the % that voted for them, regardless if they won the majority vote or not. Because currently, if you want to vote for someone that isn't in the two major parties, your vote is essentially useless, because a minority party will never win a majority in a state.

That's kind of what I was getting at when I said the voting system would have to be fundamentally changed to avoid the two-party status quo. I've always been a fan of Instant Runoff Voting myself.


Though, in reality I don't know how we'd even go about completely changing the way we elect politicians. Trying to get the whole country to switch over would be, politically, an incredibly hard thing to do. Hate to say it but it seems pretty unlikely to happen anytime soon.

 

[Mowgli]

Yea, you cant have one party lead you to the end game so both parties play their part with this give and take game but the takes end up becoming national laws regardless of whos in office.

 

[Black smoke and cac jokes]

or maybe, just maybe, candidates should not have any party affiliation

 

[mbewane]

It all boils down to what kind of representation system you have, I'm not fully aware of how it works in the US but there are enough examples of democracies with much more than 2 parties just in Europe, and small parties can become quite big (or even get majority in votes) quite fast. Happened in Italy and Belgium just recently.

So if there are only two parties, it's because politicians keep the rules in place that ensure that there will only be two parties.