generally what you’re talking about is proportional representation… systems like this tend to lead to a government comprised of a lot of minor parties, which sounds great!
but it has its down sides (and i’m not saying 2 party is much better, but it’s useful to be aware of the situations it creates): when there are a lot of minor parties with no clear “above 50%” majority, they have to form a coalition government and that can be extremely fragile
you can’t hold parties to election promises, because you just don’t know what they’re going to have to give up to form a coalition, and even if they do end up forming a coalition you really don’t know how stable that coalition is going to be!
i guess in the US there’s gridlock anyway, so what the hell right? may as well at least have gridlock with parties blocking legislation based on things you believe in… buuuuuuut that’s probably a bad example: first past the post is far more to blame in that case than proportional vs representative democracy
(fptp leads to extremism, ranked choice etc leads to moderation because people’s 2nd, 3rd, etc choice matters: you want to be likeable not just to your “base” but to everyone, because everyone’s vote has a chance of flowing through to you even if you’re not their first choice… if people hate you, you’re not going to get those preference votes when candidates get eliminated)
i guess in the US there’s gridlock anyway, so what the hell right?
Historically there were many compromises where representatives worked with the other party to find a solution they could all agree to. We like to think that’s how politics work.
However over the last few years it’s gotten much more divisive. Currently it seems like everything is a party line vote. It seems like one party especially elevated party loyalty above serving constituents, above doing the right thing. There is no more voice of the people, only the party and the evil orange overlord.
Filibusters have always been a thing, where you can hold the floor as long as you can talk about something, delaying everything. That was both a challenge for someone to do and had a huge impact when Congress had the motivation to do what they saw as right for their constituents. Now it’s automatic. You simply need to declare it. A majority vote is no longer enough for most choices because you always need the supermajority sufficient to overcome the filibuster, to “silence the representative “. Now you can’t get anything done.
For most of our history, Congress understood their highest priority was to pass a budget, and they did. Now that is no longer important. Brinksmanship means there is no longer a downside to hold the whole country hostage over whatever issue so they do. “Shutting down the government” by not passing a budget has become the new norm. Meaning we not only can’t get anything done but disrupt everything else.
For most of our history, Congress understood their highest priority was to pass a budget, and they did. Now that is no longer important.
yeah it’s pretty fucked… in australia, this is a sure way to trigger a dissolved parliament and an early election: there are only 3 things that can happen (and the government shutting down isn’t 1 of them)
the government resigns and the governor general (technically “the crowns representative in australia”, but in actuality they do very little unless there’s a crisis) appoints (probably) the leader of the opposition
of budget bills fail 3 times the government may request a double dissolution - early, full federal elections
the governor general unilaterally dismisses the PM, because if they government can’t even maintain supply then they don’t have the power to do anything at all (this has only ever happened once and was australia’s largest ever constitutional crisis, but i do like that it’s a valid fall-back)
You can’t do that today either. In fact, it’s worse today. What are you going to do if your party doesn’t fulfill its electoral promises? Vote for the “bad party”?
yup, so it’s different with RCV and representative: in australia we have this, where we still have a mostly 2 party system that’s representative but we have RCV, so you can preference other parties first, and still have your vote eventually flow to the major party of your choice
in this case, perhaps enough votes are lost that they loose a seat (we’ve had at least 1 green rep in parliament for a few elections in a row)
also we track “primary vote” - the number of people who ranked you #1 - as an important election metric with real consequences… there are limits to private donations for elections, and a significant portion of funding for elections comes from the government itself. any party that gets over 4% of the primary vote is eligible to claim a proportional amount of financing for next election… so you can punish them in a way that really matters without actually putting anything real on the line
that’s different to proportional representation, because it’s a property of the system that there are many minor parties which inherently means parties have to make more deals
That sounds good in theory, but I’ve heard a lot of Australians complain about politics there. Maybe that’s just because people complain about politics everywhere. But, it also seems like Australia has a lot of problems that aren’t getting solved (like housing cost).
It definitely doesn’t seem like a place that has things all figured out.
Switzerland is the only country where people seem pretty proud of their system. It has its issues, but that’s mainly because they have some pretty awful voters and a direct democracy system that has caused some real headaches. For example, voters voted for some laws that were incompatible with the treaties the country had signed as part of the EU, and had they gone into effect it would have meant cancellation of their work with France on CERN, for example. I can’t remember how that was eventually resolved, but it was a real mess.
I’ve heard a lot of Australians complain about politics there. Maybe that’s just because people complain about politics everywhere.
i think this is true no matter what: nz and germany are both more proportional systems and similarly people dislike politics
it also seems like Australia has a lot of problems that aren’t getting solved (like housing cost).
absolutely… some problems are incredibly tricky: getting people to vote against their interests (eg with housing, any effort to reduce house prices directly decreases the value of peoples assets - perhaps not investments, but their primary home even)
how to achieve some societal good things is really tricky in any democracy i think
i did a big ol post here about this
generally what you’re talking about is proportional representation… systems like this tend to lead to a government comprised of a lot of minor parties, which sounds great!
but it has its down sides (and i’m not saying 2 party is much better, but it’s useful to be aware of the situations it creates): when there are a lot of minor parties with no clear “above 50%” majority, they have to form a coalition government and that can be extremely fragile
you can’t hold parties to election promises, because you just don’t know what they’re going to have to give up to form a coalition, and even if they do end up forming a coalition you really don’t know how stable that coalition is going to be!
i guess in the US there’s gridlock anyway, so what the hell right? may as well at least have gridlock with parties blocking legislation based on things you believe in… buuuuuuut that’s probably a bad example: first past the post is far more to blame in that case than proportional vs representative democracy
(fptp leads to extremism, ranked choice etc leads to moderation because people’s 2nd, 3rd, etc choice matters: you want to be likeable not just to your “base” but to everyone, because everyone’s vote has a chance of flowing through to you even if you’re not their first choice… if people hate you, you’re not going to get those preference votes when candidates get eliminated)
Historically there were many compromises where representatives worked with the other party to find a solution they could all agree to. We like to think that’s how politics work.
However over the last few years it’s gotten much more divisive. Currently it seems like everything is a party line vote. It seems like one party especially elevated party loyalty above serving constituents, above doing the right thing. There is no more voice of the people, only the party and the evil orange overlord.
Filibusters have always been a thing, where you can hold the floor as long as you can talk about something, delaying everything. That was both a challenge for someone to do and had a huge impact when Congress had the motivation to do what they saw as right for their constituents. Now it’s automatic. You simply need to declare it. A majority vote is no longer enough for most choices because you always need the supermajority sufficient to overcome the filibuster, to “silence the representative “. Now you can’t get anything done.
For most of our history, Congress understood their highest priority was to pass a budget, and they did. Now that is no longer important. Brinksmanship means there is no longer a downside to hold the whole country hostage over whatever issue so they do. “Shutting down the government” by not passing a budget has become the new norm. Meaning we not only can’t get anything done but disrupt everything else.
yeah it’s pretty fucked… in australia, this is a sure way to trigger a dissolved parliament and an early election: there are only 3 things that can happen (and the government shutting down isn’t 1 of them)
You can’t do that today either. In fact, it’s worse today. What are you going to do if your party doesn’t fulfill its electoral promises? Vote for the “bad party”?
yup, so it’s different with RCV and representative: in australia we have this, where we still have a mostly 2 party system that’s representative but we have RCV, so you can preference other parties first, and still have your vote eventually flow to the major party of your choice
in this case, perhaps enough votes are lost that they loose a seat (we’ve had at least 1 green rep in parliament for a few elections in a row)
also we track “primary vote” - the number of people who ranked you #1 - as an important election metric with real consequences… there are limits to private donations for elections, and a significant portion of funding for elections comes from the government itself. any party that gets over 4% of the primary vote is eligible to claim a proportional amount of financing for next election… so you can punish them in a way that really matters without actually putting anything real on the line
that’s different to proportional representation, because it’s a property of the system that there are many minor parties which inherently means parties have to make more deals
That sounds good in theory, but I’ve heard a lot of Australians complain about politics there. Maybe that’s just because people complain about politics everywhere. But, it also seems like Australia has a lot of problems that aren’t getting solved (like housing cost).
It definitely doesn’t seem like a place that has things all figured out.
Switzerland is the only country where people seem pretty proud of their system. It has its issues, but that’s mainly because they have some pretty awful voters and a direct democracy system that has caused some real headaches. For example, voters voted for some laws that were incompatible with the treaties the country had signed as part of the EU, and had they gone into effect it would have meant cancellation of their work with France on CERN, for example. I can’t remember how that was eventually resolved, but it was a real mess.
i think this is true no matter what: nz and germany are both more proportional systems and similarly people dislike politics
absolutely… some problems are incredibly tricky: getting people to vote against their interests (eg with housing, any effort to reduce house prices directly decreases the value of peoples assets - perhaps not investments, but their primary home even)
how to achieve some societal good things is really tricky in any democracy i think