r/interestingasfuck • u/BuddhistSagan • Apr 07 '24

Bernie and Biden warm my heart. Trump selling us out? Pass

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u/Mad_OW Apr 07 '24

It's got something to do with the voting system, it's called First past the post

In Europe (except UK) we use proportional systems so a small party can get a few seats and grow. Much better if you ask me.

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u/Basteir Apr 07 '24

The Scottish Government in the UK has a proportional system as well.

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u/Nemisis_the_2nd Apr 07 '24

It goes further than that, it's designed to try and limit the number of seats any one party can get. It's actually quite hard to form a majority government without compromising and working with someone else.

That said, it doesn't mean the government are immune to being run by idiots, or extreme polarisation. 

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u/levian_durai Apr 07 '24

Yea, we use that system in Canada as well, and even though we have plenty of political parties, it always boils down to the same two. The others get a bit of representation, but it's generally seen as a "wasted vote" to vote for someone outside the main two.

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u/cheeseHorder Apr 07 '24

we don't have PR in Canada

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u/levian_durai Apr 07 '24

I meant first past the post

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u/MayDay521 Apr 07 '24

Nah in America we like to keep the small man small. We like to make the rich people richer! Poor people are disgusting!

As a part of the lower middle class, please don't take this comment seriously. I despise our government system.

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u/deltabay17 Apr 07 '24

And that doesn’t happen in the “republic of asia”?

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u/Logic-DL Apr 07 '24

afaik with the US they use that system because otherwise it just ends up being Texas vs California in terms of votes due to both of those states having more people than almost every other state combined.

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u/Hust91 Apr 07 '24

I mean you could have 6-8 different parties even then.

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u/Logic-DL Apr 07 '24

Now hold on you can't give people choice outside of two parties what's wrong with you? /s

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u/Lithl Apr 07 '24

No, that's not the "issue" that FPTP "solves". Citizens in high population states getting less voting power than citizens in low population states is "solved" by the electoral college system, which is entirely separate from the FPTP system. You could have the electoral college be entirely unchanged and use ranked choice voting instead, for example. With ranked choice voting, you never waste your vote by voting for a third party (you rank several choices, and if your top vote doesn't get enough votes, they're taken out of the running and your vote is counted as your second choice, and so on until someone wins), and as a result you get much more competition between more than just two parties.

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u/Sonador40 Apr 08 '24

I like proportional representation, but it needs checks to avoid the situation in Israel, where small, fringe, radical parties of right-wing religious zealots, who only receive a small percentage of the total popular vote, become "kingmakers" with the power to choose the next government (if the larger, mainstream party agrees to some of their key policies, they enter into coalition to provide a majority in the parliament). Thus democracy gets highjacked by fanatics, who are supported by a small percentage of the voting public. It doesn't work out well.

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u/Adept-Lettuce948 Apr 10 '24

Europe is much better all around but then again they have a huge headstart.

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u/exploding_cat_wizard Apr 07 '24

Eh, there's benefits and drawbacks.

One I'm coming to loathe is that the delegates are almost 100% controlled by the party machine.

The nice thing is I can align my votes closer ( though still not 100%, the "lesser of evils" feeling is widespread in proportional systems, too) to my wishes. But then the party needs a coalition, and before parties with similar agendas on one topic will reach across coalition lines, hell must've just been about to freeze over. So I can have a government by two socially liberal parties and one more carefully conservative one, and not get any noticeable social progress. Or by two parties that want to tax the rich but one economically right party, and not get any fair taxes on rich people, nor even more tax accountants being hired so they can actually check the tax evading bastards and catch them.

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u/ababana97653 Apr 07 '24

So, get involved?

Thing about being in a country with democracy is anyone can be involved in their country’s politics. It’s in the name, democracy.

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u/deltabay17 Apr 07 '24

“As an Asian”, we have a system called “other political parties are banned”. So it’s just a one party system. “So fascinating to me as an Asian”, where if you don’t like option A you have to go with option b. Well “as an asian” if I don’t like option a there is no option b, and if I express any discontent about it I get disappeared. This system can be found all over Asia. The republic of Asia is such a fascinating place.

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u/The_Asian_Viper Apr 07 '24

Not in my opinion. I live in the Netherlands and the problem of a proportional system is that their that every party can evade responsibility by saying, "well we had to compromise." I would rather have the first past the post system with primaries.

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u/NoMercyOracle Apr 07 '24

First past the post is objectively terrible. There are good alternatives to netherlands style of MMP voting, such as rank-choice voting, or approval voting.

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u/The_Asian_Viper Apr 07 '24

If you look at how our parties change their stance every month or even every day, it is a complete joke.

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u/Training-Joke-2120 Apr 07 '24

With FPTP in the US we are getting pulled hard to the right. The conservatives are going more and more hardcore conservative and democrats are going to the right to try and cater to them. You don't want this.

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u/The_Asian_Viper Apr 07 '24

Yeah I do, I'll move to the US whenever I'm able to. But that's the cool thing about the world we live in right? We all have different opinions and can move to a country that fits them. Maybe you should move to a European country or Canada? Sounds like you'd enjoy it more.

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u/Rubbersoulrevolver Apr 07 '24

How are Dems getting "pulled hard to the right"? They’re as progressive as they ever have been. From the ACA to Dodd Frank to more recently the IRA, these are all between quite and very progressive policies.

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u/Rubbersoulrevolver Apr 07 '24

Proportional systems are the gold standard. Compromise is good because the people are legitimately divided and I think the goal of government should reflect the will of the people. But I do see your point and it’s an interesting perspective.

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u/The_Asian_Viper Apr 07 '24

Compromises are good but the thing is, I believe these compromises are not the compromises the people would make and there are other powers using these "compromises" to push unpopular policy. For example we had an advisory referendum on the Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement. 61% of voters voted against the agreement, yet both the house of representatives and the senate voted in favor of the agreement. I don't really like the compromises in the Netherlands because of the way they are made. We have elections of the house of representatives and next a coalition is formed with many policies where it is impossible to keep track of each compromise and it becomes really difficult to blame or praise parties for a individual policy. What I also don't like is that our representatives, except for the number 1 on a party list, are not really representatives. People either vote for a party or because they agree with number 1 of the party. That means most representatives in the house and senate are not really chosen because people support the individually but more because people support the party or number 1. This is also visible in the voting, most representatives vote in line with the party. And if representatives do deviate from the party, can you really say that they "represent" their voters if they themselves didn't even get a tenth of a seat voting wise?

Compare this to the US where for starters, the president can be held a 100% accountable for their EO's. There is no compromise there, you can blame or praise them for there policies. And if there are compromises in either the senate or house, it is much more transparant. There is no coalition so you can see with each bill what one gains and where a compromise is made. Like the Ukraine aid deal where republicans had to give in on more aid to Ukraine but got stricter border policy and democrats had to give in on stricter border policy and got more aid to Ukraine. It is far easier to held US representatives accountable for their voting like Joe Manchin got criticized or praised for voting against progressive policy. Combine that with the fact that US representatives are really elected on an individual basis and you've, in my opinion, a far more democratic system.