I see that the French government has collapsed, for what seems the umpteenth time. Coming hard on the heels of the German government’s problems, there is of course a common thread: both were coalition governments, where two (of the many) political parties — some with diametrically-opposed platforms — decided to create an alliance to govern the country. Both, of course, were doomed to fail, especially, as in the case with the Frogs, that the opposition party, the much-reviled Front National (or National Front, in English) was almost as large as either of the two melded parties, so the non-confidence vote brought by the FN needed only the support of one of the coalition parties to topple the government. (The fact that the coalition, cobbled together simply to prevent the FN from assuming power, was always doomed to fail except in the minds of the idiots with the anti-FN mindset.)
I’ve often spoken with Americans who think that our two-party system is flawed, in that each party is often riven by various key issues which actually find favor with a small (or large) proportion of the other one. Abortion, for example, is one such issue: where there may be a small minority of pro-abortion politicians in the Republican Party whose ideology thereof is closer to a majority of abortion supporters over on the Evil Side of the room. The problem, of course, is that these are generally single issues, around which it would be impossible to form, say, a Pro-Abortion Party to be pitted against an Anti-Abortion Party. Ditto the Greens, ditto guns, ditto Trump, etc. etc.
Honestly, while our current two-party system is not ideal, it sure is better than the European multi-party. Small, contained chaos around single issues is, I think, far preferable to the systemic instability of a multi-party system, almost without regard to the relative merits of their various positions.
I should also point out that a fragmented polity is generally vulnerable to external threats or danger — witness the chaos of the French Third Republic in the 1930s, which in no small part enabled France’s crushing defeat by Nazi Germany in 1940. (A sizeable proportion of Frenchmen, and their parties, actually welcomed the prospect of a strong national government on the lines of Hitler’s Nazi Germany or Mussolini’s Fascist Italy, simply because they were sick of dealing with the decades-long chaos of multi-party politics and weakness.)
In passing, imagine there was a single-issue party named, oh, the Anyone But Trump Party in our polity (composed of both Democrats and Republicans), and toss that into the standard Democrat/Republican mix.
Ugh. If you can see only chaos resulting from that little political soup, then you’ll understand the European situation.
“ In passing, imagine there was a single-issue party named, oh, the Anyone But Trump Party in our polity (composed of both Democrats and Republicans), and toss that into the standard Democrat/Republican mix.”
This does sort of exist. It’s called the legacy media. Those clowns claim to be both democrat and (former) republicans yet they are clowns who want their way and suggest anything else is racism / sexism and oppressive
Technically an extension of the democrat party in way.
I read that many legacy media outlets are not getting the viewers they used to. Hope many of them go out of business.
I heard a rumor that Elon was thinking of bidding on one of these propaganda machines.
Your system may not be perfect but it is the best avaiable, In Belgium whe have a multiparty system also and whe stil maintain the world championship for not having a governement ( 565 days if I remember correctly )
My personal option would be the US system but still with our King instead of a Président, that would a least allow for some stability. And a Bill of Right similar to yours of course.
The advantage of the American electoral system is it rewards broad coalitions and punishes splitters, which is the opposite of what parliamentary systems do.
These party problems arise from the misaken notion that a demoracy can exist only if legislators are elected by popular vote. Instead, draft them.
If we can expect a randomly-selected young man to (potentially) risk his life in the service of his nation, why can’t we expect a man or woman, chosen by lot from a pool of those who have successfully served in a lower office, to make laws that benefit the country. You still could have recall, or impeachment, to take care of those who persist in behaving like politicians.
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There. Now… about this exile thing….
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putting random people into the legislature might just entrench the bureaucrats and deep state. The random people assigned to the legislature would just become feckless figureheads. the case could be made that we’re already there with career politicians. Thank God the Chevron deference got overturned.
Say what you will about America’s two-party duopoly (and much of what I have to say about it ain’t good), it has led to a great deal of political stability. The last time a presidential-level party collapsed was 1857 after the Whigs had finished third behind the upstart Republicans. Of course, what followed was economic collapse (burn in hell, Pierce and Buchanan) and eventually the Slavers’ Rebellion (1861-1865). So maybe just having two large parties with broad (and sometimes disparate) coalitions is, to paraphrase Churchill, the worst way to govern except for all the other ways.
Bingo.
It’s not a “Two Party System”.
It’s a system in which two parties have come to dominate in elections.
The difference is important to remember as is that we are a Republic rather than a Democracy.
Your last point is all too commonly over-looked, or just ignored.
Your last point is all too commonly over-looked, or just ignored.
Both the US and various European systems are flawed.
None of them are perfect, but all of them are far superior to the communist system and its ilks.
In the American system each party is a coalition of various factions. In order to get nominated by a party it is necessary to get the support of enough of the factions within the party, but once elected those factions cannot withdraw support until the next campaign cycle. In these multi-party coalition governments a disgruntled faction is its own party and can withdraw support at any time. Both systems require coalitions, but the American system lends a bit of stability to the resulting government.
I would think that various countries with a parliamentary system of government would have learned that these small parties simply do not work well and would abandon them.
The American system of two major parties does seem to lead to more stability
Again, it is NOT a system of two parties.
Go through the Constitution.
No where does it limit us to two parties.
Indeed there are many out there.
Just as we do not have a Democracy but a Republic, we do not have a “Two Party System”.
What happens here is the “Coalition” one finds in Parliamentary System governments takes place before the election rather than after, but you can certainly get a third or fourth party on the ballot if you follow the byzantine rules to do so.
What our system, the Presidential system, has that makes it more stable than the Parliamentary is that the head of state isn’t beholden to the legislature in the way it is under the Parliamentary.
“…two-party system is flawed, in that each party…”
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Americans have zero political parties.
Everything is owned by a few globalists (aka ‘RulingParasites’).
Their puppets go through the motions of pretending to be antagonists, their MainStreamMedia go through the motions of pretending they see a difference.
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keyword : co-joined twins President Trump and the kamster
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The last time Americans had anything resembling a government was around 1777 with our Articles Of Confederation.
Naturally, Jefferson Adams Worshington et al (aka ‘RulingParasites’) put an end to that nonsense by writing the current Constitution.
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Beginning in 1861, the Confederate States Of America had a semi-functional government.
Of course, international bankers (aka
‘RulingParasites’) put the kybosh on those upstarts.