Not disagreeing on this because the US is very much its own thing, but the UK also uses FPTP and the collapse of mainstream (LibLabCon) party vote has been quite stark in recent years, and FPTP becomes hugely unstable when the vote becomes split.
For context, Plaid is widely tipped to become the biggest party in Wales at the next GE and the SNP kicked the mainstream parties out of Scotland a number of elections ago. The Greens and Reform are likely to take England.
this always comes up
the uk has parliamentary
parliamentary lends some stability to third parties. because of coalition forming
the usa has none of this
so fptp is poison to third parties in the uk
but fptp is fatal to third parties in the usa
It is different in the UK, but mainly because when Labour (socialist at the time) took over from the Liberals after WW2, the Liberals (equivalent to the US Dems) stuck around to split the Labour vote and ensure regular Tory govts. That establishment glitch means that the UK has had a three party system under FPTP for 80 years or more.
i completely defer to your understanding british politics
my point is just to note the discrepancy in 3rd party stability and viability, uk vs usa
fptp means only 2 parties
people go "but the uk is fptp and they have lively 3rd parties"
and the reason for that is the parliamentary system counteracting some of poison that fptp represents for third parties
that the usa does not have
so in a way i'm hijacking your comment
typical americans, making it about them 😅
@benroyce @ReggieHere @jawarajabbi I suppose we in the UK tend to think that the two houses in the US are roughly equivalent to the houses of commons (elected members of parliament) and Lords (unelected permanent appointees of different governments). But the process of selection is very different. We don’t have primaries and each political party has its own method of choosing representatives.
Yep, FPTP is bipartite by nature and probably represents the lowest form of democracy that it's possible to have while still claiming to be a democracy.
The US system is a mirror of the UK system before the 1900s, with Republicans/Tories representing old money and tradition and the Dems/Liberals representing new money and more progressive ideals, but both parties born out of the aristocracy and the UK didn't have a left-wing opposition until the early C20.
@seb321 @ReggieHere @jawarajabbi
and in the usa it's just all or nothing
the problem is we have an ancient antiquated crude form of democracy, and we never adjusted
more modern forms of democracy like in the uk: it's simply more sophisticated, more robust, better thought out forms of democracy
you drifted away from monarchy. we drift towards it
which is all very ironic considering the drama when we split from the uk, and our rhetoric at the time
@jawarajabbi @ReggieHere @benroyce Neither system was implemented with fairness in mind though. They were both imposed by a wealthy elite to ensure they kept power to themselves while giving just enough of a say to the masses to stop them revolting. Only reluctantly did they widen suffrage to include first non-aristocratic men and eventually women. I assume the same sort of process happened in the US? No votes for slaves I imagine?
@seb321 @ReggieHere @jawarajabbi @benroyce
Your point about Parliament is well made, discussions about FPTP in the U.S. and UK often miss that the process is being used in different ways. We don't elect Prime Ministers, leaders are elected by party members and if enough MPs of any party go along with it they become PM. Otherwise the US Houses could operate in the same way as Parliament but for the other important difference: the unlimited scale of political spending. The scale of the resource required to elect even one third-party member of a House makes it unviable. The only route for a third party is to take over one of the big two. In the old Gilded Age corporate interests hedged their bets and took over both. In this new age the Tea Party took over the GOP and MAGA swallowed them whole.
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@seb321 @ReggieHere @jawarajabbi @benroyce
…These differences in the way FPTP works demands different approaches:
In the UK model third parties can prosper and tactical voting at a Parliamentary Election can give them a place in Parliament and potentially a finger on the balance of power. The key thing is for enough people to turn up and vote at the Parliamentary Election.
In the US model third parties can't prosper and the tactical voting in a vote to a House isn't going to deliver. However, as we've seen in New York just as much as we've seen in the rise of Trump, if enough people vote in a given direction at the primary they can put up an effectively third-party candidate then enough need to vote for them. It's twice the effort but a more secure outcome.
The irony is that in the UK we theoretically vote for people not parties but have to vote tactically for parties while in the U.S. the vote is for parties not people but you have to vote tactically for people.
/End
@seb321 @jawarajabbi @ReggieHere
oh yeah absolutely
and all we can do is further agitate for even more improvements to our flawed democracies
in the usa ranked choice voting is gradually working its way in here and there
this is exciting because with ranked choice people can vote their conscience free and clear. third parties will become stable. and no more dreary dreary strategy with their vote that turns so many people off from voting
This exactly. Prior to the C20, the UK didn't have a left-wing party because the liberals and conservatives were both part of the aristocracy.
It's arguable that the US still lacks a left-wing party, and the presence of democratic socialists like Mamdini in the US Democrats is the exact parallel of socialists in the UK Liberal Party at the beginning of the twentieth century.
@ReggieHere @seb321 @jawarajabbi @benroyce
Well if that's the case, take note. If you spend a century being the left wing "working man's" party then start warmongering and leaning further right to try and prevent the fascists from voting for the nazis, you will fail and probably (hopefully) destroy yourselves.
@gareth @ReggieHere @seb321 @jawarajabbi
i see the welsh flag, i see the invective, time for this american to nope out, seeing as i ain't got no dog in this fight
I don't think it's a nationalist point. Labour under Blair reverted to liberalism and left-wingers across the UK were stranded without a party to vote for.
Scotland replaced Labour with the SNP and Wales is looking likely to do similar with Plaid at the next election. English left-wingers have mostly dropped Labour in favour of the Greens or YP.
@ReggieHere @gareth @seb321 @jawarajabbi
oh yeah, sorry. i mean i saw the welsh flag as in this is a british isles thing now, not as in this is a welsh independence thing now. and me in western new york i should keep my mouth shut
Would State independence movements be a way forward for progressives in the States?
@ReggieHere @gareth @seb321 @jawarajabbi
well had a wee little war over that
such moves are mostly championed by far right wackjobs. and funded by shady money that has the kremlin at its root
same with alberta in canada, with the added "bonus" that some of that money there is from USA MAGA
it's like brexit: it just makes putin smile and weakens his enemies, it's not a valid approach
Yes, democracy as a vehicle for regime change is an under-scrutinised political strategy.
That said, smaller national electorates in the UK have successfully ousted the mainstream Westminster parties....hence the question about the likes of New York State.
@ReggieHere @gareth @seb321 @jawarajabbi
well there's always this interplay between "states rights" and the feds
the right consistently whines about it
then they get in power and squash left leaning states rights
predictable hypocrisy
i can definitely see more assertion of the primacy of state govt over federal govt from the left if we don't improve
Interesting, The left-wing of the Democrats certainly seems to be gaining momentum.
@ReggieHere @benroyce @jawarajabbi and there are pivotal moments. As mentioned above, the rise of the Labour Party in the early 20th century was enabled by voting reform in the late 19th century. Still just men, but more ordinary men. You have to hope that the shock of what Trump has been able to do will lead to further voting reform in the US.
