So, there is no law against a third party. Got it.
The 56% which are independents can thus create their own party and win against either D and R.
You’d be right it they were 20%, or even 30% independent and split their votes between D and R. But with a majority, they can easily get past the post and make the changes they want. It just takes not giving up and crying “it’s impossible”.
It should be noted that “independent” isn’t a monolithic position, so it’s probably not possible to create a single party that satisfies them; you’ll have people that find the democrats far too conservative to associate with, people that find the republicans too far left, people that do like one party’s policies but object to the idea of formally identifying with a political party, and people that just ignore politics.
Setting that aside though, while there are technically enough independents to win, it’s a classic collective action problem: if large but not big enough number of independents break off of whichever party they tend to vote for in absence of something more preferable to them, then they end up with the less preferred party to them, which means that creating a third party is worse unless you can get massive buy-in within a single election cycle. This isnt impossible in theory, as you’ve pointed out, but in practice these kind of problems rarely ever are solved this way, because people just don’t tend to all suddenly agree on one course of action like that, and the knowledge that a failed attempt is worse than no attempt is available to everyone.
It’s happened before in US politics a couple times even, but it hasn’t ever fixed the underlying design issue that leads to two parties, the new one just takes over as one of the major two when one of the older ones gets so unpopular as to collapse entirely, and the same forces that lead to the previous party drifting away from the wishes of the majority of the country work upon the new one.
The “winner-take-all” nature means only the largest parties consistently win seats, marginalizing smaller groups. This structural advantage makes it difficult for new or minor parties to gain significant representation.
Independents are not a smaller group. They are 56% They are the bigger group and vote D or R because they have no other option. Independents can replace the D party.
The US isn’t a lost cause. Proportional representational is only made harder by people like you, who scream till they’re blue in the face that change is impossible while being surrounded by constant change.
You: “It’s easy, we simply get two hundred million of the most brainwashed, propagandized people on the planet to disregard the constant, pervasive pressure from society about voting for the lesser evil.”
Why isn’t it possible? Is there a law against it?
FPTP makes it literally impossible for any party outside of the D and R to gain a foothold.
Have a look at Germany’s Parliament if they were forced to use FPTP:
Look at Sweden with FPTP:
Do you still want to blame the victims of FPTP for their prison disguised as democracy?
So, there is no law against a third party. Got it.
The 56% which are independents can thus create their own party and win against either D and R.
You’d be right it they were 20%, or even 30% independent and split their votes between D and R. But with a majority, they can easily get past the post and make the changes they want. It just takes not giving up and crying “it’s impossible”.
It should be noted that “independent” isn’t a monolithic position, so it’s probably not possible to create a single party that satisfies them; you’ll have people that find the democrats far too conservative to associate with, people that find the republicans too far left, people that do like one party’s policies but object to the idea of formally identifying with a political party, and people that just ignore politics.
Setting that aside though, while there are technically enough independents to win, it’s a classic collective action problem: if large but not big enough number of independents break off of whichever party they tend to vote for in absence of something more preferable to them, then they end up with the less preferred party to them, which means that creating a third party is worse unless you can get massive buy-in within a single election cycle. This isnt impossible in theory, as you’ve pointed out, but in practice these kind of problems rarely ever are solved this way, because people just don’t tend to all suddenly agree on one course of action like that, and the knowledge that a failed attempt is worse than no attempt is available to everyone.
It’s happened before in US politics a couple times even, but it hasn’t ever fixed the underlying design issue that leads to two parties, the new one just takes over as one of the major two when one of the older ones gets so unpopular as to collapse entirely, and the same forces that lead to the previous party drifting away from the wishes of the majority of the country work upon the new one.
https://legalclarity.org/why-plurality-voting-rules-create-two-party-systems/
I REPEAT:
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR ANY PARTY OUTSIDE OF THE MAIN TWO TO GAIN A FOOTHOLD IN THIS SYSTEM.
Independents are not a smaller group. They are 56% They are the bigger group and vote D or R because they have no other option. Independents can replace the D party.
The US isn’t a lost cause. Proportional representational is only made harder by people like you, who scream till they’re blue in the face that change is impossible while being surrounded by constant change.
I’m going to stop wasting my time on an idiot.
You: “It’s easy, we simply get two hundred million of the most brainwashed, propagandized people on the planet to disregard the constant, pervasive pressure from society about voting for the lesser evil.”
Understood. Goodbye then.