Posted on 01/14/2025 3:06:53 AM PST by Cronos
In early 2020, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive Democrat from New York, was asked to speculate about her role under a Joe Biden presidency. She groaned. “In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party,” she said, “but in America, we are.”
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s frustration with the two-party system reflects the frustration American voters feel every time they step into the voting booth, when they find themselves stuck with the same two choices — and, in most places, only one with any shot at winning.
As a new Congress sputters into gear, this rusty binary split — a product of our antiquated winner-take-all electoral mechanisms — is key to understanding why our national legislature has become the divisive, dysfunctional place it is today. It is why more than 200 leading political scientists and historians (including one of the authors of this essay) signed an open letter in 2022 calling on the House of Representatives to adopt proportional representation — an intuitive and widely used electoral system that ensures parties earn seats in proportion to how many people vote for them. The result is increased electoral competition and, ultimately, a broader range of political parties for voters to choose from.
In 2024 fewer than 10 percent of U.S. House races were competitive. In a vast majority of districts, one party or the other wins by landslides. Driven by a decades-long geographic sorting that has concentrated Democrats in cities and Republicans in rural areas and reinforced by partisan gerrymandering, this split electoral landscape has fostered a polarized climate that becomes more entrenched with each election.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Maybe they should fix New York’s one party system and their corrupt judicial system first.
The House should seek to go to four-year terms two years offset from those of the President. Members spend too much time campaigning and fundraising and not enough doing their jobs.
This would require a constitutional amendment.
Perhaps the pardon & commutation power of a President should end a week prior to Election Day of the last year of his term.
Senator and president should be one-term offices. Future senators can learn the ropes in the House for as many terms as necessary or deemed to be justified by voters.
A panel of jurors, each justice of the Supreme Court naming one, should decide impeachments.
What the USA really needs <-> MAGA
Our systems need to be rationally designed to work well.
The country needs to be broken up.
Uniform taxation on corporations to pay off the national debt is what is needed.
Imagine 50 states each offering to be a better place to live and work, and fully empowered to make things work.
Not necessarily.
In Poland for instance, since end of 2023 we have unfortunately been ruled by a leftish coalition: the socially right-ISH, economically leftISH “3rd way”, the socially leftISHER, economically right “Citizens party” and the socially and economically LEFT “Left party”.
The “3rd way” managed to curb some of the more leftish policies of the “citizens party” around abortion, homers, etc. and the net result is gridlock internally.
When the rightISH “law and order” party ruled in its first term, it had more socially conservative members who pulled it to a more socially conservative bent.
And in Germany there s the FDP which is economically very liberal and it has curbed many socialist moves.
FLT-bird “I prefer the former to the latter” — and you’re right.
Otherwise one ends up with horse trading.
Now that the GOP controls both houses is it a "problem". Wasn't such a problem when Nazi PeeLousy and her lapdog DemoTards ran things.
In Europe’s multi party system, the leadership of each party controls who gets to run under their party.
In the US’s primary system, an outsider like Trump, if he gets enough signatures, can get on the primary ballot, and win the nomination, even if the party establishment hates him (as they did with Trump).
We need to focus more on primaries.
Don’t be stupid. Bush’s trifecta put the deepstate on steroids and got the whole mess started. Obama just took what Bush had already got in place and used it. It was the strategery that ruined the country. Cheney was a crook and Bush was an idiot.
“ If the NYT thinks it’s a good idea, then I don’t”
Agree. The KISS principle should apply to avoid the functional deficiencies of Europe, Israel, and elsewhere. The real key is a properly educated and informed electorate, and honest elections.
2001 $128 $133 -1.2% 2002 $158 $421 1.4% 2003 $378 $555 3.3% 2004 $413 $596 3.4% 2005 $318 $554 2.4% 2006 $248 $574 1.8% 2007 $161 $501 1.1% 2008 $459 $1,017 3.1%The first column is the annual deficit. The total deficit from '01 to '08 is $2.3 trillion - again that is OVER 8 years. Even adjusted for inflation that total is chump change by today's budgetary standards.
bttt
Whaaa we losing. We have to change the system to make it work for us again. Typical Alt Leftist clowns.
No thanks. All a multi party system does is give disproportionate power to a small minority party to play majority maker
The constitution is rationally designed.
We effed it up with the 17th ammendment. Repeal it and cap house representation to a reasonable number like 250K instead of the current and growing 700K.
The key to understanding the problem is stated in my Tagline.
Technology such as Zoom makes a 10,000 member legislature possible.
The stoopid TWOT is a communist. There is a party for that. Go there.
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