For all practical purposes yes. It sucks, but as you can see, speaking about third parties gets most people pissed off as it’s considered voter suicide / throwing away your vote to vote for an extremely minor third party candidate. The financial support within these two power house parties makes it unlikely this system will ever change. As someone pointed out here, a systematic change like ranked choice voting where third parties could aggregate credit without forcing voters to abandon the two parties they are comfortable with would be the only hope of moving away from the bullshit 2 party system. However, that’s not in the interest of the two parties that already run the government, so never going to happen at scale at least.
In a majority rules, representative democracy, the peoples’ voice is heard through electing officials that promise to vote on behalf of the constituents.
This is seen to good effect in the legislative branch, where specific candidates hold office for short terms. But as empirical data suggests, the two party system is still relied upon, especially when it comes to less-than-ideally informed voters.
When it comes to presidential candidates, who wield far greater power over longer terms, voters are averse to the risk of giant, sweeping changes.
There have been numerous popular third-party candidates vying for the presidency, but none that sufficiently capture a voter base. So, therefore it is equated to throwing the vote away
But imo, long live Bernie. I would have voted with my soul
Nope that’s not a refinement, thats just a new comment.
As far as less than ideally informed voters, that’s a self fulfilling prophecy - why become informed when there are two parties and you are programmed to already hate one? You just vote and party lines and move on. Politicians in the US don’t even have platforms anymore, they don’t need to.
For all practical purposes yes. It sucks, but as you can see, speaking about third parties gets most people pissed off as it’s considered voter suicide / throwing away your vote to vote for an extremely minor third party candidate. The financial support within these two power house parties makes it unlikely this system will ever change. As someone pointed out here, a systematic change like ranked choice voting where third parties could aggregate credit without forcing voters to abandon the two parties they are comfortable with would be the only hope of moving away from the bullshit 2 party system. However, that’s not in the interest of the two parties that already run the government, so never going to happen at scale at least.
Let’s refine your comment.
In a majority rules, representative democracy, the peoples’ voice is heard through electing officials that promise to vote on behalf of the constituents.
This is seen to good effect in the legislative branch, where specific candidates hold office for short terms. But as empirical data suggests, the two party system is still relied upon, especially when it comes to less-than-ideally informed voters.
When it comes to presidential candidates, who wield far greater power over longer terms, voters are averse to the risk of giant, sweeping changes.
There have been numerous popular third-party candidates vying for the presidency, but none that sufficiently capture a voter base. So, therefore it is equated to throwing the vote away
But imo, long live Bernie. I would have voted with my soul
Nope that’s not a refinement, thats just a new comment.
As far as less than ideally informed voters, that’s a self fulfilling prophecy - why become informed when there are two parties and you are programmed to already hate one? You just vote and party lines and move on. Politicians in the US don’t even have platforms anymore, they don’t need to.