No Party Politics?

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

I thought it could be interesting to have people discuss this. What is this? Well, the idea of a vote-based election where there is NO political parties (mainly in the US). There still would be elections but instead of "Having a nominee from this and this party" there are just several nominees. With a minimum percentage of votes needed for election.

Granted there obviously are flaws. Pros AND cons. But, what's the fun of debating something without positives and negatives?

[goddamnit names are a pain]

One of the things with parties is their identity makes voting much simpler and attracts more people.

Oh, X candidate is a Democrat, I'm also a Democrat, suddenly I'm much more likely to vote for X instead of Y alternative.

It's flawed, obviously, as this has people voting with little knowledge on candidates, but we already have a couple of problems.

1. Candidates change their stances often, or simply can't fulfill what they said in office. No matter how much information we have, it's all subject to change suddenly. We can never vote with 100% certainty, no matter what we do. That's why I don't mind having party labels. It brings in similar people and pushes away people that aren't without having people necessarily sticking to one candidate just because he promises X, which would inevitably happen in a No-Party system.

2. I think it would cause presidency to be more a popularity contest than it already is. Having nominations and hoops to go through often lines us up with better candidates than we started with...often. Not always, as these last 20 years have shown. 

 

I think the party system saves time and allows "ease of use" for people. Oh, X person is the Republican candidate, now I know who to throw money at. It's flawed, but I find the flaws in a non party system to be much larger and in my opinion will actually decrease voter turnout.

Without parties, though, we'll have less money spent and media coverage on people, since the money would have to go to MORE candidates AND because without that party label I think candidates would not pull in nearly as much money.

Not necessarily a bad thing, though. s*** like 1 billion dollars in media on Trump and Hilary in one month should not be a thing, it's pretty disgusting in my opinion.

 

I think honestly, all we need to do is remove the Electoral College. It would make votes actually matter, versus the currently poorly designed and flawed system we currently have. Also, uniform voting laws would help. So no more stupid Florida cases or any s*** like that.

 

However, I do think a No-Party system would give more candidates a shot, which I think is a somewhat good idea.

The issue is that certain stances will always appear to be on a particular side. Even if the word "Republican" never existed, the people with similar views would always group together in the end. And, in the case of multiple candidates having similar views, I think it would be like the vast majority of split tickets and the winner would be some third, different candidate. 
So, make of it what you will. 

[Ryusei the Morning Star]

One of the things with parties is their identity makes voting much simpler and attracts more people.

Oh, X candidate is a Democrat, I'm also a Democrat, suddenly I'm much more likely to vote for X instead of Y alternative.

It's flawed, obviously, as this has people voting with little knowledge on candidates, but we already have a couple of problems.

1. Candidates change their stances often, or simply can't fulfill what they said in office. No matter how much information we have, it's all subject to change suddenly. We can never vote with 100% certainty, no matter what we do. That's why I don't mind having party labels. It brings in similar people and pushes away people that aren't without having people necessarily sticking to one candidate just because he promises X, which would inevitably happen in a No-Party system.

2. I think it would cause presidency to be more a popularity contest than it already is. Having nominations and hoops to go through often lines us up with better candidates than we started with...often. Not always, as these last 20 years have shown. 

 

I think the party system saves time and allows "ease of use" for people. Oh, X person is the Republican candidate, now I know who to throw money at. It's flawed, but I find the flaws in a non party system to be much larger and in my opinion will actually decrease voter turnout.

Without parties, though, we'll have less money spent and media coverage on people, since the money would have to go to MORE candidates AND because without that party label I think candidates would not pull in nearly as much money.

Not necessarily a bad thing, though. s*** like 1 billion dollars in media on Trump and Hilary in one month should not be a thing, it's pretty disgusting in my opinion.

 

I think honestly, all we need to do is remove the Electoral College. It would make votes actually matter, versus the currently poorly designed and flawed system we currently have. Also, uniform voting laws would help. So no more stupid Florida cases or any s*** like that.

 

However, I do think a No-Party system would give more candidates a shot, which I think is a somewhat good idea.

The issue is that certain stances will always appear to be on a particular side. Even if the word "Republican" never existed, the people with similar views would always group together in the end. And, in the case of multiple candidates having similar views, I think it would be like the vast majority of split tickets and the winner would be some third, different candidate. 

So, make of it what you will.

 

Thank you. It's so infuriating that all of Upstate NY is irrelevant thanks to the EC. That's point alone is so important

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

Hmmm. I think the fact that you, multiple times, mention how people will vote based on party highlights just why this could be a good idea.

I would rather not have people vote if they're only voting because "My political party" if I'm being honest.

[Goose]

I could have a really long conversation on this and I obviously don't want to so I'll just hit the highlights. 

 

1. Important argument that justifies democracy is low information voter competency.  Voters without much information are able to make choices close to what they would make with perfect information.

 

2. Party ID functions as a heuristic in the minds of voters, letting them guess what a candidate stands for just by seeing a logo next to a name.

 

There is a book worth of information and detail in those two sentences, but that is the basics of this issue.

[Ryusei the Morning Star]

Another bonus, if popular vote is how votes are counted, politicians have to appeal to all of America, not just Florida, Ohio, Iowa, and Nevada

[mido9]

Hmmm. I think the fact that you, multiple times, mention how people will vote based on party highlights just why this could be a good idea.

I would rather not have people vote if they're only voting because "My political party" if I'm being honest.

I mean I would love to be able to vote on individual policy instead. Would have a lot more chatting and public debates to inform people and etc etc if their choices weren't basically limited to one vote every 8 years for some guy who is not going to meet 90% of their campaign promises either way.

[goddamnit names are a pain]

I could have a really long conversation on this and I obviously don't want to so I'll just hit the highlights. 

 

1. Important argument that justifies democracy is low information voter competency.  Voters without much information are able to make choices close to what they would make with perfect information.

 

2. Party ID functions as a heuristic in the minds of voters, letting them guess what a candidate stands for just by seeing a logo next to a name.

 

There is a book worth of information and detail in those two sentences, but that is the basics of this issue.

Goose hits it on the head.

#goteamwelche

[Aerion Brightflame]

Parties work, just not in FPTP. 

 

In a society where there are dozens of potential parties, the party system works well because it allows a group of people who share collective views to work together for common goals rather than having hundreds of individuals with subtle variations of the same viewpoint screwing with things. It also forces compromise because the odds of there being a single majority party are really slim. And compromise in politics is perfect, because it means you give everyone at least some of what they want. 

 

The issue is when you end up in a 2 party system - Because then there's no need to mediate or compromise when one party gets an effective majority every few years. You can just shut s*** down that you don't agree with, and that's not how politics should work. It also causes polarisation and a lot of people to vote down party lines exclusively because they don't want 'them' to win instead.

 

And two parties are only going to represent a fraction of a nations viewpoints really. So it's even worse in that sense. As well as just mitigating a tonne of votes because it's winner takes all so having X viewpoint in Y place means you never get a say.

 

You switch to something more representative (I.e. essentially any other voting system), and you can fix some of the issues people have with parties. 

 

An electoral college with full blown proportional representation would be frankly amazing. 

[Dad]

Goose hits it on the head.

#goteamwelche

 

Keep the shitposts to a minimum please.

 

 

I could have a really long conversation on this and I obviously don't want to so I'll just hit the highlights. 

 

1. Important argument that justifies democracy is low information voter competency.  Voters without much information are able to make choices close to what they would make with perfect information.

 

2. Party ID functions as a heuristic in the minds of voters, letting them guess what a candidate stands for just by seeing a logo next to a name.

 

There is a book worth of information and detail in those two sentences, but that is the basics of this issue.

 

Two party politics are basically bait, but overwriting them is only easy in theory.  We want more political nominations and options, but you would have to first demolish Dems and Republicans outright.

[Goose]

Keep the shitposts to a minimum please.

 

 

 

Two party politics are basically bait, but overwriting them is only easy in theory.  We want more political nominations and options, but you would have to first demolish Dems and Republicans outright.

 

Not really true at all.  There is something called Duverger's law which states that under FPTP political systems will trend to two parties. This is practically true everywhere.  There is also something called Duverger's theorum which states that under proportional systems, the party system will trend to more than two parties.  This one is less widely provable and believed but it's there.

 

Other people have theorized that the number of parties(P) is based on cleavages in politics(n).  P=n+1 This holds up fairly well to statistical analysis and works decently across electoral systems.

 

What do these point towards?  If you have political parties in the US, it won't matter if you abolish the Dems/Republicans.  The system will just rebuild itself because it wants to be like that. 

 

So are you eliminating parties? That seems like a massive mistake in a country like the US largely for the reason I stated above.  Eliminating parties wont actually help improve discourse, it'll just increase the cost of politics and decrease the competency of voters.

 

 

Parties work, just not in FPTP. 

 

In a society where there are dozens of potential parties, the party system works well because it allows a group of people who share collective views to work together for common goals rather than having hundreds of individuals with subtle variations of the same viewpoint screwing with things. It also forces compromise because the odds of there being a single majority party are really slim. And compromise in politics is perfect, because it means you give everyone at least some of what they want. 

 

The issue is when you end up in a 2 party system - Because then there's no need to mediate or compromise when one party gets an effective majority every few years. You can just shut s*** down that you don't agree with, and that's not how politics should work. It also causes polarisation and a lot of people to vote down party lines exclusively because they don't want 'them' to win instead.

 

And two parties are only going to represent a fraction of a nations viewpoints really. So it's even worse in that sense. As well as just mitigating a tonne of votes because it's winner takes all so having X viewpoint in Y place means you never get a say.

 

You switch to something more representative (I.e. essentially any other voting system), and you can fix some of the issues people have with parties. 

 

An electoral college with full blown proportional representation would be frankly amazing. 

 

I wrote a piece on this issue here: http://almostapoliticalscientist.blogspot.ca/2016/07/electoral-engineering-balancing-act.html

[goddamnit names are a pain]

Keep the shitposts to a minimum please.

Ah, sorry, I wasn't trying to shitpost, I was just thinking he nailed it for me. The hashtag was just a joke added to the end. Anyways, noted.

 

 

 

The issue is when you end up in a 2 party system - Because then there's no need to mediate or compromise when one party gets an effective majority every few years. You can just shut s*** down that you don't agree with, and that's not how politics should work. It also causes polarisation and a lot of people to vote down party lines exclusively because they don't want 'them' to win instead.

 

And two parties are only going to represent a fraction of a nations viewpoints really. So it's even worse in that sense. As well as just mitigating a tonne of votes because it's winner takes all so having X viewpoint in Y place means you never get a say.

 

Hmm, I didn't think of it like that, but that is very true. We currently only ever have the two parties win things, and the rest are ignored and seen as irrelevant. Heck, with this DNC stuff, apparently they just shut down things they DO agree with. It's a pretty corrupt system all around, not even including the numerous flaws in the two party system you mentioned. 

 

To somewhat quote a few famous authors (no one ever provides 100% evidence they coined the phrase), "If voting made any difference, they wouldn't let us do it". Despite how much we talk about making fair systems and tweaks to it, there will always be loopholes and exploiters. There will always be popularity wins and "who has the biggest wallet" wins. So, while it's nice to talk about an ideal society for voting, it just isn't possible, in my opinion. Not sure how we would get a change, especially on the huge scale, either. Those with money and high positions effectively can keep things stagnant forever (in terms of laws and systems) unless a HUGE population fights them on it. Not enough people give a rip about voting or the voting system for it to ever see much change, sadly. 

We can hope, though.

 

Edit: Hmm, while I don't know all the "science" and studies behind it, what Goose says about just naturally edging towards one of two/three stances (hence why two parties will almost always be a thing) seems pretty legitimate. It's true in most things, really. Politics especially ends up being black or white with its choices.

[Dad]

Not really true at all.  There is something called Duverger's law which states that under FPTP political systems will trend to two parties. This is practically true everywhere.  There is also something called Duverger's theorum which states that under proportional systems, the party system will trend to more than two parties.  This one is less widely provable and believed but it's there.

 

Other people have theorized that the number of parties(P) is based on cleavages in politics(n).  P=n+1 This holds up fairly well to statistical analysis and works decently across electoral systems.

 

What do these point towards?  If you have political parties in the US, it won't matter if you abolish the Dems/Republicans.  The system will just rebuild itself because it wants to be like that. 

 

So are you eliminating parties? That seems like a massive mistake in a country like the US largely for the reason I stated above.  Eliminating parties wont actually help improve discourse, it'll just increase the cost of politics and decrease the competency of voters.

 

Oh no, perhaps I wasn't clear.  I don't particularly care for the two party system, but it works and it works well.  I didn't mean to suggest that we even could remove the parties.  Frankly removing the parties would solve nothing.  For simplified purposes , I think all of the break down that would come from removing the "Democrat" and "Republican" parties would just shred them into smaller more particular parties of the same kind.

 

Also, that was an excellent read.