The Two-Party System

[Tequila Dave]

Meet Mickey. In the last eight years, as the Governor of Michigan, he has completely turned around the state and transformed it into a job creating machine (just go with it.) With a unique and balanced approached to governing, Mickey is considering running to be President in 2012. He truly has everything necessary to revive the dwindling economy, but one major obstacle sits in his way to the White House… He’s…well, a moderate.

He tries for the Republican primary – but things don’t go well. He’s heavily criticised for not being conservative enough, and thus, drops out early due to low polling numbers.

Over the next four years, Mickey hunts down terrorists while studying economics. As 2016 rolls around, he decides to try and run as a Democrat. Big mistake. Some of his stances prove unpopular with left voters and he is humiliated in the primaries.

Mickey becomes a huge Gay Rights activist and starts up a flourishing business. After his time in the private sector, he decides to go for the White House yet again in 2020 as America finds itself on the verge of a Civil War. This time he runs as an Independent – the media pretty much ignores him and he’s prevented from taking part in the Presidential Debates.

Moderate Mickey never had a chance. Why? Because of the Two-Party System. Now I don’t much about politics, but it seems to me that the current system of electing a President discourages centrist politicians – which is what this country needs right now - as opposed to another Republican or Democrat who has to abide by a certain ideology to get anywhere.

Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about (which is likely). I know that I can’t think of a solution or alternative…but I just wanted to hear your thoughts on the Two-Party System.

 

[TWJC: The Beginning]

It's not really that simple. Sure it's a two party system, but look at Clinton. He was pretty damn moderate.

The way it works is the American people vote on whatever candidate they want (sorta). So if you have 3 republicans, one's a batshit crazy extremist, one is a dumbfuck Texan who wants to kill everything and tax the poor, one is moderate, that's not really just a cut and dry choice. You have lots of choices.

Same thing on the democrat side. If you ahve one candidate who is a hippy, another who wants there to be a 50K/year cap on everyone's earnings and the rest is taxed, and the other is a moderate, you have a choice there too.

the two-party system is flawed in that to get elected you have to have party support to get notice. However, it does it's job pretty well.

One thing that I think would fix it a lot is campaign contribution limits. right now we are corrupt and it's because of the system. To get elected, you need a party backing you and corporations contributing to your campaign. When you get elected, you have to give little kickbacks to both or you won't be re-elected. at the same time, you have to cater to the generally stupidy public "I want a house I want a house" "okay, I'll deregulate the housing market"....10 years later "what the fuck you screwed up the housing market" "okay, well, yea fuck you".

Everything you are expected to do is contradicted by HOW you are expected to do it. If a politician said "I'm not building any new roads or schools and I'm increasing taxes by 12% across the board" he would not get re-elected. then the next guy who said "I'm going to cut taxes and build you new roads and schools" gets elected, but then people bitch "WE'RE IN DEBT WHAT'D YOU DO".

I get tired of the American people blaming the politicians. We should blame ourselves also if not completely.

 

[Cena's Little Helper]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

There you go. If you truly hate the two-party system, then you should be championing electoral reform. It sounds like you'd be receptive to something like proportional representation. However, would proportional representation only make our federal government (namely, our legislative branch) that much more useless in effecting actual change?