# Have Elections Become Meaningless In America Re: Real Political Change **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 14, 2012, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-elections-become-meaningless-in-america-re-real-political-change/637713 "2012-10-14T19:17:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-elections-become-meaningless-in-america-re-real-political-change/637713/81 "2012-10-17T08:42:05Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Preferential or Proportional Voting methods may have merit, but even more urgent is reducing Conflations and Confusions in discourse: > > 😕 😕 > Vote Green for Congressperson, Democrat for President; what’s the problem? The problem in the case of the Presidency is that voting for the Green candidate, at present, does little to get a Green elected, but does a LOT to get a Republican elected. At the Congressional and state levels, too, Greens may play the spoiler role of course. But in many races, if there were a strong progressive movement, they might stand a chance of actually getting elected. And if elected they would tend to caucus with the Democrats rather than the Republicans. And the Democrats would be forced to give their allies’ ideas much consideration. THEN they might just embrace some progressive ideas on topics like economics and political campaign funding reform. So long as the progressive movement cannot elect candidates to office, it will be ignored. I am not yet convinced that the Green Party is the best option for progressivism, however. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2012, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-elections-become-meaningless-in-america-re-real-political-change/637713/82 "2012-10-17T10:03:05Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Er - I’m not too happy with a person who votes Green on the congressional ballot, only to throw the election to a Tea Partying Republican opponent of mainstream science. Under what circumstances would you find it OK for someone to vote for a third party candidate? ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-elections-become-meaningless-in-america-re-real-political-change/637713/83 "2012-10-18T06:52:32Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Under what circumstances would you find it OK for someone to vote for a third party candidate? 1. Under any major electoral system, other than winner-take-all. Generally speaking I roll my eyes at those who support third parties while either displaying no comprehension of the spoiler problem or dodging the subject. [Fairvote](http://www.fairvote.org/) has successfully instituted IRV in a few jurisdictions, so it’s not an impossible dream. 2. There’s another situation admittedly. If you are a Democrat and they nominate someone who takes bribes like Cold Cash Jefferson or a Republican and they nominate (say) [Duke Cunningham](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Cunningham) prior to his retirement at USP Tucson, it might be legitimate to plunk for a third party. Essentially, you are promising that you will choose a viable candidate next time, provided they put forward someone who isn’t a criminal. In Latin America, I might also understand those who balk at supporting former dictators, although even there I would apply a statute of limitations. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-elections-become-meaningless-in-america-re-real-political-change/637713/84 "2012-10-18T11:25:18Z")
I hadn’t heard about this until today, but it turns out [Jill Stein was arrested](http://rt.com/usa/news/police-jill-stein-debate-589/) while trying to enter the university where the “town hall” debate was being held. After all, we can’t have anyone interfering with the Republocrats carefully choreographed performance of “Presidential Candidates Answer Totally Not Staged Questions From Normal Americans”, can we? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-elections-become-meaningless-in-america-re-real-political-change/637713/85 "2012-10-18T15:59:38Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > I hadn’t heard about this until today, but it turns out [Jill Stein was arrested](http://rt.com/usa/news/police-jill-stein-debate-589/) while trying to enter the university where the “town hall” debate was being held. After all, we can’t have anyone interfering with the Republocrats carefully choreographed performance of “Presidential Candidates Answer Totally Not Staged Questions From Normal Americans”, can we? From your link: > [@](#): > > A staple of her campaign is the “Green New Deal,” a plan to recharge the US by giving “every American willing and able to work” a job on renewable energy projects in the country. Much as I would love to hear that rebutted by Romney and Obama (and watch Candy Crowley’s head explode), that alone makes her exclusion from any serious discussion rational and desired. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-elections-become-meaningless-in-america-re-real-political-change/637713/86 "2012-10-18T17:01:09Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > From your link: > > Much as I would love to hear that rebutted by Romney and Obama (and watch Candy Crowley’s head explode), that alone makes her exclusion from any serious discussion rational and desired. Really? Sounds like she is combining a Keynesian solution to bad economic times … government spending to jump-start the economy … with the idea of making that spending count toward a long-term approach to reducing/solving our energy issues. Color me impressed. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-elections-become-meaningless-in-america-re-real-political-change/637713/87 "2012-10-18T18:59:25Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > 1. Under any major electoral system, other than winner-take-all. Generally speaking I roll my eyes at those who support third parties while either displaying no comprehension of the spoiler problem or dodging the subject. [Fairvote](http://www.fairvote.org/) has successfully instituted IRV in a few jurisdictions, so it’s not an impossible dream. > > 2. There’s another situation admittedly. If you are a Democrat and they nominate someone who takes bribes like Cold Cash Jefferson or a Republican and they nominate (say) [Duke Cunningham](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Cunningham) prior to his retirement at USP Tucson, it might be legitimate to plunk for a third party. Essentially, you are promising that you will choose a viable candidate next time, provided they put forward someone who isn’t a criminal. In Latin America, I might also understand those who balk at supporting former dictators, although even there I would apply a statute of limitations. You understand, do you not, that in my opinion we are in “another situation” right now? Both the Republicans and the Democrats are beholden to Wall Street and the one percenters who own it. The Supreme Court has given them leave to spend as much as they like on campaigns through SuperPacs so long as they are not (wink, wink) coordinated with candidates’ campaigns. There is NO HOPE of meaningful financial reforms through either of the two major parties. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-elections-become-meaningless-in-america-re-real-political-change/637713/88 "2012-10-18T19:10:31Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Really? Sounds like she is combining a Keynesian solution to bad economic times … government spending to jump-start the economy … with the idea of making that spending count toward a long-term approach to reducing/solving our energy issues. Color me impressed. We have [another thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=669168) going on in which I answer the question of why Americans allow presidential candidates to mislead voters by saying that they tell people what they want to hear. Imagine my surprise that this works for third party candidates as well. You’re probably not old enough to remember Al Capp’s satiric [Shmoo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shmoo). The Shmoo was delicious, produced no waste, and happily went to slaughter. “Wif these around, nobody won’t nevah havta work no more!!” Stein is suggesting a Shmoo-based economy. You’d need a trillion dollars plus per year to put everyone to work. And then another trillion to restore the businesses that would be knocked out by concentrating this money in a single sector. As it stands, the statement is ludicrous. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2012, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-elections-become-meaningless-in-america-re-real-political-change/637713/89 "2012-10-19T06:24:04Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Really? Sounds like she is combining a Keynesian solution to bad economic times … government spending to jump-start the economy … with the idea of making that spending count toward a long-term approach to reducing/solving our energy issues. Color me impressed. And to me her make-work program sounds like sloganeering as a substitute for a detailed plan. Focusing all stimulus on a single narrow sector of the economy is a recipe for waste and sectoral inflation. > [@](#): > > You understand, do you not, that in my opinion we are in “another situation” right now? Both the Republicans and the Democrats are beholden to Wall Street and the one percenters who own it. The Supreme Court has given them leave to spend as much as they like on campaigns through SuperPacs so long as they are not (wink, wink) coordinated with candidates’ campaigns. There is NO HOPE of meaningful financial reforms through either of the two major parties. 1. Your hypothesis is falsified: Dodd-Frank is meaningful reform. It doesn’t go far enough. But it’s the sort of thing that is far better than the alternative Green partiers support: continued Republican rule. 2. You misunderstand. There is no hope of getting the Greens elected now - none. And if I were voting for a third candidate, it would be in the understanding that I would switch back if my party nominated a noncriminal. **Which is a deliverable. In fact nominating noncriminals is typical behavior.** You’ve said yourself that the neither party will give you your fantasy wish-list, so voting for the Greens is an exercise in vanity under winner take all voting. ETA: Jill Stein and Gary Johnson should have had a “Virtual Debate”. They could have had another moderator ask them the same questions, with improvised followup. That they didn’t shows a lack of organization or will. Run it on CSPAN an hour after the real debate. Put them in a sensory deprivation tank beforehand. ---
**Author:** ![Randvek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a6a055/32.png) [@Randvek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randvek)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2012, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-elections-become-meaningless-in-america-re-real-political-change/637713/90 "2012-10-19T08:04:41Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > The Democratic Party is imperfect, but “ignorant” is too gentle a word for anyone pretending the two Parties present no choice. I don’t think they are ignorant, they just exaggerate. Anyone who thinks that there is literally no policy difference between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party is pretty ignorant, yes, but I think what people really mean is “no significant difference.” Depending on what issues you feel are significant, this can be true. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2012, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-elections-become-meaningless-in-america-re-real-political-change/637713/91 "2012-10-20T19:48:45Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > And to me her make-work program sounds like sloganeering as a substitute for a detailed plan. Focusing all stimulus on a single narrow sector of the economy is a recipe for waste and sectoral inflation. Well in classical Keynesian economics, hiring one set of folks to dig holes and a second set of folks to fill them in is a useful economic stimulus because it gets money in the pockets of regular folks and circulating to the businesses that depend on them. Using the money for renewable energy has the ADDITIONAL benefit that it might just solve (unlikely) or ameliorate (very likely, to some extent) our energy problems. You may argue that the money can bet better spent in other ways, but it beats giving More Money To the Rich. > [@](#): > > 1. Your hypothesis is falsified: Dodd-Frank is meaningful reform. It doesn’t go far enough. But it’s the sort of thing that is far better than the alternative Green partiers support: continued Republican rule. ; Not it’s not. Dodd-Frank was the very LEAST Congress could do in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 crash. I guess you’ weren’t around back then, but the mood of the American public was very pitchforks-torches where Congress and the bankers were concerned. And despite that, the bill does nothing to curb the CDO market that made the housing crash so severe. And Congress is hammering away at what little real curbs on bankers that Dodd-Frank contains. I will be surprised if it has any teeth left four years from now. And it has precious few now. > [@](#): > > 1. You misunderstand. There is no hope of getting the Greens elected now - none. If you are taking 2012 I agree. It’s why I plan to focus my efforts on 2016 and beyond. If you are talking EVER, my, you must have a crystal ball somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2012, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-elections-become-meaningless-in-america-re-real-political-change/637713/92 "2012-10-20T22:49:09Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Well in classical Keynesian economics, hiring one set of folks to dig holes and a second set of folks to fill them in is a useful economic stimulus because it gets money in the pockets of regular folks and circulating to the businesses that depend on them. Using the money for renewable energy has the ADDITIONAL benefit that it might just solve (unlikely) or ameliorate (very likely, to some extent) our energy problems. You may argue that the money can bet better spent in other ways, but it beats giving More Money To the Rich. Hole digging doesn’t have capacity constraints. Flooding money into an emerging technology sounds like a good way to lock us in to obsolescence. Moreover, _far_ more efficient stimulus plans are possible: since Stein won’t be elected anyway, she has a lot of lattitude for pushing sound policy. > [@](#): > > Not it’s not. Dodd-Frank was the very LEAST Congress could do in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 crash. Sure. And IIRC, every single Republican opposed it. Stein supporters are effectively siding with them. > [@](#): > > If you are taking 2012 I agree. It’s why I plan to focus my efforts on 2016 and beyond. If you are talking EVER, my, you must have a crystal ball somewhere. Oh, I think my predictive track record on this is pretty good, given the existence of flaccid, self-indulgent 3rd parties over the past 100+ years. Not to mention [Duverger’s Law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law), an issue which you have so far dodged. Third party supporters in the US need to get a grip. They are consigned to irrelevance until something other than plurality voting is adopted. Or _possibly_ they can present a detailed plan on how they can overcome Duverger’s law. But in practice they seem to prefer hand waving. Unfortunate. I admit that I support conservative third parties in the US. They make a lot of sense. I oppose the Green/Republican coalition though. Thank god we have real choices like the Democratic Party. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2012, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-elections-become-meaningless-in-america-re-real-political-change/637713/93 "2012-10-21T00:32:58Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Well in classical Keynesian economics, hiring one set of folks to dig holes and a second set of folks to fill them in is a useful economic stimulus because it gets money in the pockets of regular folks and circulating to the businesses that depend on them. Using the money for renewable energy has the ADDITIONAL benefit that it might just solve (unlikely) or ameliorate (very likely, to some extent) our energy problems. You may argue that the money can bet better spent in other ways, but it beats giving More Money To the Rich. You’re misunderstanding our position. Look at this paragraph from a [a New York Times op-ed](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/19/opinion/brooks-a-sad-green-story.html?_r=0). > [@](#): > > Then, in 2008, Barack Obama seized upon green technology and decided to make it the centerpiece of his jobs program. During his presidential campaign he promised to create five million green tech jobs. Renewable energy has many virtues, but it is not a jobs program. Obama’s stimulus package set aside $90 billion for renewable energy loans and grants, but the number of actual jobs created has been small. Articles began to appear in the press of green technology grants that were costing $2 million per job created. The program began to look like a wasteful disappointment. The columnist is David Brooks, so you don’t expect it to be favorable to Obama. Somewhere inside are some valuable points relevant to our discussion, though. First, it is very expensive to create industrial jobs when you have to create an industry at the same time. Creating new technologies is expensive. Building modern factories with high technology and few workers is highly expensive. The cost per job is quite high and that can be exploited by ideologues and idiots who want to make it simultaneously appear that people are making $2 million per year and that money is being wasted, contradictory but easily believed by those who don’t understand the issues, which appears to be almost everyone. Investing $90 billion at $2 million per job creates a mere 45,000 jobs. To create 5 million jobs, therefore, would require $10 trillion. And yet Jill Stein says she would create jobs for everyone who wants a job, which is anywhere from 15-25 million depending on how you count the jobless. You can spread that figure over ten years; you can cut the money spent per job created; you can do anything you want to make it more sensible. It’s still an impossible amount of money. The green industry doesn’t yet exist. It will take decades to figure out what green even means in everyday life. And the only way to switch from a fossil fuel economy to a green economy is to put everyone in the fossil fuel economy out of a job, so that every green job that is created results in a net gain of zero. You could continue that at greater length for an entire college course to go over every aspect of why this wouldn’t work. Nobody is saying that green jobs aren’t good or that switching to a green economy isn’t the way of the future. We’re stating that Jill Stein let loose a soundbite for that disqualifies her from being taken seriously on the economy. Republicans and Democrats let loose incredibly stupid soundbites as well. Nobody’s arguing that either. But those soundbites are surrounded by real-world policies on the thousands of real-world issues that the parties have had to deal with at every level of government for all of modern history. A third party has none of that history or grounding in reality. The Greens are saying, “we don’t know anything about government but we have to be better than what you have now.” Some people will buy that line of malarky, pardon my Irish. I don’t. Jill Stein is worse at economics than most people who post here. How frightening is that? ---
**Author:** ![Malden\_Capell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malden_capell/32/5274_2.png) [@Malden\_Capell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malden_Capell)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2012, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-elections-become-meaningless-in-america-re-real-political-change/637713/94 "2012-10-21T13:42:09Z")
In contrast to Duverger’s Law, there is also the [Micromega Rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromega_rule), which indicates that the electoral system itself doesn’t make third parties come into existence, but rather than a third party will put pressure on the state to change the electoral system to accomodate them, and that having PR without a third party already in place won’t suddenly make third parties come into existence. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2012, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-elections-become-meaningless-in-america-re-real-political-change/637713/95 "2012-10-22T19:27:51Z")
Incidentally, this thread has another problem. Proper reform of the US financial system would return it to something roughly equivalent to the 1945-1980 era. I say equivalent to the extent that outcomes while outcomes might be similar (relatively low executive compensation, relatively high productivity growth in the earlier period, skipping the inflation of the latter period) the regulation would be adapted for the information age. I’m not sure whether or not Evil Captor would call that real political change. Preventing 20% unemployment and a Great Depression? That’s real change. Providing health insurance for millions of Americans, long term deficit control, and ending the ability for insurance companies to yank away coverage when they find a loophole? That’s real change. Reforming student loans so as to trim corporate welfare and save the government billions? YMMV, but I think that’s real change as well. Objectively, the first 2 years of the Obama administration were a period of high legislative productivity: IMHO, it was the greatest post-war Congressional session seeing as the Democrats faced maximized Republican obstructionism.\* Pelosi deserves a lot of credit and at the very least Harry Reid deserves acknowledgment. Ignore the TV personas: this team got things done. Though during the 2nd term, they merely excelled at hostage negotiation. This isn’t just yada, yada, yada. - The only competition comes from Johnson’s Great Society. And that was spread over 2 congressional sessions in a far more favorable political environment. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2012, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-elections-become-meaningless-in-america-re-real-political-change/637713/96 "2012-11-03T16:20:33Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Just out of idle curiosity, has a political system you would approve of ever existed in any time or place in modern history? I’d guess in minor forms, such as in Suma wholefoods or Kantega. Depending on your definition of modern, one could probably include Catalonia in the 30s. Otherwise Iceland or Norway might qualify. > [@adaher](#): > > The problem is, we elect people to represent districts and states. Parties are irrelevant. Just as moving to a popular vote system and away from the electoral college fundamentally changes our nation from a federalist system to a strong central government system, switching from “guy with the most votes wins” to proportional representation would institutionalize the party system. Parties could then do things like expel members or force them to vote against the interests of those who elected them. Well, there’s also the question of why geographic distribution of representatives for national office makes more sense than party distribution (or any other for that matter). Why should I trust that a choice between two individuals previously residing within a few hundred miles of me adequately reflects the variety of my views on NDAA (for instance, I don’t reside in the US) than the choice between two individuals sharing the first initial of my surname? > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But under your plan, all the elected officials would be Democrats and Republicans - they’re the only two parties which pass your five percent hurdle. That’s assuming that party affiliation remains the same in the light of a proportional voting system, which I think is unlikely. Googling for information on proportional representation for examples of changes in electoral systems, I came across [this example](https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/articles/Brief%20History%20of%20PR.htm): > [@site](#): > > In the election before the adoption of PR in Cincinnati, the Republicans won only 55% of the vote, but received 97% of the seats on the council. In the first PR election, the results were much more proportional, with the Republicans winning 33.3% of the seats based on 27.8% of the vote, and the rival Charter party winning 66.7% of the seats on 63.8% of the vote. Presumably there were other structural differences which contributed to the Republicans lack of popularity. > [@](#): > > That’s the point I was making when I mentioned Canada and the United Kingdom - those countries have real third parties. If the United States had something similar - a party that was regularly getting ten or twenty percent of the votes but never reaching a majority - I would be open to a change in the system to reflect that party’s widespread support among the people. But no such party exists in this country. I know someone pointed out the UK has a parliamentary system, but they also have strict limitations on campaigning, with apportionment of public funds to third parties regardless of size. > [@septimus](#): > > I see claims that legislators don’t vote the way their constituents would like. I rather think the problem is often _just the opposite_. The concept of representative democracy is that we choose representatives smarter than ourselves. This isn’t an argument in favour of representative democracy, it’s an argument against democracy. If we cannot trust the electorate on any piece of legislation, how can we trust them to be impartial when voting on a platform? How, indeed, can we trust them not to just vote for the most demagogic politician? Reducing the capacity of the electorate to provide a check on their wise and beneficent masters creates systemic bias (see also the claims that women and the propertyless were too emotional or ignorant to consider their own best interests, that the senate could maintain its neutrality and pursue enlightened legislation keeping the national wealth in order or that a stipend would allow vulgar populists to be elected). In reality, this just led to factional opposition to the population. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But there is no hidden factor. People are free to vote for third parties now. They just don’t want to. If you switched to a proportional representation system tomorrow, you’d see the same two parties still getting all the votes (which makes it unlikely either party would split up as you suggest). Same thing with transferable votes and ranking votes and cumulative voting and approval voting. None of these proposals will make people vote for third parties if they don’t want to. Have you considered the fact that there may be other extraneous factors for why two parties consistently dominate political discourse in the US? For instance, the lack of public financing for campaigning and campaign expenditure in general? The impact of the spoiler effect has already been discussed, too. Not to mention the fact that turnout is substantially lower than the eligible population of voters (which may further reinforce Evil Captor’s point, in that people feel their capacity to change things important to them is marginal). To say that people do not want a third party candidate because they could have elected a third party candidate strikes me as a _post hoc, ergo propter hoc_ fallacy. If proportional representation would produce the same results, what’s the harm in adopting it? Likewise if campaign contributions have no effect on people’s votes? > [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > We gotta build from the ground up, local, state and Congressional reps. Strategy is difficult. People are not rational actors, we are not aware of the best course of investment of our time and money. There are protracted debates on strategy that have led to internecine struggles and even deaths (see Lenin’s “Left-Wing Communism” and its exhortations to join even the most reactionary parliament). I often wonder when people discuss donating several hundred dollars to the Obama campaign if the money would not be better pooled and used to purchase a factory which’d otherwise go out of commission. Or the time spent in a call centre would be better off at a soup kitchen. However, there is a threat when electing local representatives that the spoiler effect will come into play as much as with the Presidential election. If this progressive movement were an Occupy-like faction of the Democratic party for primary purposes, it’d be grand. But it wouldn’t attract money like the Tea Party did. As a third party, it’ll split the vote with more moderate Democrats and guarantee one thousand years of darkness (more Republican legislators). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-elections-become-meaningless-in-america-re-real-political-change/637713.md?page=4)