IMO it’s basically undeniable that the institutionalized gridlock in a system like the US makes it easier for, well, gridlock to happen. Someone with a kingmaker position in a fragile coalition obviously could try to block everything but then force an election and even if the voters don’t punish you for it, you’re running a huge risk that the other parties will manage to cut you out of future coalitions.
In the US tons of power figures who aren’t actually the governing majority (i.e. in a divided government or in this case literally just one person taking advantage of legislative rules) who can pull stuff like this and have a much lower risk of being taken out of power.
Obviously there can be gridlock in any system but there are absolutely systemic reasons that it can happen more easily in the US.
Which means they’re not being held hostage by a small minority. Were their majority much smaller, such that a “small minority” could cause problems, then all that small minority would cause is a new election.
With the US, the Freedum Caucus can pull as much shit as they want, secure in the knowledge that their seats are safe until the next fixed election date. That gives them far more power, because no one has the power to hold them accountable until then.
And most of them come from districts as extreme as they are, so their seats are safe. Which happens in any representative democracy, and wouldn’t be a problem, except that our particular democracy is designed to grind to a halt at the first sign of trouble.
Yeah, it’s great that we were early adopters and all, but what we got was the beta-test version of democracy, with all the bugs.
Yes, they arent. Today. In the UK Parliament the Tories have a solid majority. Now. But that isnt the way it always has been or will be. Not uncommonly the party with just a plurality has to find a small minority party to form a coalition with- in which case they are being held hostage by a small minority.
It’s NOT the system. Both the American form of Democracy and the parliamentary form both can be held hostage by a small minority.
The issue has been with us for about a year, and we have a year to go- next election, make sure the Dems control the House and that problem with go away.
Yes, they can. Say in Parlimentistan, one party has 45 votes-The Rights. The other large party- The Lefts- has 35. There are 100 seats. there the Wingnut party has 6, the Green party has 10, and two parties each has 2. The Greens usually work with the Lefts, but that’s only 45. So the Rights reach out and form a coalition with the Wingnuts - viola, now 51, yay!. But the Wingnuts can cross the aisle and force an election. So the Rights have to cater to every Wingnut demand, including the budget.
It is kinda that way in the US Congress. The Freedumb caucus is almost a third party on its own- caucusing with the GOP- but without the Freedumb, the GOP has no majority. So the Wingnuts, err- the Freedom caucus wags the dog.
It is happening now in Israel- Netanyahu’s party only has 32 members out of 92(?), he had to make deals with two smaller parties to get his winning coalition. Both of whom are very conservative and religious.
Its not the system, its the fact that the current US congress is so damn even.
Do you acknowledge that there’s a difference between a minority faction forcing an immediate election and a minority faction just making everything not work until the next election happens to occur?
In the real parliamentary government world, it does not work that way. Because the Rights will simply let the wingnuts know that they’ll present the budget the way they want, and if the wingnuts vote against it, there will be an election. And during the election period, the public will be inundated with ads telling them that the wingnuts caused this stupid and unnecessary election. And the wingnuts are a small party with a limited budget to fight an election and are rarely in “safe seats”.
So they fail to gain many seats.
Nobody wants a snap election. Not the public, not any party. It’s a powerful disincentive to play stupid games.
Yeah, so the Wingnut party can play a lot of silly assed games, and the Rights have to go along to an extent- because they dont want an election either.
The non-Freedumb GOPers have options also- they can, easily, ignore them, and compromise with the Dems.
Note, it isn’t the system. How often has this occurred in America? Not in the last 50 years, nor even before that iirc. Weird shit happens, like Netanyahu getting back in again, or the Dutch far Right party getting the most seats.
Not how it works in real life. The larger parties have an election apparatus and money and fundraising and usually money in the bank. Smaller (wingnut) parties have none of these.
The larger parties in a minority government situation don’t want an election, but if forced into it (by idiot demands from a supportive wingnut party), they’ll certainly do it, and campaign on “give us a majority so we can govern and don’t have to deal with these twits.”
This is how it works in reality. And only when there is a rare situation when a minority government is supported by a wingnut smaller party.
Explain Netanyahu then is the parliamentary system works so well.
Or what just happened in the Netherlands.
Both systems have their flaws, but again, this weird shit with the freedumb party has- afaik, only happened once in well over 200 years. The system isnt broken, the Republican party is.
“…except for nominees he considers ‘woke’”. Right.
What were we saying about someone not being able to choose who got confirmed? Will people jump at this chance tp confirm a selected group of candidates out of all of them?
Looks like he decided to move out of the road before he got run over.
In his comments to reporters Tuberville referenced an effort Democratic move to overcome his hold, which would allow for a temporary rules change so that the Senate could approve all of the nominees at once. The Democratic effort had been gaining momentum and seemed likely to succeed, leading some Republican senators – who had opposed Democrats’ move – to try to overcome his holds and swiftly advance military nominations. They later engaged in discussions with Tuberville to find some sort of off-ramp from the impasse.
He hasn’t moved completely out of the road – that CNN story still says he’s going to oppose any officers that are too “woke”. That’s still unacceptable – one Senator doesn’t get to have a chokehold on which officers get promoted. I hope the Democrats hold out on giving in to this demagoguery.