Is only 30% of the popular vote worse than 50% if people are forced to box themselves in? Transferable votes are easily the best system in my opinion, allowing people to rank candidates in order of preference. It adds way more paperwork and can be harder to manage, but its easily the most fair way to allow people to pick someone. Using a similar system in the primaries could’ve led to someone like trump falling through. In the general, it would allow 3rd parties to receive votes without tanking the main parties chances.
There aren’t any actual dues. You just sign up when you register.
I know, and I don’t think there should be dues, but many other countries do have dues.
That depends. In my state (WA) there’s no place for party registration or preference when you register to vote.
Ok. But still no dues, right?
Sure- I was just to clarify for the US since it seemed unclear.
You are always going to box yourself in - limitless candidates don’t run. It isn’t a matter of a third party, but a forth, a fifth, a sixteenth. And you’ll still end up with candidates that are crappy - well, I like their positions, except this one. Or, the party I most closely identify with nominated them, but they are personally abhorrent. It allows the strongest minority opinion to hold power. And I’m not sure I’d like those results.
That’s correct, but when we recently voted in the primary, we had to pick one party and say something about wanted to be affiliated with that party. I don’t recall the exact language.
More power than which other forms of government?
Not the Prime Minister in a Westminster style government. The PM of the UK or Canada have much more power within their constitutional system than the President of the US does in the US system. The PM controls the legislative agenda in Parliament, for one thing, so the PM and his party normally can get their election platform through Parliament. They also control the budget process in a way that the President does not. The budget is proposed by the PM and the Government. It has to pass Parliament, but the PM and the Government set the parameters.
In what way do you think the President of the US is more powerful than other chief executives, within their respective political systems?
true, but presumably you’d have results that twice as accurately reflect the beliefs of americans if you had 4 parties instead of 2. With 7-10 real parties, you’d be able to let everyone have a pretty good way of expressing their beliefs, compared to the current system which clumps economic and social conservatism for some dumbass reason. Hell, even if it was just Libertarian, Republican, Democrat, Green, and one of the Socialist parties you’d have a pretty solid differentiation between the different voting blocks and you’d be able to more accurately say “Americans want this”. Really the only people who’d be left out in the 4-5 way race above would be AnCaps and AnComs, but its not like they couldn’t make a party either if they had the support.
I’m a former Democrat, current independent, with both right-wing (mainly social) and left-wing (mainly economic) views, and Bernie guy turned Trump supporter… figured I’d chime in. 
I am a firm believer that Bernie was hosed by the Democratic Party at all levels, from the national to the local. Debbie Wasserman Schultz did more than have her finger on the scale in Hillary’s favor, she had her entire ass firmly planted on it.
The simple fact is, fuck “compromise”. I just can’t bring myself to even entertain the thought of voting for Hillary. Said thought would likely cause me to lose my most recently eaten meal. She epitomizes “establishment”–and the establishment in neither party gives a rat’s hiney about people like myself. I know this first-hand, because I actually worked for the Democratic Party for years. The level of corrupt bullshit that goes on within those walls would make Mayor Quimby blush. They can go to hell. And hopefully Hillary ends up in the Federal pen.
I’m a Trump guy for the same reason Chris Ketcham is. We need radical change in this country, and it’s looking like the only way that is a possibility is if there’s a major cataclysm, brought on by someone like… well, like Trump. Plus, on some issues, he and I share views: I’m all for that wall, and I’m all for mass deportation.
In short, you can’t “compromise” with criminals and those who literally view certain American citizens–our version of caste system “untouchables”–as not only worthless, but as less than human.
So, just out of curiosity, when it does come to a major cataclysm and a revolution, you think it’s going to be the liberals who come out on top? The guys who are pro-gun-control and, on average, aren’t big on violence or gun ownership? What’s more, you think that the current status quo is so bad, that it’s so irreparably corrupt, that “blow it all up and start over” is worth the incredible collateral damage that would bring with it?
Also, on a related question, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Few people who advocate burning it all down, including anarchists, think they’ll be that badly impacted if it happens, nor do many care about who would be. They’d suffer the same no matter what happens, they figure, so if it does, how is that my fault?
Sure, shit will be bad. But then the establishment will finally care about people like him–which I assume is poorly educated white men, just going by Trump’s general demo.
C’mon guys, look at all those other times in history when the have-nots came out on top after everything went to hell!
CMC fnord!
Some Bernie haters are really annoying, too. And?
shrug Bernie wasn’t a Dem until he ran for president. Fuck 'im.
People who believe in “heightening the contradictions” are horrible people who are willing to cause vast suffering to everyone in order to get their personal precious political point across.
hahahaha. Pretty much. Letting everything go to hell just opens the door for power hungry people to create a new, worse empire.
In 1968 I was one of them. I was 14. I grew up when I saw saw the bitter fruit it bore.