Yep. In order to get a proportional representation system, you’d have to have the two parties agree to abandon a two party system in favor of one that gives more power to third parties. Not ever doing that is the one issue the Republicans and Democrats are in full agreement on.
By a narrow margin. 
I don’t think the history of pro-rep countries bears you out - grand centrist coalitions form, but they also fall apart, as one or another of the parties feels that their policy objectives (or personal political ambitions) will be better served by a more partisan coalition.
‘We’re’ stupid because we don’t want to change a system that has worked well for us for over two centuries and would really only benefit 3rd parties? Or maybe by ‘stupid’ you really mean ‘there is no traction for this’, huh?
I don’t see any benefit to the US or the citizens by going to such a system…hell, I don’t even think it works all that great in other countries who use PR type systems. Personally, I think it’s a scheme by the disenfranchised 3rd party types to try and get disproportional power because they can’t get it through the current system. Ironically, I’m one of those disenfranchised 3rd party types, and while I’d love for my own political leanings to get some traction, I’m smart enough to know that my views aren’t mainstream, and shouldn’t be crammed down the throats of the majority.
-XT
McArdle on third parties is relevant here:
First of all, everybody understands “first-past-the-post”, because everybody understands how a race works.
Second, what do you mean, “routinely wastes 50+% of all votes”? It certainly can happen with FPTP that the winner did not get the majority of votes, and there are plenty of examples to that effect, but because of the two-party system in the U.S., in the vast majority of elections the winner does get a majority. There have been a few recent notable cases where it hasn’t happened, but it is the exception.
In any case, I’m sure the UK will move to PR first. The LibDems have reached a point where they are needed and can go into coalition with either big party they choose – at some point they will demand PR as a condition.
And then the U.S. can learn from the UK’s experiences with implementing PR.
I was just illustrating the non-existant “danger” of fringe parties. So what if they have one seat - they’re not going to win it again next election. As Tom Scud pointed out, there are parties you can form an alliance with, and those you cannot.
It seems logical that the two parties in the US are not going to make it easier for a third party to emerge. That explains why FPTP is still there, it does not, however, mean that it’s better. For instance (to mix up election types) in the 2000 election, the majority of Ralph Nader voters preferred Al Gore over George W. Bush. Had they somehow been able to form a “coalition” (I know that’s not possible, pretend for a second that it is) the will of the people would have been much more accurately represented (to say nothing of the popular vote in that election).
Some countries (Australia, for instance) try to remedy the problem by a system of preferences. That creates a much more complicated system, though, and does nothing to reduce the problem that Australia is having now, that 5 independents control the “hung parliament” evenly divided by Liberals and Labor. This would (presumably) not be the case in a PR election, because you would end up with more groups to form coalitions with.
I don’t think you’re at all right about that - check out the situation in Israel, where the religious parties have for years, maybe decades, extracted all kinds of concessions from successive governments by being the swing bloc that can play king-maker.
So it isn’t really about fairness, is it. It’s about ‘fairness’ to a third or fourth party. It’s good that Free Democrat and Green voters don’t have their votes wasted, but also good that “fringe/radical” voters do have their votes wasted. The problem is, you are making a pretty massive value judgment about who the fringe/radicals are. And you have failed to explain why the views of the voters for those parties should be ignored.
PR leads to massive overrepresentation of smaller parties. Your version of it fails to help the true small parties. In fact, first past the post is often better for small parties with regional pockets of support. If lists are done nationally, a party which has 51% support in one constituency and no support elsewhere is likely to get completely shut out.
First past the post is in place largely for RealPolitik reasons. It works in that it provides stable governments. Countries with more “true” PR systems don’t have that stability of government. They also have an over-representation of small centrist parties in government. How many governments didn’t include the Free Democrats before the rise of the Greens? Just the Grand Alliance ones, IIRC. So systems like the German one play around at the edges to try to limit the full effects of true PR. By doing that, they lose the “fairness” justification - it simply becomes a game of how many parties to include in the insider group.
And also, PR based on party lists marks the end of mavericks. You have to obey the party dictats because if you don’t, you are down the list next election.
I see a problem when you have two evenly matched major parties, and a 3rd party that owns all the swing votes.
Just like our idiotic Electoral system puts the fate of the Presidential election in a small number of Swing States, this system puts the legislative voting majority in the hands of the 3rd party representatives.
athelas’ rather brilliant post nailed it. We have PR too. We just don’t need a complicated system to make it happen.
That said, I absolutely think we need instant runoff voting, if for no other reason than because the two major US parties frequently throw out two equally shite candidates.
The 5% threshold was put in place after the experiences of the Weimar Republic, where 20+ party parliaments made a stable government almost impossible. It’s clear that this is a compromise, but it gets the job done, IMHO. Of course, the number 5% is completely arbitrary, and you could rightfully ask: Why not 2%, or 10%?
In a two-party system, the rise of the Greens would just not have been possible, because it was the comparably low threshold that made them even a viable option in the early 80s. They started out not thirty years ago, and are now actually the second strongest party, according to current polls. This dynamic has also put environmental issues in the platforms of other parties, as they saw that it could no longer be simply ignored.
You are indeed correct about the Free Democrats, I will concede that they held disproportionate power in the 50s and 60s and that this is a problem.
This is the reason why we split the vote for parliament, one vote is for a specific person in your district (and sometimes third parties actually win these), and another is for a party list.
I remain doubtful that voting for a specific candidate is more widespread than voting for a party - otherwise, why would the Dems be in trouble in the coming midterm if people weren’t voting “against Obama”? The candidates didn’t change.
Also, party lists help against candidates such as Alvin Greene, SC, hardly a Democratic maverick. If I had to vote for him or his Republican opponent…
That’s my point - you like it because it brought environmental issues to the fore, and allowed the rise of the greens. You’d like it less if it brought nationalist issues to the fore, and allowed the rise of a Neo-Nazi party. So while claiming it is about fairness, you rig the system to exclude certain parties, and make stable government possible.
You may cloak PR in the mantle of fairness, but it is as much about RealPolitik as first past the post. You just want a couple of extra parties.
However, look at the UK. Pure first past the post (in most elections) and look at the number of parties with significant representation…
Conservatives
Labour
Lib/Dem (a.k.a. the Judas Party)
SNP
Plaid Cymru
That’s 5 without talking of the Ulster parties. What happens to regional parties under PR? If you want them to be represented, you have to depart further from “pure” PR.
I guess I’ll admit defeat. 
I’m not going to dig in my heels, because you all have shown me why this works in the US, which is what I wanted to know. I’m still (personally) glad that Germany has PR, but I suppose that’s just cultural. Also, the systems are fundamentally different.
Thank you all for playing though, but remember, I’m new at this GD game.
Steady on. We’re not saying the US system works; we’re just saying it’s not any more dysfunctional than yours.
Two-party politics is the real problem. It creates a simplistic & misleading perception of policy & of political reality. By creating multiparty political landscapes, PR can encourage a greater adaptability of the public political consciousness than can an eternal one-dimensional conflict between “left” & “right.”
Yep yep. Like Democrats in my district, where the GOP gets 2/3 of the vote every time. Or Republicans in heavily Democratic districts. Or socially conservative New Dealers anywhere in the US outside Appalachia, who don’t fit in the present conservative-moderate-progressive paradigm.
What’s wrong with that?
I support PR because it can break the power of gerrymandering. But even if it were just to get the minority in the conversation it would be useful, to break the power of parties of eternal incumbency. Yes, there are incumbent parties in the US, & single-party districts, even single-party states. And great numbers of Americans have no political power, & go from cradle to grave in a relationship with their governments of total alienation & even fear.
It’s entirely possible within our constitutional traditions to change the Senate to an STV system, which is proportional without being party-list. The Aussies call it the best & fairest system in the world; they’re right.
This would be valid if most voters were savvy negotiators, & blocs of voters could be moved from party to party. But grand coalitions are sticky, & most voters want a simpler political identity. The working-class religious voters in my state are so successfully brainwashed against the Democrats that they will only ever vote for economic right-wing parties if at all. I myself voted for no-hoper Green candidates after I became disillusioned with the GOP but before I could bring myself to identify for the “evil” Democrats. Considering how many people take “Democrat” as a native identity, I assume it goes the other way as well.
Exactly.
You’re still thinking in binary terms. And in fact a PR system is the opposite of gerrymandering, & the opposite of knowing you’re throwing away your vote. You have it exactly backwards. If you understood the actual process, you might embrace PR.
I worry about this too. But an end to gerrymandering still appeals to me.
PR isn’t going to put Libertarians in the majority. It’s proportional. In fact, I suppose an ideological libertarian would prefer FPTP because they could take control of a right-wing coalition disguised as a monolithic majoritarian party & wield more power. As in fact the anti-tax fanatics have done with the GOP. I want PR to protect the mainstream from you. To shine the light of day on the coalitions & backroom deals & give us a chance to choose or reject you for what you are. Binary politics doesn’t do that well.
No. We** really** don’t. We have coalitions, sure, but not proportionality.
To the OP. The real reason is ignorance. Most people don’t even know PR exists; most that had even heard of it don’t know how it works.
Pretty much this. Each system has its good and not so good points. So far no system seems to standout out as clearly superior to anything else. Mainly they are just different and “better” also needs to account for the unique mindset of the people it serves such that what is great for Germans may not work so well for Americans.
I guess the only system I have ever seen that I like is summed up as follows:
Ok, so not a system exactly and one I have utterly failed to figure how to implement in reality but nevertheless the one right idea on all this I have ever seen.
Do Germans see a natural link between opposition to abortion, opposition to socialized medicine, & support of a large military-industrial complex? Because in the USA, with its sticky permanent coalitions, those are treated as all of a piece. I consider that illogical.