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Comment by xlog | Hacker News Reader

US needs a third major political party ASAP.

It has several parties outside the major two.

What the US needs is instant runoff (via ranked choice) voting.

Short of that, people with your mindset need to volunteer, fundraise, and vote. Otherwise those parties will never match the scope of the current duopoly.

Instant runoff only really resolves the spoiler effect. I think it's extremely unlikely we'd see a third party come even close, including with instant runoff, to taking power. I'd look at the problem numerically. Imagine a state has 100 representatives sent to congress. And we know this state is let's say 30% republican, 30% democratic, 20% libertarian, 20% green. What would you say their representation should look like? Everybody's going to say the exact same thing: 30 republicans, 30 democrats, 20 libertarians, 20 greens. The only problem is that you only get that distribution with proportional representation, which as a nice side effect also would do away with gerrymandering since you don't need to carve a state up into representative districts anymore.

The downside here is that proportional voting doesn't stand a bat's chance in hell of ever getting enacted because it really would lead to a major upheaval in DC. And the very people that would be 'losing their jobs' are the ones that'd need to work to pass it, which would be a tremendous undertaking. You'd need a 2/3rds majority in both the house and senate to start the process, and then you'd need 38 of the 50 states to ratify the change. And at the end of this process the two major political parties, who are in control of every single major political body in the United States, would have just ceded a tremendous amount of power.

The funny thing is, I see merit in both parties. I like conservatism when it comes to the 1st and 2nd amendment protection, freedom of religion, etc, but I hate how the right treats the environment as a resource to be wasted, used, and abused. I think the libertarian stance on drugs is a little too extreme (I think drugs should be legal, but that they also shouldn't necessarily be easily accessible - people should still have to jump through a few hoops to get them). Rinse and repeat of a lot of issues.

If it were possible to transcend parties and vote just for candidates that represented my nuanced beliefs, I would switch in a heartbeat. Instead I'm forced to prioritize which issues are most important to me, and then plug my nose and vote for the party that best represents just those (even though said party comes with a lot of undesirable baggage).

Have you considered voting Libertarian for federal positions and a mix of Democrats and Republicans for state and local positions (depending on size of city/state and specific concerns)?

> I like conservatism when it comes to the 1st and 2nd amendment protection

With a president that openly labels the press the enemy of the people?

> If it were possible to transcend parties and vote just for candidates that represented my nuanced beliefs, I would switch in a heartbeat.

It's impossible. Everyone will have their nuanced beliefs and no candidate will match perfectly except in rare circumstances.

> With a president that openly labels the press the enemy of the people?

With a president that has appointed more 1st/2nd amendment-protecting federal appellate judges than any other president, you mean?

You’re equating the president with conservatism?

Isn't the American president a barometer or descriptive reflection of the democratic population? Or does one define American conservatism by reciting a prescription of what people ought be when they say they're conservative?

Similarly I presume the rise of Boris Johnson with Brexit is a reflection of the British people, regardless of whether he has his conservative credentials in order.

> Isn't the American president a barometer or descriptive reflection of the democratic population?

For a sufficiently loose definition of “reflection”, yes. For a sufficiently tight definition of “reflection”, no.

> does one define American conservatism by reciting a prescription of what people ought be when they say they're conservative

One defines conservatism by a set of values and policies. The same goes for liberalism, fascism, communism, environmentalism, nationalism, etc.

Then approximately 2/3 of of the population will be wrong instead of just 1/2.

Depends what voting system you use. First past the post has lots of problems.

I see people critique STV/ranked choice/etc etc all the time, but I think they tend to forget that FPTP is almost the worst of all systems.

At this point, I'm for just about anything besides FPTP, as long as it has some level of proportional representation.

In a FPTP system the two main parties that thrive on FPTP, as it suppresses minor parties, will always be reliably against it.

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