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Comment by wongarsu | Hacker News Reader

US and British democracy certainly aren't the best implementations around. If you wanted to divide and rule you couldn't come up with a better voting system for that than first-past-the-post.

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First past the post is fine. It's the people who don't vote the way I do that are the problem!

without the sarcasm people not voting is a huge issue. voter suppression is a central tactic for conservatives. Openly their cult leader recognizes "if everyone voted we'd never have another republican elected president"

Information-free voting is also a huge issue. Having everyone vote-as-Tim-does is rule-by-Tim but by another name.

Interesting, some say that the US is the only real democracy in the world. The UK is not, nor any other countries in the world.

They base this assertion in two principles that any democracy should fulfill:

1) Power separation. 2) Representativity.

I can see that you don't agree with this, but what country has a better system then?

Switzerland, we can actually vote for things instead of voting for people who we hope will vote for what we want.

And the proliferation of ballot questions in US states has been a rather mixed bag. And in many locales in the US, there are direct votes on many local matters.

Not that I disagree, but what I believe makes Switzerland a functioning democracy is that people feel represented. Go complain about the result of a vote in Switzerland and people will say "did you vote?" instead of following you to invade the Capitol. If you did vote, then people will say "well, you're in the minority then".

The mere fact that most people feel that way shows, to me, that the system works. Compare that to e.g. France where Macron got less than 20% in the first round. It means that 80% of the votes were not for him, and of the 20% remaining, a lot did not want him but just thought he was the best chance against the far-right candidate. Right when Macron was re-elected, you could say that more than 80% of the people who voted did not want him. That's a problem IMO.

Not even talking about the US presidents...

> "well, you're in the minority then"

49% minority = get fucked

<1% minority = here's your new lords and saviours

Not sure what you mean. The people in Switzerland votes for a ton of stuff (not just for a president every 4 years). If you manage to always be on the minority, then probably you are doing it on purpose. The norm is that people are sometimes in the minority, sometimes in the majority. That's called consensus, that's what makes for a good democracy IMO.

The opposite (again IMO) is a system where the people votes for a president every 4 years, and invades the Capitol when they lose. BTW Switzerland does not have a president, but instead a group of 7 representing the biggest parties in the country. So there is consensus even at the highest level.

>Interesting, some say that the US is the only real democracy in the world.

Who? The talking heads paid to do so?

huh...I always thought of the US as a republic with some democratic features. I mean that's why we have things like the electoral college. Your voice influences but doesn't not actually drive.

Well, I would have said that the base criteria for a democracy is that the government is an extension of the will of the people (hence the name). But we can agree that Power separation and Representativity are reasonable proxies. But the US isn't well set up for representativity at all. Without going into the finer issues like gerrymandering or the more controversial things like the electoral college, the core issue is that a first-past-the-post system means there can only be two meaningful parties. So you can only really have two sides, when real issues often are far more nuanced than that.

As a born-and-raised US citizen who went through US schooling and therefore got a load of political science, no.

The US is a republic. You could call it a form of democracy, but you would first call it a republic before a democracy. Representativity is what makes it NOT a democracy.

James Madison, a US founding father, felt that (direct) democracy led to mob rule and did not think that people directly voting on issues was a good idea. You can read his opinion from 1788 in the Federalist Papers, #55: https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/text-51-60#s-lg-box...

"Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob." - Alexander Hamilton or James Madison

The world of political science is massive. There is no "best" system because once you read through this entire body of study, you realize it consists of compromises. People have been trying to figure this out for a very long time.

Voting behavior can be easily hacked as one can see in world elections. Its not for nothing you have analyst, advisors or other sort of experts in the field of electioneering.

Here's what happens in 'better democracy implementations':

https://www.democracynow.org/2024/4/16/germany_palestine#:~:...

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