Third parties are mathematically impossible until we ditch first past the post voting:
We need our vote to be a list, not a checkbox.
This is the way. It is possible and unlikely to have a third party win under the right conditions, like with how the Republican Party became a national party after Lincoln was elected as a third party candidate. But ultimately there will always only be two parties with the outdated FPTP voting method. If only George Washington knew about and pushed for a better voting system than FPTP.
I don’t think they really existed yet in his era. You’ve got to remember that Australia, a much younger country, invented the secret ballot. It was known as the “Australian Ballot” for a long time.
Better systems existed but to your point, they were not well known.
Leaders today, with access to Wikipedia if not researchers with Nobel prizes, do NOT have this excuse.
I don’t think they really existed yet in his era
In 1294-1621 the election of the Pope used Approval voting. Venice also used it.
Australia, a much younger country, invented the secret ballot
The election of the Pope required secret ballot since 1621. And the concept existed since Ancient Greece and was used in elections and courts of Roman Republic.
IMO, it’s not the full story to say the Republican party was a third party that year. The previous opposition to the Democrats had a rift and came apart. I think you are underselling what “the right conditions” are. This is more like a new party filling a void.
That year the Democrats themselves (regressives as this was well before Southern Strategy) split into two. Running both a candidate for “states’ rights” style slavery and another for “fuck you, slavery everywhere” style slavery.
All it takes is a bunch of celebrities endorsing third parties and it’s done. At some point in your lifetime you will probably see a third party winning in the usa and it will simply happen with media and celebrities redirecting everyone vote. It happens all the time in other countries: people get tired of the local rulers and to keep protests and disorder at bay the government through mass media redirects attentions to a new and fresh party that already got bribed and corrupted by the ruling class.
In Australia government funding is distributed to political parties based on the number of first preference votes they get as well so even if your first choice doesn’t get in, you still helped them by putting them first.
I like CGP Grey and all, but power dynamics is an important aspect of poltics. An aspect he completely ignores in favour of spreadsheet thinking.
Yeah so proportional representation systems kinda suck. Israel has one and it ended up with a conservative party making concessions to far right crazies to form a coalition. Sure minorities are in the parliament, but they have zero power because the only thing that matters is the backroom negotiations between parties to form a coalition.
The biggest problem with FPTP is the name. Really we should call it a community representation system (which is what it is) and call proportional representation system a “party coalition” system, which is what it actually is. In a party coalition system the negotiations between party leaders to form coalitions is all that matters, everyone else is just there to fill seats which are owned by the parties.
In a community representation system each seat is own by a representative of the community who can vote against their party or leave their party. Parties are incentivized to keep the community leaders happy or they could lose seats.
If you want third parties, it’s better to go with a ranked choice system. That gives people more choice over who represents their community, and allow them to have compromise options in case their top choice doesn’t get enough votes. You don’t actually have to give parties full ownership of the seats (making them redundant) to have more options.
An aspect he completely ignores in favour of spreadsheet thinking.
That’s bc he explains each concept mostly in isolation of others, leaving other concepts for separate videos themselves. But in e.g. Rules for Rulers, he very much discusses power dynamics. And I thought he had another one - in addition to the more mathematical one - illustrating FPTP using the animal kingdom, where technically people might assume one thing to be true, but based on power dynamics in practice it never is.
So watch Rules for Rulers yet if you haven’t - it may change literally everything about your understanding, as it did mine.
Edit - references:
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rules for Rulers, outlining necessary considerations involved with any path forward - i.e. it works against anyone and especially those who ignore this principle
Yeah I’ve seen all of these videos before. Problem is, these aren’t isolated concepts. There are very specific power dynamics within a proportional representation system that aren’t the same as the power dynamics in a community representation system. He doesn’t go into those details in the rules for rulers videos, only the broad concept of democracy is mentioned. He only goes into a some math on the FPTP video but doesn’t discuss the differences power dynamics for those different systems.
Basically in a community representation system (called FPTP by people trying to make it sound arbritrary an unfair) the power flows up from the communities. In a proportional representation system the power flows down from the party leadership.
Considering the “rules for rulers” video it seems CGP Grey thinks all government has to be top down, so he doesn’t seem to have even considered the possibility of power flowing upwards from a community. This is what happens in the system he thinks is bad, so I’d say he hasn’t adequately considered everything about the subject.
We don’t actually elect rulers we elect people to represent our communities. Sure they’re usually part of a party but because we elect representatives, not parties, that representative has the option of leaving the party if it serves the interests of the community they represent. Since parties can lose seats between elections they have to listen to the the elected representatives (community leaders) to avoid losing seats. People in a community put pressure on their representative, the reps but pressure on the party leadership, power flows upwards from the people.
Proportional representation only seems better if you think as CGP does and believe we can only be ruled over and we need to find a better way to select rulers. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of representative democracy.
Math doesn’t decide what people vote, they are free to vote anything they want. Parties don’t automatically side with each others because another is most likely to win. This video is rooted in the mindset that politics and elections are a horse race between left and right.
What’s preventing third parties from winning it’s not math but the propaganda and the power of the red and blue party. The ruling parties didn’t become this powerful mathematically. Over decades and centuries the ruling class paved their way and ensured their power with violence and repression.
If third parties aren’t mathematically impossible, where are all members of third party during midterms? Local elections? The work it takes to make real lasting change is done down ballot, where are they at those times? Why do they only creep up during presidential races? The above analogy may not be perfect, but it’s pretty damned close… but we could also compare third party to all the lazy animals in the story of the little red hen…
The government spend billions of dollars to make sure third parties are nowhere to be seen. This post being evidence. You got a fascist party and one involved in a genocide yet you see warnings about not voting for anyone else.
No, no, THIS time protest-voting to allow fascism will work to usher in a real left-wing movement in this country, promise! /s
this way of thinking assumes that having “muhh team” win will result any change, when historical record shows that the two party system has degraded quality of life for most people over last 40 years with no end in sight.
but sure keep voting for your team lol we can revisit this topic when we are all living hand to mouth and have even less economic power
That is not at all what the comment you replied to meant. Anyone with reading comprehension would know that.
But but, building a real third party from the ground up in local elections and/or changing our voting system from first past the post takes a lot of time and real effort. That’s a lot of hard work. It’s a lot harder than just showing up to one election every 4 years and casting a vote that makes you feel like you’re special and smarter than everyone else.
Yeah, I’ve recently talked with my therapist about this choice between very slow, very hard work and sitting on my butt dreaming. And about the idea that it’s better to avoid action than to act, if I’m not sure I’ll act right. And how it apparently came to me in my teens, when I’ve been doing martial arts for some time, girls would smile at me often, and in general I thought I might be too stupid and happy and there should be something smarter. That ‘smarter’ was, of course, just another teenage idea of being wise and not like everyone else. Fucked up my life for a decade.
By the way, people who’d be removed and theoretical and talk about some imagined third movement created via some magic other than voting - would be called ‘idiots’ in ancient Athens. Because they are on the side of an idea, not real politics. Then it became a rude word.
Any such decision to try and find a smart shortcut, or that it’s better to wait and see how it goes instead of sweating, - are all wrong and are exactly what propaganda works for. Being honest is smarter than being dishonest. And voting for the party most fitting your ideals is smarter than for the lesser evil.
Tell that to all the people who will be hurt if that protest vote enables someone worse.
Voting for the party that is consciously using the other one as a boogeyman will enable someone worse with no doubt. They are both worse.
And before the actual ballots are being cast, the public opinion sending right signals to Dems would reduce that risk.
I honestly tried to read and understand this but it really sounds like a bunch of nonsense.
except that you could end up with a 3rd entrance by doing that … eventually
Especially if you ram that not-door long, hard, deep, and strong enough, really get up in there and penetrate that wall. If you run out of steam you could even switch to an electric appliance, but in that case be gentle (though not too gentle…).
Um… I’m not sure where this is going, and at this point I’m afraid to continue? 😔
You’ll get a boatload of spoiler effect elections until people start voting tactically again. Third parties need to start locally and not participate in the presidential elections for a long time.
There is a path to voter reform by creating hung parliament and require voter reform in a coalition agreement. Once dominant running for governor or a senator becomes possible.
Primary elections are how parties change. Primary elections are how the Republican party became what it is today. They are often the highest-leverage vote you can cast if you’re in a solid district.
Yup. People don’t realize there is already a not horrible approximation of runoff voting that still avoids the spoiler effect.
And just look at what happened when Sanders realized that. He went from being a meme about how nobody watches C-SPAN to one of the more influential politicians on the Left.
Well I’d say it’s still pretty bad with the super delegates and such. But yeah it’s runoff system of sorts and people should pay more attention to it.
But a lot of the “system is broken” angst comes from people being not happy over who the majority of people vote for. But that’s just democracy, baby.
But the Electoral College, yeah that shit is broken.
Primaries are still subject to spoiler effects and such.
In my very blue state this year where the top two in the primary go on to the general, there was a local position which had a whole bunch of well qualified Democrats vs just a couple of Republicans. (Incumbent not running)
The dem vote was split enough that we very nearly had just the two Republicans in the general. Like less than 60 votes away.
And there are scenarios under runoff voting where similar can occur (e.g. two seats, 2 right wing, 4 left wing) and is where the “election theory” aspect of things that certain folk are still bitching about (because that is the most important thing to have happened in the past 8 years, clearly). The party needs to take the results of the primary and downselect who actually runs to avoid splitting their own vote.
No voting system is perfect. But people should really understand what we have and what their NEED improves and fails to improve rather than just insisting “new is better”.
Remind me who won in 2016? How do you think all those Bernie supporters felt about the election that was still very much influenced by FPTP dynamics.
Primary elections aren’t democratic either (see party delegates). I feel like people who say this are rarely politically engaged in their communities. Same with the people who say to get involved in local city politics to make change.
Ultimately you’re supporting a facist system that is historically atrocious and currently financially supporting a genocide almost singlehandedly but go ahead and keep telling people that the best way to maintain some semblance of moral character is to vote in this sham.
