Will a three-party system work in the US?

I thought the selection of Palin was an attempt to energize the base and unify the party. Who thinks she will split the Republicans?

Will a three party system work in the US?

Indulge me by letting me respond with another question: Does a de facto two party system that tears the U.S. population between two fanatical extremes while simultaneously squashing out any other view points work?

I, for one, think it would be refreshing if the party split. There would be a power vacuum (however brief it may be) that might give other, smaller parties a chance to throw their two cents in and be taken seriously while doing so. That’s probably just me being hopeful though.

In my opinion a 3rd party (or even 4th) has to work. We are doomed to mediocrity if it doesn’t work. A person like Ron Paul, to me, would be the prototypical 3rd party candidate.

Years ago, I got to talk with John B. Anderson (he was my congressman at the time) and he told me of how he felt the Republican party needed a new direction and that he was going to make an attempt to seek that change by running for President. While he showed strong poll numbers, did well in debates and came close in some primaries in 1980 it wasn’t enough to upset Reagan’s cart, so he ran as an independent. He didn’t have the dollars or the backing to make a strong run, but he proved to be popular for his views. My feeling is that if John could have mounted an independent campaign in 1984 he may have made a fantastic showing and made people take a hard look at the potential for a strong 3rd party. Sadly, we have had few (none) decent 3rd party independent candidates since then.

I’m curious too…who has said this? I’m not arguing the point, I’ve just not heard this said before now.

jasongarrett – “Who thinks she will split the Republicans,” you ask?

Bush’s former speechwriter David Frum is the one I saw that comes to mind. He said a couple things this week, one was to the effect that McCain was losing in a way that “threatens to take down the Republican Party”. He argues for what they need to do to recoup.

But I believe I also heard him say (and if it wasn’t him, it was some other GOP strategist), that essentially with the Palin pick, Republicans pretty much drew a line in the sand between the fiscal conservatives and the social conservatives, and that after the election there will be a knock down/drag out confrontation between those who want Palin to be at the head of the ticket in 2012 (because of her hard right ultra social conservative religious views), and those who want to retool, find a more populist message and get back to the Republicans being what they were before they cozied up to the evangelicals. Then of course there are the neo-cons who are hell bent on world domination, and they are yet a third faction which really can no longer exist under this big tent.

In the US, we have the most mature democracy on the planet. Thus we have two parties. In the beginning, there were a ton of parties. You needed a score card, and it still didn’t make sense. It was like every candidate was a unique individual, and you had no idea what their history really was.

New-born democracies often start with a dozen parties. In the first few years, these get reduced in half, as the little parties merge with larger parties that share a lot of their positions. These mergers happen for the same reason they happen in business: greater numbers equal more foot soldiers and more power in elections and more money raising, and greater efficiency.

The end of this party consolidation always comes when there are two parties in a democracy (one “party” in non-democracies). And these two parties tussle back and forth, each trying to claim their half, plus a little be more of the center, so they can win.

Inevitably, in this process, a lot of ideas get left out, as the parties seek to position themselves with the greatest chance of winning the coveted center. So people get angry, and in hoping to push their ideas, they try, again and again, to build third parties. These almost never take hold. And even if they do well in one election, their share of the vote has always plummeted in the next election.

The Republicans will not split, because they know this will doom them to irrelevance for the foreseeable future. If Republicans split, the Democrats will be the majority party for as long as the Rs are split. Sure, the more moderate of the R parties will try to become even more moderate, and take over some D territory, but the Ds will still work hard to keep half the population. If the Moderate Rs do cut into D votes, then we’ll see coalition governments, and that would be too weird to predict.

Dems can only dream of an Rep split. That would be such good news for them! But it won’t happen. The Rs will repair their coalition, and maybe grow a little bit more moderate, in order to try to take 51% in the next election.

great answer, except this is a constitutional republic, not a democracy.

Daloon, I don’t much like either of the major U.S. parties, because I am conservative in some ways and liberal in some ways. Both parties fit like clothes that are too tight and/or too loose. I also believe I am not alone – how many people fit exactly into the Republicrat or Demmican cookie-cutter platform shape?

What people like me need are parties that fit. I would gladly vote for them if it didn’t mean someone even worse getting into office. You may see this as a compromise in a mature “democracy” by people forming two big factions to get things done. In other places, people vote for parties they can believe in, and those parties have to form coalitions to pass laws – and that works too. In fact, I’d like to see some discussion and compromise in government, rather than “legislation” that is essentially a rubber-stamp of whatever the Party leaders want.

Of course, the Founding Fathers would have been aghast at the party-system we have today. They didn’t want factions to be able to take over government like that, and I see their point. When any given governmental decision only makes 49.5% of the people happy, it’s time for change. Instant-runoff voting would help people vote their conscience instead of their fear. It’s high time we adopted it!

Yes, other countries have multiple parties, and it does work, but, as I understand it from a presentation by an expert on parties I attended last year, all multi-party democratic countries will eventually end up in a two party system.

Sure, it would be nice to have a part that represents your views, but what is the point, if it can’t have an impact on legislation?

I think we would have to change the voting rules to see third parties. Proportional representation, getting reps based on the proportion of the vote you got, instead of winner-take-all, would help. Try getting that passed. Good luck!

Personally, I don’t give a shit what the Founding Fathers thought. We are in our own times now. You don’t know any more about what would have aghasted them than I do. Let’s not bring them into this. Let’s talk about what we need, and whether there is any way in hell to get it. I am extremely skeptical about that last.

In a debate about American politics, I must respectfully disagree and assert the importance of the Founding Fathers who crafted a pretty ingenius system for us – one that has lasted more than two centuries. They must have known something. Have you read any of the federalist papers? The Constitution? (I know, I know, they’re just old, dusty pieces of paper, right?) For me, it would be hard to debate any of this without reference to the architects, much like it would be hard to debate Judaeo-Christian religion without reference to the Bible.

What is the point of legislation, though, if it doesn’t truly represent the views of the People? If a bunch of people who are not Democrats or Republicans keep electing imperfect representatives, we’re going to get laws with which we do not agree. Imagine a system with, say, five parties. You’d have to get three of them to band together in a coalition to pass legislation (assuming they were only acting as party minions and not individuals), but at least that would mean that roughly 3/5 of the constituency support it instead of 1/2. That’s a little better, right?

No matter what change you want (if you want any), the easiest way to start is at the grass-roots level. No third party is going to be elected to the Presidency without taking their fair share of mayoral races, state congress seats, and governorships. Similarly, the way to change how we vote is also by going through the local political venues. If a few townships like the way instant runoff goes, for example, maybe a state will try it. And if a few states try it, it gives the new way of doing things credibility, which may inspire people in other places to go for a national change.

Being able to use states and other municipalities as a sort of petri dish for testing new systems is one of the benefits of the federal system that the Founders set up for us. Oops, I wasn’t supposed to mention them or anything they did, because it’s irrelevent – my bad.

@jasongarrett When you have Sarah Palin announcing her candidacy for 2012 and the difficult times ahead for the Republican party, coupled with Chris Buckley’s willingness to abdicate from the National Review, Katherine Parker expressing grave concerns and pretty much admitting she will be voting Democratic, and other stalwarts of the party abdicating, it’s not too difficult to see what lies ahead. Palin is divisive on a number of fronts, and appears uncensorable. Pandora’s Box has been opened.

I’m a member of the solid middle, slightly right leaning in most times. I like having two distinct camps on issues, and we need the discourse to keep us from becoming complacent. I do, however, like my political leadership to be better educated than me, and to be able to have vision and be able to connect the dots better than me. I spent my college years as a member of Young Republicans, and our state’s Republican Club. My natural tendency is to drift in that direction.

I’m not happy with such an inexperienced candidate either, but I don’t see why it will have any lasting impact. She’s a prettier, less-qualified Mike Huckabee—she’ll lose the 2012 primary and life will go on.

go Mike!!

@Laureth: I didn’t say we should ignore historical documents. I said that I didn’t give a shit about what they thought because they are no longer alive, and saying the founding fathers would have wanted this, or that, is intellectually dishonest. We have no idea what they would think. It’s not appropriate.

It is certainly appropriate to look at documents and to study history, and see trends and understand how different types of systems worked. However, in the end, we are responsible for ourselves, and this appeal to founding fathers is merely a low trick designed to make your opinion seem more ligitimate, without actually making a case for it.

And as you say, it’s exactly like when various groups say God wants this, or God wants that. We have no idea. We can all read the Bible, and maybe agree on what it says (if we don’t have translation debates), but as to interpretation? We’re all over the place, and it is a low blow to act as if you have a direct pipeline to God’s will.

Speaking of translation debates: you can do that with the Constitution, too. Language has driften in 200 odd years. We don’t even know if we’re reading the words the same way as they intended.

Anyway, to reiterate. I don’t give a shit about what the founding fathers thought because neither I, nor anyone else knows what they thought. To say you do is a rhetorical trick. I do, however, care very much about what they wrote down, and what impact that had on society. But I don’t hold those writings in such reverance that I will attempt to apply them to contemporary life, no matter what. I reserve the right to pick what works, and discard what is no longer appropriate.

No. Because of the way the Electoral College works, you would always wind up with a plurality candidate winning the election – someone less than 50% of Americans wanted. Look at the 1912 election to see what happened the last time a third party was a serious challenge. Fortunately, in that election, the best man – Woodrow Wilson – came out on top. Unfortunately, the Progressive wing of the Republican Party, led by Theodore Roosevelt, fell out and hasn’t been heard from since.

Countries where multiple parties work more or less successfully are parliamentary democracies, like Israel. However, in those countries, when there is no clear majority, coalition governments must be worked out. Such governments have a hard time getting things done.

Daloon, a lot of what they thought went into the Federalist papers, which are like a running commentary of why the Constitution should be adopted, and their reasoning behind what was eventually written into law. When I say that they “thought” something, I’m generally pulling it from these, which were the blog of their day.

Could they have been lying through their teeth? Possibly, but I doubt it. Are they still relevent today? You betcha! And it’s even in their own words, because the founders, unlike God, didn’t use that whole “middleman” trick.