Our predominant voting system guarantees a 2 party system. And said 2 parties are needed to change it. They just have to not do anything to keep it. No discouraging of 3rd parties is needed.
In fact parties in narrow elections will promote the 3rd party option to their opposition voters to try and spoil it to win.
I think the point was that to change the system away from a 2-party-system, the people who got into power via this system would have to agree to change to a different system which would likely lead to them not being in power.
Politicians are directly disincentivized from changing to a better system. The only direction they are incentivized to change the system to would be a 1-party-system with them in power.
That’s why a change to a better, more fair, more liberal electoral system only ever happens when a country is re-founded, e.g. after a lost war or after a revolution.
Btw: If you ignore the 10 amendments to the US constitution that were ratified in the first year (which were basically zero-day patches) and the two amendments that don’t have an effect (prohibition and cancellation of the prohibition) you end up with 15 amendments.
France had 15 full constitutional rewrites over about the same time period.
That’s true. I more meant that a politician’s duty is to work in the best interests of their voters, which I believe is why a lot of people seem to be confused as to why politicians aren’t implementing ranked choice voting or something similarly beneficial, because they don’t understand that politicians haven’t been working in the best interests of their voters for a long time.
Our predominant voting system guarantees a 2 party system. And said 2 parties are needed to change it. They just have to not do anything to keep it. No discouraging of 3rd parties is needed.
In fact parties in narrow elections will promote the 3rd party option to their opposition voters to try and spoil it to win.
I think the point was that to change the system away from a 2-party-system, the people who got into power via this system would have to agree to change to a different system which would likely lead to them not being in power.
Politicians are directly disincentivized from changing to a better system. The only direction they are incentivized to change the system to would be a 1-party-system with them in power.
That’s why a change to a better, more fair, more liberal electoral system only ever happens when a country is re-founded, e.g. after a lost war or after a revolution.
Btw: If you ignore the 10 amendments to the US constitution that were ratified in the first year (which were basically zero-day patches) and the two amendments that don’t have an effect (prohibition and cancellation of the prohibition) you end up with 15 amendments.
France had 15 full constitutional rewrites over about the same time period.
That’s true. I more meant that a politician’s duty is to work in the best interests of their voters, which I believe is why a lot of people seem to be confused as to why politicians aren’t implementing ranked choice voting or something similarly beneficial, because they don’t understand that politicians haven’t been working in the best interests of their voters for a long time.