The People's Party

[erimir]

One of the main reasons I think it doesn't work is that tracing responsibility for government actions is too difficult for the average voter if the legislature and executive can be at odds. Exploiting this flaw has been the primary Republican strategy under Democratic presidents since 1993 (although Gingrich's execution was much inferior to McConnell's).

Under a parliamentary system, when the executive fails, it is much more difficult for it to be due to politically-motivated sabotage by the opposition that is difficult for voters to understand. The government gets to enact their agenda, voters can properly attribute the results to the party that enacted it, and punish or reward them accordingly. There are obviously some better or worse aspects that go into parliamentary systems (the UK's system of single-seat constituencies is a very bad aspect of their system) that can mess it up, but on the whole parliamentary systems are superior to the US system. It also makes it easier to have accountability for the executive officer specifically than the US system does (and the same for many other presidential systems). Motions of no confidence work better than impeachment.

Multi-party systems are probably also better for reducing political polarization - the heated rhetoric is less likely when you might need to convince other parties to go into coalition. However, having over a dozen parties in parliament like they do in the Netherlands is not ideal either. I would personally want to design the system so that the equilibrium is under ten parties, for sure. Not sure of the ideal number. This factor doesn't favor the progressive end of the spectrum though - it pushes politics towards the center. But avoiding the situation in the US where the two factions hate each other and one is abandoning democracy altogether is probably more important than hoping you could fluke a very lefty president into power through the power of partisan polarization, since it also leads to the possibility of electing a Trump, as we've seen.

Also, single seat elections don't work as well with multi-party systems, so there are some issues there as well. You don't want to have a situation like they do in France where by having only two rounds, you end up with a fractured left leading to runoffs with only center/right candidates (a la Macron vs. Le Pen). You could solve this by having a better voting system, of course. But a strong, directly elected executive does make it higher stakes than some other design choices.

[erimir]

[erimir]

Saw this pass through my timeline, and it made me think of this thread.

27 million Russians died defeating the last Nazi regime in Europe. Did you really think they were going to allow a second Nazi regime directly on their border? pic.twitter.com/LS4EBx3hRX

— The People’s Party (@PeoplesParty_US) October 30, 2022

I'm gonna stick with my original assessment that we do not need the People's Party.

(Aside from the obvious issues with saying Ukraine is under a "Nazi regime", it's notable that it wasn't "27 million Russians", but "27 million Soviet citizens" which included millions of Ukrainians - in fact a higher percentage of Ukrainians died than Russians, because Ukraine and Belarus, being closer to Germany, were invaded first, and most Soviet Jewish victims of the Holocaust were in Ukraine and Belarus as a result, they were sites of fighting for a longer time, etc. And of course, they were also drafted into the Red Army the same as Russians.)

[ChuckF]

Jesus fucking Christ.

[Stephen Maturin]

The People's Party () is a wingnut stalking horse?!

[viscousmemories]

Yeah, turns out it was a terrible idea led and joined by some terrible people. I regret ever having thought otherwise.