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Midterm election predictions

Who will win Congress?

  • Dems retain House & Senate

    Votes: 2 3.6%

  • Dems win House / Pubs win Senate

    Votes: 2 3.6%

  • Pubs win House / Dems win Senate

    Votes: 22 40.0%

  • Pubs win House & Senate

    Votes: 29 52.7%
  • Total voters
    55
  • Poll closed .
Twitter today has been pingponging between stuff like this



And this

 
Not looking good but conventional wisdom has been wrong before and hopefully it skews in favor of the Democrats
 
PhDeac said:
Complaining about the two-party system is a lazy take unless you're also complaining about needing a majority of people to support something.

The more likely change to US politics isn't a multi-party system, it's a one-party system.
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which multi-party systems of government are you familiar with?

multi-party doesn't mean plurality rule
 
Sure. I don't understand your point.
 
that complaining about a two-party system is not lazy if you're not also complaining about majority rule

multi-party systems offer different coalition-building strategies and leveraging of political power that allow for political progress within a majority-rules system
 
Two parties are a result of needing to build a coalition to reach majority representation. Multi-party systems that require majority rule still coalesce into two sides in order to get things done.
 
PhDeac said:
Two parties are a result of needing to build a coalition to reach majority representation. Multi-party systems that require majority rule still coalesce into two sides in order to get things done.
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Sure, but don’t you think more would get done if we had leftist, center left, center right, and far right parties that built coalitions. The ChrisL/MDMH debates would be over b/c there would be no arguing about which direction the party should go, because you would have a portion representation of both positions.

And the center right wouldn’t be beholden to the far right to get elected.

I think this would result in meaningful legislation around popular ideas such as a legislative solution for DACA or commonsense gun control, that people don’t touch in election years because they seem to be third rail issues to the far right.
 
I think that’s wishful thinking. We already have those coalitions within two parties and those coalitions have shifted over time. The Democratic Party and Republican Party coalitions are very different than they were 20 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago.

The main feature of the Republican Party over the last 20 years is that the far right “party” joined the right “party” and center right “party” to get their goals. The far right has grown and now the center right and right are on board with them.

Plenty of multiparty countries are just as polarized as the US and driven by negative partisanship.

The reason the center right doesn’t embrace DACA or meaningful gun reform is they don’t want to piss off the far right who they need in order to pass their economic policies. That wouldn’t change in a multiparty system.

Also we all know that the US didn’t start out a two-party system. It developed over time.
 
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ph also an expert in political systems

the us and german system are the same
 
JuiceCrewAllStar said:
ph also an expert in political systems

the us and german system are the same
Click to expand...

You know that’s not what I said but it’s what you think will get laughs. That’s what people do when they don’t want to think about what they just assume to be true.

We’re not talking about a multiparty system in German. We’re talking about the prospects of a multiparty system that was already rejected in the early years of the country. Multiple parties exist but they have no traction because there is one homogenous party that is unified and the rest of us don’t benefit from splintering.
 
PhDeac said:
Complaining about the two-party system is a lazy take unless you're also complaining about needing a majority of people to support something.

The more likely change to US politics isn't a multi-party system, it's a one-party system.
Click to expand...

I don’t disagree with the last statement.

As to the first, sure, it’s a simple complaint offered without support or analysis or corrective suggestions. No shit it’s lazy. Question is, is a two party system, which seems our fate, problematic? Does it leave us more vulnerable to ineffective governance or takeover by one party, etc?

That’s all I’m going to say about it. Too much work already.
 
Of course it’s problematic. Any system of anything has strengths and weaknesses.

Obviously I’m all for blaming systems but after a few centuries of this we can go ahead and blame the people for not using their power to change the two party system.
 
PhDeac said:
You know that’s not what I said but it’s what you think will get laughs. That’s what people do when they don’t want to think about what they just assume to be true.

We’re not talking about a multiparty system in German. We’re talking about the prospects of a multiparty system that was already rejected in the early years of the country. Multiple parties exist but they have no traction because there is one homogenous party that is unified and the rest of us don’t benefit from splintering.
Click to expand...
you’re only considering coalition within the left-right framework you’re applying within an American historical context

being down on the current status quo because of the two-party structure that inevitably emerges in the first-past-the-post constitutional structure we’ve inherited is not “lazy”, it’s critiquing the flaws of the system

the attempt to shoehorn the American political template as equivalent to other forms of government and politics is what’s lazy
 
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