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Comment by ks1723 | Hacker News Reader

What I (as a non-US citizen living outside the US) never understood about the US political system is

1. Apparently none sees the (to me obvious) downsides of a two-party system where there is only black and white with cold-war logic of being either with us of against us, no grey zones and willingness for compromise.

and

2. monetary interests are so close to the political system by construction: candidates need to raise a lot of money during their campaigns which they get from companies, private persons and which is tied to their person. How can you not assume that all those people who get into office (senator, president, even judges as I learned recently) with money they got from someone is not in a conflict of interest right from the start? To me it seems there cannot be any independence.

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Your second point explains the first. There is a one-party corporate-captured system with two wings. One pushes the country rightwards, the other pretends to oppose it, but never makes structural changes that would push the country back towards higher taxes on the rich and higher public spending, even when it has the means and the opportunity.

Behind this is the biggest propaganda and PR machine in history, with mass media, social media, lobbyists, think tanks and policy institutes, client journalists, astroturfing operations, and individual politicians all generating compliant prepackaged talking points that either support the corporate line or distract opposition with noise.

The downsides are obvious to any of us Americans with two brain cells to rub together (a minority).

The problem is those who benefit from it are also those who would have to do away with it. So they won't.

It's not that simple. People who vote dem or rep understand the two party system is bad and has a lot of consequences. That's not at all a minority opinion.

The problem is that people are realistic enough to also realize they can't just magically, out of nowhere, break the two party system. The "vote third party!!" people are useful idiots, and we all know it.

The fall of the two party system must be thorough and deliberate. We cannot start at a presidential election, much less like two months before the election, which is always when the "vote third party!" people crawl out of the woodwork.

They don't actually give a single flying fuck about third party. Otherwise, they would vote third party locally and then on a state level so they can build up their reputation for the presidency. And, they would at least decide on which third party to support. But they're too busy fighting over each other to decide that. So they're delusional enough to think their .5% polling candidate out of 5 other .5% polling candidates can overthrow the dems and reps.

It has to be coordinated. Two party system has been build up for a very long time. We need legislation on PACs, on voting, on the electoral college, and we need the cultural shift.

> The "vote third party!!" people are useful idiots, and we all know it.

Those people are the only decent voters in America. The others are complicit in a holocaust.

Again, this is reductionist.

You think I don't want a third party to win? Of course I do. But I'm not stupid, and I recognize that just going out and randomly voting for a third party is just a vote for the status-quo. This is part of the reason (just part, don't worry) that Trump won.

Until you, and others, can name me one specific third party and then also make your community and local representation at least 50% of the same third party, then I don't care. I don't want to hear it, nobody wants to hear it, you sound stupid, keep your mouth shut.

We have to do the work if we want results. Yeah, that means you too.

The thing that we can do is emphasize electoral reform (of the kind that enables viable third parties: runoff voting etc) as the major item in primaries. Basically no Democrat should win the primary unless this is a major item in their platform.

Note that, unlike many other reform suggestions, this one is actually viable because Congress can mandate it nation-wide, like it does today with single-member districts. All it takes is majority vote in both chambers (and yes, they should throw the filibuster in the Senate out to pass this if that's what it takes).

Without ranked choice voting or run-off elections, third party votes are worthless and essentially a vote for whoever wins. All third party voters in 2024 effectively voted for Trump, hopefully they’re happy with their choice.

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