Problems of American Democracy - Part 3 - The Two Party System
by John Lawrence
In short a two party system degenerates into the far left vs the far right. This is what's happening in America today. The only thing worse than a two party system is a one party system. In a multi-party system like most European democracies have, you can still have a far left and a far right, but you have numerous gradations in between. In a two party system people are diametrically opposed to each other and go head to head. The US is plagued by a winner take all society in which the voting system itself plagues democracy. In each district there is one and only one winner. This makes it possible for Republicans, for example, to out primary each other by becoming even more extreme. Why does all the action occur in the primaries? Because the districts are so gerrymandered that one party is almost guaranteed to win in these so-called safe districts. I don't think democracy is doomed, but the American version thereof may be. In America third parties are doomed by the very structure of the voting system. In districts in Europe, for example, that are not winner take all, in which multiple candidates from multiple parties can be elected in the same election, more than one voice can be heard. The result is that the outcomes of elections are not so extreme.
The winner take all system suppresses minorities. The historical minority in American politics, namely black people, have not been able to have much of a voice in electoral politics because of, among other reasons, gerrymandering and winner take all voting systems. The majority always wins and minorities end up with no representation whatsoever. We've seen this in Presidential politics when the only effect a third party candidate like Ralph Nader had was to take votes away from the party he was closest to politically giving the party farthest away from himself politically the win. In 2000 Nader took enough votes away from Al Gore so that George W Bush won the election. This led to Bush lying the US into the Iraq war with disastrous results. In the 1992 Presidential election Ross Perot ended up with 18.9% of the votes. This probably cost George H. W. Bush a second term and elected Bill Clinton President. Taking popular votes away from a candidate can cost that candidate electoral votes. In many states the electoral votes are winner take all so that whoever gets the most popular votes, even though not a majority, wins all the electoral votes.
The solution for the US is not only voting reform - eliminating gerrymandering primarily, but to do away with the district by district winner take all system. This will give voice to minority representation. It's something that might be of interest to European descendant whites as pretty soon they will be in the minority. The US doesn't necessarily have to adopt the European Parliamentary system. There are other variations of voting systems that are not winner take all and that support multi-party winners. A little humility, please, about the superiority of American democracy. It's badly in need of reform.
