All academic since it would never actually happen, but it seems like 3rd parties enjoy more success under parliamentary systems, and super unpopular governments can be tossed out more easily. Would things be any better?

Imo it’s a marginally better system in the abstract but if it or any sort of electoral reform was dropped on the US tomorrow it wouldn’t help. Elections are superstructural elements and don’t alter the economic/legal relations between classes. We see plenty of parliamentary systems that permit unpopular governments, party duopolies, etc. The bourgeois state, and its elections, are not for working people and their other instruments like the media enforce that as well.

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22 points

I think the USA has to undergo a massive cultural shift to be better. The problem isn’t the form of government, the problem is America.

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we’re not currently a democracy so if you could ban the duoparty at the same time a lot of stuff would get better and anti-imperialism would get a lot more attention, but we’re miles off into a ridiculous hypothetical anyway as soon as electoral reform is brought up

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4 points

:yea: I’m pretty much just approaching this from a “how long could a pufferfish survive in low earth orbit” level of hypothetical curiosity

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9 points

I do think that a better electoral system could be a contributing factor towards a cultural shift. As it is now Americans cannot see a world which can be collectively improved because Americans have no clear path for that collective improvement. In theory a more parliamentary system would open up a path, and that could help more Americans see oh, actually maybe we CAN make the world a better place.

I think in practice the capital classes still wouldn’t let it happen but as it is now it is literally impossible to use electoralism for good, where in a parliamentary system it can still be extremely difficult but it isn’t necessarily impossible.

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2 points

This makes sense to me 👍

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1 point

That implies Americans want to make the world a better place. The white American would rather die than see non-white American lives improved. They especially do not want non-Americans to benefit from better policies. The cruelty is the point and fascism is a death cult.

You’re more likely to see an emergence of additional far right parties than even the most milquetoast of reformers. We’d have the Tea Party and Alt-Right Party as official parties with their own politicians.

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17 points

Lol no. See every other western country with a parliamentary system. Same issues

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9 points

Well not all the same issues. Healthcare isn’t nearly as expensive in other western countries, most of them don’t have to worry about their FICO (Social) credit score, all that jazz

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11 points

Healthcare isn’t nearly as expensive in other western countries

There’s zero correlation between that and having a parlamentary system imo.

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4 points

☝️🤓 Akshually there would be some correlation by sheer virtue of the US having the worst healthcare costs while also being one of the only “full” presidential systems in that category

Whether there’s an actual relationship (which I’m guessing is what you meant) is less clear, but I think there’s gotta be some association. There have been efforts to reform healthcare since Nixon’s time, but they were always able to throw up their hands and abandon it due to nebulous partisan gridlock (of course, informed by moneyed interests trying to keep the govt from busting up their profits). With the more fluid governments and coalitions of parliaments it’s possible we would have seen alignment on something

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8 points

That’s just a more sage way of divvying up the spoils of imperialism

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2 points

¯\_༼ •́ ͜ʖ •̀ ༽_/¯ I’m not advancing this as a way to transform empire into a benevolent figure on the world stage, I’m just wondering if it would be any better at all for anyone

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12 points
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uh… explain?

I’m a dummy. Why is the USA’s bicameral system not technically “parliamentary”?

PS: – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_system – ok I guess the fact that the boss man is elected separately makes it not “parliamentary”; “parliamentary” means the leader of the parliament is the head-of-state.

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9 points

Ya there’s a few other quirks that come along with it I think. Governments can be dissolved and elections called much easier, for instance

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8 points

Oh yeah, the USA has that rigid electoral calendar, elections are not ‘called’

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6 points

For one, a third party can gain a foothold much more easily. In the UK, for example, small parties to the left of Labour can win and hold seats in Parliament.

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3 points
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It’s about how much power the head of state has. If they directly run the government and make policy, presidential (or Prussian Constitutional, in the case of a monarchy). If they don’t and the power is defacto devolved to a parliamentary cabinet appointed by the representatives, parliamentary. If you’re the French and De Gaulle fucked up your government to maintain power, semi-presidential.

The advantage of parliamentary systems is they fail quickly and cleanly. If the governing representatives lose the ability to vote in a budget, they’re not in power anymore (either a new coalition forms organically, or elections are called), while a US system can fuck around for decades with an inability to pass policy. The downside is the difficulty in making and maintaining stable majorities, see Belgium.

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10 points

Yes but also it would still be an awful place. That said Big Yud thinks parliaments are worse which is clear evidence for their superiority.

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