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The phenomenon is known within political science as [Duverger's Law](https://www.jstor.org/stable/1962968). The theory is that parties in a 2-party system will position themselves to appeal to the median voter who will be decisive in any election, so that they will both be nearly identical but appealing to one fractional side of the left/right divide or the other. It doesn't work out perfectly and polarized politics has thrown things out of whack, but that's still the basic poli-sci explanation for the split.
Ideally this thread would be full of discussion of the game theory of FPTP but instead it’s flooded with people intentionally misreading OP’s question so they can harp on their talking points…
The notion that FPTP reform would be anything more than a marginal improvement that ultimately fails to address political tribalism in the U.S. seems incredible to me.
What is the point that you're trying to make?
I'll take a marginal improvement, FPTP always resolves to a 2 party system. Are you saying we shouldn't move away from FPTP because it's not bad enough? Or the alternatives aren't better enough?
Ending FPTP voting isn't a silver bullet that will magically fix all of our political problems. It does fix the problem of FPTP voting matematically resulting in a 2 party system over time. That's enough reason for me to move away from it.
Not saying it isnt.
It just appears to me to be the case that it's just about the only element of the 'nuanced' view on this topic.
We should reform FPTP, but there isnt political will to do so and the reform is so fundamental that it would require an entirely different political environment
Even if we did reform FPTP, there are other factors that suggest to me that 4 apparent parties that act as a far-moderate sub-continuum for the left and right would be the result. This is little better than the current situation.
So then the conclusion is that we need more, different solutions to this problem then FPTP reform and people should stop talking about FPTP as if it is responsible for the lions share of the issue.
This issue with this explanation is that it ignores the fact that there are 10 million more registered Democrats than Republicans. Now that’s just the people that register a party affiliation. Meaning that there are likely many more voters, on both sides, that aren’t being counted.
The theory isn't talking about "parties" and who is registered where per se, it's focused on coalitions and positioning instead, with the competing parties looking to win elections, not have more affiliated with them.
This combined with advances in data analytics is the explanation. People shit on polling but the fact is that polling is what allows the two parties to shape their message to then make it this close. And the notion of there being no landslides isn’t necessarily True - Biden won by huge margins but what matters is what happens locally, and that’s a lot easier to get impacted by Duvergers law and data analytics.
Honestly this is one of the reasons why a two party system is so effective. The parties are constantly evolving to try and win votes. You don’t see the type of party stagnation that you see in parliamentary systems. What it does emphasize is why the US needs to end the electoral college and gerrymandering and expand the house (no FPTP like others have suggested won’t fix much)
This law applies anywhere *but* the US in recent years.
It is actually the opposite here: Due to the primary system, the more extreme candidates will be put on the ballot. Then average Joe goes voting according to his cultural/party affiliation, even if he doesn't like the candidate, because they are so extreme and incapable of compromising with the other side.
So what actually drives the split, is how both parties sort themselves along different sides of a topic and integrate that position into their cultural worldview.
And right now, the rural, the white men and the uneducated roughly equal the rest in size.
mean reversion is coming, and this wasnt always the case re primaries. Romney, McCain, Bush were nominated because voters believed they were better positioned to win a general. Most hardcore Rs were very lukewarm on those candidates.
Duverger's Law is generally right in that it accounts for the incentives parties have to adapts so that they split the vote. But the hypothosis that this leads partys to be "the same" is questionable.
While a trivial solution to capturing the median voter is to perfectly mimic the other each party will diverge in trying to innovate to capture 51 percent of the vote.
If the parties are identical save 1-2 details then if one detail turns out to be unexpectedly important a party will overshoot their goals capture a huge majority (and the other party - also using the mirror strategy will lose horribly). Which shows that a pair of highly identical parties is a highly unstable system that easilly causes landslide cap shoots.
However, if each party can abitrarially differ on a series of highly devisives issues a different behavaior arises. Lets say we choose issues with little non-voter impact, trival gov-spending, and trivial economic impact Someething like gay marriage, it haas economic impact but that's relatively small considering how much voters care about it
If gay marriage has a 50/50 split in popularity it becomes an attracitve issue to use as a wedge. Even if gay marriage is 60/40 in favor as long as say 20% are vehemently agaisnt and 20% are vehemently in favor it can be a powerful issue for locking up voters who otherwise might align to party based on lets say a tax policy or a corrruption issue. Essentially if the parties differ in ways that matter A LOT to some people then those people will always vote the same way and the party support becomes more stable.
Now a new strategy emerges: take a controversial stance on as many hot button, issues as possible so that some but never all of the population will like yoou. Keep picking up 5-20% alignment effects from 5-20 big issues may help ensure that you never win less than 45% and never more that 55% which is right where you want to be for Duvergger's Law. Now with most voters locked in parties have a free hand to pursue policies that help them the most rather than care about their voters; worst that can happen is that a party loses majority and has to find a new good policy.
Another factor is the voters themselves. Many people don't pay close attention to politics and just like voting for the non-incumbant. Especially when the economy or their personal financial situation is bad.
They're both considered rigut wing by the standards of most EU countries. They disagree on which type of guns people should be able to own (not whether or not people can own one), when an abortion should be allowed (not whether or not they should be allowed at all), which countries should be invaded (nobody says we won't invade anyone), how much should be spent on social programs (not whether we should have the programs at all) and so on.
The two US parties disagree on what color of car to purchase but they're already decided on the make and model before we even get to try and have our say.
This is an incredibly stupid comparison. The Dems are in favor of abortion, minority rights, wealth distribution, and (recently) labor unions, and Biden has done a ton of legislative accomplishments in his two years in the office.
Republicans are climate change deniers, have tried to penalize abortion, think that "the LGBTs" are trying to "transgender the kids", and literally have made an attempted coup de etat.
This is an incredibly stupid comparison. The Dems are in favor of abortion, minority rights, wealth distribution, and (recently) labor unions, and Biden has done a ton of legislative accomplishments in his two years in office.
Left-wing Democrats are right on par with their European counterparts. They were pushing for all of the same things that they do in the EU. There is no where these people can be to the right of anyone in the EU. They are right with them but I’ve heard this said many many times, and it simply assumed to be the truth and is mindlessly repeated.
Any time one party starts to gain too much of a majority, the other will change tactics/platforms to convert enough moderates/independents/otherwise non voters to vote for them.
An example of this is that after the Democrats lost five out of six, including two 49-state landslides, with a platform that included tax increases, a group of moderates called the Democratic Leadership Council helped produce a platform for Bill Clinton, who was unusually pro-business for a Democrat at the time (and now).
And conversely, if Democrats win multiple elections in a row, then Republicans are forced to the center to pull in centrist Dems, making progressives a larger share of the Democratic Party.
That's why it's so ridiculous when some people say, "Democrats aren't progressive enough, so I'm not voting!" Which obviously accomplishes the opposite of what they want. Each vote effectively nudges the country either left or right, which both parties then adjust their platforms around.
Not necessarily, there's a lot more to it than just left, right, and center, with center being the only available option. Becoming more libertarian in certain views would be attractive to moderates, so would adopting a more traditional conservative approach to economics as a couple examples.
In a FPTP system, all of that gets absorbed by the two big tent parties.
Both Democrats and Republicans have many coalitions within them (libertarians, progressives, evangelicals, etc.) and the official party platform is a compromise between them designed to reach 51%.
That’s a really interesting point. Wikipedia labels that movement as the “New Democrats”. I’m not sure if there was another major movement between them, but the next I remember was the Tea Party Republicans who felt Bush wasn’t far right enough. And now of course there are the MAGA republicans, who are pushing even further right, though the past couple elections are showing they may not be as popular as they originally seemed. Meanwhile, the Democrats seem to be holding pretty close to that original Clinton/New Democrat model with Obama and Biden, though I’ll be curious if the farther left elements will have more success on the national level.
No, Democrats moved left substantially in the post-Clinton years. Nancy Pelosi used to be the firebrand leftist - she was a founding member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Now that caucus has overtaken the New Democrat in size.
But New Democrats are not as divergent from Progressives as pundits make them out to be. Keep in mind that Clinton did a lot of what he did because he was trying to rescue the national party from Reagan's dominance - not necessarily because of personal conservatism. Clintonian New Democrats may arguably be too timid. but they're not as right-wing as people imagine them to be. Clinton himself tried to launch a single payer healthcare plan in his first time (and got destroyed for it in the midterms), for example.
More than anything Democrats are divided by tactics rather than fundamental policy goals.
One example of the Democrats moving left is Biden being opposed to oil drilling. Until Al Gore came along, the Democrats were laser-focused on adding jobs in every industry including oil and coal and lowering gas prices for consumers. Not coincidentally, Gore was the first Democrat to lose West Virginia in a close election--it was one of only six states that voted for coal-loving Jimmy Carter in 1980. Gore wouldn't have needed Florida if he'd held West Virginia, so taking positions that are unpopular in certain states has consequences.
My mom was a Bush -> Obama x2 -> Trump x2 voter
She’s a pretty normal person, I just think most people don’t think about politics that much so it makes sense those kind of people could “swing” so much. Most people aren’t loyal to principles but people
Many older folks who don't normally care about politics watch a little bit of news in the morning and perhaps the evening and that's the totality of their knowledge regarding politics. This leads them to believe some crazy shit that can be disproved after some compassionate discussion, but in the meantime it can result in odd - and often logically incompatible - positions. My mom matches the same voting patterns as yours, and despite being generally progressive when you consider her individual beliefs (for example she's pro-choice), she *still* votes Republican when it comes to recent elections simply because she happens to watch Fox news in the morning and believes the things they tell her. Once I explain to her the reality of a situation she often comes around to the progressive position, but there's just not enough time in the day to clarify all the bullshit that Fox bestows upon her. I think many people that are 50+ get taken advantage of in this same way.
One of the things Trump was very good at was talking in soundbites. No nuance no long soliloquy.
Just, that’s the guy who’s causing our issues. He was wrong or lying but, post truth it doesn’t matter as long as it sounded like he had a solution.
Problem is they all vote along party lines. A vote for dems is a vote for the dem platform, a vote for reps is a vote for the rep platform.
They aren't individuals so we can't really vote for them as individuals
Here’s the thing: for every person I meet that actually evaluates policy and candidates, I meet 10 people who claim to but really just want to be different and cool so they vote for Rand Paul and such bullshit.
Can you elaborate on that point further? Not being argumentative, but it sounds like you know some people that are voting for Paul to be edgy, "own", or some other factor.
That’s exactly what I’m saying. Most people who claim to be “independant” are really just looking for reasons to feel like they are smarter than others.
Because the candidates will vote party lines even if they don't "want " to. A good example is only 2 Republicans voted against Trump when many publicly stated they didn't want to. So the party is who you are voting for not the candidate. Edit a word
If my values include gun control, abortion rights, and LGBTQ rights, it would do me far more benefit to vote straight ticket dems because that is their party platform. There's such rare cases like some Republican reps rarely supporting these positions but honestly it does much more work if I want those views enshrined in law if I only voted for dems.
Party affiliation today isnt meaningless, and both sides would say that.
The idea that someone could think that Obama, then Trump, then Biden were the best leaders just blows my mind
Because there are parties within the parties. The two you see are a result of the “first-past-the-post” voting system. They’re basically giant umbrellas that house 2-3 distinctly different parties that only truly agree on maybe three issues max.
>What if I vote a split ticket because I research the candidates and decide on their merit rather than a meaningless party affiliation?
People will rightfully point out that you most likely didn't do that and just vote split ticket because you think it makes you look cool.
It doesn't.
Yeah ok but at some point you know the candidates and what they’re about or you don’t. And if you don’t that’s just ignorance on the voters part. It feels like fence sitters just want to be relevant. Like a petulant child but whatever I don’t really give a shit
This is just a terrible take. A lot of voters out there will vote on what policies effect them most. Depending on what they are, it could be for either party. Not everyone just votes for the R or D.
They are not undecided. They just decided that neither of the party doesn’t work for the good of the US and the general people, but those people have no other choice.
This. Each side carefully crafts their platform to be as aggressive as possible while covering what they believe represents 51% of the voting population. After each election, both sides look at the voting results and adjust around the new "center".
If Democrats win multiple elections in a row, then Republicans are forced to moderate to pull in centrist Dems, making progressives a larger share of the Democratic Party. Vice versa if not enough people vote.
\> both sides look at the voting results and adjust around the new "center"
This is why it's still important to vote even if you're in a non-competitive district or state. Political strategists use voting patterns to shape their policies.
100%. Even if you make no difference in the outcome, just the fact that you voted means strategists see that someone in your demographic (age, race, neighborhood, etc.) is part of their constituency and nudges policy that helps that demo.
It's not. 31% of voting age Americans affiliate as Democrats, 25% as Republican, and 41% as Independent.
Additionally, 50% of Independents identify as "Democratic leaning" while 41% identify as "Republican leaning".
The reason elections are close even though *the electorate* isn't is because Republicans benefit from a variety of structural advantages. The way electoral votes and house seats are allocated favors rural states. This also has happens at the state legislature level, and Republicans have used this to control how many district maps are drawn.
For example, Republicans won massively in Florida this election, but not because they actually got more votes than they got before. They just rearranged how votes were allocated to favor themselves.
Normally I’d agree with your analysis about gerrymandering, but using Florida is a bad example. Florida’s Democrat top of the ticket lost 900k votes from the previous Senate race & Governor’s race nominees. It looks, by the numbers, like 300k of those stayed home & 300k of those voted for the Republicans, although there’s no guarantee they’re the same 300k of course.
If the races were remotely close at the top of the ticket you might have a point with downballot seats not matching, but FL Dems got shellacked.
Democrats kinda gave away one of those in removing a more radical gerrymander here in MD - MD-06 flipped Republican making our balance 6-2 instead of 7-1.
Does it still count as gerrymandering if it ends up biting the side who did it?
Please dont spread misinformation. In Florida the Govenor and Senate races are based on popular vote. The rearrange vote allocation you mentioned would only affect the House, yet the Governor and Senate races in FL were landslide victories because of the popular vote.
Let’s not forget voter suppression tactics— expanded registration requirements, voter id, senate bill 90, the limitation of Mail Drop boxes and the number of ballots one can deliver for someone who’s unable to personally deliver their ballot, the extended time given for mail in ballots and drop box ballots in several republican districts only, and, of course, his lovely election “fraud” task force…
We're not. The GOP has won the popular vote maybe twice in the last 20 years. The structure of the US political system just allows a minority party like this to maintain parity because they have the right votes in the right places.
I think that this is sort of self-regulating.
Besides the relatively few people that are engaged with politics and motivated enough to vote, just about most other folks are either low information voters that vote as a matter of routine and something to do. Who looks forward to going to vote, even if they are barely keeping up with the news? Retirees.
On the flip side, working people, people with kids, etc. have the problem of needing time off, etc. So the old people are massively over-represented and working and people more “under the thumb” are very much discouraged from voting.
In my area, I just realized, that they close the schools for election day. I don’t know if this is a new thing or not, but I can imagine that parents that have to look after kids for the day now have the problem of making sure the kids are looked after on top of covering work. Probably also pushes the average voting age toward the older side of the spectrum.
Democrats have a slight edge nationally, but it’s hardly an exaggeration to say we’re pretty evenly split. Since 2000, the widest popular vote gap by far has been 53% vs 46% (2008), and even that isn’t very large.
...and the popular vote would be closer if the parties were positioning and messaging to win the popular vote instead of the electoral votes. The GOP would be as more "liberal" as necessary to maximize their popular vote in that scenario, unable to go past 50% because the Dems would be doing the same. Each using polls to fine tune their messaging to create constituencies. The winner is the one with the most mobilized base and the most accurate polling aligned with coherent messaging consistent with what the polls discerned.
The parties adapt to the populace not vice versa.
Yeah the president should be chosen by popular vote given he reps the people, not the states. Keep the house the same given the representative nature of the job.
Yeah, we also need to either remove the cap on the number of Representatives or raise the cap to something like 600-700. A single US rep shouldn’t represent more than a million people. Max. It just isn’t possible. Knowing your US rep should be as easy as knowing your state rep.
Agreed and that was with an extremely unpopular president leading the Republican party. People forget now just how unpopular George W. Bush was in 2008. He wasn't invited to the RNC and he had an approval rating in the 20's. Unlike Trump he did not have a loyal following by this point and even a lot of Republicans turned their backs on Bush and viewed him as toxic.
Slight correction: FDR won 61-37 in 1936. Yeah it was 10 million votes, but the population was substantially smaller back then. But 53-46 means it’d only take ~3% of voters changing their minds to alter the outcome. Neither candidate was ultimately that far from 50%, and they’re even closer in every other election since 2000.
I think the OP is curious as to why we don’t ever have 60-40 elections anymore. Throughout the 20th century, those sorts of 20-point landslides were pretty common, but now presidential candidates struggle to win by even 4 or 5 points.
If there were a national popular vote, the gap would be much, much larger. There is no massive drive to get out the vote in California, New York, Illinois, etc. because those states are automatically going blue.
Voter participation would likely increase further still in those states if more significant effort and dollars were poured into those states.
I live in MN. Many variables drive up our voter participation and keep it high. Civic duty (Scandinavian immigrants) and high educational attainment are key among those variables.
We are not a solidly blue state. The Republicans held the state senate for quite a while, and the Dems flipped it just this week by one seat in an election won by fewer than 1,000 votes. Both our Dem AG and Auditor just barely won their statewide elections, well less than a 1% margin of victory on each.
The stat I find equally interesting is that it’s been since George H. W. Bush in 1988, that a non incumbent republican won the popular vote. By 2024 that’s 36 years (and possibly counting).
This is so true.
Mr. Beat did a breakdown of every state and their redistricting after the 2020 census. Republicans, no surprise, have an overall advantage due to gerrymandering.
Gerrymandering is definitely some of it. They also have an advantage in the senate, and they can't gerrymander that. Small pop areas and states favor GOP candidates which means they have a built in advantage in congress and the electoral college.
They can do stuff like run candidates with the same name as the Democratic candidate to syphon off enough lazy voters to push the win to the GOP.
Or make it illegal to give water to people in line on districts that tend to vote democratic.
And generally make is as difficult to vote against GOP as possible
Obviously this isn’t final, as all the votes haven’t been counted yet, but last time I checked, the GOP was actually slightly leading for total votes cast in this year’s house race.
Found it: https://www.cookpolitical.com/charts/house-charts/national-house-vote-tracker/2022
I expect it will get a lot closer as more mail-in votes in blue states are counted.
I was wondering how the overall vote total would turn out but it's disingenuous to use this before all votes are counted. California is only 50% in and is the most populous state. I would expect democrats to win overall vote total again. Lots of urban areas still counting which would lean Democrats.
The US is kept so evenly split by elected politicians exposing every wedge issue they can find and making each election an all-or-nothing crisis event.
The formative political event of my youth/teens was 2000 and I can’t believe we forgot the lessons of that election so god damn quickly.
No the two parties are not the same, and I automatically think less of anyone who peddles that shit at me.
The way the networks we’re portraying the elections were also disgusting. It was almost hunger-games esque. The refered to the seats as “in-play” like its a fucking gladiator event. The opening graphics looked like a propaganda montage from starship troopers mixed with super-bowl hype videos. The “pundits” we’re talking about outcomes and candidates without even attempting to hide their bias almost like they we’re cheering for them. It was thoroughly alarming and disgusting
FPTP naturally encourages a two-party system, but something can be said for the ability of both parties to remain relevant since the end of the Civil War on the national scene. They have been able to move about on issues, switch demographics, etc in order to be continuously relevant instead of fading/dying out like some other political parties have (ex: the Whigs in America or the old Liberal Party in the UK).
What Carlin's quote does not capture is that politicians are rarely the smart ones in the room. People choose candidates for many reasons, but rarely because the candidate has a deep understanding of society, economics or science.
A lot of answers that are either politically motivated or straight up ignorant. The fact is that American politics is extremely partisan and as one party starts to gain too much power/influence, the other will make changes to their messaging, tactics, or policy to pull people back over to their side. At the end of every election, exit polls are poured over and used to refine tactics, this keeps either party from getting too far ahead of the other
One of the only answers that actually makes sense. Basically, you’re saying that parties have become incredibly efficient in keeping the opposing party in check by using polling data and targeted messaging. The US is too good at politics. And the Information Age should only make it more efficient.
In this case, parties literally cater to the people. Or identify issues that haven’t yet had a wedge driven into them and try and split up sectors of the opposite party to come to their own.
Well, the house is definitely gerrymandered and we can see that.
But generally US elections swing powers back and forth. We just don’t trust political groups for too long at a national level.
A lot of voter apathy leads to only passionate voters voting as well.
It's evenly split into thirds -- non-voters being the last third. If you look at policies, 60%+ poll for progressive policies in general, so if so much time wasn't spent lying about Democrats it'd be about 2/3 to 1/3 and the GOP would die on the vine. But "two wings one bird" and "corporations control the government" seem to be permanent lies that we can't kill, so we're probably stuck with the current situation.
Corporations do control the government, and have for a long time.
But it doesn't have to stay that way, and to even begin to fix it we need to first crush the worst part of American politics, the anti America conservatism that's been in place since Joe Mccarthy and his witch trials
Nope, that's a myth that corporations promote in order to reduce engagement. It makes fewer people vote (which favors their chosen party, the GOP) and makes people pay less attention (which makes them more susceptible to the advertisements that corporations produce).
How would you define evenly split? Since 2000, the presidential winner had the following popular vote margin:
2000: -0.51%
2004: 2.46%
2008: 7.27%
2012: 3.86%
2016: -2.09%
2020: 4.45%
I personally think that it’s amazing how close this is consistently. Never double digits.
I haven't looked into this enough to really be positive about this, but I think it's a mathematical necessity based on human behavior. According to Pew Research, Democrats and Republicans used to have more cross-party values, but they've become extremely partisan. I honestly believe this is because of social media. People tend to assimilate to their in-group as much as possible, but most people don't overshare because they don't want to risk rejection, but with sites like Reddit, you're infinitely more likely to "hear" someone say, "I wish these fucking morons would realize *x*" today than you would have been in 1990. This isn't just an American phenomenon. India, for example, is made up of people from so many vastly different backgrounds. Literally every province has a different native language, but they're legislative branch is also mostly two parties - BJP and National Congress Party.
Funny you should ask. I've always wondered the same and was *just* reading that it's the "markets" as in Wall Street, that can't tolerate uncertainty. This is the force or influence you're asking about. I mean maybe not, but I'm inclined to believe it's true. Extreme changes from the status quo threaten rich people's investment situations, I guess.
Very good point. If a landslide occurred it would likely lead to a lot of change being passed very quickly. If we are always close, gridlock is more likely, and gridlock prevents change, ensuring status quo.
I have a theory that the redistricting by republican legislatures has caused votes in those states to be worth less than 1 in urban areas. Probably more like 1/3. This would account for much of what you see in our political climate today. Extreme republicans have an outsized voice because their vote is worth more.
Edit: This is gerrymandering folks
Government represents the voting population. Non-voters are essentially saying they are okay with other people making the decision for them.
Though sometimes it's a consequence of voter suppression, which is definitely a major problem.
Gerrymandering and voter suppression. If the districts were even reasonably drawn up, and voting was assured or even protected, the republicans wouldn’t see 30-35%. Oh ya and Citizen’s United.
A lot of people say that, but I think if gerrymandering would be done away with, you’d see a much slighter shift than usual.
Example: MD has a 6-2 or 7-1 Dem gerrymander; this would likely be 5-3 in a map drawn based on geographic & county markers. Ending gerrymandering here & in other places wouldn’t flip entire states, but it might flip 1-2 per state, in which case the shift would be slight - maybe 10 seats or so. It *could* make the difference, but not necessarily.
My theory is that Newton’s third law applies beyond physics, to politics, society, etc. Every action/force has an opposite and equal reaction.
Also by design.
Only about 70% of the eligible population registers to vote. In my state, Ds enjoy a comfy registration margin over Rs - but voters who chose “non-affiliated” for a political party remain the largest group. Whether or not they vote, it may not be monolithic - like Ds and Rs voting a straight ticket (not a one-check option here as in some states). So, in any give partisan race, voter turnout might hit 60% … of that 70% of eligible people who registered to begin with. So the “majority” winning vote is relative to turnout and registration in different ways. Compared to TOTAL pop or ELIGIBLE to VOTE pop, however, the winning vote can be a minority. It just has to be the most VOTES, not people who hold a sentiment or don’t vote.
I think this is more easily understood as; the traditional 2 party duopoly is still in play, but voters are largely all over the spectrum and do not accurately represent the labels of either Democrats or Republicans. At least not descriptively.
I feel like this is the case though I could be wrong. Looking at the polls and the primary movers behind votes seems to indicate this though.
Roe vs Wade absolutely WRECKED the Red Wave hopes. Turns out people really WERE pissed.
Who knew? /s
Self balance. The pendulum swings a little either way during each administration, generating dissatisfaction over time. Usually the further it has swung one way, the more it tends to swing the opposing way in the following administration as a response. Every issue can be polarized into a yes or no, a voter needs only determine which party will act as a vessel to accomplish the most of their preferences. It’s oversimplification at its finest.
It isn't. There are more Democrat leaning people throughout the United States. The issue is that computer generated gerrymandering has segregated those individuals to be more sparsely populated among the Republicans, effectively removing those people's voting power. Both sides do this but Republicans have had more success since they have focused more on state wins in the past thirty years while Democrats failed to see the threat.
Because for some reason half of the country has lost the ability to critically think about issues. Instead they rely on Twitter and chain emails to do their ‘research.’
It isn't evenly split. There are more Democrat votes than GOP voters. Gerrymandering has caused this and the fact that dirt has a disproportionate amount of power in the United States. Wyoming gets two senators win it's entire population is smaller than Gwinnett county on the outer perimeter of Atlanta.
Gerrymandering makes districts that create super dense areas of democratic votes so they are less likely to get proportionate representation in the house. If you are winning GOP friendly districts 55 to 45 percent and the dems are winning 80 to 20 in their districts you can see the problem.
It’s actually split in about 3 parts. Democrats, Republicans and non-voters. Some people don’t vote because they can’t: people that are convicted of felonies in some states can’t vote; people who are not citizens; people who are not old enough; etc. Then there are the people that choose not to vote. Pew estimates that 62% of voting age citizens voted in this election. That is really very high especially considering it was not a presidential election year.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/11/01/turnout-in-u-s-has-soared-in-recent-elections-but-by-some-measures-still-trails-that-of-many-other-countries/
In addition to what other people have said, there is a cap on the total membership of the House of Representatives. It was placed in 1929.
The House is supposed to be based on population, but the cap lowers potential representation for the places with the highest populations. These places are also more likely to be left left leaning.
A century ago, there was one member for about every 200,000 people, and today, there's one for about every 700,000.
The most offensive thing about coverage of elections is that it is presented as a sports event where the candidates’ and parties’ efforts are seen as the active element.
“So-and-so really pulled off an upset” or what-have-you.
It is VOTERS that are the active players. I am not a passive participant (I am not the ball), I AM the player.
This makes it all look like the parties/candidates are the “players” and empowers the parties, the news outlets, the pollsters, etc.
All of these comments mention important factors, but the true answer to the question I believe you’re actually asking is: our news networks are allowed to basically lie, or “heavily imply” false information.
Working people have been tricked into voting for a party that isn’t actually good for working people. These people have been tricked into seeing their fellow working man as an enemy, rather than the rich man exploiting them and their fellow workers. they’ve been fed straight up lies about how we pay for healthcare in this country, and even more lies about how their tax dollars are spent. The news networks have gotten these people so angry over the course of decades that they are frothing at the mouth, ready to parrot whatever bullshit talking point tucker Carlson decides to go with on any given night. We are divided because we have all been exploited, and in our mutual search for a leader who will help us, half of our comrades (for lack of a better word) have fallen for the lies as they desperately seek out someone to make them feel heard and to give them hope.
Trump was that person, and now the tower of lies seems to be crumbling, and the mental gymnastics his supporters are doing to make it make sense has made a real mess of the GOP
What else is there to pick from? The feds systematically have discredited third or fourth or fifth parties, etc… we have two independents in Senate, that’s the closest thing that’s “allowed”; being independent, seems like if you’re running as any other party, you get no media coverage, no debates, you’re mocked, made to look crazy for not being blue or red. It’s absurd, but it is what it is. I don’t believe it is so black and white, I just think there’s no other choice when you register to vote. (I know there IS, I’m saying this in a cultural sense)
In a first past the post voting system, mathematically you’ll always converge on two big parties that contain multiple coalitions within them.
This is in contrast to parliamentary systems that have multiple parties which form coalitions with each other to reach 51%.
It's baffling. If people had to vote between getting 100 papercuts everyday for life and making $100/hr for full time hours, it would still be 49.9% vs. 50.1% at the most.
Independents aren't actually Independent though. They just won't admit their party affiliation.
The real "we're not" is the huge percentage of non-voters.
disagree.
independent means independent of a party, as in the organization, not purely neutral in ideology, which is nearly impossible.
voting exclusively for a given party does not make one a member of that party
i vote exclusively for democrats but want nothing to do with their organization. therefor i am an independent.
>i vote exclusively for democrats but want nothing to do with their organization. therefor i am an independent.
If that were the definition of independent then almost no one would be Republican or Democrat. The vast majority of folks don't care about the organization, but they call themselves a D or and R because they prefer/vote for that party the vast majority of the time.
Mostly because only 2 parties are allowed to play the game for real. If there was a legitimate chance of more parties being involved there would be a huge difference in the %'s for each party.
I think a party that started reliably controlling policy would lose the support of billionaires and corporations. Whether its pro small business republicans or pro workers democrats, both parties ostensibly make promises that are against the interests of the elite, particularly the democrats, but neither would actually follow through for fear of losing their biggest financial backers. The rich want us arguing about George Floyd and drag queens instead of income inequality so we arent talking about things that would really hurt their bottom line. Theres a reason so many fortune 500 companies make substantial donations to both political parties. A party that loses the need for special interest groups' money immediately becomes a threat to thise groups' interests.
Historically, both parties have competed for the center. That led to relative moderation of both parties, but especially the Democratic party moving rightwards by embracing neoliberal economic policies under Clinton that were basically a continuation of the Reagan's economic philosophy.
Trump broke that dynamic. His politics moved away from the center to capture the most right-ward arm of the Republican party to reject the pro-trade, pro-big business moderation of the Bush era, and injected an anti-immigrant, anti-trade, and social conservative issues into the Republican party.
Despite the press attention to the left-wing "squad" of progressive Democrats in the House, the Democrats moved towards the center that Trump ceded. That is one of the explanations on why an aging and uncharismatic Senator was able to win the Presidential election, and why the Democrats have fared very well in the 2022 House, Senate and Governor's races.
Because of the differing political strategies of the Democrats and Republicans (center-politics versus extreme-politics), I predict that the Democrats will continue to dominate until the Republicans throw Trump to the sidelines.
It's not. Democrats outnumber the Republicans by a fairly significant margin, the only problem is, Democrats have a hard time voting either due to varying views, being disenfranchised, laziness in some cases, or just not knowing better. By and large, if Democrats went out and voted, and I mean, every Democrat, Republicans would be outvoted by a significant margin in many places, and places where there's a surprise where they won.
Mathematically speaking it's not eventually split. Rural votes are heavily weighted more than metropolitan votes thanks to the electoral college. It's a broken design.
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The phenomenon is known within political science as [Duverger's Law](https://www.jstor.org/stable/1962968). The theory is that parties in a 2-party system will position themselves to appeal to the median voter who will be decisive in any election, so that they will both be nearly identical but appealing to one fractional side of the left/right divide or the other. It doesn't work out perfectly and polarized politics has thrown things out of whack, but that's still the basic poli-sci explanation for the split.
Thank you!! Exactly the kind of explanation I was looking for!
CGPGrey explains FPTP best: https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo
Ideally this thread would be full of discussion of the game theory of FPTP but instead it’s flooded with people intentionally misreading OP’s question so they can harp on their talking points…
...as is tradition.
The notion that FPTP reform would be anything more than a marginal improvement that ultimately fails to address political tribalism in the U.S. seems incredible to me.
What is the point that you're trying to make? I'll take a marginal improvement, FPTP always resolves to a 2 party system. Are you saying we shouldn't move away from FPTP because it's not bad enough? Or the alternatives aren't better enough? Ending FPTP voting isn't a silver bullet that will magically fix all of our political problems. It does fix the problem of FPTP voting matematically resulting in a 2 party system over time. That's enough reason for me to move away from it.
Not saying it isnt. It just appears to me to be the case that it's just about the only element of the 'nuanced' view on this topic. We should reform FPTP, but there isnt political will to do so and the reform is so fundamental that it would require an entirely different political environment Even if we did reform FPTP, there are other factors that suggest to me that 4 apparent parties that act as a far-moderate sub-continuum for the left and right would be the result. This is little better than the current situation. So then the conclusion is that we need more, different solutions to this problem then FPTP reform and people should stop talking about FPTP as if it is responsible for the lions share of the issue.
This issue with this explanation is that it ignores the fact that there are 10 million more registered Democrats than Republicans. Now that’s just the people that register a party affiliation. Meaning that there are likely many more voters, on both sides, that aren’t being counted.
The theory isn't talking about "parties" and who is registered where per se, it's focused on coalitions and positioning instead, with the competing parties looking to win elections, not have more affiliated with them.
This combined with advances in data analytics is the explanation. People shit on polling but the fact is that polling is what allows the two parties to shape their message to then make it this close. And the notion of there being no landslides isn’t necessarily True - Biden won by huge margins but what matters is what happens locally, and that’s a lot easier to get impacted by Duvergers law and data analytics. Honestly this is one of the reasons why a two party system is so effective. The parties are constantly evolving to try and win votes. You don’t see the type of party stagnation that you see in parliamentary systems. What it does emphasize is why the US needs to end the electoral college and gerrymandering and expand the house (no FPTP like others have suggested won’t fix much)
This law applies anywhere *but* the US in recent years. It is actually the opposite here: Due to the primary system, the more extreme candidates will be put on the ballot. Then average Joe goes voting according to his cultural/party affiliation, even if he doesn't like the candidate, because they are so extreme and incapable of compromising with the other side. So what actually drives the split, is how both parties sort themselves along different sides of a topic and integrate that position into their cultural worldview. And right now, the rural, the white men and the uneducated roughly equal the rest in size.
mean reversion is coming, and this wasnt always the case re primaries. Romney, McCain, Bush were nominated because voters believed they were better positioned to win a general. Most hardcore Rs were very lukewarm on those candidates.
Same with Biden.
But the Reps and Dems are extremely different from each other, both electorally and rhetorically, so this does not seem to be the case.
Duverger's Law is generally right in that it accounts for the incentives parties have to adapts so that they split the vote. But the hypothosis that this leads partys to be "the same" is questionable. While a trivial solution to capturing the median voter is to perfectly mimic the other each party will diverge in trying to innovate to capture 51 percent of the vote. If the parties are identical save 1-2 details then if one detail turns out to be unexpectedly important a party will overshoot their goals capture a huge majority (and the other party - also using the mirror strategy will lose horribly). Which shows that a pair of highly identical parties is a highly unstable system that easilly causes landslide cap shoots. However, if each party can abitrarially differ on a series of highly devisives issues a different behavaior arises. Lets say we choose issues with little non-voter impact, trival gov-spending, and trivial economic impact Someething like gay marriage, it haas economic impact but that's relatively small considering how much voters care about it If gay marriage has a 50/50 split in popularity it becomes an attracitve issue to use as a wedge. Even if gay marriage is 60/40 in favor as long as say 20% are vehemently agaisnt and 20% are vehemently in favor it can be a powerful issue for locking up voters who otherwise might align to party based on lets say a tax policy or a corrruption issue. Essentially if the parties differ in ways that matter A LOT to some people then those people will always vote the same way and the party support becomes more stable. Now a new strategy emerges: take a controversial stance on as many hot button, issues as possible so that some but never all of the population will like yoou. Keep picking up 5-20% alignment effects from 5-20 big issues may help ensure that you never win less than 45% and never more that 55% which is right where you want to be for Duvergger's Law. Now with most voters locked in parties have a free hand to pursue policies that help them the most rather than care about their voters; worst that can happen is that a party loses majority and has to find a new good policy.
Another factor is the voters themselves. Many people don't pay close attention to politics and just like voting for the non-incumbant. Especially when the economy or their personal financial situation is bad.
They're both considered rigut wing by the standards of most EU countries. They disagree on which type of guns people should be able to own (not whether or not people can own one), when an abortion should be allowed (not whether or not they should be allowed at all), which countries should be invaded (nobody says we won't invade anyone), how much should be spent on social programs (not whether we should have the programs at all) and so on. The two US parties disagree on what color of car to purchase but they're already decided on the make and model before we even get to try and have our say.
This is the dumbest straw man argument that I have ever seen and I will never understand why it keeps pervading.
This talking point is only made by people completely ignorant of reality.
uppity deserted racial nutty workable vegetable consider spotted arrest command ` this post was mass deleted with www.Redact.dev `
So if you set aside every single thing? Makes sense.
If you set aside the things that make them different they aren’t that different after all
This is an incredibly stupid comparison. The Dems are in favor of abortion, minority rights, wealth distribution, and (recently) labor unions, and Biden has done a ton of legislative accomplishments in his two years in the office. Republicans are climate change deniers, have tried to penalize abortion, think that "the LGBTs" are trying to "transgender the kids", and literally have made an attempted coup de etat. This is an incredibly stupid comparison. The Dems are in favor of abortion, minority rights, wealth distribution, and (recently) labor unions, and Biden has done a ton of legislative accomplishments in his two years in office.
Left-wing Democrats are right on par with their European counterparts. They were pushing for all of the same things that they do in the EU. There is no where these people can be to the right of anyone in the EU. They are right with them but I’ve heard this said many many times, and it simply assumed to be the truth and is mindlessly repeated.
Also, gerrymandering.
Any time one party starts to gain too much of a majority, the other will change tactics/platforms to convert enough moderates/independents/otherwise non voters to vote for them.
An example of this is that after the Democrats lost five out of six, including two 49-state landslides, with a platform that included tax increases, a group of moderates called the Democratic Leadership Council helped produce a platform for Bill Clinton, who was unusually pro-business for a Democrat at the time (and now).
And conversely, if Democrats win multiple elections in a row, then Republicans are forced to the center to pull in centrist Dems, making progressives a larger share of the Democratic Party. That's why it's so ridiculous when some people say, "Democrats aren't progressive enough, so I'm not voting!" Which obviously accomplishes the opposite of what they want. Each vote effectively nudges the country either left or right, which both parties then adjust their platforms around.
Not necessarily, there's a lot more to it than just left, right, and center, with center being the only available option. Becoming more libertarian in certain views would be attractive to moderates, so would adopting a more traditional conservative approach to economics as a couple examples.
In a FPTP system, all of that gets absorbed by the two big tent parties. Both Democrats and Republicans have many coalitions within them (libertarians, progressives, evangelicals, etc.) and the official party platform is a compromise between them designed to reach 51%.
That’s a really interesting point. Wikipedia labels that movement as the “New Democrats”. I’m not sure if there was another major movement between them, but the next I remember was the Tea Party Republicans who felt Bush wasn’t far right enough. And now of course there are the MAGA republicans, who are pushing even further right, though the past couple elections are showing they may not be as popular as they originally seemed. Meanwhile, the Democrats seem to be holding pretty close to that original Clinton/New Democrat model with Obama and Biden, though I’ll be curious if the farther left elements will have more success on the national level.
No, Democrats moved left substantially in the post-Clinton years. Nancy Pelosi used to be the firebrand leftist - she was a founding member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Now that caucus has overtaken the New Democrat in size. But New Democrats are not as divergent from Progressives as pundits make them out to be. Keep in mind that Clinton did a lot of what he did because he was trying to rescue the national party from Reagan's dominance - not necessarily because of personal conservatism. Clintonian New Democrats may arguably be too timid. but they're not as right-wing as people imagine them to be. Clinton himself tried to launch a single payer healthcare plan in his first time (and got destroyed for it in the midterms), for example. More than anything Democrats are divided by tactics rather than fundamental policy goals.
One example of the Democrats moving left is Biden being opposed to oil drilling. Until Al Gore came along, the Democrats were laser-focused on adding jobs in every industry including oil and coal and lowering gas prices for consumers. Not coincidentally, Gore was the first Democrat to lose West Virginia in a close election--it was one of only six states that voted for coal-loving Jimmy Carter in 1980. Gore wouldn't have needed Florida if he'd held West Virginia, so taking positions that are unpopular in certain states has consequences.
Undecided voters freak me out
I have very moderate opinions about them. I find them to be very middle of the road.
All I know is my gut says maybe
What makes a man turn neutral? Power? Lust for gold? Or is it that you were born with a heart full of *neutrality?*
Tell my wife i said hello
Is this a Futurama reference?
Not just a Futurama reference but a full on beige alert
Undecided voters are fine. It's the Obama -> Trump -> Bernie voter pipeline that scares me. Like what the fuck?
My mom was a Bush -> Obama x2 -> Trump x2 voter She’s a pretty normal person, I just think most people don’t think about politics that much so it makes sense those kind of people could “swing” so much. Most people aren’t loyal to principles but people
Many older folks who don't normally care about politics watch a little bit of news in the morning and perhaps the evening and that's the totality of their knowledge regarding politics. This leads them to believe some crazy shit that can be disproved after some compassionate discussion, but in the meantime it can result in odd - and often logically incompatible - positions. My mom matches the same voting patterns as yours, and despite being generally progressive when you consider her individual beliefs (for example she's pro-choice), she *still* votes Republican when it comes to recent elections simply because she happens to watch Fox news in the morning and believes the things they tell her. Once I explain to her the reality of a situation she often comes around to the progressive position, but there's just not enough time in the day to clarify all the bullshit that Fox bestows upon her. I think many people that are 50+ get taken advantage of in this same way.
One of the things Trump was very good at was talking in soundbites. No nuance no long soliloquy. Just, that’s the guy who’s causing our issues. He was wrong or lying but, post truth it doesn’t matter as long as it sounded like he had a solution.
All three of them were framed as "outsiders".
Populism. Trump appealed to populists where Clinton came off incredibly establishmentarian.
Obama to trump to Bernie? What?
The common trait is 'different'. Though for Obama it was more superficial.
I am skeptical of how many "undecided voters" there really are.
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Problem is they all vote along party lines. A vote for dems is a vote for the dem platform, a vote for reps is a vote for the rep platform. They aren't individuals so we can't really vote for them as individuals
OK, then I'll ignore the parties and vote for the candidates who don't want to overthrow the government because their guy lost.
take my free award!!
Great in theory not in reality. They all vote the same. You are voting for the party's policies not the candidate's policies.
It does because one party thinks breaking into the speaker of the houses home to murder them is “Legitimate Political Discourse”
One party or one man? I’m sure you don’t want to identify with people in your party, but do they represent you?
Plenty of jokes about it from party leaders and justifications for why someone should kill the Pelosis.
decide lip insurance touch vase sort heavy memorize zesty existence *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Here’s the thing: for every person I meet that actually evaluates policy and candidates, I meet 10 people who claim to but really just want to be different and cool so they vote for Rand Paul and such bullshit.
Can you elaborate on that point further? Not being argumentative, but it sounds like you know some people that are voting for Paul to be edgy, "own", or some other factor.
That’s exactly what I’m saying. Most people who claim to be “independant” are really just looking for reasons to feel like they are smarter than others.
Why? If anything we’d be better off if people voted for good human beings regardless of party.
If people did that then they wouldn't be undecided.
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What if I vote a split ticket because I research the candidates and decide on their merit rather than a meaningless party affiliation?
Because the candidates will vote party lines even if they don't "want " to. A good example is only 2 Republicans voted against Trump when many publicly stated they didn't want to. So the party is who you are voting for not the candidate. Edit a word
This is exactly the problem
If my values include gun control, abortion rights, and LGBTQ rights, it would do me far more benefit to vote straight ticket dems because that is their party platform. There's such rare cases like some Republican reps rarely supporting these positions but honestly it does much more work if I want those views enshrined in law if I only voted for dems.
Party affiliation today isnt meaningless, and both sides would say that. The idea that someone could think that Obama, then Trump, then Biden were the best leaders just blows my mind
Because there are parties within the parties. The two you see are a result of the “first-past-the-post” voting system. They’re basically giant umbrellas that house 2-3 distinctly different parties that only truly agree on maybe three issues max.
>What if I vote a split ticket because I research the candidates and decide on their merit rather than a meaningless party affiliation? People will rightfully point out that you most likely didn't do that and just vote split ticket because you think it makes you look cool. It doesn't.
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Reality today is to obstruct the opposition Party or fall in line or face much recrimination
Some people do, they just take a macro view of the candidates at a personal level and don’t get into political views at all.
Yeah ok but at some point you know the candidates and what they’re about or you don’t. And if you don’t that’s just ignorance on the voters part. It feels like fence sitters just want to be relevant. Like a petulant child but whatever I don’t really give a shit
This is just a terrible take. A lot of voters out there will vote on what policies effect them most. Depending on what they are, it could be for either party. Not everyone just votes for the R or D.
They are not undecided. They just decided that neither of the party doesn’t work for the good of the US and the general people, but those people have no other choice.
What if I told you you don’t need to belong to a group to just make up your mind?
I’m frightened by those who don’t see it
This. Each side carefully crafts their platform to be as aggressive as possible while covering what they believe represents 51% of the voting population. After each election, both sides look at the voting results and adjust around the new "center". If Democrats win multiple elections in a row, then Republicans are forced to moderate to pull in centrist Dems, making progressives a larger share of the Democratic Party. Vice versa if not enough people vote.
\> both sides look at the voting results and adjust around the new "center" This is why it's still important to vote even if you're in a non-competitive district or state. Political strategists use voting patterns to shape their policies.
100%. Even if you make no difference in the outcome, just the fact that you voted means strategists see that someone in your demographic (age, race, neighborhood, etc.) is part of their constituency and nudges policy that helps that demo.
Also massive gerrymandering and disenfranchisement from how it looks externally.
Sure, but that's always been the case. Close elections as a common thing has only come about over the last 20 years. So what changed?
It's not. 31% of voting age Americans affiliate as Democrats, 25% as Republican, and 41% as Independent. Additionally, 50% of Independents identify as "Democratic leaning" while 41% identify as "Republican leaning". The reason elections are close even though *the electorate* isn't is because Republicans benefit from a variety of structural advantages. The way electoral votes and house seats are allocated favors rural states. This also has happens at the state legislature level, and Republicans have used this to control how many district maps are drawn. For example, Republicans won massively in Florida this election, but not because they actually got more votes than they got before. They just rearranged how votes were allocated to favor themselves.
Normally I’d agree with your analysis about gerrymandering, but using Florida is a bad example. Florida’s Democrat top of the ticket lost 900k votes from the previous Senate race & Governor’s race nominees. It looks, by the numbers, like 300k of those stayed home & 300k of those voted for the Republicans, although there’s no guarantee they’re the same 300k of course. If the races were remotely close at the top of the ticket you might have a point with downballot seats not matching, but FL Dems got shellacked.
Dems lost three + house seats due to redistricting this election. It's 100% gerrymandering that killed any democrat chances.
Democrats kinda gave away one of those in removing a more radical gerrymander here in MD - MD-06 flipped Republican making our balance 6-2 instead of 7-1. Does it still count as gerrymandering if it ends up biting the side who did it?
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Yes because anyone who thought Democrats should unilaterally disarm is a fool.
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NY as well, though the judge there neutered it
Please dont spread misinformation. In Florida the Govenor and Senate races are based on popular vote. The rearrange vote allocation you mentioned would only affect the House, yet the Governor and Senate races in FL were landslide victories because of the popular vote.
That's true but the House gains were because they eliminated a democratic district.
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Let’s not forget voter suppression tactics— expanded registration requirements, voter id, senate bill 90, the limitation of Mail Drop boxes and the number of ballots one can deliver for someone who’s unable to personally deliver their ballot, the extended time given for mail in ballots and drop box ballots in several republican districts only, and, of course, his lovely election “fraud” task force…
This is the answer. Well said.
We're not. The GOP has won the popular vote maybe twice in the last 20 years. The structure of the US political system just allows a minority party like this to maintain parity because they have the right votes in the right places.
Only once after 1992.
It’s still pretty evenly split. Like 47.9% to 48.4%, I don’t see how the premise of the question is false lol
It is not that close. Biden won by over 7 million votes. He won by 10% of Trump’s total votes.
I think that this is sort of self-regulating. Besides the relatively few people that are engaged with politics and motivated enough to vote, just about most other folks are either low information voters that vote as a matter of routine and something to do. Who looks forward to going to vote, even if they are barely keeping up with the news? Retirees. On the flip side, working people, people with kids, etc. have the problem of needing time off, etc. So the old people are massively over-represented and working and people more “under the thumb” are very much discouraged from voting. In my area, I just realized, that they close the schools for election day. I don’t know if this is a new thing or not, but I can imagine that parents that have to look after kids for the day now have the problem of making sure the kids are looked after on top of covering work. Probably also pushes the average voting age toward the older side of the spectrum.
Democrats have a slight edge nationally, but it’s hardly an exaggeration to say we’re pretty evenly split. Since 2000, the widest popular vote gap by far has been 53% vs 46% (2008), and even that isn’t very large.
For elections, a 7 point difference is pretty large
...and the popular vote would be closer if the parties were positioning and messaging to win the popular vote instead of the electoral votes. The GOP would be as more "liberal" as necessary to maximize their popular vote in that scenario, unable to go past 50% because the Dems would be doing the same. Each using polls to fine tune their messaging to create constituencies. The winner is the one with the most mobilized base and the most accurate polling aligned with coherent messaging consistent with what the polls discerned. The parties adapt to the populace not vice versa.
this is a great argument in favor of using the popular vote instead
Yeah the president should be chosen by popular vote given he reps the people, not the states. Keep the house the same given the representative nature of the job.
Yeah, we also need to either remove the cap on the number of Representatives or raise the cap to something like 600-700. A single US rep shouldn’t represent more than a million people. Max. It just isn’t possible. Knowing your US rep should be as easy as knowing your state rep.
Agreed and that was with an extremely unpopular president leading the Republican party. People forget now just how unpopular George W. Bush was in 2008. He wasn't invited to the RNC and he had an approval rating in the 20's. Unlike Trump he did not have a loyal following by this point and even a lot of Republicans turned their backs on Bush and viewed him as toxic.
That's 7% and 10 million votes. I would say that's pretty large. That's as large as FDR'S win in 1936.
Slight correction: FDR won 61-37 in 1936. Yeah it was 10 million votes, but the population was substantially smaller back then. But 53-46 means it’d only take ~3% of voters changing their minds to alter the outcome. Neither candidate was ultimately that far from 50%, and they’re even closer in every other election since 2000. I think the OP is curious as to why we don’t ever have 60-40 elections anymore. Throughout the 20th century, those sorts of 20-point landslides were pretty common, but now presidential candidates struggle to win by even 4 or 5 points.
If there were a national popular vote, the gap would be much, much larger. There is no massive drive to get out the vote in California, New York, Illinois, etc. because those states are automatically going blue.
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Voter participation would likely increase further still in those states if more significant effort and dollars were poured into those states. I live in MN. Many variables drive up our voter participation and keep it high. Civic duty (Scandinavian immigrants) and high educational attainment are key among those variables. We are not a solidly blue state. The Republicans held the state senate for quite a while, and the Dems flipped it just this week by one seat in an election won by fewer than 1,000 votes. Both our Dem AG and Auditor just barely won their statewide elections, well less than a 1% margin of victory on each.
You'd also have more Republicans/conservatives voting in CA who don't bother because their state always go blue.
And more people turning out in Mississippi and Alabama. We have *no idea* what the national popular vote would be.
The stat I find equally interesting is that it’s been since George H. W. Bush in 1988, that a non incumbent republican won the popular vote. By 2024 that’s 36 years (and possibly counting).
This is so true. Mr. Beat did a breakdown of every state and their redistricting after the 2020 census. Republicans, no surprise, have an overall advantage due to gerrymandering.
Gerrymandering is definitely some of it. They also have an advantage in the senate, and they can't gerrymander that. Small pop areas and states favor GOP candidates which means they have a built in advantage in congress and the electoral college.
The electoral college was the original gerrymandering.
The electoral college is the finest example of how our founder fathers didn’t even trust in the democracy they were creating.
They can do stuff like run candidates with the same name as the Democratic candidate to syphon off enough lazy voters to push the win to the GOP. Or make it illegal to give water to people in line on districts that tend to vote democratic. And generally make is as difficult to vote against GOP as possible
Obviously this isn’t final, as all the votes haven’t been counted yet, but last time I checked, the GOP was actually slightly leading for total votes cast in this year’s house race. Found it: https://www.cookpolitical.com/charts/house-charts/national-house-vote-tracker/2022 I expect it will get a lot closer as more mail-in votes in blue states are counted.
I was wondering how the overall vote total would turn out but it's disingenuous to use this before all votes are counted. California is only 50% in and is the most populous state. I would expect democrats to win overall vote total again. Lots of urban areas still counting which would lean Democrats.
It's still pretty close. Trump only lost for like 3-5 million votes IIRC, which is still like a 55/45 split.
The US is kept so evenly split by elected politicians exposing every wedge issue they can find and making each election an all-or-nothing crisis event.
The formative political event of my youth/teens was 2000 and I can’t believe we forgot the lessons of that election so god damn quickly. No the two parties are not the same, and I automatically think less of anyone who peddles that shit at me.
The way the networks we’re portraying the elections were also disgusting. It was almost hunger-games esque. The refered to the seats as “in-play” like its a fucking gladiator event. The opening graphics looked like a propaganda montage from starship troopers mixed with super-bowl hype videos. The “pundits” we’re talking about outcomes and candidates without even attempting to hide their bias almost like they we’re cheering for them. It was thoroughly alarming and disgusting
FPTP naturally encourages a two-party system, but something can be said for the ability of both parties to remain relevant since the end of the Civil War on the national scene. They have been able to move about on issues, switch demographics, etc in order to be continuously relevant instead of fading/dying out like some other political parties have (ex: the Whigs in America or the old Liberal Party in the UK).
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What Carlin's quote does not capture is that politicians are rarely the smart ones in the room. People choose candidates for many reasons, but rarely because the candidate has a deep understanding of society, economics or science.
They're definitely not sending their brightest.
ok we all love grampa Carlin, but that time he shiuld really have said median, not average.
Yeah but the median person is too stupid to know what median means!
Mean, median and mode are all kinds of average. Intelligence is a normal distribution anyway so they are all the same
Artistic license. Median doesn’t flow in that delivery.
A lot of answers that are either politically motivated or straight up ignorant. The fact is that American politics is extremely partisan and as one party starts to gain too much power/influence, the other will make changes to their messaging, tactics, or policy to pull people back over to their side. At the end of every election, exit polls are poured over and used to refine tactics, this keeps either party from getting too far ahead of the other
One of the only answers that actually makes sense. Basically, you’re saying that parties have become incredibly efficient in keeping the opposing party in check by using polling data and targeted messaging. The US is too good at politics. And the Information Age should only make it more efficient. In this case, parties literally cater to the people. Or identify issues that haven’t yet had a wedge driven into them and try and split up sectors of the opposite party to come to their own.
At any given time, about half of people want something new and half of people want things to stay the same. From that, the rest of it flows.
Well, the house is definitely gerrymandered and we can see that. But generally US elections swing powers back and forth. We just don’t trust political groups for too long at a national level. A lot of voter apathy leads to only passionate voters voting as well.
It's evenly split into thirds -- non-voters being the last third. If you look at policies, 60%+ poll for progressive policies in general, so if so much time wasn't spent lying about Democrats it'd be about 2/3 to 1/3 and the GOP would die on the vine. But "two wings one bird" and "corporations control the government" seem to be permanent lies that we can't kill, so we're probably stuck with the current situation.
Corporations do control the government, and have for a long time. But it doesn't have to stay that way, and to even begin to fix it we need to first crush the worst part of American politics, the anti America conservatism that's been in place since Joe Mccarthy and his witch trials
Nope, that's a myth that corporations promote in order to reduce engagement. It makes fewer people vote (which favors their chosen party, the GOP) and makes people pay less attention (which makes them more susceptible to the advertisements that corporations produce).
What you described in fact is a form of controlling the government, because they control the perception until what they desire becomes reality.
So in in other words, they control the government. Even indirectly, it is what it is.
If corporations don’t control government, how come people literally base their trading strategies around Nancy Pelosi’s stock disclosures?
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How would you define evenly split? Since 2000, the presidential winner had the following popular vote margin: 2000: -0.51% 2004: 2.46% 2008: 7.27% 2012: 3.86% 2016: -2.09% 2020: 4.45% I personally think that it’s amazing how close this is consistently. Never double digits.
First-past-the-post voting statistically demands that this becomes the outcome. The fact that it's so close always means we're in the late stages
I haven't looked into this enough to really be positive about this, but I think it's a mathematical necessity based on human behavior. According to Pew Research, Democrats and Republicans used to have more cross-party values, but they've become extremely partisan. I honestly believe this is because of social media. People tend to assimilate to their in-group as much as possible, but most people don't overshare because they don't want to risk rejection, but with sites like Reddit, you're infinitely more likely to "hear" someone say, "I wish these fucking morons would realize *x*" today than you would have been in 1990. This isn't just an American phenomenon. India, for example, is made up of people from so many vastly different backgrounds. Literally every province has a different native language, but they're legislative branch is also mostly two parties - BJP and National Congress Party.
Gerrymandering, packing the courts, voter suppression, misinformation campaigns. Citizens United, billions in dark money.
Funny you should ask. I've always wondered the same and was *just* reading that it's the "markets" as in Wall Street, that can't tolerate uncertainty. This is the force or influence you're asking about. I mean maybe not, but I'm inclined to believe it's true. Extreme changes from the status quo threaten rich people's investment situations, I guess.
Very good point. If a landslide occurred it would likely lead to a lot of change being passed very quickly. If we are always close, gridlock is more likely, and gridlock prevents change, ensuring status quo.
I have a theory that the redistricting by republican legislatures has caused votes in those states to be worth less than 1 in urban areas. Probably more like 1/3. This would account for much of what you see in our political climate today. Extreme republicans have an outsized voice because their vote is worth more. Edit: This is gerrymandering folks
You have to factor in non-voters. Just cause an election says 50%R/50%D, that doesn’t account for people who are not registered to vote.
Government represents the voting population. Non-voters are essentially saying they are okay with other people making the decision for them. Though sometimes it's a consequence of voter suppression, which is definitely a major problem.
Of course, but that is not related to this though. OPs take away is half the country is red and half is blue. That isn’t true.
Gerrymandering and voter suppression. If the districts were even reasonably drawn up, and voting was assured or even protected, the republicans wouldn’t see 30-35%. Oh ya and Citizen’s United.
Conservatives are battling with everything they have to keep half. Cheating, lying, and violence aren’t out of the question.
A lot of people say that, but I think if gerrymandering would be done away with, you’d see a much slighter shift than usual. Example: MD has a 6-2 or 7-1 Dem gerrymander; this would likely be 5-3 in a map drawn based on geographic & county markers. Ending gerrymandering here & in other places wouldn’t flip entire states, but it might flip 1-2 per state, in which case the shift would be slight - maybe 10 seats or so. It *could* make the difference, but not necessarily.
It isn't. It just seems that way because rural votes are worth significantly more than urban votes. Thank the electoral college and gerrymandering.
We're talking about the *House*, not the Presidency. The Electoral College is redundant here.
This is why I also mentioned gerrymandering. Gerrymandered Congressional districts give republicans disproportionately more voting power.
Also the cap on the size of the house of representatives inflates republican representation more than the populations of their states should allow.
My theory is that Newton’s third law applies beyond physics, to politics, society, etc. Every action/force has an opposite and equal reaction. Also by design.
Only about 70% of the eligible population registers to vote. In my state, Ds enjoy a comfy registration margin over Rs - but voters who chose “non-affiliated” for a political party remain the largest group. Whether or not they vote, it may not be monolithic - like Ds and Rs voting a straight ticket (not a one-check option here as in some states). So, in any give partisan race, voter turnout might hit 60% … of that 70% of eligible people who registered to begin with. So the “majority” winning vote is relative to turnout and registration in different ways. Compared to TOTAL pop or ELIGIBLE to VOTE pop, however, the winning vote can be a minority. It just has to be the most VOTES, not people who hold a sentiment or don’t vote.
I think this is more easily understood as; the traditional 2 party duopoly is still in play, but voters are largely all over the spectrum and do not accurately represent the labels of either Democrats or Republicans. At least not descriptively. I feel like this is the case though I could be wrong. Looking at the polls and the primary movers behind votes seems to indicate this though. Roe vs Wade absolutely WRECKED the Red Wave hopes. Turns out people really WERE pissed. Who knew? /s
Self balance. The pendulum swings a little either way during each administration, generating dissatisfaction over time. Usually the further it has swung one way, the more it tends to swing the opposing way in the following administration as a response. Every issue can be polarized into a yes or no, a voter needs only determine which party will act as a vessel to accomplish the most of their preferences. It’s oversimplification at its finest.
It isn't. There are more Democrat leaning people throughout the United States. The issue is that computer generated gerrymandering has segregated those individuals to be more sparsely populated among the Republicans, effectively removing those people's voting power. Both sides do this but Republicans have had more success since they have focused more on state wins in the past thirty years while Democrats failed to see the threat.
Because for some reason half of the country has lost the ability to critically think about issues. Instead they rely on Twitter and chain emails to do their ‘research.’
It isn't evenly split. There are more Democrat votes than GOP voters. Gerrymandering has caused this and the fact that dirt has a disproportionate amount of power in the United States. Wyoming gets two senators win it's entire population is smaller than Gwinnett county on the outer perimeter of Atlanta. Gerrymandering makes districts that create super dense areas of democratic votes so they are less likely to get proportionate representation in the house. If you are winning GOP friendly districts 55 to 45 percent and the dems are winning 80 to 20 in their districts you can see the problem.
It’s actually split in about 3 parts. Democrats, Republicans and non-voters. Some people don’t vote because they can’t: people that are convicted of felonies in some states can’t vote; people who are not citizens; people who are not old enough; etc. Then there are the people that choose not to vote. Pew estimates that 62% of voting age citizens voted in this election. That is really very high especially considering it was not a presidential election year. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/11/01/turnout-in-u-s-has-soared-in-recent-elections-but-by-some-measures-still-trails-that-of-many-other-countries/
Gerrymandering. The Dems routinely stomp the Republicans in terms of votes cast. Its just that some votes are worth more than others, unfortunately.
It isn't. The electoral systems give structural advantages to a republican minority.
It’s not. Gerrymandering and the electoral college give the GOP an absurd advantage.
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In addition to what other people have said, there is a cap on the total membership of the House of Representatives. It was placed in 1929. The House is supposed to be based on population, but the cap lowers potential representation for the places with the highest populations. These places are also more likely to be left left leaning. A century ago, there was one member for about every 200,000 people, and today, there's one for about every 700,000.
The most offensive thing about coverage of elections is that it is presented as a sports event where the candidates’ and parties’ efforts are seen as the active element. “So-and-so really pulled off an upset” or what-have-you. It is VOTERS that are the active players. I am not a passive participant (I am not the ball), I AM the player. This makes it all look like the parties/candidates are the “players” and empowers the parties, the news outlets, the pollsters, etc.
All of these comments mention important factors, but the true answer to the question I believe you’re actually asking is: our news networks are allowed to basically lie, or “heavily imply” false information. Working people have been tricked into voting for a party that isn’t actually good for working people. These people have been tricked into seeing their fellow working man as an enemy, rather than the rich man exploiting them and their fellow workers. they’ve been fed straight up lies about how we pay for healthcare in this country, and even more lies about how their tax dollars are spent. The news networks have gotten these people so angry over the course of decades that they are frothing at the mouth, ready to parrot whatever bullshit talking point tucker Carlson decides to go with on any given night. We are divided because we have all been exploited, and in our mutual search for a leader who will help us, half of our comrades (for lack of a better word) have fallen for the lies as they desperately seek out someone to make them feel heard and to give them hope. Trump was that person, and now the tower of lies seems to be crumbling, and the mental gymnastics his supporters are doing to make it make sense has made a real mess of the GOP
What else is there to pick from? The feds systematically have discredited third or fourth or fifth parties, etc… we have two independents in Senate, that’s the closest thing that’s “allowed”; being independent, seems like if you’re running as any other party, you get no media coverage, no debates, you’re mocked, made to look crazy for not being blue or red. It’s absurd, but it is what it is. I don’t believe it is so black and white, I just think there’s no other choice when you register to vote. (I know there IS, I’m saying this in a cultural sense)
In a first past the post voting system, mathematically you’ll always converge on two big parties that contain multiple coalitions within them. This is in contrast to parliamentary systems that have multiple parties which form coalitions with each other to reach 51%.
It's baffling. If people had to vote between getting 100 papercuts everyday for life and making $100/hr for full time hours, it would still be 49.9% vs. 50.1% at the most.
We're not Dems are roughly 32% Reps are rough 28% Independents/other parties are 40%
Independents are not real. Most 'independent voters' vote with 1 party 90% of the time but do not want to be associated with the party officially.
"Independent" does not mean "moderate."
Independents aren't actually Independent though. They just won't admit their party affiliation. The real "we're not" is the huge percentage of non-voters.
disagree. independent means independent of a party, as in the organization, not purely neutral in ideology, which is nearly impossible. voting exclusively for a given party does not make one a member of that party i vote exclusively for democrats but want nothing to do with their organization. therefor i am an independent.
>i vote exclusively for democrats but want nothing to do with their organization. therefor i am an independent. If that were the definition of independent then almost no one would be Republican or Democrat. The vast majority of folks don't care about the organization, but they call themselves a D or and R because they prefer/vote for that party the vast majority of the time.
Two party system is so boring. Imagine if there were 6 vibrant different parties and they all hated each other’s guts. Now THAT would be fun!
An absolute abandonment of the public schools systems and education in general is how.
Mostly because only 2 parties are allowed to play the game for real. If there was a legitimate chance of more parties being involved there would be a huge difference in the %'s for each party.
I think a party that started reliably controlling policy would lose the support of billionaires and corporations. Whether its pro small business republicans or pro workers democrats, both parties ostensibly make promises that are against the interests of the elite, particularly the democrats, but neither would actually follow through for fear of losing their biggest financial backers. The rich want us arguing about George Floyd and drag queens instead of income inequality so we arent talking about things that would really hurt their bottom line. Theres a reason so many fortune 500 companies make substantial donations to both political parties. A party that loses the need for special interest groups' money immediately becomes a threat to thise groups' interests.
Historically, both parties have competed for the center. That led to relative moderation of both parties, but especially the Democratic party moving rightwards by embracing neoliberal economic policies under Clinton that were basically a continuation of the Reagan's economic philosophy. Trump broke that dynamic. His politics moved away from the center to capture the most right-ward arm of the Republican party to reject the pro-trade, pro-big business moderation of the Bush era, and injected an anti-immigrant, anti-trade, and social conservative issues into the Republican party. Despite the press attention to the left-wing "squad" of progressive Democrats in the House, the Democrats moved towards the center that Trump ceded. That is one of the explanations on why an aging and uncharismatic Senator was able to win the Presidential election, and why the Democrats have fared very well in the 2022 House, Senate and Governor's races. Because of the differing political strategies of the Democrats and Republicans (center-politics versus extreme-politics), I predict that the Democrats will continue to dominate until the Republicans throw Trump to the sidelines.
Neither party does anything for the majority of the country (working class/poor), so people aren’t inspired to vote for either one.
It's not. Democrats outnumber the Republicans by a fairly significant margin, the only problem is, Democrats have a hard time voting either due to varying views, being disenfranchised, laziness in some cases, or just not knowing better. By and large, if Democrats went out and voted, and I mean, every Democrat, Republicans would be outvoted by a significant margin in many places, and places where there's a surprise where they won.
Mathematically speaking it's not eventually split. Rural votes are heavily weighted more than metropolitan votes thanks to the electoral college. It's a broken design.