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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group
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To: 49thMIMOMander who wrote (5004)10/14/2001 9:26:58 PM
From: Bilow  Read Replies (1) of 281500
 
Hi ilmarinen; Re consensus and vetoes...

The reason that the U.S. political scheme is so stable is that the rules create a system where there are likely to be only two parties with any chance of winning anything. Since everyone wants to vote for a party that has a chance of winning, we end up with a system where two parties collect the vast majority of the votes.

The result is that the two parties are always fighting over the swing voters. That means that they are forced to moderate their opinions so as to avoid scaring swing voters into the other party's arms.

Of course we complain about it, and say that "there's not a dime's worth of difference between the two political parties," but that's a measure of our stability and success, not an indication of failure. That there is so little difference between the two parties is the primary reason so many people don't bother to vote.

Far worse is the situation where there are lots of very small parties. That's where you're more likely to end up with a situation where Hitler or Stalin has a chance of winning with a minority of the total vote. (As Hitler, in fact, did.)

The other safety feature of the American experiment is that it takes a long time to get anything significant done around here. Again, we perceive this as a weakness, but in fact it is a source of stability. Part of that stability is due to the setting up of the three branches of government in competition for power.

-- Carl
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