How should a two-party political system work?
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  How should a two-party political system work?
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Author Topic: How should a two-party political system work?  (Read 834 times)
Meursault
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« on: May 23, 2014, 03:35:30 AM »

A lot of people who in good faith complain about the dysfunctionality of the current American political scene seem to hearken back to bygone eras to show that the current cutthroat process hasn't always dominated our political life.

The 1950s in particular are often invoked as a period of collegial, rather than adversarial, two-party governance. And I'd agree with it to a point - while suggesting it is impossible to return to bipartisan consensus building ala the Eisenhower Administration.

I suggest this irreplicability is because of a shift in the structural behavior of the Parties. What Eisenhower did, for instance, was to 'conservatize' the New Deal. Decoupling interventionist economic philosophy from its left-ish moorings, he turned it instead to conservative pursuits - justifying the largest Federal public works project in history (the Interstate Highways) through the nationalist rationale of public works.
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Meursault
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« Reply #1 on: May 23, 2014, 03:39:17 AM »

After Nietzsche, I call this a 'values inversion', when the logical structure of one mode of thought is used to support concrete actions that more properly belong to another.

I don't believe this sort of maneuver is possible, on a meaningful scale, so long as the Parties separate themselves out ideologically. Am I wrong here?
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H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY
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« Reply #2 on: May 23, 2014, 05:15:13 AM »

It shouldn't. There are too many diverse ideologies in America for a two-party system to represent everyone's views well.
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muon2
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« Reply #3 on: May 23, 2014, 08:01:56 AM »

I would not overlook the change in the media from the 1950's to the present. From the New Deal through the Cold War the media was dominated by radio and television networks that were few in number and played to the middle both for economic reasons as well as federal regulation of the air waves. This corresponds to the "bygone era" of political collegiality.

Before radio, newspapers were often highly partisan and with the advent of the privately controlled telegraph could organize papers with a similar editorial philosophy. At its peak the era of yellow journalism reflected a period of high political polarization and a lack of collegiality across the aisle.

With the rise of cable TV and the internet with media model in many ways has returned to its pre-radio days. There are far more outlets with diverse opinions than there were in the 1950's. Many of today's media giants have a clear editorial slant, not unlike Hearst and Pulitzer did during the Gilded Age. Even small independent outlets (blogs, etc) show a clear uncompromising agenda that one wouldn't easily find 60 years ago, but one could find 120 years ago.

Today's cutthroat politics would be easily recognized in the bygone era of the bygone era.
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AggregateDemand
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« Reply #4 on: May 23, 2014, 04:14:45 PM »

Partisanship was not as present during the 1950s because the government was perceived as competent. They had organized victory in WWII, and they had finally pulled the US out of depression. After the war, the debt was paid down, while growing the economy. Congress was basically 1-party Democratic rule.

Unfortunately, inflation and demand-subsidies are not an economic panacea. Regulatory competence disintegrated. We still don't have competent economic leadership in Congress. We fix all of our problems by borrowing money or raising taxes, which makes our problems worse.

If the government ever regains competence, bipartisanship will be the norm again. 
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TNF
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« Reply #5 on: May 23, 2014, 04:33:21 PM »

A two-party political system is inherently dysfunctional because it can never fully represent the public. Sure, it does a great job of limiting the size and scope of debate between the bourgeoisie (always in their favor, of course) but fundamentally a two-party system is antithetical to real democratic governance.
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H. Ross Peron
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« Reply #6 on: May 23, 2014, 06:08:34 PM »

It shouldn't. There are too many diverse ideologies in America for a two-party system to represent everyone's views well.
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Redalgo
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« Reply #7 on: May 25, 2014, 01:30:31 PM »
« Edited: May 25, 2014, 01:42:23 PM by Redalgo »

Two parties are grossly inadequate if one values representation of the citizenry's political convictions, liberal discourse, and robust debates that bring diverse policy recommendations into consideration. The two-party arrangement under the best of circumstances promotes primacy of self-serving opportunism rather than ideology, and at worst leads to de-facto single party domination of vast geographic regions with impunity during elections from competitors outside of its own membership. It makes sense to either have many competing, idealistic parties in a representative democracy or a single governing body using authoritarian means to select leaders from among technical experts, geniuses, philosophers, etc.  

Partisanship and hackery have always been problems, I think, and the level of collegiality amongst politicians at levels above municipalities says more about the ideological overlap and ambiguity of their parties' respective goals than anything else... though perhaps there is something to be said for electing representatives who are not sociopaths, social dominators, or the sort who do controversial things simply to get media attention (not that I believe they have ever been absent in our government, mind you)? So far as I can tell people who score very low on the RWA scale tend to be collaborative in political simulations rather than highly-prejudiced, mutually-distrustful, and drawn towards use of violence against opponents.

The current level of toxicity in political discourse might be the result of things like improved means of mass communication, diminished ideological overlap between parties, and at least some decline in old systems of corrupt patronage - political elites being less coordinated in their interests than in the past.
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Lief 🗽
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« Reply #8 on: May 25, 2014, 02:25:44 PM »

A two-party system is fine, provided that the parties are relatively ideologically coherent and united (which is currently the case, but was not the case during the less partisan 1950s and such, where both parties were basically divided into Southern and Northern wings and party discipline was a lot less strict). Ideologically coherent and unified parties are a good thing, as is partisanship, as they make the consequences of elections more clear and allow voters to make better informed choices.

The problem with our current political system, what makes it so dysfunctional, is not partisanship or a lack of collegiality between the parties. The problems are the filibuster in the Senate and unequal representation in the House and Senate, which prevent a party that wins a majority of the vote from implementing its agenda, so that the voters are able to ratify it or reject it in the next election.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #9 on: May 25, 2014, 03:23:21 PM »

A two-party system is fine, provided that the parties are relatively ideologically coherent and united (which is currently the case, but was not the case during the less partisan 1950s and such, where both parties were basically divided into Southern and Northern wings and party discipline was a lot less strict). Ideologically coherent and unified parties are a good thing, as is partisanship, as they make the consequences of elections more clear and allow voters to make better informed choices.

The problem with our current political system, what makes it so dysfunctional, is not partisanship or a lack of collegiality between the parties. The problems are the filibuster in the Senate and unequal representation in the House and Senate, which prevent a party that wins a majority of the vote from implementing its agenda, so that the voters are able to ratify it or reject it in the next election.

THIS.
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greenforest32
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« Reply #10 on: May 26, 2014, 12:52:53 AM »

A two-party system is fine, provided that the parties are relatively ideologically coherent and united (which is currently the case, but was not the case during the less partisan 1950s and such, where both parties were basically divided into Southern and Northern wings and party discipline was a lot less strict). Ideologically coherent and unified parties are a good thing, as is partisanship, as they make the consequences of elections more clear and allow voters to make better informed choices.

The problem with our current political system, what makes it so dysfunctional, is not partisanship or a lack of collegiality between the parties. The problems are the filibuster in the Senate and unequal representation in the House and Senate, which prevent a party that wins a majority of the vote from implementing its agenda, so that the voters are able to ratify it or reject it in the next election.

THIS.

But FPTP/two-party systems prevent ideological coherence through artificially limiting the spectrum of parties. It's basically a high electoral threshold that forces people to channel their energy within one of the parties rather than letting them be free to create their own party and campaign for their platform and ideas. That seems like a conservative system designed to protect the incumbents, not an ideal electoral system that best represents the electorate.

The 70-90% one-party majorities we see in a lot of the state legislatures here in the U.S are pretty fake when you think about it.
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politicallefty
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« Reply #11 on: May 26, 2014, 09:03:42 AM »

The problem with our current political system, what makes it so dysfunctional, is not partisanship or a lack of collegiality between the parties. The problems are the filibuster in the Senate and unequal representation in the House and Senate, which prevent a party that wins a majority of the vote from implementing its agenda, so that the voters are able to ratify it or reject it in the next election.

I agree with this. What has happened is that the political system has evolved over time. The problem is that our system of government has essentially remained static over that same time period (save for some minor Congressional rule changes here or there). As you say, the broad coalitions that used to make up the two parties have given way to the ideological spectrum with much higher party discipline. The political system is now essentially parliamentary in nature. I think the dysfunction in Washington is a result of the lack of constitutional evolution in terms of Congress and the Presidency. The last truly significant reform to the system was the direct election of Senators, now over 100 years ago. Elimination of the filibuster and partisan gerrymandering would be great reforms, but it wouldn't be a cure-all for the dysfunction.
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TDAS04
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« Reply #12 on: May 26, 2014, 10:51:42 AM »

It shouldn't. There are too many diverse ideologies in America for a two-party system to represent everyone's views well.
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Indy Texas
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« Reply #13 on: May 26, 2014, 12:49:06 PM »

It's worth pointing out how large and all-encompassing World War II was. Everyone was either serving in the military or knew someone who was; the people who weren't were still rationing food and collecting scrap metal and all sorts of other things. I'd imagine the American people as a whole had a much greater esprit de corps as a result.

You had wealthy, well-connected people like George H. W. Bush enlisting and spending months of their lives living and working with people far below their socioeconomic stratus for their survival and the accomplishment of their goals. If George H. W. Bush was our age, he would have gone directly to Yale from high school and would probably be working for McKinsey or Goldman Sachs and wouldn't go anywhere near the armed forces. The Iraq War, for all intents and purposes, wasn't even happening for most Americans apart from a short feature on the news every now and then. Instead, that burden fell much more heavily on a much smaller segment of the population than with previous conflicts.

So it's not necessarily surprising that there's a blue collar guy in rural Kentucky who had one son go to Iraq and another go to Afghanistan and risk their lives to defend a country he's always been told is the greatest on Earth, only to have that country's government bail out a bunch of Yankee bankers and some of "those people" who were living too high on the hog, and then turn around and tell him that he has to buy a particular kind of health insurance.

Or that there's a blue state liberal who doesn't know a single person who has ever served in the military and doesn't understand why those stupid conservative rednecks have to be so obsessed with their guns.

I think if you took random Americans, separated them from their families, sent them to a hostile foreign country and told them they were responsible for coming back alive, and they were forced to depend on and trust people who weren't necessarily like them socially or culturally or politically, they'd probably have a much more respectful attitude when they returned.
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Redalgo
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« Reply #14 on: May 28, 2014, 12:43:35 AM »
« Edited: May 28, 2014, 01:44:05 AM by Redalgo »

I think if you took random Americans, separated them from their families, sent them to a hostile foreign country and told them they were responsible for coming back alive, and they were forced to depend on and trust people who weren't necessarily like them socially or culturally or politically, they'd probably have a much more respectful attitude when they returned.

Was it really military service and fear for survival doing that, however, or was it appeals to authoritarian sentiments buried away deep inside a lot of people? The state downplayed individualism, promoted self-censorship, collaborated intensely with firms to advance its interests, churned out propaganda, did not hesitate to craft certain policies based in common prejudice (e.g. internment of families whose ethnic backgrounds were cause for suspicion), and reduced able-bodied men to the condition of being tools for the state - forcing many to choose between conscription, assignment to state projects on the home front, or imprisonment. Add in the militarism and most of the ingredients for a dystopia are there, yeah?

Sometimes I wonder whether Pres. Roosevelt was at his core just a well-intended illiberal strongman whose legacy was secured by having been in charge when the war broke out.

Anyway, getting people to be more conformant, less skeptical, and fiercely loyal towards in-groups of perceived compatriots does not appeal to me. Unsure
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