If the US had a parliament (w/ presidential candidates as party leaders)

[Adam Griffin]

Can't find the article for this; it's floating around social media today.

I would pay good money to see a SDP-PP majority government!

[RaphaelDLG]

Proportional representation is so much better than FPTP in so many ways, it's astounding.  I dream about this scenario a few times a month.

This system would obviate the whole dance we're going through right now about reunifying the Democratic Party, and the whole lesser of two evils Coke and Pepsi nonsense we face every four years.  And we likely would have had a lot more female representation in Congress.

Obviously the most likely coalition would be SDP-LP, which would be pretty badass.  Perhaps no one would be in a coalition with the People's Party, because it'd be electorally radioactive like Jean-Marie Le Pen because of all of Trump's racist statements.

Thanks for the post.

[RaphaelDLG]

I would pay good money to see a SDP-PP majority government!

There's no way in hell Donald Trump would agree to be merely deputy PM.  In fact, he'd love permanently being in opposition, sucking up as much media coverage as possible while constantly insulting whoever is in the majority coalition.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Order, the honourable member will not interrupt the Chancellor of the Duchy of Delaware. Order, I'm naming the honourable member from Oklahoma's 2nd district. Division.

[Hydera]

People's Party should be far-right not populist.

Also the only governing situation possible would be LP minority government with supply by SDP since a coalition would be bound to breakup.

SDP and People's Party would be fighting for the same votes as in europe, working class whites. In a situation where People's Party manages to captures votes from SDP then they might either be the governing party in a coalition with the other rightwing parties or give supply to the smaller parties despite being bigger due to fear of losing votes by being in power and having the media spotlight.

[Vosem]

We should have Australian-style ranked voting and give Trump the Pauline Hanson treatment.

[NOT gonna be banned soon]

OK, here is the 2012 Election:

(percentages based on number of seats, not popular vote)

Barack Obama (Liberal): 235 Seats(54.02%)
Mitt Romney (Conservative): 147 Seats (33.79%)
Rick Santorum (Christian Coalition): 25 Seats (5.75%)
Bernie Sanders (Social Democratic): 24 Seats (5.52%)
Ron Paul (People's): 4 Seats (0.92%)

[This account no longer in use.]

Are they basing this off of the current House of Representatives membership or presidential election votes? I'll run the calculations on the former scenario if it's the latter one.

[Kingpoleon]

I'd support the Conservatives and hope for a Liberal-Conservative government.

[RaphaelDLG]

We should have Australian-style ranked voting and give Trump the Pauline Hanson treatment.

PR or even just FPTP is way better than AV imo.

We could have PR pretty easily with our current Congress (the Senate would still have to be FPTP or IRV or blanket primary).

What would be the best option for President of the United States in your opinion - a top-two runoff?

[StateBoiler]

I don't vote for parties. I vote for individuals.

If we had the British system and stuck it here, John Boehner and Paul Ryan would've been the chief politicians running the country the past 6 years.

The problem with parliamentary systems and sticking it in the U.S. with the false assumption it's apples to apples is at no point do voters in the UK or any of the Commonwealth states actually vote for an executive, the Governor Generals are appointed and it's a meaningless position with no power, and the monarchy in the UK has little to no power. Proportional representation doesn't work for an executive - only one person wins, 2nd gets nothing. So it'd have to be an Argentina-style or France-style top two runoff, making it a binary election which is not proportional. UK parties would be switched around to where they wouldn't look like they normally do in an executive-based election. UKIP and the Greens for instance probably wouldn't exist. It'd make far more sense for them to try and take over the Conservative and Labour parties respectively by winning the primary or the British party equivalent for their executive elections.