Eight-party America

[AltWorlder]

This isn't meant to be a necessarily plausible scenario.  What I'm wondering if it's possible to represent all four corners of the Political Matrix.  For simplicity's sake, I'm just co-opting already existing parties, plus adding a few.  Note that I'm not trying to completely model this after the political landscape, i.e. I'm not able to shoehorn every major interest group/voting demographic into this.  It's more of a way of representing the four fundamental political ideologies based on the Political Matrix.

Democratic Party: The McGovern Coalition.  Pretty much the Dems of the real world, except perhaps with bits and pieces filed off.

Green Party: Same as our world, except perhaps with social democrats, peace and freedom types, and more pragmatic socialists who have left the other third parties in order to join a more viable side.

Republican Party: The Reagan Coalition.  The GOP of the real world except really missing certain portions that have gone to the other alternative parties.

Constitution Party: A less fringe version of the far right we know.  Perhaps Pat Buchanan had really joined them instead of taking over Reform.  Paleocons with a theocratic bent, plus some unrealized theocratic dreams.  But somehow moderated to have more appeal, probably by appealing more to the grassroots movement conservatives that populate places such as FreeRepublic.

Reform Party: Imagine Ross Perot hadn't jumped ship, and remained in control of his personal vehicle.  The Reform Party is pretty much the centrist party with insurgent intentions but a rather bland platform- fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets, campaign finance reform, moderation in social issues, etc.  However, that's the sort of different-but-not-scary-different thing that Independents might vote for every so often.  This Reform Party would actually live past the Clinton administration without falling apart, and have the slightly libertarian (probably more 'classical liberal') bent to appeal to people such as Schwarzenegger or Bloomberg.

Libertarian Party: You know 'em.

Populist Party: Composed of the more moderate but not liberal elements of the Evangelical Movement (think Rick Warren), plus conservative minorities, Southern/Midwesterners who are tired of Republican economic policies, maybe.  In any case, this party would appeal to a lot of people in both of the two major parties right now (much like a moderate libertarian party would), but in reality they're unable to breakaway and form their own movement.

Nationalist Party: Lou Dobbs type nativists.  Or perhaps Huey Long type populists.  Not adverse to government intervention to protect their personal interests.  Perhaps more socially conservative than the Populists, but their extremism is mostly related to the immigration issue.

I make no attempt to explain how there could be eight parties, nor even to guess at how big each party would be, thus I don't even know which ones would be the two major parties.  I would guess that there would be two parties, and several minor parties, but said minor parties wouldn't exactly be as insignificant as say the People's Socialist Liberation Marxist Party out of Podunk College, Liberalartston.

Just imagine the matrix:

                                                                       Nationalist Party


                                                                       Populist Party



Green Party                     Democratic Party                   Republican Party               Constitution Party



                                                                        Reform Party


                                                                        Libertarian Party

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

How are constitution and green right next to each other?

[AltWorlder]

It's fixed.

[MODU]

More the better!

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

It's fixed.

Oh - I didn't realize it was just word-wrapped.  Makes sense now.

[NDN]

Looks pretty accurate. I'd definitely be a member of Reform.

[MODU]

I'd definitely be a member of Reform.

Same, though I could possible swing a Populist vote depending on the candidate.

[tik 🪀✨]

I'd probably feel more comfortable being a member of party if this were the case.. probably Reform. Or Libertarian if they were truly economic centrists. Ah, if only. We would probably have more accurate representation, too, although it'd likely be even harder to get anything done.

[Person Man]

Reform or Democrats for me.

[Josh/Devilman88]

I would be, Democrat/Populist(Left side)

[Padfoot]

If only we could live in such a world.  <sigh>  I'd be much more likely to officially join up with a political party in such a place.  If only we could get a good IRV system going it might be possible someday.  I imagine most states would only have half of these parties on their ballot even then though.

[MasterJedi]

Somewhere between Populist and Nationalist.

[Bacon King]

Pretty decent divisions, I think, though i think your graph would fit better if it was rotated 45% counterclockwise.

[AltWorlder]

So- does anyone think that I'm missing any possible political ideologies/configurations?

Also, I just realized that my visual map was following the Political Compass, not the Matrix.  The Matrix one would look more like this:

Nationalist Party                                                                     Constitution Party




            Populist Party                                        Republican Party




            Democratic Party                            Reform Party



Green Party                                                                Libertarian Party             

[Хahar 🤔]

Democratic/Green for me, possibly voting for the occasional good nationalist.

[Lief 🗽]

Green/Dem swing voter, with the occasional Populist or Reform vote.

[Brandon H]

If you want to go 8 parties, I think foreign policy would make a better division than the "inner" and "other".

[AltWorlder]

Any ideas as how that could work?

[Brandon H]

As long as you are being flexible with the parties, have the Reform and Populist Parties be interventionist (like the Rep's and Dem's) and the Nationalist Party non-interventionist (like the GP, CP, and LP).

[AltWorlder]

That sounds about right.  I had imagined the "inner" parties to be more likely to be mainstream and thus bigger and able to appeal to more people.  The "outer" parties are more ideological and fringe.  It's not unlike the situation right now with the Greens, Libertarians, and Constitution Party.  I'd have to say that more people are indifferent or in favor of moderate interventionism abroad than those third parties.

[Sensei]

I'd still be a Democrat, but I could see myself voting Reform on occasion.

[AltWorlder]

Anyone else interested in this?

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Populist, with the occassional vote for Democrats/Nationalists.

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

Reform or Republican

[CultureKing]

I would be very split between Gren and Democrat though every now and then voting with Reform. I would love this system.