Should The Party System Be Abolished?

Should the party system be abolished?

A party system is a concept in comparative political science concerning the system of government by political parties in a democratic country. The idea is that political parties have basic similarities: they control the government, have a stable base of mass popular support, and create internal mechanisms for controlling funding, information and nominations.

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Yes. It encourages lazy and apathetic voting.

No. They serve a necessary function and encourage a more unified approach to public affairs. The Era of Good Feelings, in which the nation only had one official political party broke down into far more instances regional sectarianism than our contemporaries could comprehend.

Yes. Abolish the party system but allow political parties. The system needs to be abolished and replaced with one that allows third parties and independents to have a chance.

TeleKat said:

Should the party system be abolished?

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You can't get rid of the party system unless you ban people from forming like minded associations and commiserating under the same standard. There are Constitutional rights involved.

The first parlaiment in the late imperial Austria of the 19th century had over 200 political parties in it`s parlaiment. Alot of parties being represented by only 1-10 representatives.

Weird parties such as "City socialist workers party Vienna", "city conservatie catholics of Vienna", "City socialists of Budapest", "Zionist party of eastern Hungary", "Zionist party of Vienna", "Slovenian catholic conservative party", "Czech conservative protestand nationalist party of Prague", "Vienna jewish nationalist party of integration", "Tyrol farmers socialist party", "Liberal Viennese party", "German nationalist paty" and on and on and on.

The result was chaos, nothing was accomplished by the parlaiment.

Which as a result made the head of state (the emperor) and the mayors of the most important cities Vienna, Prague and Budapest the leaders of the country.

Would you like to have your country governd exclusively by the president and the governors of the 5 most important states?

Should The Party System Be Abolished?

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for the past decade or so, my opinion has been that more parties would help. however, more and more, i feel that we should consider moving away from political parties entirely.

Sherman123 said:

You can't get rid of the party system unless you ban people from forming like minded associations and commiserating under the same standard. There are Constitutional rights involved.

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The question was should the party system be abolished, not should political parties be abolished. Political parties can exist in the absence of a party system, they just would not be legitimized and protected through the voting system.

It should be illegal for the ballots to say what political party candidates are from. If you don't know at least this much, you probably should just forego voting.

TeleKat said:

Should the party system be abolished?

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I am not sure it is something you can actually get rid of.You can ban democrat and republican parties, but they will just still get together and claim to be for similar things.

I think what needs to happen is to ban party affiliations on ballots, voting booths and polling places with exception to primary elections.Instead of party affiliations it should have a short list of the candidate's stands and if possible a short list of votes that confirm or contradict that is what the candidate stands for.On the voting booth wall there should be a more thorough list of issues and past votes and bills/amendments authored. polling places that have high turnout there should be pamphlets passed out to those waiting in line. This would force those that pay little to no attention to politics to actually vote on the issues instead of the party.

Lakryte said:

Yes. Abolish the party system but allow political parties. The system needs to be abolished and replaced with one that allows third parties and independents to have a chance.

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Third parties don't have a chance because they don't appeal to anyone. There isn't enough significantly different between third parties and the major parties to matter, most of them have one unrealistic plank in their platform that will never happen and that make people shake their heads and go elsewhere. I want everyone to have an equal chance to be heard but I don't think that even if that happened, the third parties would have a chance in hell of getting elected.

jamesrage said:

I am not sure it is something you can actually get rid of.You can ban democrat and republican parties, but they will just still get together and claim to be for similar things.

I think what needs to happen is to ban party affiliations on ballots, voting booths and polling places with exception to primary elections.Instead of party affiliations it should have a short list of the candidate's stands and if possible a short list of votes that confirm or contradict that is what the candidate stands for.On the voting booth wall there should be a more thorough list of issues and past votes and bills/amendments authored. polling places that have high turnout there should be pamphlets passed out to those waiting in line. This would force those that pay little to no attention to politics to actually vote on the issues instead of the party.

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Far too idealistic (and dare I say, liberal). I will give you this, though. You have the public ambition of some of the Founding Fathers, but absolutely none of their follow-through. They took far more than baby steps in creating the Party system, and for good reason.

Cephus said:

Third parties don't have a chance because they don't appeal to anyone. There isn't enough significantly different between third parties and the major parties to matter, most of them have one unrealistic plank in their platform that will never happen and that make people shake their heads and go elsewhere. I want everyone to have an equal chance to be heard but I don't think that even if that happened, the third parties would have a chance in hell of getting elected.

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Considering a plurality of Americans are not registered with either major party, clearly there is a demand for third parties. The problem is the parties are so shut out by the system that nobody bothers to vote for them because it wont get them anywhere. If you reformed the system, third parties would get elected. More third parties would form. That is the point.

what needs to be removed is the public disinterest in politics and get more of the people involved in politics.

Lakryte said:

Considering a plurality of Americans are not registered with either major party, clearly there is a demand for third parties. The problem is the parties are so shut out by the system that nobody bothers to vote for them because it wont get them anywhere. If you reformed the system, third parties would get elected. More third parties would form. That is the point.

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If there was, third parties would be getting elected! The reason third parties are shut out, and I agree that they are in some places, is because the American people allow it! Nobody is upset about it! Nobody is standing up and demanding something be done about it! This is always treated as a giant conspiracy theory by third parties, that everyone actually supports the third parties but the Democrats and Republicans are out to get them! They've only got that power because the American people gave it to them and continue to give it to them!

Lakryte said:

Considering a plurality of Americans are not registered with either major party, clearly there is a demand for third parties. The problem is the parties are so shut out by the system that nobody bothers to vote for them because it wont get them anywhere. If you reformed the system, third parties would get elected. More third parties would form. That is the point.

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Look what Prop 14 did for elections in California. In the end, it shut out political parties and opened the door for manipulation of votes in the primaries in order to end up with only the top two vote getters appearing on the ballot in the General Election.

Democrats effectively shut out the competition and the dialog that multiple parties appearing in the general election can produce.

ocean515 said:

Look what Prop 14 did for elections in California. In the end, it shut out political parties and opened the door for manipulation of votes in the primaries in order to end up with only the top two vote getters appearing on the ballot in the General Election.

Democrats effectively shut out the competition and the dialog that multiple parties appearing in the general election can produce.

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And there are actually people who spend time thinking up these schemes! Scary! :afraid: Then they follow up with lawsuits about "disenfranchising" voters by requiring voter ID! Got it!

polgara said:

And there are actually people who spend time thinking up these schemes! Scary! :afraid: Then they follow up with lawsuits about "disenfranchising" voters by requiring voter ID! Got it!

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I won't go into the political horse trading that occurred to get it on the ballot.

Think about it. All the Democrats have to do is run two popular candidates for an office. Say US Senator. They work to split the vote in the Primary, and then it's just two Democrats on the ballot in the general election. Viola, a one party system. Unbelievable what Progressivism really looks like until you see it in action year after year.

Cephus said:

If there was, third parties would be getting elected! The reason third parties are shut out, and I agree that they are in some places, is because the American people allow it! Nobody is upset about it! Nobody is standing up and demanding something be done about it! This is always treated as a giant conspiracy theory by third parties, that everyone actually supports the third parties but the Democrats and Republicans are out to get them! They've only got that power because the American people gave it to them and continue to give it to them!

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The American people give it to them because the system is designed to not give them that choice. Say 20% of people want the Green Party, 35% want Democrats, and 55% want Republicans. Also say that all of the Green Party people would support a Democrat over a Republican. If people who would vote for the Green Party would do so, then they will essentially be ensuring their third choice wins over their second choice. So they settle for something less ideal.

The American system is biased against third parties being viable options to vote for in the first place.

In a time when our Congress is at its lowest approval rating in history, I doubt we should be worried about numerous third parties leading to incompetence. We've already got plenty of it.

Cephus said:

If there was, third parties would be getting elected! The reason third parties are shut out, and I agree that they are in some places, is because the American people allow it! Nobody is upset about it! Nobody is standing up and demanding something be done about it! This is always treated as a giant conspiracy theory by third parties, that everyone actually supports the third parties but the Democrats and Republicans are out to get them! They've only got that power because the American people gave it to them and continue to give it to them!

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But it starts with people raising awareness about the matter, and/or what can be done. This is what some people are trying to do. It seems like your reaction to this is to dismiss the effort to change things by saying they would already be changed if people them to be.

I do think there are many people frustrated with the '2 party system', but most don't understand what could be done. It would be a major effort to dislodge the 2 parties from their favored place, and it is in MOST places that they are. Or rather, the 2 party system itself favors 2 existing parties to remain in power, once power is attained. But there are also mechanisms specifically geared to perpetuate the status quo. Gerrymandering is one example.

However, the biggest change that would weaken them would be instant runoff voting. I strongly believe that with IRV, a quarter of congress would be from outside the major parties within 20 years, probably mostly in the House. There are very libertarian areas, very liberal areas and very conservative areas that would elect people from parties that represent those views. I also believe a centrist party could possibly make some headway. I think all this is intuitive, but we couldn't know unless it actually happened. However, we DO know that it is typical in countries that have more representative voting systems that they DO actually have significant numbers of people being elected from more than just their major parties.

The problem is power.
Multimillionaires running for low (for them) paying jobs with lot's of frustration (gridlock) do it for only one reason I can think of.
power.
Restrict the federal government to only those duties enumerated in the Constitution, and uphold the nullification power of states,
If you did. most of the house and senate and maybe cabinet would resign.
People would run for office that wanted to serve, not lord it over us.
3rd parties would have a chance, because special interests aren't going to invest millions in buying wimps with little real power.
Your regional interests will be better served at the state level.
Pork barrel politics gets greatly reduced, because unholy coalitions don't get formed with all snouts in the trough.
Decentralize.
Centralization of power never works for good.