That said, I would shorten this by deleting the paragraph about whether or not proportional representation is better, since it’s not really relevant for this post.
Also, the three paragraphs starting from “I’m sorry if that sounds like a dig at Republican voters” seemed to be rather low on information content—e.g. one of them says basically only “there exists this one girl who’s a birther and thinks Obama engages in terroristic ways (whatever that means)”. They’re also distracting because it feels like you’re slipping from a general argument to taking shots at people whose political opinions you disagree with (and to subtly imply that anyone who disagrees with LW’s consensus is crazy and stupid—maybe not your intention, but that’s how it comes off as). I’d delete them as well.
Hmmm… the things you complain about are all me anticipating objections to this post, namely:
Given Duverger’s law and how bad the two-party system is, shouldn’t the conclusion be not, “accept the two-party system” but “get proportional representation”? (Response: proportional representation might be slightly better, but seems implausible that it makes a huge difference.)
Skepticism about whether many people really buy the Obama conspiracy theories / “I’m a libertarian Romney voter and I’m offended!”
I find the conclusion that the US would be better off with some form of proportional representation pretty compelling actually, and I don’t think it’s so implausible that it would make a positive difference.
The difference it makes in Europe (compared to the UK for example) seems to be that the smaller parties with agendas the median voter doesn’t care much about still get a voice in parliament. It’s worth it for the Greens or the Pirate party to campaign for another 1% of the vote, because they get another 1% of the seats, instead of nothing.
It should be a better marketplace of ideas; although a few major parties still keep most of the power, they have more incentive to accommodate or adopt new ideas. I suppose the presence of the minor parties increases the visibility of multiple policy axes, forcing the major parties to compete for the median voter along each axis.
Having said that, it still isn’t very relevant to the thrust of the post, so the decision to footnote it was probably correct.
First, I thought this was a great post!
That said, I would shorten this by deleting the paragraph about whether or not proportional representation is better, since it’s not really relevant for this post.
Also, the three paragraphs starting from “I’m sorry if that sounds like a dig at Republican voters” seemed to be rather low on information content—e.g. one of them says basically only “there exists this one girl who’s a birther and thinks Obama engages in terroristic ways (whatever that means)”. They’re also distracting because it feels like you’re slipping from a general argument to taking shots at people whose political opinions you disagree with (and to subtly imply that anyone who disagrees with LW’s consensus is crazy and stupid—maybe not your intention, but that’s how it comes off as). I’d delete them as well.
Hmmm… the things you complain about are all me anticipating objections to this post, namely:
Given Duverger’s law and how bad the two-party system is, shouldn’t the conclusion be not, “accept the two-party system” but “get proportional representation”? (Response: proportional representation might be slightly better, but seems implausible that it makes a huge difference.)
Skepticism about whether many people really buy the Obama conspiracy theories / “I’m a libertarian Romney voter and I’m offended!”
But maybe re-word and turn into footnotes?
Edit: footnote-ized!
I find the conclusion that the US would be better off with some form of proportional representation pretty compelling actually, and I don’t think it’s so implausible that it would make a positive difference.
The difference it makes in Europe (compared to the UK for example) seems to be that the smaller parties with agendas the median voter doesn’t care much about still get a voice in parliament. It’s worth it for the Greens or the Pirate party to campaign for another 1% of the vote, because they get another 1% of the seats, instead of nothing.
It should be a better marketplace of ideas; although a few major parties still keep most of the power, they have more incentive to accommodate or adopt new ideas. I suppose the presence of the minor parties increases the visibility of multiple policy axes, forcing the major parties to compete for the median voter along each axis.
Having said that, it still isn’t very relevant to the thrust of the post, so the decision to footnote it was probably correct.
fyi, the “terroristic ways’ was probably a reference to assoication with marxist bombers rather than muslim ones.