One advantage of the Two Party Swindle is that swing-voters usually decide an election. That is, the small percent of people who don’t fall for Us vs. Them.
So though it may be designed to distract the populace while their purse is being lightened, the Swindle also results in the more unbiased voter having more influence (even though on paper it’s still one man, one vote).
That may be true, but the unbiased would still be voting for, to borrow from South Park, either a giant douche, or a turd sandwich. When given that kind of choice, I wouldn’t really claim I did anything useful, even if I did manage to block that horrible Republican, or that wretched Democrat.
But they have to compete for your vote. As such, they’re much less of a douche and turd sandwich than they would be.
Alternately, you can vote for a third party. In that election it’s pretty much the same as not voting, but it makes it very clear why you’re not voting, and the party closest to you will try to get your vote next election.
I’m not sure if it is necessarily the case that they are competing for my vote. Listening to some of the debates from the Republican Presidential candidates, it is rather clear that they would rather appeal to their base than cater to “the enemy”. But yes, I intend to vote third party, since my vote is pretty much a throwaway in this state anyway. Split the Republican vote between a write-in and the official candidate, and they still get more than the next guy.
That seems unlikely. They get their base to vote for them no matter what. They have to worry about the edge cases. I suppose it’s possible that they’re trying to get their base to vote, as opposed to not voting.
I don’t pay that much to politics, but I would suspect that, if the circumstances point to a Democrat winning, for instance, the Republicans will try to move more towards the middle ground so they still have a chance.
It’s not really catering to the enemy. It’s just the middle ground. And that’s only if you’re talking about the effect of voting for one of the main parties. I very much doubt that Republicans would call Libertarians the enemy, for example.
That’s intuitively plausible, and in fact I think it’s likely to be true, but as it happens it’s also a testable proposition. Voter turnout varies quite a bit among modern democracies: for some voting is mandatory, for others it’s optional, and levels of enforcement vary among polities with mandatory voting. Do the dominant parties within high-turnout polities tend to be more moderate relative to the polity’s baseline?
Unfortunately you also need to control for architecture—first-past-the-post election systems, for example, are often thought to have polarizing effects. That makes testing a lot harder than it’d otherwise be, and scopes it out of my relatively modest familiarity with different political systems. But it should be feasible in principle.
They get their base to vote for them no matter what.
I don’t know that this is true. The primaries effectively screen out candidates who aren’t blue or green enough for the base. From this anchor point, the winning candidate may moderate somewhat to try and attract swing voters, but they aren’t starting from a position of trying to get undecided voters.
They have to worry about the edge because they get their base vote no matter what
that’s true… but it is still a fact that
they would rather appeal to their base than cater to “the enemy”.
I think because in this way they charge up their base voters, which are then more willing to do some work for them, such as proselyte around, sharing on facebook, talking only about the good things of their party and the bad things of the opposite one, and that kind of stuff. In this way they can easily catch the edge voters who see the distinction between voters and politicians, because the proselytes come from other voters “just like me” and not from politicians.
One advantage of the Two Party Swindle is that swing-voters usually decide an election. That is, the small percent of people who don’t fall for Us vs. Them.
So though it may be designed to distract the populace while their purse is being lightened, the Swindle also results in the more unbiased voter having more influence (even though on paper it’s still one man, one vote).
That may be true, but the unbiased would still be voting for, to borrow from South Park, either a giant douche, or a turd sandwich. When given that kind of choice, I wouldn’t really claim I did anything useful, even if I did manage to block that horrible Republican, or that wretched Democrat.
But they have to compete for your vote. As such, they’re much less of a douche and turd sandwich than they would be.
Alternately, you can vote for a third party. In that election it’s pretty much the same as not voting, but it makes it very clear why you’re not voting, and the party closest to you will try to get your vote next election.
I’m not sure if it is necessarily the case that they are competing for my vote. Listening to some of the debates from the Republican Presidential candidates, it is rather clear that they would rather appeal to their base than cater to “the enemy”. But yes, I intend to vote third party, since my vote is pretty much a throwaway in this state anyway. Split the Republican vote between a write-in and the official candidate, and they still get more than the next guy.
That seems unlikely. They get their base to vote for them no matter what. They have to worry about the edge cases. I suppose it’s possible that they’re trying to get their base to vote, as opposed to not voting.
I don’t pay that much to politics, but I would suspect that, if the circumstances point to a Democrat winning, for instance, the Republicans will try to move more towards the middle ground so they still have a chance.
It’s not really catering to the enemy. It’s just the middle ground. And that’s only if you’re talking about the effect of voting for one of the main parties. I very much doubt that Republicans would call Libertarians the enemy, for example.
This. With low voter turnout, rallying the base is a far more effective strategy than competing for marginal voters.
That’s intuitively plausible, and in fact I think it’s likely to be true, but as it happens it’s also a testable proposition. Voter turnout varies quite a bit among modern democracies: for some voting is mandatory, for others it’s optional, and levels of enforcement vary among polities with mandatory voting. Do the dominant parties within high-turnout polities tend to be more moderate relative to the polity’s baseline?
Unfortunately you also need to control for architecture—first-past-the-post election systems, for example, are often thought to have polarizing effects. That makes testing a lot harder than it’d otherwise be, and scopes it out of my relatively modest familiarity with different political systems. But it should be feasible in principle.
Agreed.
I don’t know that this is true. The primaries effectively screen out candidates who aren’t blue or green enough for the base. From this anchor point, the winning candidate may moderate somewhat to try and attract swing voters, but they aren’t starting from a position of trying to get undecided voters.
that’s true… but it is still a fact that
I think because in this way they charge up their base voters, which are then more willing to do some work for them, such as proselyte around, sharing on facebook, talking only about the good things of their party and the bad things of the opposite one, and that kind of stuff. In this way they can easily catch the edge voters who see the distinction between voters and politicians, because the proselytes come from other voters “just like me” and not from politicians.
This is known as Duverger’s law. Bryan Caplan explains why it fails, here.