And Americans only have to pick one out of two opposing parties. How hard can it be?
The problem is two-fold. The majority of Americans are passively informed, and the majority of our news publications are compromised by wealthy owners.
Also, it’s two months, not three. Early voting ballots go out in the end of September.
and the majority of our news publications are compromised by wealthy owners
This is true in the vast majority of European countries too. If anything, you usually find an exception in a public broadcasting channel, which may or may not be influenced by political officials.
The US has NPR and access to foreign news services, they are just absolutely disgustingly lazy.
Passively informed is an understatement, also we’re supposed to be available to work at a moments call, with limited time off availability. Am I gonna just tell my boss I’m leaving early to go vote?
It goes deeper than that. Those same news Publications are financially incentivized to prolong and protract the election seasons. They work incredibly hard to not talk about policies are issues but to focus on process stories. They’ve created this notion that there’s not enough time for an election.
That’s why you seem to think two months isn’t enough time. When it’s plenty.
People making a choice isn’t the hard part. All 51 different territories having different rules for their elections is the hard part.
All 51 different territories having different rules for their elections is the hard part.
How is that the hard part? Each state organizes their own elections, they only need to abide by their own rules. No one is involved in organizing elections in all 51 territories at the same time.
You can get rid of your prime ministers pretty easily if they suck. We’re electing what is now essentially a king for at least the next 4 years.
lol I get what you’re going for here but this is the most vote-blue-no-matter-who Democrat thing I’ve ever seen.
#girlboss #notenoughfemaledictators #lickheelsnotboots
my favorite UK shitpost was liz truss, very funny.
More education, please. I’m American.
How does this process function?
How does it change the ratchet right effect seen in the US?
In a parliamentary system, Prime Ministers aren’t elected by popular vote, but instead chosen by Parliament. It’s basically like if the Speaker of the House were also the President.
Fun fact: the US system was originally designed to work sort of that way, except they wanted the President to be chosen by all the state legislatures instead of Congress, for extra Federalist separation of powers. That’s what the Electoral College is for: they couldn’t do “one state rep = one vote” because each state has different numbers of constituents per rep and such, so they needed a “compatibility layer.”
Then states immediately fucked up the plan by holding popular votes for Electors instead of having the legislature appoint them, and the rest is history.
Also, in most European states (France is similar to the US in that point), the head of state (president, king) is not the head of government (prime minister, chancellor). The former may be elected by popular vote, and has mainly representative tasks, the latter usually is elected by the parlament and drives the political decisions.
This makes sense. I’d add that the system of government in the US didn’t function as intended in many facets and almost immediately. In respect to the electoral college today, American exceptionalism prevents us accepting that a direct democracy in choosing our President would sentence us to the mediocrity we fear most. We don’t understand why we’ve an electoral college because we broke it before railroads and the cotton gin.
I appreciate the parliamentary system so far for its simplicity relative the US system. But, the good and bad consequences really depends on the nuance.
What compromise must be reached to prevent another election?
What offices are reelected? The entirety of parliament?
So the UK is probably the simplest to discuss because it doesn’t have a constitution, and this means parliament is sovereign and decides everything by a simple majority vote.
They can pass laws saying that certain things need a super majority, but then they can just turn round and unpass them as well
This means that what you think of as the executive, i.e. the prime minister and all his helpers, can be changed by a simple majority, and an election can be called by one. They don’t need to happen at the same time. The last parliament had three different prime ministers without an election, and it’s common to switch prime ministers well before an election in order to create an incumbent advantage.
In parliamentary systems, the government needs to maintain the confidence of the majority. Any elected official can request a vote of confidence be held and, at least in Canada, certain votes are always considered votes of confidence (ex. the government’s budget). If a confidence vote fails, parliament dissolves and can’t do anything until a new parliament is formed. All seats are up for re-election. Since the government can’t do anything until an election is held, they tend to happen very quickly.
The government can prevent a no confidence vote by swaying enough members. It’s a bit of a non-issue if the current government already holds the majority of seats. If they don’t hold a majority, they’ll often make deals with a smaller party in exchange for their confidence. This can be as little as modifying a bill to as much as forming an official coalition and granting members of another party cabinet positions.
There are also semi-presidential republics, which function differently. In those systems, the US-style president role is split into two different roles, president & prime minister. President handles foreign policy, the army and selects the prime minister with the approval of parliament, and the prime minister handles everything domestic. This separation of roles means the amount of damage an individual can do is much more limited.
Edit: Oh, I missed somebody already talked about the French system, which is a semi-presidential system. Oh well, leaving this up for posterity.
It’s not the time that’s the issue. It’s the eye-watering sums of money you cunts donate to let a politician run a campaign.
What the fuck does someone need $450m for?! Use that to provide support for the homeless, feed the poor, and protect children that need a stable home. You could do so much with that money.
