• Tattorack@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    First thing you need to do is make America a representative democracy. Throw that first past the post bullshit in the trash.

    Then maybe the electoral collage.

    Then maybe gerrymandering illegal.

    The way your system works is all sorts of fucked up. And it’s fine for us here in Europe if it didn’t effect us, but the tribalistic thinking of “left vs right” without any gradient or nuance is starting to effect us over here too.

    • Saurok@lemmy.ml
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      4 days ago

      The problem is that even doing that isn’t simple. Both parties are captured by and cater to capital’s interests. The Democratic Party and the Republican Party both have 0 interest in changing away from first past the post because first past the post gets them elected and in power. It’s incredibly difficult to get anyone elected that is outside of either of those two parties because they will do everything in their power to challenge it. We’ve seen this most recently in the 2024 elections when the Dems were challenging Green Party candidates’ rights to even be on the ballot by taking them to court to contest their signatures and other procedural challenges. The Greens don’t have the pocket book to handle lawsuits, so this can effectively kill any local and bottom up candidate initiatives. It takes time to contend with these structures, which is why we’re just now seeing gains being made by Democratic Socialists like Mamdani in NYC. His election required years of organizing on the DSA’s part to build a party structure in NYC. Sometimes their best route to office has been through the Democratic party itself, like Mamdani, which comes with its own issues as well.