I get it, Biden is old and that’s a problem, but why doesn’t anyone seem to have a problem with the fact that Trump is almost the same age, has 34 felonies, raped at least 2 women, went to Epstein’s Island 11 times, sexualized his own daughter, stole classified documents, aligned himself with Xi and Putin, and can’t remember common names?
Is all of that really better than being 2½ years older than he is right now?
As a non American, Trump winning the election makes sesne. But in general, WTF is going on in America?!
capitalism just progressing to it’s natural end stage.
Also…
First Past The post voting artificially limits the number of political parties to two. This allows the legacy political parties to run incredibly weak candidates since there is no competition in the electoral system.
With a more representative voting system (much like Ranked Choice voting) people would be free to vote for the person that best represents them, while still counting their vote if that candidate doesn’t win.
"First Past The post voting artificially limits the number of political parties to two. "
Kiiiind of, Canada has fptp as well and we have about 4.5ish competitive parties, Liberal Party, Conservative Party, NDP (“socialist” party), Bloc Quebecois (Quebec focussed party [used to be a sepratist party, but has evolved to just focus on getting more favourable policies for Quebec since separating has fallen out of favour in Quebec), and the .5 would be the Green Party. So we can vote against the main 2 without wasting our votes/effectively voting for the party we hate more. BUT the reason I said kinda is notice I said Main 2. NDP has won opposition a few times (2nd most voted for party nationally), but Only 2 parties have ever been the most voted for in an election, the Liberals and the Conservatives. (Bloc Quebecois has won the provincial government multiple times in Quebec, but obviously has never been a contender for national government)
(Green is .5 because most people know about them, but to my knowledge they have never won even a provincial government, which the other 4 all have multiple times)
Edit: Guess theres a bunch of Americans pissed that they cant blame how fucked their political system is just on FPTP
Canada is a two party system, because they fit the definition, the majority of the legislature is controlled by the main two parties:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Commons_of_Canada
Of the 338 seats, 81% of them are held by either the conservative or liberal party. The other parties have no shot of winning a majority, or taking away any significant number of seats from the big two parties.
Once again, NDP has won Opposition before (which to those unfamiliar, means that it held more legislative power than all other parties aside from the one that won the election). It is a viable 3rd option and likely would have won the national election roughly a decade ago if Jack Layton hadnt died of cancer during his run.
And because of how our legislature works, if the winning party wins by a minority (Less than 50% of legislative seats), the NDP can team up with the opposition to outpower the party that won and use that to attempt to get legislation that it wants pushed through as a compromise.
TL:DR your last paragraph is false and only serves to entrench the 2 most powerful parties. Canadian 3rd parties are VASTLY more viable than American ones
And the U.S. had the federalist party which once held power. An extra party being previously viable in the past has little to do with whether or not a legislature is controlled by 1 of 2 parties.
“X party can team up with y” also doesn’t negate the definition of a two party system. Cooperation or not, the conservatives and liberals control the overwhelming majority of the seats.
I’ll be honest, I’m not Canadian and rarely speak about Canadian politics. So in no way am I entrenching the two most powerful parties.
And my last paragraph isn’t false. There are 338 seats in your house of Commons, and 81% of them are held by the two dominant parties. That is objectively true. The final sentence is a subjective one.
Sure, 3rd parties in Canada fair considerably better than they do in the U.S., but it seems pretty clear that they have no shot of getting a majority.
So with all of these things together, Canada is a two party system as well, largely due to the use of FPTP voting. We need more representative systems like approval and star voting.
Ah ok, you have zero idea what you are talking about and are projecting American politics onto Canada. Canada has FPTP and Canada is not in anyway a 2 party country. The NDP and Bloc Quebecois have both had a very strong influence on our political landscape and just because our CURRENT government gives souch power to our two most powerful parties doesnt in anyway mean that the NDP gaining significant amount of power is an anomaly, as it has done so many times in the past
Tell me, how many times have the 3rd parties had a majority in the house of commons?
Dude. Politics isnt all or nothing. Quebec gets far better treatment than the rest of the provinces because it has a national party that ONLY looks out for Quebecs interests, and once again, we have minority governments quite a bit of the time here in Canada, where the winning party HAS to play ball with the other parties because it doesnt control over 50% of the votes. The last Conservative government we had had to go to the lengths of shutting down the government ENTIRELY for a few weeks to avoid the NDP and Liberals from teaming up to get legislation passed without the conservatives. FPTP sucks, but our government has at least 3 valid parties to vote for any election season, 4 if you live in Quebec. You arent effectively voting for the party you hate more by voting for the party you actually want here, and again, all the NDP needs is to find a leader that had the charisma Jack Layton had and they’ll be a contender for actually winning a national election again. Even without that though they frequently win Provincial Elections and thus are the ones driving policy in those provinces
I’d run but no one will vote for someone with no criminal record and refuses to lie.
As a non American, trump winning will destabilise things in Europe way more than it will in America. The cunt’s said Russia can do what they want with NATO member states. It means all aid to Ukraine stops and Ukraine will lose because Putin has an endless supply of meat to take it if Ukraine can’t find the artillery shells. Russia will turn Ukraine’s now highly trained, well equipped, and battle hardened army against Poland. Major bloodbath! After enough primary school children have died on the frontline the Baltic states will be next, followed by Scandinavia.
Sure Europe will eventually stop them but at a massive cost. And that’s only if China doesn’t openly arm Russia or send troops. The only way to avoid it is if the US and Europe remain tight.
That’s being an alarmist to the point of absurdity.
Trump can say a lot of things. He can say he’ll leave NATO. He can say he’ll stop sending aid to Ukraine.
He can say whatever he wants, and I have no doubt the idiot actually believes it. After all, he said he was going to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it. He Said he was going to deport all DACA child. Hell, if I remember correctly, he said during the last campaign that he was going to leave NATO as well unless they fucking paid him, like it’s some sort of protection racket.
Despite the recent SC ruling, and despite four years of failing to actually do anything he said he could do, he still believes he’s a god-king. But with the exception of a presidential decree, which can be blocked by congress; nothing he’s fucking babbling about can just “be done” on his word. It has to pass Congress and the Senate, which will, despite the eventual winner of the presidency, remain close enough in seats for cooler heads to stop his bullshit. There are enough republicans, even in a Trump administration, that would never dream of fucking up that much.
The point is, Trump is a fucking idiot. And while the supreme court has made him effectively immune to criminal prosecution, his ability to do almost anything without eventually bumping up against the actual adults in the room is still pretty limited.
If he actually had the power to do what he says he can, he would have done it in his first term. But even in a party of of racists and MAGA, there are enough adults to keep him distracted with colouring books.
The problem is that Trump (if elected) gets to appoint a bunch of yes-man lackeys to all the cabinet positions, meaning that there are fewer of those adults in the room to stop him from doing stupid shit.
The heritage Foundation has been putting the right people in the right places for a long fucking time. Trump is only a foot in the door. The fundamentalists and far right will probably whack him themselves once he’s elected. They are using his stupidity and cult following to gain power. If you don’t resist, it’s going to be a handmade’s tale type dystopia for you and a return to pan continental war for us.
I don’t envy your position tbh.