Counterpoint : in multi-party European democracies we (I'm French) don't have to worry about extremist hijacking primaries. If the Left becomes infatuated with a politician who thinks it should be a felony to do less than 50% of domestic chores (and there is such a person), sane voters can flee to the Boring Centrist party instead of being stuck with the alternative of a right-wing populist who received money from Russia. If there are two rounds, you would still have people coalesce behind a right-wing and a left-wing candidate, and you would know exactly how much clout the Woke and the MAGA have.
And some of those fringe parties have really good ideas. When I lived in Prague, the Pirate Party campaigned on an anti-bureaucracy platform: “Why are we standing in line in offices when we have the internet?” They have won not only admirers but also seats in the Czech parliament and now work with mainstream left and center-left politicians.
I would question some of the specifics (France's two-round presidential elections haven't "coalesce[d] behind a right-wing and a left-wing candidate" since 2012, or even 2007) but I think there's a sensible general point that we can shift WHERE the big political fights happen within a democratic political system by redesigning it (e.g. switching between presidentialism and parliamentarianism), but you can't eliminate big political fights as long as you have democracy. (Political contestation doesn't even disappear in non-democracies.)
Political disputes can be worked out WITHIN parties, perhaps via contentious primaries, or they can be worked out AMONG parties, perhaps via multi-round presidential elections, or perhaps within AND among parties, but you can't stamp out political disputes entirely.
Also, too, in France the person with the most popular votes for President becomes President (with a runoff for the top two vote getters if no one gets 50% + 1 the first time out).
As an American living in Canada, I've seen the the virtues of both systems. What's important to understand that they are designed to optimize for different outcomes. By design, America's three-branch structure optimizes against abuse of power. The Constitution makes it hard for the government to do things. If it's too easy to do things, the idea is that government will abuse its power. Parliamentary systems are (to varying degrees) optimized for more democratic outcomes. If the voting public wants X and chooses the party that supports X, they are very likely to get X. If public gets X and don't like it, they know which party is responsible, and they can vote them out. In the American system, if things go wrong, it is not easy to figure out who to blame. (The president usually gets the blame, but because he rarely gets to implement his party's platform in full, he is being held accountable for conditions beyond his control.) When the president is Trump, a system that keeps the president from doing what they like seems wise. Yet I doubt Trump would've survived more than a month or two in 2017 had America had a parliament (I think he would've been Liz Trussed). Prime ministers are more powerful than presidents in that they implement their policies more easily, but individual PMs are seen as far more dispensable and usually can be replaced without much fuss. Republicans can be clowns because the accountability mechanisms are relatively weak.
It's also supposed to be functional, and the recent lack of success in some parliamentary systems doesn't exactly inspire confidence....hence Jeff's post.
But Jeff's post doesn't actually cite the "some parliamentary systems" suffering a "recent lack of success". There's a picture of Matt Gaetz's face over the UK Palace of Westminster, but the UK's formed governments pretty snappily even when no party's won a majority of seats (most recently 2017 and 2010) and it's not clear that the UK parliamentary system particularly empowers extremists (in 2017 the Conservative Party formed a government with the similarly right-wing DUP and in 2010 the Conservative Party formed a government with the relatively centrist Liberal Democrats) despite having like 10 parties sitting in Westminster.
The European systems have a fair amount of diversity between them and they all have slightly different drawbacks.
For example, the UK/Canadian system, which are also not proportional systems, would probably give leadership **MORE** power over Gaetz and co. This is because those systems have strongly centralized party leadership and less of a tradition of third-parties (though obviously not zero third parties).
Another counter-point is moving the US toward the Parliamentary system would be complementary to removing or reforming the filibuster.
Leaving aside Europe (and let's not forget the fun and games in forming Israel's latest government, either), America has some insane mechanisms that leave it vulnerable to blackmail from the Matt Gaetzs (Gaetzes?) of this world. That the House has to have a Speaker before members can be sworn in is insane (even Italy, not known for efficient governance, first swears in members of the Chamber of Deputies, who then elect the President of that body). It is also insanity that the House never established a runoff mechanism for choosing a Speaker. That is, after an inconclusive ballot, the top two vote getters go head-to-head, without ol' Matt nominating his girlfriend of the moment's dog.
I don't think this is a criticism of Parliamentary systems, but rather Parliamentary systems that elect using proportional representation. Countries like the UK have a Parliamentary system that disenfranchises the smaller parties and favours the larger parties, so you don't have the sort of post-election coalition building to which you are referring unless something has gone wrong.
I might have opted for a slightly more contemporary correlation: Charlie Sheen to McCarthy's Ashton Kutcher. Either way, poor comparisons to the originals.
Gage Skidmore. Now there's a name that brings back memories. Gage is, or was, a libertarian-to-progressive young man who likes politics and photography and started attending just about every kind of political appearance of any sort to take photos and post them on Flickr. Which made him, from my perspective as a political news website editor, one of the most valuable resources for Creative Commons images. Lots of "dumb Republican hurr hurr" stories used his images because they were the only free ones available.
In addition to Europe, we're also seeing this mishegoss play out in Israel, where the religious hardliners are running the government in the same way our Freedom Caucus is, and with about as much success.
I equivocate on this issue. The points you make are fair ones, but Canada seems to function fine as a parliamentary democracy. On the flip side, Israel's politics are a complete sh-t show with religious nutcase parties holding undue influence.
What Jeff doesn't really mention is the voting system used; Canada, like the UK, uses first past the post. The Netherlands, fr'instance, and many other European countries, use some form of proportional representation, and they often have some type of party list effort slapped on top of that.
The Dutch election of around 2018 or so, resulted in the negotiations about forming a government taking about nine months, getting on for 20% of the legislative time available before the next election was due.
On one hand, no party was able to move any policy commitments forward, the sort of thing people might have actually voted for, on the other, no politician was able to screw anything up for nine months. Swings and roundabouts.
Counterpoint : in multi-party European democracies we (I'm French) don't have to worry about extremist hijacking primaries. If the Left becomes infatuated with a politician who thinks it should be a felony to do less than 50% of domestic chores (and there is such a person), sane voters can flee to the Boring Centrist party instead of being stuck with the alternative of a right-wing populist who received money from Russia. If there are two rounds, you would still have people coalesce behind a right-wing and a left-wing candidate, and you would know exactly how much clout the Woke and the MAGA have.
And some of those fringe parties have really good ideas. When I lived in Prague, the Pirate Party campaigned on an anti-bureaucracy platform: “Why are we standing in line in offices when we have the internet?” They have won not only admirers but also seats in the Czech parliament and now work with mainstream left and center-left politicians.
I would question some of the specifics (France's two-round presidential elections haven't "coalesce[d] behind a right-wing and a left-wing candidate" since 2012, or even 2007) but I think there's a sensible general point that we can shift WHERE the big political fights happen within a democratic political system by redesigning it (e.g. switching between presidentialism and parliamentarianism), but you can't eliminate big political fights as long as you have democracy. (Political contestation doesn't even disappear in non-democracies.)
Political disputes can be worked out WITHIN parties, perhaps via contentious primaries, or they can be worked out AMONG parties, perhaps via multi-round presidential elections, or perhaps within AND among parties, but you can't stamp out political disputes entirely.
Also, too, in France the person with the most popular votes for President becomes President (with a runoff for the top two vote getters if no one gets 50% + 1 the first time out).
As an American living in Canada, I've seen the the virtues of both systems. What's important to understand that they are designed to optimize for different outcomes. By design, America's three-branch structure optimizes against abuse of power. The Constitution makes it hard for the government to do things. If it's too easy to do things, the idea is that government will abuse its power. Parliamentary systems are (to varying degrees) optimized for more democratic outcomes. If the voting public wants X and chooses the party that supports X, they are very likely to get X. If public gets X and don't like it, they know which party is responsible, and they can vote them out. In the American system, if things go wrong, it is not easy to figure out who to blame. (The president usually gets the blame, but because he rarely gets to implement his party's platform in full, he is being held accountable for conditions beyond his control.) When the president is Trump, a system that keeps the president from doing what they like seems wise. Yet I doubt Trump would've survived more than a month or two in 2017 had America had a parliament (I think he would've been Liz Trussed). Prime ministers are more powerful than presidents in that they implement their policies more easily, but individual PMs are seen as far more dispensable and usually can be replaced without much fuss. Republicans can be clowns because the accountability mechanisms are relatively weak.
Government is supposed to be messy. We need more parties.
It's also supposed to be functional, and the recent lack of success in some parliamentary systems doesn't exactly inspire confidence....hence Jeff's post.
But Jeff's post doesn't actually cite the "some parliamentary systems" suffering a "recent lack of success". There's a picture of Matt Gaetz's face over the UK Palace of Westminster, but the UK's formed governments pretty snappily even when no party's won a majority of seats (most recently 2017 and 2010) and it's not clear that the UK parliamentary system particularly empowers extremists (in 2017 the Conservative Party formed a government with the similarly right-wing DUP and in 2010 the Conservative Party formed a government with the relatively centrist Liberal Democrats) despite having like 10 parties sitting in Westminster.
The European systems have a fair amount of diversity between them and they all have slightly different drawbacks.
For example, the UK/Canadian system, which are also not proportional systems, would probably give leadership **MORE** power over Gaetz and co. This is because those systems have strongly centralized party leadership and less of a tradition of third-parties (though obviously not zero third parties).
Another counter-point is moving the US toward the Parliamentary system would be complementary to removing or reforming the filibuster.
Leaving aside Europe (and let's not forget the fun and games in forming Israel's latest government, either), America has some insane mechanisms that leave it vulnerable to blackmail from the Matt Gaetzs (Gaetzes?) of this world. That the House has to have a Speaker before members can be sworn in is insane (even Italy, not known for efficient governance, first swears in members of the Chamber of Deputies, who then elect the President of that body). It is also insanity that the House never established a runoff mechanism for choosing a Speaker. That is, after an inconclusive ballot, the top two vote getters go head-to-head, without ol' Matt nominating his girlfriend of the moment's dog.
I don't think this is a criticism of Parliamentary systems, but rather Parliamentary systems that elect using proportional representation. Countries like the UK have a Parliamentary system that disenfranchises the smaller parties and favours the larger parties, so you don't have the sort of post-election coalition building to which you are referring unless something has gone wrong.
That puppet picture made me actually LOL
The real problem with our system is the structural conflict between Congress and President.
"Dick York to McCarthy’s Dick Sargent"
I might have opted for a slightly more contemporary correlation: Charlie Sheen to McCarthy's Ashton Kutcher. Either way, poor comparisons to the originals.
Gage Skidmore. Now there's a name that brings back memories. Gage is, or was, a libertarian-to-progressive young man who likes politics and photography and started attending just about every kind of political appearance of any sort to take photos and post them on Flickr. Which made him, from my perspective as a political news website editor, one of the most valuable resources for Creative Commons images. Lots of "dumb Republican hurr hurr" stories used his images because they were the only free ones available.
In addition to Europe, we're also seeing this mishegoss play out in Israel, where the religious hardliners are running the government in the same way our Freedom Caucus is, and with about as much success.
I equivocate on this issue. The points you make are fair ones, but Canada seems to function fine as a parliamentary democracy. On the flip side, Israel's politics are a complete sh-t show with religious nutcase parties holding undue influence.
What Jeff doesn't really mention is the voting system used; Canada, like the UK, uses first past the post. The Netherlands, fr'instance, and many other European countries, use some form of proportional representation, and they often have some type of party list effort slapped on top of that.
The Dutch election of around 2018 or so, resulted in the negotiations about forming a government taking about nine months, getting on for 20% of the legislative time available before the next election was due.
On one hand, no party was able to move any policy commitments forward, the sort of thing people might have actually voted for, on the other, no politician was able to screw anything up for nine months. Swings and roundabouts.