leifw

I was going to respond to this, but Timothy did a good enough job. As for his question at the end, a commenter at my blog posted "Ask a political scientist and they'll tell you that the US has a two party systm because it has a first past the post electoral system. If there was proportional representation or runoff elections then there would be a greater chance of a third party. In a fpp system a third party can win a large percentage of the vote and never win a seat."

And I think that's one big reason: Our system is just different than the others.
 

Thanks to Tim and Doctor Biobrain for respectfully responding to my poorly reasoned response. I jumped in with a rant that vented my frustration at state of affairs in DC and didn't address the question at hand.

Now that I've actually thought about it, I think the point that the original post made is correct. I don't like that reality and I'd like to see that reality changed, but, yes, the point was correct; I was wrong.
 

First, for anybody who wants to know more about how a parliamentary system could play out in America, and why we need it, I strongly recommend Daniel Lazare’s “The Frozen Republic.” (Ted Rall was very interested, I know.)

I’m going to dig in and tackle this post on parliamentary government and third parties.

I begin by noting the two are separate, though somewhat intertwined issues.

The main reason third parties TODAY (as opposed to the past, per the one commenter to your post) get such short shrift is that the duopoly, in conjunction with the MSM on something that vaguely resembles "debates," conspire to keep third parties off the ballot (the duopoly) or out of the limelight should they qualify (the MSM). The "presidentialism" focus of our modern federal government, with governance "eggs" ultimately in one basket, only exacerbates this problem.

MSLBs are guilty of abetting this, to. In summer 2006, Congressional Dems made noise about a Congressional public campaign finance bill - with the restriction of limiting it to the duopoly. MSLBs like Kos signed on.

Now, on to your talk of "coalitions."

First, not everybody does it the same, contra your claim.

Japan, for example, has a one-party coalition, not a two-party. The Socialists and Japanese Nationalists not inside the LDP are both internally coherent; neither is a coaltion.

Germany, thanks in part to the national list that elects 1/3 the Bundestag, has multiple politically viable parties, MOST of which are NOT coalitions in the U.S. sense. The Christian Dems and Social Dems arguably are; the Free Dems arguably are not, and the Greens and ex-Communists CLEARLY are not.

Israel has numerous political parties, and due to mutual suspicious, you CANNOT lump all of Israel's religious parties under the umbrella of "coalition." (This is shown by the behavior of various religious parties in Israel whenever Likud tries to form a coalition.)
 

Next (vis a vis Dr. Biobrian's post) is the question of what would better serve America.

From where I sit, a parliamentary government, even without third parties, would undercut the dry rot of presidential hagiography that threatens to make us like a Russia or something.

It would also fight government gridlock; for example, PM Nancy Pelosi would have been leading our government the past two years.

But, parliamentary government WITH third parties would do more. It would force parties to stand for something. Take PM Pelosi, rather than Speaker Pelosi, for example. Failure to do more on Iraq would have provoked enough of a revolt by, say, the Progressive Caucus to risk a no-confidence vote. Or, let's say half the Progressive Caucus members were actually Greens. Beyond a no-confidence vote, in that case, Pelosi would have risked the downfall of the coalition, if she had to be in coalition with Greens.

Ditto on the GOP side. With third parties, especially with German-style national list, the Religious right could "walk" from the GOP and join the Religious Right party we already have, called the Constitution Party.

And, if the James Dobsons of the world wanted to risk "access" for integrity, their rank-and-file could revolt.

Ditto for folks like Gang Green enviro groups; a viable Green Party would put Sierra et al on the spot vis-a-vis "access politics."

Plus, we’d have parties focused on issues rather than just on “winning,” an idea you seem to tout favorably, but another major thing WRONG with our current system.

Finally, if we had to have coalition government in America because we had viable third parties, I'd rather have "external" coalitions hammered out between different parties than have amorphous blobs as the Tweedledee and Tweedledum of the duopoly.