Campaign finance is something that I always see people up in arms about and I liken it to treating symptoms not the illness. The USA needs constitutional reform. There is a reason why we have a two party system. The USA has an outdated(we're the oldest constitutional republic) system called Single Member District representation, or SMD. SMD is a winner take all platform, one candidate receiving 51% of the vote, gets 100% of the power. In more modern constitutional states, Sweden for example, they employ Multi-Member District representation, or MMD. This system allows for multiple parties. Ex. If one constituent gets 51% of the vote, one gets 24%, and the other gets 25%, they proportionally are represented in congress. So, two seats for the one with 50%, and one seat each for the two with 25% and 24% respectively. Boom. Two party system demolished. In Sweden, as little as 5% of the vote gets you a seat in parliament. I don't even think I need to link a chart demonstrating the positive effects this has on society(Sweden enjoys some of the most robust liberties and freedoms of all political systems). These talks about campaign finance, they are a distraction, in my opinion, treating the symptoms and not looking for an actual cure. If the USA really wants to improve their government, and their country, we need Constitutional Reform.
I think it's 4 % of the vote even. And if you get 12 % in one electoral district you also get in (I didn't know that before).In county elections there is no barrier at all and in our "state" elections the barrier is 3 %. I really like our system because it allows everyone to be represented in a better way. Of course, some parties are really close to getting in but don't succeed. But usually a party coming that close makes the other parties pay more attention to its core issues so it does work out there to in a way. This conversation feels very relevant to me since I have ties to both Sweden and Wisconsin.
Well, I don't think it would extremely difficult. A lot of people speak English here and if you have a job/training for a job that there are openings in that wouldn't be terrible either. But moving to a new country is always difficult anyways and some people still only speak Swedish and the job market here isn't wonderful so, well, yeah. And one thing that is happening in Sweden is that we have a far-right party gaining more and more votes, something that is happening all over Europe, right now it's projected to reach about 10% of the votes in September. We have our difficult political problems to to deal with, but I think that the system in Sweden is better overall, even with such downsides.
Thanks for adding some reality into my perspective, moving to Sweden is something that is always in the back of my mind :) I could gush about it all day haha I really like the way Sweden has it's State organized, I do think that not only is it like you said, better overall(sorry my fellow patriots), but also better equipped to handle political changes as well.
I think that is a big upside to the system. A new party that adresseses new issues can get in and change the political landscape. It looks like we'll get a feminist party in parliament in the fall for example, and the pirate party got in to the European parliament. And compared to the rest of Europe Sweden is doing fine. We have our problems but so does every country. I wouldn't discourage you from moving here. Several of my teachers are from other countries and I think they all came here knowing no Swedish at all. It is doable, but I wouldn't say it's not difficult. One thing you could do if you're not already done with it is study here to get a feel for how living in Sweden is. Unfortunately non-Europeans have to pay for it these days so it's not as simple/worth it as it used to be. But I'm not unaware that we have a great system here, and I am thankful for it.
I've read a few articles regarding this idea; in my opinion, the notion of dismantling our entire electoral system to unclear outcome seems WAY more the distraction than focusing on a politically and structurally viable option (i.e. beating back moneyed interest with stricter campaign finance laws, waiting for another SCOTUS judgement to reverse the last couple bad ones, even amending the constitution to specify the limits of free speech vis a vis political spending). Even if it were reasonable to expect the U.S. legislature to essentially amend itself out of existence, proportional representation wouldn't really be such a hot idea. Consider: while Sweden is no doubt a wonderful country, it's also geographically smaller and less diverse than the state of Alaska. Makes PR a whole lot more workable. And while the majority of representational democracies the world across have chosen PR as their way to govern, the majority of representational democracies are again smaller and less diverse than the U.S. How would you expect the U.S. to fare given its social, ethnic, religious, economic and cultural diversity? How many parties would make it to parliament? How would you expect them to work together in any sort of functional coalition? Off the top of my head, I could easily imagine a federal PR system immediately striating more or less down state lines, granting disproportionate amounts of power to the most populated states or regions to the vast detriment of smaller or less populous states/territories. Wouldn't that be frustrating. Our two party system isn't perfect, but in a nation as big and diverse as ours, there aren't really many workable alternatives. Given that this is the case, it makes perfect sense to chip away at the legislative mechanisms empowering moneyed interest to influence electoral outcome.These talks about campaign finance, they are a distraction, in my opinion, treating the symptoms and not looking for an actual cure. If the USA really wants to improve their government, and their country, we need Constitutional Reform.
Right, but amending the constitution is constitutional reform. I think we agree with each other, we just haven't discussed the specifics. I don't know, if a small, culturally and racially homogenous country like Sweden can benefit from having various parties, then considering the USA's cultural, ethnic, religious, socio-economic diversity it would seem it really needs and would benefit by having multiple parties. Just some thoughts, I liked your post it was definitely thought provoking :) (i.e. beating back moneyed interest with stricter campaign finance laws, waiting for another SCOTUS judgement to reverse the last couple bad ones, even amending the constitution to specify the limits of free speech vis a vis political spending).
Our two party system isn't perfect, but in a nation as big and diverse as ours, there aren't really many workable alternatives.
I mean, there's constitutonal reform and then there's constitutional reform. There's plenty of precedent when it comes to amending a particular portion of a particular article of the constitution. There's much less precedent when it comes to foundationally re-structuring an entire branch of government. Only example of that that comes to mind is the move from indirect to direct election of senators, and that's kind of small potatoes compared to this. I agree that the two party system leaves various pluralities woefully under-represented. I'm just not convinced that the proposed solution fixes more issues than it introduces.