WARNING for Americans.

You're getting Nigel Farrage in the states next week. Satans little errand boy will be over for the Republican national convention. So you can probably expect numerous demands for various states to cede from the Union.

Thing to bear in mind if you hear him speaking on TV at all. He talks a complete load of *insert your favourite term for rubbish as I doubt the FFG censor will allow me to use the word I want* :-)

They already have Trump, why would they care about terrible budget Trump?

Because it counts as "proof" that Trump is on the right track. Brrr.

WARNING for Americans.

You're getting Nigel Farrage in the states next week. Satans little errand boy will be over for the Republican national convention. So you can probably expect numerous demands for various states to cede from the Union.

Thing to bear in mind if you hear him speaking on TV at all. He talks a complete load of *insert your favourite term for rubbish as I doubt the FFG censor will allow me to use the word I want* :-)

It amazes me that America hasn't split up already. Not sure it would be a bad thing if it did. What do Americans think?

it makes you wonder why that is even accepted by the people.

Because it doesn't truly affect the day to day life of anyone. That and it actually "helps" some people. I condenses power based political opinion, if an area is mostly part of one party, that means someone from that party is more likely to get elected.

So those who are actually interested in politics tends to like it, because it can make their party stronger, and everyone else either just doesn't understand it or don't care.

It is again why pure democracy is such a bad system, most people don't care enough to actually be informed on the issues and so would vote for whomever they like the best, or which side offers them the most.

And that is exactly why a two party, district system is so terrible. It takes away a lot of choice and both parties are interested in maintaining the status quo because it stops any form of real competition.

Just do away with the districts and get some real choice in political parties. Break up the DP and GOP, there's ideological room enough in either of those to sustain 3 or more viable parties.

There's only 17 million of us and we have 11 parties and some splinter fractions of people who left their party in the lower house at the moment (and innumerable local parties who band together in the senate) and things work out great. Far less ideological anger or grandstanding and much more interest in actually reaching a consensus.

Partly because it's small and technical and boring, partly because people don't really understand it.

.

It's not that small though is it? How many votes have been made worthless through that process?

Nor is it that hard to understand.

It is just bewildering to me to see how many people accept the loss of their vote without speaking up.

it makes you wonder why that is even accepted by the people.

Because it doesn't truly affect the day to day life of anyone. That and it actually "helps" some people. I condenses power based political opinion, if an area is mostly part of one party, that means someone from that party is more likely to get elected.

So those who are actually interested in politics tends to like it, because it can make their party stronger, and everyone else either just doesn't understand it or don't care.

It is again why pure democracy is such a bad system, most people don't care enough to actually be informed on the issues and so would vote for whomever they like the best, or which side offers them the most.

And that is exactly why a two party, district system is so terrible. It takes away a lot of choice and both parties are interested in maintaining the status quo because it stops any form of real competition.

Just do away with the districts and get some real choice in political parties. Break up the DP and GOP, there's ideological room enough in either of those to sustain 3 or more viable parties.

There's only 17 million of us and we have 11 parties and some splinter fractions of people who left their party in the lower house at the moment (and innumerable local parties who band together in the senate) and things work out great. Far less ideological anger or grandstanding and much more interest in actually reaching a consensus.

Have you got some form of PR?

it makes you wonder why that is even accepted by the people.

Because it doesn't truly affect the day to day life of anyone. That and it actually "helps" some people. I condenses power based political opinion, if an area is mostly part of one party, that means someone from that party is more likely to get elected.

So those who are actually interested in politics tends to like it, because it can make their party stronger, and everyone else either just doesn't understand it or don't care.

It is again why pure democracy is such a bad system, most people don't care enough to actually be informed on the issues and so would vote for whomever they like the best, or which side offers them the most.

And that is exactly why a two party, district system is so terrible. It takes away a lot of choice and both parties are interested in maintaining the status quo because it stops any form of real competition.

Just do away with the districts and get some real choice in political parties. Break up the DP and GOP, there's ideological room enough in either of those to sustain 3 or more viable parties.

There's only 17 million of us and we have 11 parties and some splinter fractions of people who left their party in the lower house at the moment (and innumerable local parties who band together in the senate) and things work out great. Far less ideological anger or grandstanding and much more interest in actually reaching a consensus.

Pretty much. ANy first past the post non-proportional system will tend to wind up in a cyclical pattern of upstart parties becoming big then moving closer and closer to the middle ground, becoming the establishment and ending up broadly the same with minor cosmetic differences, getting about 50% of the voters each whilst apathy and disaffection grows, then populist upstarts coming in to the edges again.

The UK is currently in the 'populist upstarts challenging at the edges' phase with UKIP and the upswelling of grassroots support in Labour, but the centre are doing the level slimiest to hold.

PR systems are much less prone to this kind of polarising of politics.

Partly because it's small and technical and boring, partly because people don't really understand it.

.

It's not that small though is it? How many votes have been made worthless through that process?

Nor is it that hard to understand.

It is just bewildering to me to see how many people accept the loss of their vote without speaking up.

It's small and technical and boring because it takes some effort to explain how gerrymandering works. TO the politically minded who already know, they're already angry. TO the person who only really thinks about politics when he gets to the polling station... why would he care? He has the two parties he knows about to vote for, he puts his mark on one of them. Maybe a different one from last time, but he's done his bit.

Without a good, honest media engine to challenge gerrymandering honestly, it's difficult to get people to care because a LOT of people don't really think politics has much impact on them, or know it does but don't see any difference between the options presented so don't care anyway, or some combination of both.

Even if the British left manages to solve its current cornered-party-elite problem (and I hope it will), it will still have a huge uphill struggle because of the dominance of the SNP in Scotland (who would be natural policy allies if not for the whole nationalism bit, and the ease with which the right can point to 'Labour in SNP pockets' or whatever, and because of the gerrymandering and voter registration changes that have disenfranchised yet more lefty voters.

The majority of people just don't care enough in this country - they just don't really pay attention to politics, and I really struggle to blame them given how out of touch the politicians by and large are.

FPTP is a horrible system, but it's a doubly horrible system to change because of how well it consolidates power in those who first obtain it.

Not sure it would be a bad thing if it did. What do Americans think?

Well that was the plan in the beginning... Until Lincoln the states were much more independent and the Fed really had little power. The Pres was mostly there as a point of contact for other nations. The federal government didn't have much impact on the day to day life of people, the state and county government mattered a lot more.

It's not that small though is it? How many votes have been made worthless through that process?

Most people don't actually understand on a gut level that their vote has been made worthless. They believe their vote actually matters, when in truth it often doesn't. Most people just don't get it... But most people didn't and really still don't understand how presidential elections actually work. They believe that they're casting a vote for the person they want elected rather than voting for how the people their state sends to the electoral college will vote.

My name's Commander Shepard, and this is the most depressing thread on the board...

You're not wrong though (and that is why it's so depressing).

Not sure it would be a bad thing if it did. What do Americans think?

Well that was the plan in the beginning... Until Lincoln the states were much more independent and the Fed really had little power. The Pres was mostly there as a point of contact for other nations. The federal government didn't have much impact on the day to day life of people, the state and county government mattered a lot more.

We Texans amuse ourselves by proposing we become an independent Republic again because the alternative to joking about it is crying that we can't actually do that and are stuck in this Union.

Not sure it would be a bad thing if it did. What do Americans think?

Well that was the plan in the beginning... Until Lincoln the states were much more independent and the Fed really had little power. The Pres was mostly there as a point of contact for other nations. The federal government didn't have much impact on the day to day life of people, the state and county government mattered a lot more.

We Texans amuse ourselves by proposing we become an independent Republic again because the alternative to joking about it is crying that we can't actually do that and are stuck in this Union.

You could have a civil war again. It's your turn to win!

Slight tangent: I checked Wikipedia to make sure Texas was one of the losers in your first civil war (well, second if you count your War of Ingratitude), and noticed it mentioned that the economy down there was based on the labour of "African American slaves". Surely "African American" implies a degree of assimilation; the slaves were just African, weren't they?

Not sure it would be a bad thing if it did. What do Americans think?

Well that was the plan in the beginning... Until Lincoln the states were much more independent and the Fed really had little power. The Pres was mostly there as a point of contact for other nations. The federal government didn't have much impact on the day to day life of people, the state and county government mattered a lot more.

We Texans amuse ourselves by proposing we become an independent Republic again because the alternative to joking about it is crying that we can't actually do that and are stuck in this Union.

You could have a civil war again. It's your turn to win!

Slight tangent: I checked Wikipedia to make sure Texas was one of the losers in your first civil war (well, second if you count your War of Ingratitude), and noticed it mentioned that the economy down there was based on the labour of "African American slaves". Surely "African American" implies a degree of assimilation; the slaves were just African, weren't they?

If I had to guess, I'd say whoever edited that was trying to be politically correct, and wasn't really thinking about what the phrase actually means.

the economy down there was based on the labour of "African American slaves". Surely "African American" implies a degree of assimilation; the slaves were just African, weren't they?

As I understand it, the import of new slaves from Africa actually ended reletively early, by the time of the civil war pretty much all slaves were decendants several generations removed from the original Africans that were kidnapped.

Annnnd...Theresa May just appointed Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary.

man, this acid is strong. This bad trip has been lasting for weeks now...

Wow.

Wow.

seriously. could this be any more comical.

Annnnd...Theresa May just appointed Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary.

man, this acid is strong. This bad trip has been lasting for weeks now...

No, that's not true. That's impossible!

Help this poor Yank keep things straight. Johnson looks like BritTrump, Farage acts like BritTrump, and May is the senator from Naboo who played everyone into the top job? Or am I getting folks mixed up?

I'm speechless

it makes you wonder why that is even accepted by the people.

Because it doesn't truly affect the day to day life of anyone. That and it actually "helps" some people. I condenses power based political opinion, if an area is mostly part of one party, that means someone from that party is more likely to get elected.

So those who are actually interested in politics tends to like it, because it can make their party stronger, and everyone else either just doesn't understand it or don't care.

It is again why pure democracy is such a bad system, most people don't care enough to actually be informed on the issues and so would vote for whomever they like the best, or which side offers them the most.

And that is exactly why a two party, district system is so terrible. It takes away a lot of choice and both parties are interested in maintaining the status quo because it stops any form of real competition.

Just do away with the districts and get some real choice in political parties. Break up the DP and GOP, there's ideological room enough in either of those to sustain 3 or more viable parties.

There's only 17 million of us and we have 11 parties and some splinter fractions of people who left their party in the lower house at the moment (and innumerable local parties who band together in the senate) and things work out great. Far less ideological anger or grandstanding and much more interest in actually reaching a consensus.

Have you got some form of PR?

Yup, a 150 seats in the lower house divided amongst the parties.

You technically vote for a single person, but the votes per party are tallied first with the personal vote only mattering when it comes to dividing the won seats.

So most people vote by filling the box next to the first name and let the party handle who fills the seats.

Here's a ballot from 4 years ago:

The order is based on the outcome of the previous elections, in this case the first party is Liberal, then a left wing, then far right, christian democrats, socialist, centre democrats, another left wing, christian, very strict christian, party for animal rights, and then some parties that hardly got any votes. These parties all sit in the lower house currently, as well as a party for older people.

The prime minister is from the party with the most votes, he then has to form a cabinet by forming a coalition from any number of parties.

the economy down there was based on the labour of "African American slaves". Surely "African American" implies a degree of assimilation; the slaves were just African, weren't they?

As I understand it, the import of new slaves from Africa actually ended reletively early, by the time of the civil war pretty much all slaves were decendants several generations removed from the original Africans that were kidnapped.

Importing new slaves was officially prohibited as of 1808.

Annnnd...Theresa May just appointed Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary.

Just for extra funsies, not only will BoJo have to deal with the EU to negotiate the exit, he will also for instance have to deal with Erdogan. That guy is notorious for being easily offended and Johnson wrote a nice little offensive poem about him:

There was a young fellow from Ankara

Who was a terrific wankerer

Till he sowed his wild oats

With the help of a goat

But he didn’t even stop to thankera.

So that'll be fun!

Annnnd...Theresa May just appointed Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary.

Just for extra funsies, not only will BoJo have to deal with the EU to negotiate the exit, he will also for instance have to deal with Erdogan. That guy is notorious for being easily offended and Johnson wrote a nice little offensive poem about him:

There was a young fellow from Ankara

Who was a terrific wankerer

Till he sowed his wild oats

With the help of a goat

But he didn’t even stop to thankera.

So that'll be fun!

He won a competition at his newspaper for that apparently. It doesn't even have a good rhythm, it's rubbish!

Help this poor Yank keep things straight. Johnson looks like BritTrump, Farage acts like BritTrump, and May is the senator from Naboo who played everyone into the top job? Or am I getting folks mixed up?

That's it exactly right. Although so far Johnson's the only one we've actually seen using the Force.

Annnnd...Theresa May just appointed Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary.

Just for extra funsies, not only will BoJo have to deal with the EU to negotiate the exit.

Nope. David Davis is minister for Brexit.

The more I think about it the more I think BoJo isn't actually as terrible as he first appears. He's a political windsock, but before 8 months ago he was pretty Europhile and pro-immigration for a Tory. I hope (hope is a mistake) that he might remember that he's an immigrant and child of immigrants himself and not be a horrible bastard about it.

I'm wrong to hope, as ever.

(BoJo is also eligible to be president of the USA FWIW, I'm imaging a scenario where he nobbles Trump somehow and goes to the inauguration in his place, and (like that simpsons episode with Armin Tamzarian) everyone knows exactly what's going on, and goes along with it anyway because he's a better option...