>The US political system is fundamentally hostile to second parties. The
>first-past-the-post system, which only the UK continues to use, ensures
>that you get monopolies -- the 51% rule, the 49% get turned off from
>politics, etc. We need a parliamentary system run by proportional
>representation, where a vote for a small party equals a seat in a
>legislature. Instead, we have an 18th century theocracy of finance
>capital, which swears fealty to a mysterious, all-knowing, omniscient
>Constitution, into whose text every issue of import is somehow to be
>allegorically read.
As an outsider, it seems to be far worse than that. The US system is fundamentally and purposefully hostile to political parties per se. The primaries system not only creates an artificial hurdle for a political party getting on the ballot at all, but ensures that political parties will have little control over who their candidate(s) will be and hence what those elected on their ticket will stand for.
I've never quite understood what the exact point of political parties are under such a system, at least in terms of the electoral system. They can only be effective as a propaganda group.
I don't know all the details of how it works, but there seems no way for the actual members of a political party to prevent a candidate hostile to their fundamental policies and platform from getting onto the ballot in their name. Why would anyone bother to join a political party under such a system?
Why not just hijack an existing political party, campaign for a candidate with hostile policies to that party to be put on the ticket instead of the candidate preferred by the existing members? Those voting in primaries don't appear to be required to actually be a member of the party whose candidates they are selecting. They might even be members of a hostile political party. What sort of a mickey mouse system lets the political enemies of a party select its candidates? What sort of dope would get sucked into such a futile activity as building a political party which can't have any influence in electoral politics?
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas