> And of course, without any social democratic party to be the vehicle of the
> soc dem ideology, the ideology would almost certainly wither, as all those
> soc dem voters were forced to vote again and again for watered-down
> capitalist candidates who could win 51% of the vote by themselves. Soon the
> watered-down ideology would replace the original one.
>
> Just a reminder that the structure of an electoral system *itself*
> determines a society's ideology.
I always thought the demonisation in American political rhetoric of 'partisanship', with the implication that American politics was peculiarly partisan, was weird, given that there isn't really much breadth of opinion in mainstream debate. But this healthcare debacle brings home to me one structural basis for it - that the setup of the legislatory institutions makes it incredibly difficult for a majority government to get through any major reform without getting a significant proportion of the other party on-side. I don't think any other democracy is like that, usually it's winner-takes-all - except in countries with proportional representation where coalitions have to be forged, but then they can still usually exclude the opposition.
Mike Beggs