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Does the small r go on reestablishing or republican 🤔

For USA (and most of western countries) I have the prejudice that are effective plutocracies (where wealth is not only liquid money in the bank) disguised of democracies, the more is only dual the polarisation the higher the control of the wealthy

Yeah, with the current system, the only real hope for a major third party is for one of the major parties to split. Because any small third party just eats up the votes of the major party closest to its position. But, big parties only tend to split when they face major electoral defeats and there's a lot of infighting. That means that not only did they lose, but now due to being split, they're not even an effective opposition, and the other major party wins more easily than ever. (Which tends to lead to complacency and corruption, which tends to lead to eventual electoral defeats, once the other party gets its act together...)

And then there's the problem that the only people who have the possible power to pass electoral reform belong to one of the two major parties, and it's completely against the interest of those major parties to get rid of FPTP, because FPTP locks in their duopoly. That's why, for example, when the Canadian Liberal party promised to get rid of FPTP, they abandoned that promise as soon as they were in power.

Maybe reform is possible because people are human, they don't always optimize for the perfect win in a game. But, game theory says that it's going to be a major uphill battle to pass any kind of reform.

Veritasium didn't really give the full picture though. He was only really looking at rated based voting systems, but there are more systems out there than that.

Since I don’t like Veritasium, I’ll suggest the CGPGrey videos:

• First Past the Post
• Alternative Vote
• Single Transferable Vote

I would assume it's the worst. The only thing it has going for it is that it's easy to understand.

One reason we'll never get electoral reform in this country. As soon as you start asking people to show their work, they get angry and downvote you.

The dirty truth of elections is that the type of voting system matters much less than the size of the districts and the degree of enfranchisement in the population. If you want a multi-party system, you need districts small enough that minority parties can find a local majority. If you've got 400 Ds, 400 Rs, and 200 Is, you're going to produce more 3rd party candidates with districts of 100 people than 500.

That is why states like the UK, Spain, and France can produce all these small regional parties. The average electorate per constituency in the UK is around 70k. In the US, it's closer to 700k.

Do Approval Voting. Do STV. Do Star Voting. It won't save you, so long as you've got districts so large that only a minor celebrity can compete in them.

Many countries with FPTP still have large 3rd parties

The "law" says that 2 main parties tend to emerge. In Canada only once has the prime minister ever come from a party other than the Liberals or the Conservatives. That was in 1917 when the main issue was conscription, and the pro-conscription "Union" party won over the anti-conscription Liberals. It's pretty clear that in Canadian politics there are 2 main parties, and a few other parties that cling to survival.

Occasionally one of the parties ends up imploding, but Duverger's Law is so strong that normally it's only a short time before the duopoly is re-established. In Canada, Brian Mulroney and his party were so unpopular that it caused the Reform Party to form from disaffected conservatives. That meant that in the 1993 election the "Progressive Conservative" party managed only 2 seats in the federal election. But, 10 years later, the rift was healed and once again the Conservative party was the main opposition. Then the Liberals self-destructed and very briefly the NDP was the official opposition, but a few years later Justin Trudeau took the Liberals to a huge victory.

Sure, it's better to have a third party with a few seats than it is to have no third party at all. But, I'd hardly say that events in Canada disprove Duverger's law. In fact, they tend to support it. In more than 150 years, despite everything, the two main parties are essentially the two main parties from 150 years ago.

It's the combination of FPTP voting and the presidential government structure.

In a parliamentary system third parties are more viable because they can act as "king maker" to one of the two larger parties.

Of course a proportional voting system like STV is even better for party diversity.

Because the french believe in Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité. The first one the USA can fully agree on. But the second one, equality, is a deal breaker.

afaik we were until like WW2 where the french were absolutely not prepared for an invasion by the Nazis. Vietnam then solidified the idea the french would forever rely on the US to solve their military problems