As a couple of commenters have noted, not all parliamentary systems have proportional representation. I should have said, "This is opposed to a proportional representation system." My mistake.

George Carlin was right, we have lot of choices for dumb things , but virtually nothing when it comes to important stuff like elections and rights.

Here in europe third parties are called parties

we need a petition to get this played in every single school at least once a year

As European the idea of only two parties existing in parliament seems strange.

The two party system is divisive regardless of who runs! It keeps us in a perpetual state of turmoil.

The "illusion of choice".

living in Czech republic where political parties are always emerging and disappearing, it's weird to see that a country can have only two major parties

Yes. I was always confused why there is only 2 party in a democracy. Thanks for the video.

Be Independent… once you belong to a Political Party you are the problem

Not all parliamentary systems have proportional representation. Canada’s federal elections still use a FPTP voting system.

great video. We do desperately need to break the duopoly.

Yes, end 2 party system!!

Capitalist ideals only leads to monopoly. Like you said, capitalism is baked in our blood. Our government reflects that.

We are so trapped in this system. We need real change and nobody is here to help us!

Maybe more than two parties would work in a country where more than just 30% vote. We already have minority rule because of a two party system. I don’t want 5% of the population making policies for everyone, it’s already bad enough.

Australia has literally all of those things. As a New Zealander I’m reluctant to admit their system is fairer but you can’t argue with CPGrey.

Brilliant work young man. The lemming pool needs to dry up in our country. People like you help advance this end.

The First Pass the Post Voting for a Westminister style parliamentary system isn't free from a duopoly either. If the 3rd choice is a weak one, or country practices political patronage, ie: you vote me and my party elected as government would deliver things you need would mean people rarely vote independants. I am genuinely stuck disagreeing with my country's duopoly parties and vote independants anyway because I disagree with the system in its entirety.

Two party system are so unbased that the only thing worse is a one party system

I recently read an article by the Atlantic that's correct about the fact that a 2 party system isn't working in favor of democracy. It stated that the far right has been manifesting in the Republican party for the past 20 years and Trump made it even worse. The article said that the far right of the GOP must be marginalized and the only way to successfully do that is by forming at least a 3rd political party. It stated that the purpose of a 3rd political party would be primarily for moderate centrist right traditional conservatives in order to give them a place they would feel comfortable calling home. Otherwise the far right faction of the current Republican party will continue to gain more influence and power and eventually will lead to the destruction of American democracy. As another Atlantic article pointed out the left and the right are radicalizing each other. By adding a 3rd and possibly a 4th party both the far right and far left would soon disappear. That's cause America would no longer have 2 extremist political parties constantly butting heads. We would end up having another party for moderate centrist Democrats and also another party for moderate centrist right traditional conservatives. Congressional districts across the country would be much more evenly represented. We would no longer have Ilhan Omar's and Alexandria Cortez's nor would we have Margerie Taylor Green's and Paul Gozar's.

Thank You Louis! I'm seeing my country being controlled by a failed political system. I'm not gonna vote for a D or R. I'm so tired of elected folks working for their party instead of their voters. God help us, we need real change. Please keep doing what you do.

6:45 that ranked choice voting seems like something worth exploring on a larger scale.

Everything Lou said in this video, is how most democratic countries do it. Most democratic countries look at the US system as a not working democratic system. Because of what mentioned in this video and the influence of businesses in politics. Americans need to look outside there borders to see how things can be done better like the metric system and 24 hours time system, booth used by the military because it's easier and more accurate.

Lou, for someone who discusses politics as frequently as you do, you manage to steer away from controversial statements altogether. It's impressive almost.

The problem is that people don’t stand up against this 2 party system. Therefore, this 2 party duopoly system keeps thriving.

hey @LouisFoglia, what watch are you wearing?

great video!! We need to enact some of these changes but it seems like such a long shot when the 2 parties control the rules :(

It's not that there is only two parties in America, it's just that nobody views the third parties seriously enough to vote for them.

Why can’t we have men like Washington nowadays? Earned his place and was demanded to be leader, foresaw this disaster of a 2 party system, and could’ve stayed in office like a king but rejected it

Can't stand people that yell at the people who vote 3rd party and say that they are "throwing their vote away" ... We can't fix the system if we keep doing the same things.

How many other countries have similar political systems?

Nice statue of His Holiness, The Dude. Far out, man!

Assuming someone who voted third party would have otherwise voted for the duopoly candidate is nonsense

Im sorry but you a totally wrong about how parliamentary voting, if someone got X- percentage of popular vote it doesn't equal X percentage of the seats in Parliament. It's a first past the post system, where it can happen when a party that receives a minority of popular vote but still could win a majority of the seats in the house(parliament) .

you keep such a tidy room of beloved things!

I love what you said in the end. Thank you for this.

YES- Ranked Choice and Parliamentary Congress are dreams that should be reality

Great video. Loved it!

No ads? :(

I don't know if this creates extreme frustration with any other viewers, but relating most to the libertarian party I think we are long overdue for a revolution. Third parties ought to join together and mount one.

*laughs in european* My country, Finland, used electoral college also. In 1991 we it was stupid and switched to direct popular vote. The U.S. is so cute with its antiquated systems like electoral college (even the name is stupid - sounds like a school where you go to learn to vote) and freedom units. "But it has always been like this!! MURICA!! Freedom! Shotguns and bald eagles yeee-haw!!"

This channel is still underrated

trapped in a vicious cycle, only 2 parties with over a century worth of influence each, first past the post, the electoral college which can only be changed by a notoriously difficult constitutional amendment

And they think they live in a democracy.

First reaction when I saw the title: YEAH NO SHIT!!

this has to spread

And then when you go to work, the thing that governs most of your time and activity, there is a no party system run by either an oligarchy (board of directors) or a dictatorship (CEO/owner).

I honestly didn't realize until recently.

A political party is in business for one reason. And that’s NOT a public service for voters. It’s to return an investment for those who dump money into the party. We need to fire the party system.

Thanks Lou!

One of the solutions you proposed, we've got in California. Party primaries have been eliminated (for everything but POTUS) in favor of a "Top Two" primary. What this means is that, in the spring, instead of each party choosing its candidates to represent it in the general election, it's a battle royale amongst *all* the candidates regardless of party affiliation, with the two top vote-getters moving on to November. The result is that the spring election is in practical effect the *general* election, and the November election is the *runoff.* Except that everyone still thinks of the spring election as the primary, which they figure they can skip (spring elections have *far* lower turnout than November), and they still have it in their heads that they'll be able to vote for their preferred party in November. The result has been not just to *completely* shut out "third parties", but to reinforce the *single-party* nature of most districts, as they now feature a November runoff between two candidates *of the same party.* Thus, even less choice. So, maybe don't do that.

Fantastic video, I could not agree more on every single point.

What happens if he messes up

I subscribed. I want to see your other views on topics and see your other videos.

Totally agree with the video. A easy measure for the electoral college would be introducing ranked choice voting and making each states HoR votes representitve. Small states with 3 electoral would stay the same and be decisive(the 1 HoR vote would only go to the wimner ofcourse). Larger states would get more purple. This would increase the importance for politiciand in adressing all states instead of just a few swing states and still let smaller states keep a stronger voice. Hopefully the Dual party system would also fall as a result.

I've been saying this for years, but how do we ranked voting passed by the people empowered by the current system?

There’s always a lot of focus on the president and electoral college. However there were times in the 19th century when Congress had members from more than just the two parties. India has a first-past-the-post system and 50+ parties that organize into political coalitions. Two things that those who benefit from the duopoly (party leaders, donors, media, and pundits) often say is 1) people don’t vote for parties, they vote for candidates 2) it would be expensive to change things to either multi-seat districts or some sort of proportional representation system such as RCV, MMPR, or STV. Looking at those two arguments. The first one isn’t true. SOME people do vote for candidates. However I have volunteered as a poll worker in my state and in each partisan election I worked, most people didn’t even know all the candidates they voted by party, many opting to use the part of the ballot that lets them vote “Party Line”, that is an area a top each column where selecting a party automatically means you select all party candidates for that column. In nonpartisan elections such as school board and city council elections here, many people again didn’t know all the candidates and would inquire with the poll workers about the affiliation of the candidates. We aren’t given that information. So saying people vote for candidates not parties isn’t true. Most people are voting for parties not candidates because they want to vote for their “team.” Those without a “team” either aren’t voting or are the people who are voting for candidates. As for it being to expensive, that also is false. Numerous studies have shown that the costs of elections would actually be reduced by switching and the costs to implement the changes would also not be very much. In fact, it would be comparable to the costs Congress made after the 2000 election and no one in Congress or state legislatures was complaining then about the small sum. Prior to the 1960s, single-member districts weren’t mandatory for federal elections. Congress changed this then. There were states that had local, state, and even federal offices elected multi-members or even at-large members. In the 1960s this was changed. The thought was to intentionally create districts for certain minority groups so as to ensure representation...especially in places where they had been discriminated and even denied representation. While the intentions are honorable, it opened up gerrymandering in ways that once the Voting Rights Act was gutted has led to situations that actually do the opposite of the intentions of those who passed into law the single-member districts to begin with. Thus, with the intentions broken, the law should be reformed. A multi-member district could run parties that represent minority groups to ensure representation. This is what is done in other nations that are multi-party democratic-republics. Saying that the richest nation on the planet cannot afford these things and saying that somehow our citizens aren’t as politically savvy as other nations by not voting for parties should lead people to then point out the irrelevance of the parties and pressure for the complete ending/banning of parties altogether so that all elections are nonpartisan or if it costs too much then instead of taxpayers paying for elections then the parties pay taxes that then pay for elections since we’ve all seen the huge sums of money the local, state, and national parties have and the grand conventions they put on every four years.....surely they could spare some of that money to help foot the bill of either great reforms that would make the process more representative and democratic or the elections themselves since they want to exclude others. As Congress and legislative bodies are the ones with the most real political influence on people’s day to day lives (they write and pass the laws that the executive branches enforce and judiciary branches interpret), that’s where the focus of reform should be. Those who wish to maintain the status quo (because they benefit from it) like to distract and confuse the issue by talking about the electoral college and executive branch like the Presidency and make it seem like that’s where people and other parties outside the duopoly should focus their attention. Yet historically the diversity of political parties has been in local, state, and even the national legislative branches while whatever two big parties get the executive. In fact, the few times those smaller parties have either gained a majority in a legislative branch or gained an executive branch is when the two big parties either got the smaller party to merge with it (see parties in some places like Democratic-Farmers Party, etc where this happened), or they used fear to get people to run it out of existence in an area (early 20th century Oklahoma Socialist Party is a good example). Even in multi-party systems two or three rise to be the biggest parties and either coalitions are formed or parties work together or oppose each other depending on specific issues....it just depends on what kind of government system it is (presidential, parliamentary, semi-presidential, etc). You’re absolutely right that the two existing major parties would actually benefit from the reforms. Unfortunately they just don’t realize it yet. And sadly they may not realize it at all and people will reach a point where they no longer trust or have confidence in the system and so will not participate. What happens when people stop participating in peaceful democratic-republic systems? Well, if history is any indicator, then probably not anyone’s desired outcomes. So ready they could prevent any of those outcomes and just spend the small amount of money and reform the system. The real question is do we have any real leaders with the necessary courage to do it.

i couldn't hear anything after focusing on the Big Lebowski statue in the bottom left...

It's corporate lobbying and it's corruption that is allowed in our political system. It's corporate think tanks that develop the redistricting and gerrymandering and tax subsites/welfare. it's NOT the 2 party system that's bad. It doesn't matter how many parties there is. Greed and corruption is the path to the fall of Rome and United States.

at least 90% of your points are valid in Hungary as well

Good analysis.

Lou is great. Period!

Wish they would reform the system sooner rather than later. The process of doing so would likely take years to properly establish, so better to look for a solution now than to maintain this childish and false division.

I like that ranking system. we HAVE TO DO SOMETHING cause I and others CAN' T TAKE THIS CRAP anymore!! Things have to change, man! I DON'T want to go through this again...having to choose between Trump and Hillary!!!! NOT AGAIN!!

Here in Finland we have literally 2 (maybe 3) parties despite we have 7-8 or so We have "left and right Liberals" and "nationalist party" Why only 2 parties? Because despite the nationalists are atm clear number one in polls, and in elections they lost the largest spot with only 4000 votes. All other parties were ready to break their promises, just so they got big enough coalition so they were able to block nationalists out of the goverment. Atm we have extremely unstable goverment due this.

I believe it is absolutely insane to vote for one candidate just because you don't want to see another candidate win. After the smoke clears the BEST case scenario is you are left with a candidate you care NOTHING about. I don't care how I feel about Donald Trump I will NOT vote for Joe Biden.... I will continue to vote for those 3rd "spoiler" parties.

In the United States of America, Democracy does not work! Democracy includes too many problems. Democracy needs much more work to help improve it.

you failed to mention the 2 parties came together to create rules making it harder to gain debate access

And that is a fact.

this is a really good video

All the possible structural reforms might cause us to focus on the wrong thing. The problem is that good public policy has to involve what is wise, what is practical, and what is possible. It has to involve starting with a wide swath of proposals and narrowing them down to things that might be effective, and almost always relies on compromise to actually get a decent policy implemented. Once implemented, the policy must be revisited in time via the same process in order to assess its effectiveness and changed if necessary. Another angle here is how prosperity causes most political issues and even policy questions to have little large scale impact on quality of life. I don't like higher taxes, but unless it is a crushing burden I can simply ignore it and pursue my personal ambitions. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness remember? Applying these ideas to the needed structural changes leads me to think that the House should most definitely become more like a parliament with parties receiving a proportional representation within their delegation. The difficulty there is adding a layer between the district level voting. Geography and local interest will have to be taken into account.

Considering technology today, our voting system needs an update... But I suppose secure online voting profile will require some validation, so demoncraps will have an excuse for protest.

We been knew

At some point, both parties will split into moderate and extreme versions of themselves, and hopefully give us 4 parties that will open the door to others. We already are seeing a divide in the moderates and progressives in the Democrats. Hopefully it doesn't end in a bull moose scenario.

I'm certainly running out of patience for both sides

Just put all candidates in a house and make them live together in a reality tv show. They compete in presidential challenges and everyone can see each life story and watch how they act and respond to different situations and then vote and slowly eliminate until a winner. Even reality shows potintially have better system to choose a winner. The political innovation discussion is wonderful to explore. :)

Hey it's Lou and here is the thing. I finally recognized that everything nonlefty also exists

People should develop their own opinions and ideas, instead of picking a side with wich you seem to align with in some ways, or what your peers are.

Yep. True, true

In the old days whoever was first was president whoever was second was vice president. That didnt last long.

cgpgrey has some great videos about different electoral processes

Hey Lou! I love you!

Like being forced to choose between Pepsi or Coca Cola but you prefer Pibb. Gotta love majority rule.

We in Germany have 5 big parties and its also very hard the find a solution

2 or 100. It's the same. more difficulty more easy to Manipulation. 2 parties probably 50% against 50%. 100 parities. good luck with that. ,most people even can't remember what the policy they voted for. 100..........good luck.

This is pretty good except for endorsing the lie that Nader was a spoiler and the falsehood that a vote for an alternative party is a "wasted" vote.

One can choose between 'Rep.Capitalism plus or Dem. Capitalism light..

at this point i'd rather just sell my vote, because it doesn't count anyway, and none of the candidates worth winning have a chance. $20 and i'll vote for trump, biden, bernie, deez nuts, heck i'll even write your name in.

We really need a viable 3rd party in the US that can actually win a substantial amount of seats in congress and have a real chance of winning the presidency. The dems and reps need some real competition to keep them in check! They have freely run amok all over the constitution for way too long. Sometimes it happens at the Governor level. For instance, my home state of Maine once elected independent Angus King for governor, but it needs to happen in DC too. Just before I moved to Florida I remember Maine instituting the ranked choice voting system he's talking about. I voted that way once but then moved out of state so I don't really know how that's working for them.

Two notes... It's not just a issue of the system but of modern "opposition politics" and negative voting this sort of dichotomy also happens in other countries. It's created by how the oposition party does politics when not in office. By arguing the negative, they polarize instead of advocating for a policy/ideology. This makes the actual mandate they ask from supporters always vague and multi issue - which on the one hand gives them an excuse for flip flopping when in power and in term reduces the actual representation when they get in power. Single issue parties tend to perform much better in Europe because of this. But ultimately their base is always smaller than the big parties that play off each others policy and reinforce the de facto duopoly. That being said, I think the "party as institution" option in the US is much better. You actually have competition inside of the parties, and the base is much more heavily involved in defining the party positions. In Europe, major parties do not take risks and there is virtually no competition of ideas internally because the majority of the base is always threatened with the argument: we'll loose to the other guys. In the US, losing to the other guys is just part of the game. So changing policy is basically a re-branding exercise. Secondly, the party system is meant not only to be representational, but also to provide stability and moderation. It's not constructed to fullfill the will of the majority voter. It's by creation a buffer between the energy and passion of mere mortals and the institutions they have to preside over sustainably and with prudence. That is why you only get a luke warm Trump and Italy get's 2 radical opozing parties ruling or the UK single issue Brexit party get's to win a majority despite being less than a year old.

Look at the Danish system. We have a nummer of district seats and then a number of added seats which are given to the parties to have representation fit with voting %

Thats why I became a moderate, I don't want a two party system tbh

this video is key

one of the better beam news.

What do you all think is better? Option 1:no parties Option 2: one party Option 3: multiple parties

Brazil has more than 30 political parties. More than 4 major ones. Still we are as polarized as the US is now.

We never had a democracy

Anytime I see Lou it's only going to be bad news.

Just watch cgp grey video on actual party systems.