<div dir="ltr">This is all absolutely correct and a big part of the reason I left the US. Without electoral reform, Canada risks sliding down the same path. We need multi-party democracy that forces coalition and consensus building rather than winner take all, zero sum game politics. Ironically, having many "factions" and shifting temporary per-issue alliances is exactly what the men who wrote the Constitution intended. Sadly, this was lost somewhere early on and few Americans bother to read the Federalist Papers to understand why it was such an important concept.<div><br></div><div>This week's Congressional election where the guy who beat up a reporter won the election is an amazing example. Not only did people still vote for him because he was in their "tribe", but they excused rather than condemned the behavior, even blaming the reporter who was beat up. This is the logical extension of the two party system.</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, May 26, 2017 at 10:29 AM, Jennifer Ross <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:2jennross@gmail.com" target="_blank">2jennross@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">The Economist Intelligence Unit is a good analytical arm of the Economist magazine. Here, they are reporting on Trump and impeachment.<br><p><span style="font-family:times new roman,serif">Second, Congress is highly polarised. There are various measures to
assess the ideological positions of Democrats and Republicans, but
according to the DW‑Nominate estimate, produced by two academics, Keith
Poole and Howard Rosenthal, Democrats are drifting towards more liberal
positions and Republicans, especially, towards more conservative ones.
The two parties now sit further apart than at any point since the survey
began in the 1870s. Polarisation matters because it means that the
parties are less likely to co-operate on any given issue, including
impeachment. In our view, this means that House Republicans are less
likely to vote Mr Trump out. (It also means, we think, that Democrats
are more likely to push for impeachment, but we do not believe that they
will have this opportunity.)</span></p><span style="font-family:times new roman,serif">
</span><p><span style="font-family:times new roman,serif">This is because of our third reason: we expect Republicans to hold on
to their House majority at the November 2018 mid-term elections. The
party holds 238 seats, with 218 needed for control. This sounds like a
relatively slim advantage, especially given that governing parties tend
to lose seats at the mid-terms. But gerrymandering and redistricting
mean that few House seats are genuine contests. According to the Cook
Political Report, only 23 seats are considered "highly competitive".
Political polarisation also makes it more likely that seats will not
shift from one party to the other, as the ideological change required
would be greater. Unless there is a major, broad-based swing against the
Republican Party over the next 18 months, the Republicans will be in a
strong position to keep the House.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:times new roman,serif"><a href="http://country.eiu.com/article.aspx?articleid=1655471549&Country=United%20States&topic=Politics&subtopic=Forecast&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTm1ZMVlXSmhNekZtTnpjMSIsInQiOiJiZmowbDNCSE9ZTU9xK1gzOUZmWjg5VExkWE1zWlJCUnN1WmhtS0RlWHNDc212TUVuQXU3dmg1TEV2RlpsVHdiamVWWFZjR3JYbkZHSXFlRlNmNTJ5U052NnZcL01OSXU4bXp0R2RiTmx1TXdyQ2swbWlwb3FGZU5KRGFCTkc2aUsifQ%3D%3D" target="_blank"><font size="2">http://country.eiu.com/<wbr>article.aspx?articleid=<wbr>1655471549&Country=United%<wbr>20States&topic=Politics&<wbr>subtopic=Forecast&mkt_tok=<wbr>eyJpIjoiTm1ZMVlXSmhNekZtTnpjMS<wbr>IsInQiOiJiZmowbDNCSE9ZTU9xK1gz<wbr>OUZmWjg5VExkWE1zWlJCUnN1WmhtS0<wbr>RlWHNDc212TUVuQXU3dmg1TEV2Rlps<wbr>VHdiamVWWFZjR3JYbkZHSXFlRlNmNT<wbr>J5U052NnZcL01OSXU4bXp0R2RiTmx1<wbr>TXdyQ2swbWlwb3FGZU5KRGFCTkc2aU<wbr>sifQ%3D%3D</font></a><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:times new roman,serif"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">But yet this kind of destructive hyper-partisan behaviour, caused by the electoral system, is "serving us well" and something else would be "radical." Okay, yes, in Canada we aren't quite here yet--but we only have less than 100 years to go by straight number of years as a country--and in the real world we are only a decade behind.</span><br></span></p><p><span style="font-family:times new roman,serif"></span></p><p><span style="font-family:times new roman,serif">Jenn<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br></font></span></span></p><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><p><span style="font-family:times new roman,serif"><br></span></p><div><br>-- <br><div class="m_3828972931430722216gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-size:10px;background-color:transparent;font-style:normal"><span><font color="#888888"><font size="1"><span style="font-family:tahoma,new york,times,serif"><span style="line-height:10.9091px">No other Western democratic country concentrates as much political power </span></span></font><font size="1"><span style="font-family:tahoma,new york,times,serif"><span style="line-height:10.9091px">in the hands of one person as Canada does with her Prime Minister. </span></span></font></font></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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