Did you guys every notice...:

[Stewie]

Sometimes, thoughts or questions just come to you out of the blue and you star wonder why they had never caught your attention before.

So wanted to start this thread for others to share any such, as Keanu Reeves would utter "whoa!" experiences or thoughts they have had.

Here is to get us started:

Did you ever notice how third world countries have tons of political parties and the governments formed are always unstable because no one party has the clear majority (and can never have the clear majority because there are so many contenders for the votes) where as in the west, there are always just 2 or three main contenders and the government is always formed by one clear winner?

Why is that? Clearly unlike the west, the difference between these parties in the third world countries is not ideological or well-defined as in conservative vs liberal, religious vs secular, socialist vs anti socialist, etc, etc.

But for all the freedoms and democracy backing in the world, US, for example has only two parties and if you want to be an independent and make a difference and stand apart from the two big well established parties, there is no way you will even make a dent. You dont get invited to any presidential debates, you get almost zero media coverage, you are a nobody unless you stand under the flag of either the Republican or the Democrat party.

But it seems the western media always seems to "herofy" such outliers and lone wolves in third world countries when they stand up against the establishment powers in those countries. Then all of sudden such people become "voice of the downtrodden people" and this and that while in western countries such people are looked at as loonies and not even given serious thought.

 

[Sidilicious]

Sometimes, thoughts or questions just come to you out of the blue and you star wonder why they had never caught your attention before.

So wanted to start this thread for others to share any such, as Keanu Reeves would utter "whoa!" experiences or thoughts they have had.

Here is to get us started:

Did you ever notice how third world countries have tons of political parties and the governments formed are always unstable because no one party has the clear majority (and can never have the clear majority because there are so many contenders for the votes) where as in the west, there are always just 2 or three main contenders and the government is always formed by one clear winner?

Why is that? Clearly unlike the west, the difference between these parties in the third world countries is not ideological or well-defined as in conservative vs liberal, religious vs secular, socialist vs anti socialist, etc, etc.

But for all the freedoms and democracy backing in the world, US, for example has only two parties and if you want to be an independent and make a difference and stand apart from the two big well established parties, there is no way you will even make a dent. You dont get invited to any presidential debates, you get almost zero media coverage, you are a nobody unless you stand under the flag of either the Republican or the Democrat party.

But it seems the western media always seems to "herofy" such outliers and lone wolves in third world countries when they stand up against the establishment powers in those countries. Then all of sudden such people become "voice of the downtrodden people" and this and that while in western countries such people are looked at as loonies and not even given serious thought.

This requires a detailed answer, but dont have time right now.

I would say this thing about only having 2 main parties in the west is not correct. Its only true in the Anglosphere. Even in the UK, we will hopefully have a liberal coalition to get rid of the tories.

However, lets take an example of Germany, where they have a Proportional Representation. Very rarely does a government come into power by its own, and is also genereally very stable.

The pros are
1. Carefully thought-out poliicies
2. Your votes is not waster (for eg. a labour voter has their vote wasted in a strong tory area)
3. There is never a signficant lurch from hard left to hard right. Parties have to work with other parties. In 2021, the left leaning parties took power from the right leaning parties. Even though one very left part came to power, majority of the votes were for centre-left. So, the poticial direction will not turn hard left after years of centre light policies. This brings a lot of stability.
Whats happened in the UK, where a party recieving 40% of the votes, recieved 60% of the seats would not have happened in germany. Thus, it would be very difficult to get hard right or hard left parties in power.

Cons
1. Right wings and nut jobs will always be around - 10-15% of people will always vote for hard right parties (UKIP, BNP; AfD in Germany). So these people even though not in power, will get quite a few seats in the parliament, giving them a strong voice. This wont happen int he UK. For instance in 2015, UKIP recieved 14% votes, but IIRC, only 1 out of 630 seats. In Germany, a 14% votes would have meant nearly 80 seats (if the parliament had 600 seats in total).

 

[WhenSultansBowled]

It is called : divide and conquer:

Elements of this technique involve:

• Creating or encouraging divisions among the subjects to prevent alliances that could challenge the sovereign and distributing forces that they overpower the other.
• Aiding and promoting those who are willing to cooperate with the sovereign
• Fostering distrust and enmity between local rulers
• Encouraging meaningless expenditures that reduce the capability for political and military spending

Historically, this strategy was used in many different ways by empires seeking to expand their territories.

"The rich", since forever, have used this proven method to conque "the poor".