we must de-tribalize
rank choice voting is the clearest path
I don't love the idea of ranked choice voting because it adds an unnecessary game-theory aspect to voting which could result in some really wacky scenarios.
I'd love the idea of a more diverse menu of realistic voting options, but I'm not convinced ranked-choice is the best avenue for that.
Yeah I don't fully understand parliamentary governments but having a boatload of parties seems better on the surface
Having spent so much time in Canada, what makes 3rd parties "work" in a parliamentary system is the fact that you can make any MP election inherently be very "local" cause it is.
However to make a "government" work you essentially have to caucus with other like minded parties or give them concessions (not a bad thing) to make a PM be able to hold the confidence of the parliament. In practice it doesn't really do much more than still break down to a two party system, you just though I guess can be more true to yourself and go be a Green or NDP, or Quebecois, or whatever but the Liberals and Conservatives ultimately have an overall plurality. So I guess you gotta ask yourself if that's worth it to have more voices, that are truly under something that is not "D" or "R" but ultimately would support a "D" or "R" cause.
Like both parties kinda already do this, they sort of become more expedient to it by just coopting it. You have progressive wings of the democrats, you have more moderate tones of the republicans.
Ultimately how a parliamentary government works (in the Westminster tradition) is if you had just the house and the senate (and the senate basically becomes an advisory board). The house basically holds most of the power, the speaker of the house is the equivalent of the PM. The PM is the "president" who then uses the parliament to fill out all the cabinet positions and whatnot. They can even dissolve it and call for new elections, buuuuut, of course that can spectacularly backfire as then you can immediately redress the government right there. It's kinda a fun system. There is a reason it's been used for so long, and you can really see it's influence on ours. You can tell the founders tried to mimic it a lot, and definitely thought it was going to run the show, and the executive would just have some power and play along. I think had the founders knew the king/queen of the UK would become a figure head and the president would hold all this power they'd just done a parliament.
