Time for a Change?

I came across a column about third parties in the Washington Post the other day. It was interesting. Slanted... because it is an opinion... but still quite interesting.

The first thing that came to mind is that the writer should have used "viable" when speaking of third parties. After all, we have more than two political parties in the United States. We have many, actually. And we have had a number of different political parties over the years. I went looking for some list of them and found this which I found educational. Our political parties often do not just appear, they evolve out of existing ones. Like religions, dissenters break away and form their own. Sometimes these die away and sometimes they become mainstream.

Someone in the comments of the WaPo column brought up something called Ranked Choice Voting (or "RCV"). I urge people to investigate this even though I think it is impractical for the United States. It is an interesting concept. We elect representatives and we do it on a "winner take all" basis. It is our way, so to speak. This RCV system might do away with those annoying runoff elections.

I have no control of the political make up of the country (beyond my single vote) because I am not an influential member of the body politic. If I were, I would put a lot of effort into pushing for four influential (major) parties, each representing one of the following: Left, Right, Center Left, and Center Right.

What these parties would do is create a more fluid political system. Ad hoc coalitions would form and dissolve as needed. No single party could maintain power for long. Our system would be more parliamentary in nature and I feel parliamentary systems are superior to the one we have now since the one we have now is dangerously close to breaking.