
America’s Hidden Duopoly - laurex
http://freakonomics.com/podcast/politics-industry/
======
CarVac
I don't understand why so many people working for reform support ranked choice
voting instead of approval voting, which on top of performing more
consistently [0], is simpler to explain and understand.

It only takes one sentence to describe: "Vote for everyone you approve of."

It also gracefully handles incomplete information—if you don't know about
someone, just don't vote for them.

[0] [http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/](http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/)

~~~
nessus42
I'm going to have to spend some time reading over your reference when I have
the free time, since it looks quite interesting.

But I can already tell you by the complexity of what that article is trying to
show that most people won't understand it and won't care.

When I vote, it's in part to declare what I want and what I believe in. I
generally don't like Democrats and I don't like Republicans. If I want to vote
for the Green Party candidate, then I want to vote for the Green Party
candidate and make it known that that's who I want to win. I don't want to be
stating that I equally approve of both the Green Party candidate and the
Democratic candidate since that doesn't accurately represent my opinion.

Given that the Green Party candidate is not going to win, I generally vastly
prefer the Democratic candidate to the Republican candidate, even if I don't
like the Democratic candidate one bit.

I don't want to vote in a way in which my statement is that I equally prefer
the Democratic candidate to Green Party candidate. I want to vote in a way
that states, "I want the Green Party candidate to win. And if I can't have
that, I'll reluctantly settle for the Democratic candidate over the Republican
candidate."

Voting in a way in which one's desires are clearly indicated is what most
people would want, I imagine, even if it has some counterintuitive results at
times.

Also, at least on a cursory reading, it seems that the author of the article
has a bias towards "moderate" candidates winning. Who says that I want a
moderate candidate to win? I want some serious progressive change!

~~~
ClayShentrup
> I don't want to vote in a way in which my statement is that I equally prefer
> the Democratic candidate to Green Party candidate.

This is a pervasive logical fallacy, we call the "expressiveness fallacy".
[https://sites.google.com/a/electology.org/www/expressiveness](https://sites.google.com/a/electology.org/www/expressiveness)

In short, you could allow partial approvals (1/4, 1/3, etc.), or
mathematically equivalent ratings on a 0-N scale. But Approval Voting behaves
almost as well in aggregate.
[http://scorevoting.net/BayRegsFig.html](http://scorevoting.net/BayRegsFig.html)

And IRV/RCV will maintain two-party duopoly.
[https://asitoughttobe.com/2010/07/18/score-
voting/](https://asitoughttobe.com/2010/07/18/score-voting/)

Voting theory is highly counterintuitive.

~~~
AstralStorm
Expressiveness fallacy is averted if you use global scales and score system
instead of ranking system. E.g. Majority Judgement.

It is not exactly counterintuitive that aggregated orderings have problems -
the problems relate to the fact that ordering cannot be averaged and ties are
not allowed. The latter problem also happens in the oldest score system called
Bucklin voting.

Approval voting is essentially 0-1 score voting system with ties.

~~~
ClayShentrup
Majority Judgement is severely flawed compared to Score Voting and Approval
Voting.

[http://scorevoting.net/MedianVrange](http://scorevoting.net/MedianVrange)

------
mberning
Why is it commonly assumed that "our system is broken"? What is the evidence
for it? Do people consider the evidence against it? Usually not. It is very
easy to fixate on things which could be better, and completely ignore things
that are already great.

I am reminded of Justice Scalia's testimony regarding "gridlock"

[https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4580812/scalia-
gridlock](https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4580812/scalia-gridlock)

~~~
giobox
FPTP elections are broken almost anywhere they are used, because FPTP’s only
real positive feature is that it is simple to understand. It demonstrably
rarely delivers electoral results that actually reflect the desires of the
electorate.

Combine FPTP with the electoral college system and you get arguably absurd
presidential outcomes like we saw in 2016, where the winning candidate can
receive less votes than the runner up and still win. Huge majorities on
minority shares are often found in FPTP systems, because anyone who didn’t
vote for the winning candidate might as well have not voted. It can also
create the opposite outcomes, minority seat shares in the legislature on
majority vote shares.

It’s just a plain bad voting system if you believe the legislature should at
least vaguely reflect the wishes of voters.

~~~
arkis22
FPTP elections are where the candidate with the most votes wins. By that
definition, it ALWAYS delivers results that reflect the desires of the
electorate. I think you're overstating it when you say that it leads to
situations where anyone who didn't vote for the winning candidate might as
well have not voted. I think it's more accurate to say that every vote
mattered, but the voters who pushed the leading candidate above the runner up
mattered more.

Of course, the underlying problem with those situations is that minorities are
ignored via the tyranny of the majority. So if you think the presidential
outcome was absurd because Hillary received the majority of votes you're
arguing that in _just this_ particular election ignoring the minority, and
going solely by majority vote, would have been a good thing. You can't pick
and choose like that.

Combining FPTP with the electoral college did what it was supposed to, it
compensated for the tyranny of the majority.

~~~
Cursuviam
FPTP with the electoral college makes my vote count for nothing voting in a
solid red or blue state. I despise this fact. Elections only really focus on
swing states and thus swing states have undue influence.

~~~
arkis22
The point of the election is not that _you_ get to decide the election, it's
that the nation collectively decides the election.

~~~
Retra
"The nation" isn't just swing states.

~~~
arkis22
Sure. That's why California has 55 electoral votes.

------
crooked-v
A political duopoly is the inevitable consequence of a first-past-the-post
voting system existing at every layer of government. Compare to some
parliamentary systems, where proportional voting means that no vote is ever
"wasted" as long as you can scrape together the bare minimum for at least a
single MP.

~~~
jacques_chester
Parliaments are not defined by proportional representation; the defining
feature is that government is formed on the floor of the lower house.

Parliaments which have proportional lower houses tend to be a mess. Executive
government needs at least _some_ stability, so single-member electorates for
the lower house and multi-member electorates for the upper house is a
reasonable compromise.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Parliaments are not defined by proportional representation; the defining
> feature is that government is formed on the floor of the lower house.

> Parliaments which have proportional lower houses tend to be a mess.

If by “be a mess” you mean have higher public participation in elections,
higher public satisfaction with government, and lower rate of cabinet
turnover...you're right.

> Executive government needs at least some stability,

Proportional systems have greater stability; while coalitions may change more
frequent than in FPTP systems, there is less frequent _total_ turnover in
membership in either the governing coalition in Parliament or the Cabinet
itself in proportional systems. This is sometimes masked by the fact that the
same language of government “falling” being used for partial and total
turnover.

------
laurex
The point that the interviewees make, as I understand it, is that money is not
really the "problem" in American national politics, it's the way a two-party
system has emerged and over the past century, increased its 'duopoly' with
policy, gerrymandering, etc. I found this argument very compelling. I'm not
sure if there is enough will to make the changes that might lead to some
changes here, but it does seem that the intention of the constitutional
framers has been lost by creating a binary that doesn't allow for some ideas,
such as fiscal conservatism, to succeed at all (though I wouldn't say the
framers themselves were always on the good side of history). Great book on
that topic is "The Founders' Coup," which puts a lot of where we've come into
perspective.

------
chadaustin
I listened to this episode yesterday. Several interesting points and
discussion, and the political industrial complex is real, but I'm not 100%
convinced by the argument that the two parties are a duopoly therefore they do
not serve the public. While the political system basically ensures that there
are only two parties, they rotate over time and adopt or discard ideas as the
public needs them to.

Clay Shirky discusses this argument in [https://medium.com/@cshirky/theres-no-
such-thing-as-a-protes...](https://medium.com/@cshirky/theres-no-such-thing-
as-a-protest-vote-c2fdacabd704)

~~~
conanbatt
One stern warning is that in multiple party systems, you can get one party
that dominates everything, and then all the smaller representative powers are
meaningless.

Argentina is a case-study with Peronism. Since the return of democracy, no
party has yet to finish a term but the peronists.

~~~
kragen
While that's true, the current president, Mauricio Macri, is currently non-
Peronist, and although he's unpopular and the economy is collapsing, he's made
it three years, and he has a substantial chance of lasting to the end of his
term in December 2019.

~~~
conanbatt
The exception that proves the rule. And maybe not even, as he actually got to
power thanks to the peronists, and keeps it becuase they need him.

------
Animats
No mention of the problems of the countries that have multiparty systems.
Italy (6 major parties) and Israel (18 parties in the Knesset) have
dysfunctional governments with too many parties. The UK has five parties with
10 or more seats in Parliament.

The US is having lockup trouble with two parties, but that's historically
unusual.

~~~
craftyguy
I would rather have a 18 parties and a dysfunctional government than 2 and a
dysfunctional government. At least with the 18 party situation, the
flip/flopping is not straight forward and predictable.

~~~
Retra
With more parties, new/different ideas have more ways to infiltrate the
political decision-making process. With two parties, ideas stagnate unless
they are adopted by the overly-powerful heads of those parties.

~~~
craftyguy
Exactly, that's a great point that I should have articulated above.

------
davidw
I think the Coke/Pepsi remarks are a bit facile, and play into some people's
cynical attitude that "they're all the same". For someone with pre-existing
conditions, that was manifestly not true. For Iraq, its people, and the
thousands of soldiers who served there, it was not true. Just to rattle off a
couple of examples.

~~~
vertexFarm
I think they get that, but it's a kind of carrot-and-stick tactic. You don't
really get an option; you get a guarantee that you either vote for 1: pure,
eldritch evil, 2: milquetoast status quo with vague promises of reform that
you aren't really enthused for but at least it's not Satan himself, or 3:
throwing your vote directly into a landfill for a foolish ideal that is
literally impossible under the current system.

Pragmatists should vote for the realistic option that benefits us the most,
but that's not how most people work. People aren't really rational actors. If
you continuously prove to the public that real reform is a stupid dream and
that they must play the game and take the shitty carrot instead of the
incredibly shitty stick, they rebel--even if it's not in their best interest.
It's not reasonable to point out that they shouldn't do this. Of course they
shouldn't, but they always will.

For authoritarians, they see options 1: and 2: from the first paragraph
switched around relative to progressives. They aren't the same at all--not
even a little--yet still there isn't really any meaningful choice to be made.
There is only a vicious, cynical threat. Vote for what your region's culture
considers least evil or watch as Armageddon devours you and your loved ones.

The constant near-perfect tie races are suspicious as hell. Haven't you ever
noticed that? It's always 51-49 or somewhere thereabouts after the electoral
college, gerrymandering and all the other forms of sophistry obfuscate the
direct vote tallies--which always differ far more. Always. Also notice the
incumbency rate compared to approval ratings. Incumbency is nearly perfect,
even though approval is always sub-20%. Often it's far lower than 20%. This
should obviously be impossible in pure democracy, but it should also be
incredibly rare in our representative republic. But it's the rule, not the
exception. In my opinion this is a smoking gun that just can't be dismissed.

This is rigged. Not the same way that crude authoritarian regimes fake their
elections, with blatant but effective mafia tactics. This is structurally
rigged. This is a hateful ploy that is designed to make real reform
impossible, or at least slow enough for existing power structures to readjust
and maintain full ownership of new trends, and furthermore to make us grateful
for the barest minimum of political functioning: simply that we aren't living
under a violent totalitarian state.

Both sides are certainly not the same. But the structure within which both
sides operate is not designed with the best interests of the American people
or the world in mind. I don't think it's some shadowy conspiracy that was
masterminded by a single agent, it's just a ludicrously shitty system that
naturally evolved out of our country and was taken advantage of by various
opportunists. Our market style makes that very easy and very rewarding. Or at
least it was at the outset, before power structures ossified and became
strongly entrenched.

------
tunesmith
I don't understand how this keeps happening where certain people get all this
free marketing and mysterious drum-up, and then their panacea is frigging
Instant Runoff Voting.

At some point the discussion is going to have to evolve past IRV.

One thing to remember - ranked choice voting is just the UI/UX. It doesn't
mean you have to count it IRV style. The IRV zealots know this, which is why
they re-branded it to name it "Ranked Choice Voting". It's a weak method.

And Condorcet is not complicated. If one candidate would beat all others head
to head, that candidate wins. It's only the tiebreaking methods that are
complicated, and ties (loops; smith sets) are rare in large elections. Much
rarer than additional-round Instant Runoff scenarios.

There was a long discussion just a week ago here
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18391757](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18391757))
on voting variants.

------
throw-far-away
Minimum feature-set of a sensible psephocracy:

\- no campaigning or special interest ads a week before voting

\- only public funding and named individual small donations for public servant
campaigns: no PACs, no super-PACs, no huge check fundraisers and no dark-money
SIGs.

\- nationally-unified, same-day voting, no prior registration required

\- nationally-unified, three prior weeks of voting-by-mail

\- media blackout on counts until all final results are in

\- overturn Citizens' United (by amendment via state legislatures)

\- eliminate the primary

\- end the Electoral College

\- free & open source tech unified, _national_ e-voting system, open for all
to audit

\- public blockchain for permanent results

\- printed receipt with barcode of hash saved in the blockchain

\- ranked choice voting (as it provides an instant run-off should the favorite
be disqualified, die or resign; also provides N picks for boards, vice
positions and directors)

~~~
civilian
It's sad you liked ranked choice voting last. That's all we need to end the
duopoly.

I also feel, as the supreme court does, that Citizens United is a free speech
issue. You should listen to this podcast about it to get some perspective:
[https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/citizens-
united](https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/citizens-united)

In a beautiful piece of irony, if it hadn't been for Michael Moore shamelessly
using his corporation to produce political speech, the Citizens United court
case might not have been successful.

------
gammateam
With regard to Washington, this quickly devolves into a semantical discussion
about what "broken" means. The observation is that it is working as intended,
an outcome that is perpetuated by both parties pandering to everyone that it
is broken and they can fix it.

That doesn't mean it ISN'T broken, that proves that it is. Correct, it is a
selective evolution that works the way selective evolution works. But it
doesn't cross the threshold of egalitarian representative democracy where the
representatives get to express the will of the people they represent, which is
what the masses of people it represents mean by "its broken".

------
specialist
Does one ask virgins for sex advice?

Criticisms like Porter's aren't even wrong. They're not even talking about
politics as practiced in the USA. At best, they're kibitzing about folk
notions of democracy.

Everyone should run for office at least once. Give stump speeches. Earn
endorsements. GOTV. Cold call strangers for cash. Wrestle over policy. Build
coalitions. Etc.

People should still criticize, make demands.

I'm just saying that once you've played the game, everyone's behaviour will
make perfect sense. And then you'll see where reform is needed, desirable,
useful.

Source: Election integrity activist, ran for office.

------
walrus1066
I think this is inevitable in a 'first past the post' voting system. The
dynamic is identical in the UK.

------
cbanek
So just to talk about the Coke vs Pepsi thing a bit...

I love Diet Coke, I'm a Coke person for sure. But I have to admit that Pepsi
is winning the business wars, not because of their beverage business, but
because of all their other investments. Pepsi used to own KFC, Taco Bell, and
Pizza Hut (later spun off into Yum! brands), and they still own Frito Lay
chips. Coke I don't think has been as good about diversifying their income
stream.

To take this to the political sphere, the way to win a Duopoly is to cheat and
outsmart your opponent. I'd say the republicans are winning this one though,
with the electoral college, citizens united, and the way they are playing for
votes with fear and hatred.

Now to be sure, I'm a democrat, and I don't like what is going on, but even I
have to admire an evil genius and how they manage to somehow hold on. It's
finding ways around your opponent, not trying to attack them head on. I think
if we changed the voting system to a ranked choice system, this would be a big
way to swing things back toward the democrats.

I'm still always freaked out by people that vote green, and you can see how
blue + green > red, but red is still the plurality. Ranked voting would really
change this. Even I want to vote green, but am worried that I will affect the
spread. Being able to bring in new blood with low risk of going with the worst
option would be a huge improvement.

~~~
jaquetheduck
> Coke I don't think has been as good about diversifying their income stream

Coca Cola definitely has a diverse brand set of income streams including
Minute Made, Nature's Own, Odwalla, and Vitamin Water

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Coca-
Cola_brands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Coca-Cola_brands)

~~~
cbanek
It's true they have a lot of brands, but a lot of them are drinks (for
example, Monster energy drinks too are on that list). Whereas I think the
combination of salty snack food + drinks is a winning combination.

------
tboyd47
They touch on how true bipartisan laws like the New Deal and the Civil Rights
Act just don't get passed anymore, but legislation tends to get passed based
on which party has the majority of reps at that time. (Then they immediately
digress into a long discussion about Trump, unfortunately).

This, to me, is a much more interesting issue than assessing the different
ways of counting ballots like ranked choice or approval voting, which seem
more like a dry mathematical exercise in tweaking some technical process that
we don't fully understand to begin with.

There was this interview I heard on C-Span with Sue Myrick where they asked
her about this lack of bipartisanship in Washington. She said that it's simply
because politicians no longer relocate there, but just fly in on Monday and
fly back out on Friday. So their spouses don't get together anymore for social
events, and their kids don't play on the same baseball teams anymore. They
don't socialize in any meaningful way with the other representatives.

If representatives are anything like normal people, then I'd wager the
revocation of the Fairness Doctrine in 1985 had something to do with it, too.
The news media does a pretty good job conditioning people into hating the
other party.

~~~
dragonwriter
> They also mention how true bipartisan laws like the New Deal and the Civil
> Rights Act just don't get passed anymore,

The New Deal and Civil Rights Act were earthshaking bills that broke the
existing partisan alignment and caused a realignment around them; they didn't
happen often _before_ , the two of them happening without a few decades was
essentially _unprecedented_ in US history.

Bemoaning that things like that don't happen anymore is...odd.

And, yes, the period of realignment that started with the New Deal, was just
seeming to settle out before being reignited with the Civil Rights Act, and
was largely complete by the mid-1990s, when the few surviving conservative
Democratic holdouts finally jumped ship in the wake of the 1994 election had
more other “bipartisan” legislation than was normal before or since, because
the national parties and the major national ideological factions were out of
alignment.

------
zenpaul
Radiolab just did a similar podcast "Tweak the Vote" about new voting
variations. It digs into some real examples in Ireland, San Francisco and
Maine. [https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/tweak-
vote](https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/tweak-vote)

------
ClayShentrup
Fargo, ND just adopted Approval Voting (better and simpler than Ranked Choice
Voting/IRV) by a 64% supermajority.

[https://ballot-access.org/2018/11/06/fargo-north-dakota-
vote...](https://ballot-access.org/2018/11/06/fargo-north-dakota-voters-pass-
approval-voting/)

------
baybal2
There are no shortage of precedents when "winner takes all" systems were
broken square and fair, keep trying

~~~
harshreality
The point isn't that it can't be done, it's that voters are strongly
incentivized against trying, so they only do so when the political system is
completely broken and they feel like they have nothing left to lose, or they
feel like there's such massive support for their third party candidate that
the party shift has already occurred. It's a chicken-and-egg problem.

Depending on that to fix problems with the two dominant parties is like seeing
an infection and doing nothing to treat it until gangrene sets in and you have
to cut off their leg (and give them a robotic prosthetic that you hope will be
better than their real leg).

It can and does happen, there's even a term for it, iirc: electoral
realignment. But it hasn't happened recently, despite a clear sense by
everyone that our political system is broken and stupid. Ross Perot tried to
incite one in '92 and look what happened.

------
dsfyu404ed
So the comments here seem to be debating the merit of various kinds of voting
systems.

Does that mean we fairly unanimously agree that non-partisan primaries are a
good thing? Those are something that could be passed state by state via ballot
measure.

------
bebop
Can we bring back the Bull Moose part?
[http://www.progressivebullmoose.party/](http://www.progressivebullmoose.party/)

------
mac01021
Hidden?

------
golemotron
Hidden?

------
Bodhisattya
Hidden?

------
pravda
Duopoly?

To paraphrase the late Gore Vidal, "We have one political party, the property
party, with two wings."

Here's the full quote:

“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has
two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more
rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats,
who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt — until recently … and more
willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the
black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no
difference between the two parties.”

― Gore Vidal

~~~
mattnewton
This kind of thinking trivializes real progressive policies that “help the
poor, the black, and the anti-imperialist” as “small adjustments”, and not the
matter of life or death as things like torte law, affordable healthcare,
unions, and public infrastructure can be. I hope there is more to that in the
full context.

Worse, in this context it seems to suggest that you should bargain with
neither side and instead seek some new power dynamic. That would be a recipe
for disappointment, especially when I think an engaged citizenry can make real
(albeit slow) progress by bargaining with the major political parties.

------
B1FF_PSUVM
My pet theory is that Trump managed to get elected because he's good for
audience ratings.

So, what were the ratings for the 2018 election show?

(In past years they barely cleared 30% of voters. QED?)

------
jorblumesea
While neither party has serious incentive to increase competition in politics,
one party engages in government breaking behavior, which it then uses as an
argument for small government.

It's frustrating to see the Republican party actively sabotage government,
then turn around and use it as proof the government doesn't work. All the
while gerrymandering their way into house seats.

------
harshreality
The three stated solutions:

> 1\. Non-partisan, single-ballot primaries.

Seems reasonable by itself, but it won't scale to more than a few parties.

> 2\. Instant-runoff voting, (commonly known as IRV, but in the
> article/transcript they call it Ranked-choice voting).

No. Absolutely not. IRV is awful.

[https://rangevoting.org/](https://rangevoting.org/)

The good options are range voting (which collapses in the pathological case to
simple approval voting, which isn't too bad itself). Or, if you're willing to
live with some compromises, one of the Condorcet variants. The problem with
the Condorcet voting system family is that it's more complex, less intuitive,
and doesn't nicely aggregate: to break ties/loops you have to have granular
voting data. The complexity means that when someone doesn't like the voting
outcome, FOX or CNN can find some talking head to say "voting system is
unfair! election stolen!" nonsense, and get traction because most people
wouldn't understand Condorcet or why it works the way it does.

> 3\. Non-biased non-gerrymandered redistricting.

Sure, but this needs to be defined strictly, with each voting district bounded
by significant geographical features (rivers, mountains), and when geo
features aren't available as boundaries, the boundary must be within a certain
percentage of a convex hull. In other words, severely constraining the volume
of concave points. Nothing like (-1,-1) to (-1, 1) to (1, 1) to (-0.5, 0), to
(1, -1). That -0.5, 0 takes a big pacman-like bite out of the square volume,
so it wouldn't be permitted. There are actual districts like that, or more
like a blocky-letter-C or a blocky-letter-L shape, and it's absurd.

~~~
gowld
IRV is only awful in irrelevant corner cases that only political science wonks
care about.

When the electorate's preferences is a statistical tie, it doesn't matter who
wins, as long as one party isn't forcing all the tiebreaks to go their way.

~~~
function_seven
> _When the electorate 's preferences is a statistical tie, it doesn't matter
> who wins_

I wish this was more front and center in these types of discussions. Imagine a
race between Alice and Bob. Alice gets 9,500 votes, Bob 9,521 votes. But—due
to some controversial rules—10 of Alice's and 40 of Bob's votes are
invalidated. Alice wins.

This is not a scandal or a problem. The original vote totals were a tie. The
new vote totals are also a tie. Essentially a coin flip determined the winner.

For purposes of determining who won, 49%===51%. If a candidate is truly wanted
by the electorate, then they need to do better than 50% +1 anyway.

