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Originally Posted by August
Why? Well as it is now our Presidents are elected by a majority of states. Would having three bad choices (or four or five) for candidates be somehow better? Especially if it means that Presidents would be elected by 33% (or 20/25%)? How is multiple parties working out for say Italy?
Our constitution is deliberately made difficult to change for a very good reason. Despots throughout history from hitler to Chavez have changed their countries constitution in order to secure their power and/or to marginalize their opposition.
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I do not agree.
First, there are other presidential-oriented democracies, like France, which work fine with more candidates.
Why do you think that more choices lead to more bad choices ? The US system was fine when it was designed but nowadays your country is more diverse, more individual due to immigration and change of lifestyle like in more or less all Western democracies.
More candidates means that potential more potential voters do actually vote, since they have a candidate they can identify with. Also the discussions will be broader, since the other than the two usual candidates do not have to stick to the well established party lines. They bring new ideas, they are disruptive, but in a positive sense. This applies not only for the president but for the two house of crs also. Actually it would to start there...
My thesis and the polls strengthen that is that Trump got elected by accident since a lot of voters where not happy with Trump, nor with Clinton but voted for Trump since he represented some change or this 'establishment' story. Most of those waving voters for sure do not identify themselves with Trump. They had only the alternative to not vote (if they did not like Clinton).
Second, of crs nobody would design a system, where a president gets elected by 33 %, but you need to apply a run-off system. This can foster also unification, since kicked-out candidates usually advice their supporters to vote for one of the two (or more) remaining candidates.
And finally....if one pillar of the system is so powerful that it can lead to a dictatorship then there is a very dangerous design flaw in the system.
I know, you probably do not agree but for my taste the president is too powerful with his decrees, applying judges and so forth. In theory there is a check/balance system but you see that does not work well currently since some senators seem to vote according their own political survival, which is (or they view it at least) connected to Trump (or any other current president).
Isn't it obvious that lifestyle, technology change and so forth requires changes in the constitution, without touching its foundation ? Only societies which are able to adapt will keep their status over the centuries. History is full of such examples...
Frankly, I would like to see the US will keep it, else it will be China.