this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2025
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The article is about authoritarian takeover, I'm showing that PR doesn't prevent that and might even give them more space than with FPTP, that's all. You're going off on a tangent that wasn't part of the original discussion.
It increases accountability and political party competition. Why force moderate conservatives to stay with PP instead of providing them with better alternatives through a fairer electoral system.
If all far right parties end up getting a couple of seats through PR or FPTP, it's only a matter of time before they unite in order to have more seats under the same brand to increase their visibility. PR doesn't protect us from authoritarianism if most of the population votes for it or for parties that might work with the authoritarians.
PR is just that, more proportional and more representative of the population's will, but if the right is what the population wants (no matter how they were convinced to vote for it), that's what the whole country gets. The only consolation is that "Welp, that's what people wanted 🤷"
I'm literally just responding to you, lol
Nobody said PR prevents authoritarian takeover, we just said it protects. And ensuring our democracy is actually representative of its people, does protect us against authoritarianism -- precisely because the power is vested in the people.
I think you need to do a lot of thinking about the functions of electoral systems. I've seen this kind of argument before -- FPTP limits extremism ... but that is far from the truth. And PR simply gets us closer to a better democracy, and yes your argument that "right" wingers get representation -- is a "flaw" with democracy not with PR.
France's far right party would have 214 seats instead of 142 with PR, but sure, PR protects countries from extremism!
Any links to back that up? Seems suspect.
Look at the results
142 seats right now with 37% of the votes and 577 seats total
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_French_legislative_election
Doesn’t France have a sort of PR in how the multiple rounds work? In any case the system still sends way better than FPTP. Canada has had majorities backed by only 40% of the vote, which is pretty insane.
First round is used to filter out the candidates who don't get enough votes to matter, second round is FPTP but only with the major parties left.
I'm the end the numbers are pretty cut and dry, with PR the far right would have ended getting 50% more seats.
The two-round runoff system France uses is not proportional. It's not even necessarily ensuring an MP is elected by a majority, because there are some situations where the runoff can be contested by more than two people. But it's still a better system than a single round, since it does afford a voter some level of protection against voting against the establishment, at least in the first round
Who said PR protects from extremism? Not even a direct democracy would protect from extremism.
Oh, sorry, the RN is both extremist AND authoritarian, so yeah, with PR the authoritarians would have about 50% more seats. So tell me how PR would have helped compared to the left just working together to not split their vote?
Is this how you have conversations with people? If you can't answer something, you move the goal posts?
Anyway, you really aren't understanding the purpose of electoral systems... If the people want a particular ideology, who are you to decide that on their behalf? That's a feature, not a flaw of democracy.
PR protects against authoritarianism for the reasons explained prior: it provides true and uncompromising democratic legitimacy to the government, and vests the power in people without locking them into a two party system.
PR is not intended to prevent or even protect against authoritarianism, so I guess you got me there? But nobody was disputing that claim in the first place.
I'm at the point of wondering if you are genuinely pro-democracy, or just anti-PR -- or even perhaps putting ideology over democracy itself. In a democracy, people are deserving of and entitled to representation -- only PR can get you that. If you are unwilling to accept that fact, then perhaps you are more willing to throw democracy to the fire than I thought.
I didn't move the goalpost, I just didn't use the word you wanted me to use in my previous message even though we both knew that's what I was talking about.
My point is that PR isn't the panacea that some people make it sound like. If the population votes like idiots you still get an idiotic government. Better education and censorship of extremist ideas (like they do in French Belgium) would protect us much more than a different electoral system.
At this point, I honest to goodness don't know what we are talking about.
I actually agree, but that's not what we were discussing. What we were disputing was how FPTP better protects against authoritarianism, and whether this principle supersedes PR (and by proxy democracy itself).
Yes, actually, this was the whole point all along!! I'm glad we agree on one thing.
Then why share a post that says the best way to protect ourselves against authoritarianism is an electoral reform?
Ah, my apologies, I wasn't as clear as I should have been.
With respect to an external authoritarian take over, a strong democracy (and by proxy PR) is the best way to protect ourselves.
With respect to an internal authoritarian take over... that will require education and censorship of disinformation. FPTP hasn't been demonstrated to help with this by any means.
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