A 200-party system, what would happen to American Elections?

[RedImperator]

200 even strenght parties would be catastrophic, even with a proportional system. 200 parties would basically mean 200 charismatic individuals with "parties" solely designed to get them elected. Once that individual lost an election, the party would fade away. There's no way you could divide the spectrum of political viewpoints into 200 parties large enough that they're not a one-man show and so distinct that like-minded parties wouldn't start merging with each other.

[Bob McDob]

I

It is not important, how many parties exist, but how many have influence and are big enough.
For Example, in Germany, there are at least over 290 parties, but only 5 really have influence and are big enough to be important.

That's still three more than the US. The two party system strikes me as simplistic and frankly offensive - why should I have to choose between two parties which for all their ideology are more alike than they're different? And people complain about voter apathy. That's part of the reason I supported Nader in 2000; granted, I didn't know what he was running for and I didn't really care, I just wanted to say 'fuck you' to all the idiots claiming "wasted vote". I admit that was in retrospect extremely stupid, but my sentiment remains unchanged.

On the other hand, the idea of "200 equal parties" doesn't bear up to reality or even logic; the two-party system largely came about as a result of political darwinism, with the more moderate parties gaining favor over the more radical ones by virtue of appealing to more people. To make all 200 parties equal would be to imply there was some way to make the Homosexual Tree-Hugger Nazi party as powerful as the Democrats, which is frankly absurd. It would become a battle of special interests and radicalism, if it even lasted.

Still, I feel the United States needs several more parties; parts of the Republican and Democratic parties probably have more in common with each other than they do with either of the two giants. And the fact is, people's ideologies rarely fit into the "with us or against us" stance of political ideology today; it's almost like you're either a Tree-Hugging Liberal Hippie or a Racist Right-Wing Fascist. You either support the Democrats 100% or you support the Republicans 100%; you can't agree with one party 60% and 30% the other. If anything, it's probably the voting system, not the party system, which needs re-examining.

[Stuart Mackey]

You either support the Democrats 100% or you support the Republicans 100%; you can't agree with one party 60% and 30% the other. If anything, it's probably the voting system, not the party system, which needs re-examining.

As I said earlier, you need proportional system of electing your blood suck..err representatives. NZ was in a similar situation to you, excepting that we have the Westminster system, so we went to proportional voting.