I’ve been working on an assignment for my government course about the performance of third party candidates in US elections. However, I’m struggling to find a conclusive answer online as to why they always perform so poorly. Moreover, why do the Democrats and Republicans stay so popular and dominant? It seems to me at least that fresh candidates from newer parties should, in theory, excite many more voters than they actually do. Any possible reasons?

I've been reading up on things like the southern strategy and was shocked to find out that before that, DEMOCRATS had a bloc called the "solid south." I was in shock. I also learned that the "New Deal Coalition" was made up of a huge tent approach. Is it possible for Democrats today to recreate that type of success, especially with their current leadership and increasing partisanship, and with what demographics/voting blocs? Thanks for your time, any replies appreciated

They exhibit many of the characteristics of a monarch; they serve for life or until abdication (although in North Korea they technically "elect" their leaders) and serve as the Head of State of their respective countrie. I know that Iran and Afghanistan don't have hereditary succession to the Supreme Leader's office but countries like Cambodia elect their king. Also, I know they don't have a royal title but the leader of the UAE is considered a monarch despite being titled as "president".

It's been over a month and the deadline I believe was today, however, it seems like it still hasn't been completed. Do any of you know when it will be done?

I was wondering if a conventional war between the U.S. and Russia (or the U.S. and China) could be fought without either side using their nuclear arsenal.

I was thinking about this question because the U.S. (well, just Biden really) has said that if China were to invade Taiwan, we would defend them. If this scenario were to happen, or if the U.S. and Russia went to war, would a nuclear exchange be inevitable. Or would both sides — understanding the implications of the use of nuclear weapons — just fight it out with regular bombs, armies, etc?

Hello everyone,

I’ve been following the developments in the Syrian civil war and I’m curious about the role of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a group with known historical ties to al-Qaeda and ISIS. HTS has gained significant ground and influence, yet it appears that some international voices seem supportive or at least less critical of their advancements.

Given their background as a terrorist organization, why would there be this shift in attitude? Are there geopolitical reasons behind this seeming support, or is it more about a lesser evil mindset compared to the Assad regime? What are the implications for Syria’s future and regional stability if HTS consolidates power?

I’d appreciate any insights or perspectives on this complex issue. Thanks!

i (17f) was thinking about learning more about american politics because of the recent election, the pro-choice vs pro-life debate, etc. the only problem is that i’m a little neurospicy so it’s very hard for me to actually learn something that’s boring (bc let’s face it, politics are boring) no matter how beneficial they may be to learn.

i’m not really interested in going into government stuff as a job, but in my u.s. government class, my teacher always drilled it into our heads, “hey, you should really vote, it’s a good thing to do if you care about your community”

i also have the problem of being gullible as all hell, no matter how hard i try not to be. for example i was on tiktok one day and it said something like “books the president is going to ban” and my first reaction was “wait, really??” instead of “i should see if the president actually has the power to ban books”

idk why my brain’s like that but i really wish it wasn’t bc it makes me feel extremely immature and kinda dumb (ik i’m only 17 but i’ve always been told i’m pretty mature so it’s like a “oh, i’m doing something wrong” moment)

but anyway, i was just wondering if i should start educating myself a bit now, even though i won’t be able to vote until 2028. that way i kinda understand what it is i want to vote for and support and actually know what’s going on instead of being like “i’m gonna vote for candidate a because what they want sounds like it’ll be good even though i don’t actually know”

but it’s also just so boring and uninteresting to me (also ironically my grades in u.s. government were actually pretty good, despite being my least favorite subject)

TL;DR : a federal parliamentary system with a 4th branch of government that controls public services (performance, corruption and audit). This 4th branch can also pass a bill to Parliament without government approval.

I imagined a parliamentary federal system for my country (Mali) with a little twist here's how it works :

1. Parliamentary regime :

The Federal President is the head of state, elected indirectly by an electoral college (regional+federal assemblies). They can appoint and dissolve the government under certain conditions, based on the Prime Minister's advice.

The Prime Minister leads the government, appoints ministers, and implements policies approved by Parliament.

Parliament has two chambers:

The Federal Assembly (main legislative body with 147 members, elected for 3 years).

The Council of Regions (45 regional representatives with longer 6-year terms). They focus on regional and federal balance in decision-making.

Laws are debated and passed in Parliament, with mechanisms for resolving disagreements between the two chambers. Basically like Bundestag and Bundesrat

2. Competence Bureau's Role:

The Competence Bureau is a specialized body designed to ensure government efficiency and reduce corruption. This 4th branch of government is inspired by Taiwan's Control and Exam Yuans.

It is led by a General Secretary and consists of 2 subunits each led by a secretary :

Exam Bureau: Organizes evaluations for government roles, ensuring qualified and capable people fill key positions.

Control Bureau: Monitors government agencies, verifying performance and rooting out corruption. It has no power to directly remove people from office but an impeached official can face charges by administrative courts.

Experts are assigned to specific fields within the Bureau. They analyze government performance, collect data, and report findings to Parliament for further action.

Every three years (or before elections), an Experts Congress is held, where performance reviews and recommendations are shared to the newly elected government. This would allow to correct mistakes and evaluate effectiveness of previous policies.

3. Relationship Between the Competence Bureau and the Parliamentary System:

The Bureau acts as a safeguard for the parliamentary regime, ensuring that laws are implemented effectively and public officials perform their duties responsibly.

Parliament can use the Bureau's findings to make informed decisions, remove underperforming officials, or amend policies.

Citizens indirectly influence the Bureau’s work since it reports to Parliament, which they elect.

The Bureau can pass a bill for the Parliament to vote, the government cannot block this bill. However as the secretaries are appointed by the prime minister (with Parliament approval), they should be likeminded and have similar ideologies.

4. Regional and Citizen Participation:

At the regional level, Governors and Regional Assemblies manage local governance. They tie into the federal structure by contributing members to the Council of Regions. I chose a federal structure because of the complex ethnic diversity, federalism might reduce tensions.

All citizens can integrate the aforementionned bureaucracy through the Exam, thus guaranteeing a meritocratic institution.

Would this system work? Is it unrealistic (mostly financially) to have this much bureaucracy or can it actually prevent corruption ? How would you improve it?

Assume the parliament works on a fixed-term election basis every 3 years, meaning that calling new elections does not reset the election cycle. With that in mind:

1. Should there be time limits for dissolution be it: Discretionary (PM Calls early Elections), Double Dissolution, or Regular Vote of No Confidence?
2. How long does it typically take for new governments to take office from the time of dissolution? Does it very wildly? What is the typical range?

Thank you all

In case you don’t know, the South Korean President declared martial law the other day and tried to effectively suspend the constitution to arrest political opposition in the name of stopping anti-state communist activity. Their legislature was able to override the president’s order, but it was a scary few hours since the military was ordered to block access to the National Assembly building.

Here’s the official martial law declaration the Korean president made: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/full-text-south-koreas-martial-law-decree-2024-12-03/

So my question is could a US president attempt to do something similar with a martial law order? That is declare martial law, use the national guard/military to block access to the Capitol, and issue arrest warrants for political opposition? What guardrails are there to stop such a rogue president? There’s the Supreme Court, but would a rogue President really listen to the court at that point? Can Congress override a martial law order? Could Congress convene outside the Capitol if they had to? How fast could impeachment and removal occur if it was an emergency?

Sorry if that seems like a lot of questions, but the recent events in Korea had me thinking about this.

As I see it, liberals and conservatives have lots in common. They are pro-capitalism, pro-free-trade, pro-free-speech, pro-immigration.

In comparison, leftists oppose capitalism, free-trade, and free-speech. And MAGA crowd opposes free-trade, support censorship of the mainstream media, and favor labor unions.

Wouldn't a grouping of liberals and conservatives be more ideologically cohesive and represent a majority that excludes the leftists and the MAGA crowd?

For example, the previous French government was a partnership between the liberal French president and the conservative French Prime Minister. And they were able to create a government without any left-wing socialists and right-wing nationalists.

I remember seeing a reel where Obama was saying that nobody is "all good" and that this purity we are looking for isn't realistic. I'm having trouble trying to find it.

So people have been saying that Biden was betrayed by his party. How and why? Also they say he has been acting in bold ways as president as his term ends because of how he felt betrayed, do you think he feels betrayed by the democrat party? Whats going on?

Breaking. I'll post some links in the morning but wanted to get this out so we don't get flooded with questions.

Any questions outside of this thread on this topic will be removed.

Remember our rules and follow them.

How can Donald make Canada shipments to the states have a 25% tax increae? Whats the point of congress if they can do this?

Hey guys, so I had recently talked with a Trump supporting family member about how many universities, including but not limited to MIT, UT Austin, and CMU, all recently announced free tuition for qualifying students next school year. This is obviously a positive and beneficial change to many students, especially low-income, as it gives them a chance at higher education they might've not had before.

My Trump supporting family member however credited this to him, stating that his threat to tax university endowments is pressuring universities into using these funds, providing these opportunities, especially with his recent re-election win. I just want to know if there's any validity to this claim, and did it really contribute to the free tuition? I'd like to hear what you all have to say.

I’m not sure how one can quantify an advertisements success, but I don’t remember ever hearing about how effective a specific ad was from sources on both sides. According to NYTimes the Harris campaign saw a 2.7% point switch to Trump due to the ad and none of the ads tested as a direct response to the ad did much.

There has also been a huge amount of media coverage on the the effect of trans issues on the election largely spurred by ad. Trans issues feel like they are being discussed even more than illegal immigration (another controversial set of issues pushed by activist groups) as a leading issue.

Due to the amount of attention placed on this issue largely due to this ad how does this ad compare to ads in recent political campaigns? Has there been an ad in the social media era that has led to this amount of soul searching?

What should I learn and what credentials should I earn?

Seems so confusing to live in areas like these. The logistics of being between 2 countries sounds impossible. Like if you wanted to start a business or get a loan, where do you go?

There are generally 2 big camps in the immigration debate, those who believe it should be laxer to promote the movement of people and capital and to reduce illegal immigration through such means.

On the other side there are people who believe it should stay as is or become stricter, because the US could get flooded by millions of foreigners because it's so desirable and the country allegedly cannot support it.

So my question is, can't it? The US does take in the most immigrants per year, but not per capita, not by far, it actually only takes the fraction of a percent of its population via legal immigration per year. It's also not extensively a welfare state as some european states are, and currently unemployment is low and theres a high demand for low skill labor.

Is the US actually suffering from high influx of immigration? Are immigrants a drain on the economy or net contributors? What are some negatives that have arisen from immigration?

Title. I'm writing an argumentative essay for my Composition 3 class in college, and I have chosen to write about queer rights in the modern American political landscape. I have a few points I'm planning to argue already, but I was curious about something. Would the plans of Donald Trump (and by extension, the GOP as a whole) to restrict the voices and potential healthcare/support related rights of queer Americans be literally unconstitutional? Or are they likely to use legal loopholes/federal rulings to make it technically legal? For example, if he plans to rescind Federal policies about discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, would that not violate the 14th Amendment? Thank you in advance.

This isn't bait and I'm not trying to start a flame war. I'm just trying to write an essay and I'm lazy.

Lets say a country was lying that they werent gonna uphold the icc warrant for Netenyahu and then they convince him to come to said country, upon which they arrest him. What would the political implications/results be of this lie?

In the midst of making a pretty big career and life decision and the foreign tariffs that Trump has proposed will play a big role. I'm not American, don't follow its politics too closely so I'm asking so more aware people what they think is likely.

To my understanding, he's proposing a tariff of 10% on all foreign imports with the exception of China, which will be getting a 60% tariff. Mainly concerned about the tariffs on China, I reckon, but not overly thrilled about the 10% for everyone else.

A photo ID requirement is almost universal in the rest World. Why is this a big deal in the US?

At this point it's going at like 0.1% per day.

They got through like 80% in the first day. Yet it seems like the last 20% is going so slowly. Why are they taking so long with the final votes?

If you're wondering how there can be so many comments but non show up, this is why. Please provide links to your sources.

Thank you.

Im asking because of the arrest order of Netanyahu. But havent they also sent one for Putin in past?

This election cycle I saw much less interpersonal discourse coming from the left or Democratic Party. I saw less explaining policies and trying to convince people even from the candidates. Were democrats simply exhausted from fighting MAGA for 9 years? I have seen many saying they do not care what happens and will not be fighting or organizing. Are they raising a white flag?

Where would you start in teaching someone about politics?

My mom knows next to nothing about politics, but she identifies as republican. As with many people recently politics has driven a wedge in some families, and I want to teach mom the basics and lead into how the US government works. My goal isn't necessarily to change her views, but to be able to have discussions with her where she might understand the implications of political decisions.

Apologies if this has been discussed; I searched but didn't find an obvious post addressing this. Apologies also for how pointed the question seems. I tried to be more circumspect in my original post but got rejected for not being in the form of a question.

With the Manhattan DA agreeing to postpone the sentencing of Trump in the hush money case in New York, I got to wondering about the immunity of the President in general. I did some googling and didn't find an obvious answer, probably because this is unprecedented.

We are told that, in America, nobody should be above the law, and that would seem to include the President when he is convicted of a felony for actions taken in or out of office (ignoring the recent Supreme Court decision). Why would the courts not sentence a person to prison and issue an arrest warrant if they fail to surrender just because that person holds a political office? I doubt they would hold off on sentencing a sitting member of the House of Representatives or the Senate.

And if the President cannot execute his duties due to being imprisoned, wouldn't the 25th Amendment allow the VP, Vance, to assume the office of Acting President until Trump is released?

This seems like the most straightforward path to following the rules-as-written but it doesn't seem to get discussed and I'm very curious as to why not. Surely it's not the court's responsibility to ensure the ability of one man to take office, regardless of the office, or to ensure that America has a President.

I would appreciate hearing from people who are more deeply steeped in constitutional law on this one.

TIA.