Union of small parties

[Poirot]

Union of small parties is an organization to defend the interest of small parties.

Membership is automatically granted to members of parties with 10 members or less.

[Poirot]

Small parties are under attack in Congress. It wants to make it harder for parties to reach official status by incresing the number of members required. Some parties are at now at risk of losing status.

I'm just back from the House where I said this:

I've already visited Congress a few times about this but here I am to beg you again to not proceed with raising the requirement to be an official party.

You don't have to hamper political diversity to change the census presentation. I have suggested other ways to present the census if it is a problem while not changing the status of political parties. Congress didn't even discuss alternative census presentations.

Congress looks determined to erase some parties to have a more compact census. It doesn't seem to care it will remove the fun for some people. A party of three might not be seeking to become a dominant party and is happy being small. They could have their fun, they are visible because they are official. A new party could have more trouble taking off because it will take more time to become official and visible in the census presentation.

Keeping it easier to reach official party status can make the political environment more dynamic. You are not taking away the fun for some. I don't think you should try to lower the number of parties like you are doing.   

If you have influence, try to convince Congress to keep the political status requirement the same. If Congress still decides to pass the bill and make it harder for small parties to make the cut, remember how politicians voted when they ask for your vote next time.

It's not because we are small that they can pick on us.   

[Dr. MB]

One thing that could increase your power would be to do a merger agreement. Bring together the Montfortians and Liberals for example into 1 party.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Or all join the People's Party to make a statement. "We don't want this anymore".

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Or all join the People's Party to make a statement. "We don't want this anymore".

One would presume that the "Liberal Party" would not fit in well with a left-populist party.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Or all join the People's Party to make a statement. "We don't want this anymore".

One would presume that the "Liberal Party" would not fit in well with a left-populist party.

That's true in some way yes, but we can enter a big tent coalition in order to overthrow the two party system, and set differences aside for now.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Or all join the People's Party to make a statement. "We don't want this anymore".

One would presume that the "Liberal Party" would not fit in well with a left-populist party.

That's true in some way yes, but we can enter a big tent coalition in order to overthrow the two party system, and set differences aside for now.

We don't have a two party system.

We have two more or less coalitions containing at least two parties each, with one coalition being vastly more powerful based on sheer numbers and demographics.

[Former President tack50]

We don't have a two party system.

We have two more or less coalitions containing at least two parties each, with one coalition being vastly more powerful based on sheer numbers and demographics.

Let's be honest, the Peace party is at this point a puppet of the Labor party (a merger got discussed and approved by Labor in fact, but Peace never got around to voting it). The ACP is only marginally more independent from the Federalist Party. So we do have a "de facto" two party system; in a way not too different from how Australia has the Liberal/National coalition (except in Atlasia it's both sides that do it).

I would also disagree with the notion that the left is somehow advantaged in elections. Even if we stick just with the last year's resurrection of Labor and death of PUP, the presidency has been no better than a tossup (and if anything, with an extremely slight right wing lean though that may be due to candidates).

Both October 2018 and June 2019 were razor thin victories for WB and Griffin (2 and 3 points respectively); while February 2019 was a more comfortable victory for tmth (7 points if I remember correctly).

The House, while having an slightly larger left wing advantage (possibly since it's fought more on policy and personality matters less?) is definitely winnable for the right, as February proved. June was also not exactly a run-away victory (7 points in the 2 party preferred, comparable to tmth's presidential win)

I will admit the Senate (and by extension the governorships/legislatures) is hard to win for the right, but not impossible. The left wing advantage is fragile, only requiring an upset in Fremont or possibly Lincoln (the current situation of 5-1 is an anomaly).

And that's just sticking to the last year (which has been good for the left overall, holding a trifecta for 6 of the last 10 months and with a trifecta for the next session of Congress as well). I would remind that before WB's win, there had been no left wing outright victories since pre-reset. Similarly, the House had oscillated between left and right wing control (and no overall control), for the previous year.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

We don't have a two party system.

We have two more or less coalitions containing at least two parties each, with one coalition being vastly more powerful based on sheer numbers and demographics.

Let's be honest, the Peace party is at this point a puppet of the Labor party (a merger got discussed and approved by Labor in fact, but Peace never got around to voting it). The ACP is only marginally more independent from the Federalist Party. So we do have a "de facto" two party system; in a way not too different from how Australia has the Liberal/National coalition (except in Atlasia it's both sides that do it).

I would also disagree with the notion that the left is somehow advantaged in elections. Even if we stick just with the last year's resurrection of Labor and death of PUP, the presidency has been no better than a tossup (and if anything, with an extremely slight right wing lean though that may be due to candidates).

Both October 2018 and June 2019 were razor thin victories for WB and Griffin (2 and 3 points respectively); while February 2019 was a more comfortable victory for tmth (7 points if I remember correctly).

The House, while having an slightly larger left wing advantage (possibly since it's fought more on policy and personality matters less?) is definitely winnable for the right, as February proved. June was also not exactly a run-away victory (7 points in the 2 party preferred, comparable to tmth's presidential win)

I will admit the Senate (and by extension the governorships/legislatures) is hard to win for the right, but not impossible. The left wing advantage is fragile, only requiring an upset in Fremont or possibly Lincoln (the current situation of 5-1 is an anomaly).

And that's just sticking to the last year (which has been good for the left overall, holding a trifecta for 6 of the last 10 months and with a trifecta for the next session of Congress as well). I would remind that before WB's win, there had been no left wing outright victories since pre-reset. Similarly, the House had oscillated between left and right wing control (and no overall control), for the previous year.

Tmth had the support of Pericles and DFW though, how likely is that going to happen again?

I also find it ironic that I said we had two coalitions instead of two parties and your immediate comparison is to a coalition based system in another country. Hence my point.

[Former President tack50]

Tmth had the support of Pericles and DFW though, how likely is that going to happen again?

I also find it ironic that I said we had two coalitions instead of two parties and your immediate comparison is to a coalition based system in another country. Hence my point.

Fair enough (I didn't remember dfw supporting tmth actually; though I did remember Pericles). However that doesn't really answer for October 2018 or June 2019; both of which were perfectly winnable tossup elections. Granted, that still leaves a considerable left wing advantage in Congress (particularly the Senate) but still.

Also, my point regarding a 2 party system is that the difference between a "proper" 2 party system (like the US irl, or to a lesser extent the UK); and a 2 coalition system like Atlasia is pretty much just semantics and for most intents and purposes the 2 terms are equivalent.

While I have bumped the "Chronicle of the Death of the Atlasian Right" thread a couple of times now, I was doing it semi-ironically and certainly did not expect the Fed chairman to take it seriously and actually believe it

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Tmth had the support of Pericles and DFW though, how likely is that going to happen again?

I also find it ironic that I said we had two coalitions instead of two parties and your immediate comparison is to a coalition based system in another country. Hence my point.

Fair enough (I didn't remember dfw supporting tmth actually; though I did remember Pericles). However that doesn't really answer for October 2018 or June 2019; both of which were perfectly winnable tossup elections. Granted, that still leaves a considerable left wing advantage in Congress (particularly the Senate) but still.

Also, my point regarding a 2 party system is that the difference between a "proper" 2 party system (like the US irl, or to a lesser extent the UK); and a 2 coalition system like Atlasia is pretty much just semantics and for most intents and purposes the 2 terms are equivalent.

While I have bumped the "Chronicle of the Death of the Atlasian Right" thread a couple of times now, I was doing it semi-ironically and certainly did not expect the Fed chairman to take it seriously and actually believe it

Perception becomes reality. The more conservatives regard the situation as hopeless, more of them will give up and leave the game, making the situation worse. This was a constant problem in the JCP era, and it took great efforts to convince people to stay on. It also doesn't help that the site as a whole leans left, the right is more and more prone to edginess and triggering libs and thus the site as a whole discourages many people from continuing on the site preferring to become discord only or Twitter only etc.

Conservatives are also far less willing to subject themselves to becoming zombies and take not having not enough time to participate as being absolute and thus rejecting any involvement in the game at all. Still some others prioritize their memeing/triggering over serious participation in the game and thus at the very least rule themselves out as solid candidates, this dynamic is only made worse by the sense off hopelessness leading to a thought process of "well I cannot win, might as well annoy the libs". Then you have the other group that manage to open their mouth and sh**t themselves in the foot or are just too passive compared to say the likes of DFW back in the day and cannot generate the same kind of results.

[Terry the Fat Shark]

Centrist parties have come and gone over the years...some destroyed internally some externally. Overall the theme has been a thorough rejection by the voters (albeit at points there have been short lived surges). A theme that can be noticed is that this is a rather American simulator (with a few differences) and so a swing towards a 2 party/coalition system is not all that shocking. Most of the people that have an issue with the 2 party/coalition system also tend to be international posters, not that this is an issue as that is to be expected to, if the game became more balanced between American and non-american posters, then the system might change....

[PSOL]

Centrist parties have come and gone over the years...some destroyed internally some externally. Overall the theme has been a thorough rejection by the voters (albeit at points there have been short lived surges). A theme that can be noticed is that this is a rather American simulator (with a few differences) and so a swing towards a 2 party/coalition system is not all that shocking. Most of the people that have an issue with the 2 party/coalition system also tend to be international posters, not that this is an issue as that is to be expected to, if the game became more balanced between American and non-american posters, then the system might change....

I would have to disagree. The lack of participation by the registered voters here, along with there being a set of disaffected voters indicate that Atlasian two party system generates apathy among those not part of the political elite of the duopoly. In all truth, we need change to generate interest among players here, because Discord drama isn’t cutting it for a lot of folks.

[Terry the Fat Shark]

Centrist parties have come and gone over the years...some destroyed internally some externally. Overall the theme has been a thorough rejection by the voters (albeit at points there have been short lived surges). A theme that can be noticed is that this is a rather American simulator (with a few differences) and so a swing towards a 2 party/coalition system is not all that shocking. Most of the people that have an issue with the 2 party/coalition system also tend to be international posters, not that this is an issue as that is to be expected to, if the game became more balanced between American and non-american posters, then the system might change....

I would have to disagree. The lack of participation by the registered voters here, along with there being a set of disaffected voters indicate that Atlasian two party system generates apathy among those not part of the political elite of the duopoly. In all truth, we need change to generate interest among players here, because Discord drama isn’t cutting it for a lot of folks.

I don't think it's the 2 party system generating apathy....I doubt things would be any different if we had, say, a 6 party system

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Centrist parties have come and gone over the years...some destroyed internally some externally. Overall the theme has been a thorough rejection by the voters (albeit at points there have been short lived surges). A theme that can be noticed is that this is a rather American simulator (with a few differences) and so a swing towards a 2 party/coalition system is not all that shocking. Most of the people that have an issue with the 2 party/coalition system also tend to be international posters, not that this is an issue as that is to be expected to, if the game became more balanced between American and non-american posters, then the system might change....

I would have to disagree. The lack of participation by the registered voters here, along with there being a set of disaffected voters indicate that Atlasian two party system generates apathy among those not part of the political elite of the duopoly. In all truth, we need change to generate interest among players here, because Discord drama isn’t cutting it for a lot of folks.

The lack of participation here is because of Discord itself and the offshoring of activity to that site. We have had the parties much the same as they are now with far great levels of activity on this board (late 2013 to early 2014), which predates the 2018 introduction of Discord to Atlasia.

[Poirot]

The Union of Small Parties is happy to announce the People's Party of Atlasia has reached official party status.

Aww, they grow up so fast. Seems like yesterday they were this little.

Maybe we could have a notice board near the front office door for parties to advertise they need some members to become official. And let our members use our photocopier if they want to pin a notice on the grocery store ad board if they need new registration to survive.

As we like to say around here: Good things come in small packages.