Areas in US with 1-state dominance... Bad for democracy (small "d")?

[Upper Canada Tory]

I am not sure I fully understand what you mean by the US being a one-party state.

Yes, many districts vote reliably for one party, and I understand this can be bad for democracy due to the lack of accountability and ideologically driven attitude that results from keeping the same party representing you indefinitely.

But the US as a whole, is not a one-party state. Presidential and (in some seats) congressional elections in the US are competitive enough to the extent that they typically lead to a different result in each election cycle. This is why candidates in the USA frequently try to win over independent voters.

[smoltchanov]

I am not sure I fully understand what you mean by the US being a one-party state.

Yes, many districts vote reliably for one party, and I understand this can be bad for democracy due to the lack of accountability and ideologically driven attitude that results from keeping the same party representing you indefinitely.

But the US as a whole, is not a one-party state. Presidential and (in some seats) congressional elections in the US are competitive enough to the extent that they typically lead to a different result in each election cycle. This is why candidates in the USA frequently try to win over independent voters.

As a whole - of course, no. But 90+% of US citizens live in areas, where 1 party dominates, and another - practically impotent. And less then 10% of Congressional districts are competitive. It's important to have not only to formal attributes of democracy (free vote), but also - real choice for maximal number of people. Right now for too many people it's not so. And tendency to authoritarism among Americans became much stronger of late: 20 years ago no one would imagine pure authoritarian (Trump) as serious Presidential candidate, now one of two big parties is, essentially, his "appendix". Like NSDAP in 1930th Germany, or USSR under Stalin. And i can't rule out the same fate for other...

[smoltchanov]

Respond point to point:

1. Politics is far more national these days than local especially with how powerful the Federal Government has gotten. Thats also led to far more one party states at a local level as people's views on local and state issues are shaped by their views on national issues

Well, IMHO - yes and no. But, if "yes" - country with only 2 political parties hating each other and ideologically polarized - will go in a state of extreme instability. One administration will cancel all or almost all laws of it's predecessor and "vice versa". And that will be applicable to all 50 states at once. I don't know if an old proverb about "all politics is local" still applicable, but would personally prefer it being so

2. People can vote with their feet and leave if they dont like the state they are living in. It's far far easier to move from state to state than from country to country

Absolutely. But, first of all - i have Russian mentality. Most of Russian people don't move except when absolutely neccessary (say, to capital, where employment possibilities and wages are substantially higher). May be it's different for US. But even if so - it polarizes country even more. In fact - it makes it what i said in beginning of topic: two countries welded together by laws and economy, but bitterly hating each other. It's not the best situation as well. Though for every given person it may be good.

3. I mean Putin proves that Russia had far far less checks and balances than the US though which is why he was easily able to turn Russia into a dictatorship

Again - yes. We simply had much less time. Though theoretically - Russia has all neccessary laws in the books (many of them were carbon copied from US and Western Europe laws in 1990th). We even had a relatively balanced power then : Duma didn't slavishly adopted anything President said, courts began to function (i personally knew one very independent member of Russian Supreme Court, who is, alas, dead now) and so on. But - old mentality and lack of historical experience led to what we have today.

And i don't deny that US is relatively more democratic now, then Russia (though, as i had, theoretically, according to existing laws, we are at least "somewhat close") - it would be foolish. What i deny - a "stratospherical advantage" of US in this sphere. And i am very worried with late (about 8-10 years) developments in political life of United States: it gradually turns exactly into  something similar to what quickly happened in Russia since, in my opinion, about 2003, and may in near future even surpass it. I don't want to see US in the near future  as some hybrid of Germany and USSR of 1930th. And it's - possible!!!

And, finally, as i have said many times - democracy is more to me then a formal possibility to vote without hindrance. It's a possibility to have in almost all cases a real chance to win for your ideas, possibility to influence... And it's in this area where US suits me less and less with passing times. When i began to study it's politics in early 1970th - there was much more variety. Now - there is almost no variety between candidates in primaries (they are almost carbon copies of each other with the same positions on 95+% of issues, while THEN you could see almost every imaginable combination: Liberal vs Conservative Democrat (or Republican) in primaries, and every possible ideological combination in general elections). There was a strong "center" from moderate Democrats and Republicans, which helped to achieve compromises (and someone rightfully described politics as an "art of compromise"). Now, given present mindboggling ideologization (which "big tent"?!!!) and polarization of BOTH political parties, and dominance of one of them in 90% of districts - elections in US (especially - Congressional and state legislative) gradually become mockery. You must "prepare" yourself, that your Congessman or legislator will be of exactly one type and adapt to it. Or move as you said (i would say "run"). In this respect Western Europe, where, usually, there are many parties, covering the whole ideological spectrum, and where almost everyone has a chance to influence one way or another: for example - through the  work of parlament (which works, usually, via coalitions and compromises, not  in "i am a boss - you are a fool, you are a boss - i am a fool" way, as typical now in US), and where there is no a gaping hole in the center of polical spectrum, and, as a result -  no situation, where 35-40% of population has only one choice: to vote for a person they hate less (again - as it's now in US), seems to me being much more democratic then US. And, i repeat -  with strong anti-democratic tendencies in US politics of late - this gap grows wider with every year.

[Open Source Intelligence]

You can't force competitive seats where they aren't really possible. Voters have a right to choose whatever party they want too even if it does result in lopsided results. Democracy isn't about "vibrant competition" it's about the people choosing their own government.

Sure they can, you just have a point of view where the only parties that are allowed to exist are Democrats and Republicans.

I'm a Libertarian Party County Chairman in a county where the Democratic Party effectively does not exist. It exists on paper and has a chair and all that, but they do nothing event-wise and we're more than halfway through filing for this year and still have no one filed for anything, including to the party's State Convention. My party ran more candidates for county office than them in 2022 (3 to 1) and in 2024 we'll probably have 2. You're not really a political party if you don't run candidates. So Republican monopoly. And believe me from talking to locals, that does not mean all the Republicans are happy with county government. A lot of my work has been to change the paradigm and point out the Democrats' job is to provide you an electable alternative as 2nd party and they are completely failing at that, and instead we can provide the 2nd party alternative. Still early days, we're just starting year 3, but in city elections last year, my party's candidate for City Council outperformed the Democrat running for Mayor in their common precincts. Statewide, Republicans in 2022 ran the worst candidate they've ever had for Secretary of State and because the Democrats have given up trying, he won 54-40. If the Democrats had something above complete ignorance of their rural party organization in more than two-thirds of the counties in the state, maybe they could've made it a better race. Instead, their lack of competition has given some Republicans and their Convention delegates carte blanche of "vote for who you want, we don't have to worry about electability when the Democrats suck so bad". That mentality has effectively taken over the whole of who gets elected to Congress.

One side effect of politics being nationalized is it creates a lot of these areas. Democrats in large sections of the Midwest, Plains are a completely dead party locally, which feeds into regional, which feeds into bringing down national there. We're talking hundreds and hundreds of counties. Focusing on county or its equivalent is important because both parties have made that the base unit of political party organization in this country.  It's true for Republicans as well on the West Coast, northeast, urban areas, although Republicans seem to beyond big cities lose 60/40 in areas of one-party domination while Democrats where I'm talking about lose 75/25, and that's if they choose to even run. Primary elections in 2022 in my county were ridiculous. Out of 21 or so offices on the ballot, Democrats had a contested race in 1, the sacrificial lamb candidate for Congress. They had 3 or 4 candidates that won the primary uncontested for U.S. Senator, the aforementioned one county-level candidate, and then a couple people in township races, and every other race was "No Candidate Filed". Taxpayers paid the costs for that.

Throw on top of it that the Republican and Democratic organizations have never been organizationally weaker in American history than they are now. It's how Trump hijacked the Republican Party as an outsider in 2016 and Bernie Sanders almost did to the Democrats in 2016 and 2020. I think it's going to make itself known in 2024. No Labels, RFK Jr. are going to get higher vote shares than some people like and it goes down to the structural weakness of the two main parties and also how unlikeable/unresponsive to the mass public they both are. Post-election RFK Jr. will disappear, maybe No Labels too, but go into the future and there's Andrew Yang's Forward Party, we'll see what he does, but he's pretty much on the same turf as No Labels and has legislators with him when they are main party members and know what that would look like. I wish the Libertarians could rise to the challenge but nationally we have large headwinds of our own doing. State-wise in Indiana we're in pretty good shape to get bigger, helped by Democratic Party fecklessness. Looking in some areas, I don't see why the Working Families Party do not make themselves more visible in places like New York City where they could very easily replace the Republicans as 2nd party, at the very least some Council seats.

[smoltchanov]

I always said, that 2-party system and Electoral college  coupled with "strong President" (elected by that same college) system will be a bane of US, and it seems - i wasn't too wrong))))

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I find the talking point that one-party states are fine because the voters organically select them to be quite unconvincing. As someone who lives in such a place, it eliminates any real impetus for those in power to be responsive to the desires of the electorate. Atlas tried to tell me that dissatisfaction with California's state of affairs was right-wing fake news, yet we just lost a CD for the first time in the history of the state and have hemorrhaged nearly a million people from 2020 to 2022.

     Liberal Californians aren't going to vote GOP, fine; they could start voting Green, especially in the first round where spoiler possibilities are minimal. If the Green vote share jumps to even just 5-10% in elections, that should send a message that a lot of people are sick of the dysfunction. But they don't bother and reflexively support a broken system that gives them terrible results, contributing to more of the same that they don't want.

[Open Source Intelligence]

    I find the talking point that one-party states are fine because the voters organically select them to be quite unconvincing. As someone who lives in such a place, it eliminates any real impetus for those in power to be responsive to the desires of the electorate. Atlas tried to tell me that dissatisfaction with California's state of affairs was right-wing fake news, yet we just lost a CD for the first time in the history of the state and have hemorrhaged nearly a million people from 2020 to 2022.

     Liberal Californians aren't going to vote GOP, fine; they could start voting Green, especially in the first round where spoiler possibilities are minimal. If the Green vote share jumps to even just 5-10% in elections, that should send a message that a lot of people are sick of the dysfunction. But they don't bother and reflexively support a broken system that gives them terrible results, contributing to more of the same that they don't want.

Democrats are the Republicans' best friend in one-party areas, and likewise the opposite is true. Their main token opponent are a known commodity that they know they will always defeat. It's not in their interest anything displaces their known commodity opponents for something more electable to the local electorate. Democrats for example don't want to see Greens or Peace & Freedom Party become the 2nd-largest party in the San Francisco Bay Area. Republicans don't want to see Libertarians become the 2nd-largest party in rural swathes of the Midwest and Plains states. Then they'll have to actually try and change their message on why you should vote for them, because Democrats then can't say "don't vote for the Green, they don't believe in climate change" and Republicans then can't say "don't vote for the Libertarian, they want to raise your taxes and believe in large government that tells you what to do".

[Open Source Intelligence]

I am not sure I fully understand what you mean by the US being a one-party state.

Yes, many districts vote reliably for one party, and I understand this can be bad for democracy due to the lack of accountability and ideologically driven attitude that results from keeping the same party representing you indefinitely.

But the US as a whole, is not a one-party state. Presidential and (in some seats) congressional elections in the US are competitive enough to the extent that they typically lead to a different result in each election cycle. This is why candidates in the USA frequently try to win over independent voters.

That's not really true. For where I live, you can't have competitive elections when the Democrats are a complete failure and don't really try. Their governor candidate in 2020 had the worst statewide result ever and the election on an issues basis challenging the Republican incumbent was more driven by the Libertarian candidate than the Democrat. And then you throw in corrupt state legislators and Secretaries of State in some areas that seek to disqualify any other allowed alternative. As far as "frequently try to win over independent voters", while that's always the case to some degree, I think the more important political organizers in recent times have prioritized Get Out the Vote over winning true independents.