Politics That I Understand For the First Time

I work with a very witty Brit who is a master of lampooning all things American. That's alright -- we give it right back to him. As often happens though, in his jokes I learn something.

Question Time in Parliament

I've always viewed the parliamentary system in Britain as entertaining (question time, for example), but likely to create situations where the whole country gets beholden to some extreme party that won a tiny percentage of the vote, yet gets to play kingmaker in cabinet creation because their tiny numbers create a governing majority. Israeli's Knesset comes to mind too.

America's present system, with just two parties, creates an overall moderation that is considered by most to be stabilizing (it also makes America slow to change which makes a lot of us impatient too).

Third parties often spring up. But having voted for alternate candidates once as my first choice, I realized I'm just enabling my third choice to get elected. I think many other Americans realize this too because the third party candidate never surpasses 10% of the vote.

My British friend said, "In my country, we don't have this phenomenon of everyone waiting around for the president to leave. When a prime minister gets THAT unpopular, his own party asks him to step down and they put up somebody new. That way the party doesn't get voted out, just the guy at the top."

Imagine how hard it would be to "cowboy up" and invade another country if you knew at anytime your party could yank you off your post. I think you would have to reach a consensus of more than five guys at the top before invading another country and starting a war, no?

It would force you to move as a swarm. If you don't feel accountable to public opinion, necessarily, you would at least be forced to sell your party on your actions.

I was explaining that I finally understood this to another Brit, and he said, "well it's not just George Bush and his unpopularity where that would have been useful. Think about Bill Clinton when he got into his troubles. Al Gore could have taken over and the Democrats would probably still be in charge. America might not have felt a wholesale 'need' to change the whole party in charge. The guy at the top isn't as important as which party. John Major, for example, was the third choice of his party when they put him up."

Aaaahh, I get it now. That is useful.