Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think he was blaming it on the two-party system. He was just explaining how the two-party system is one of those obviously broken mechanisms that effectively blocks against replacing it with one of the better alternatives. The general category of issues he highlights, should be well known to people who have lived in and observed our real world and society for a while. It is possible to produce USB-C cables th…
The US two party system isn't that obviously broken. Americans like to say it's broken, but they often aren't that familiar with the alternatives. You could have FPTP but with more than two parties, like the UK does. The downside of this is that the reason there are more than two major parties in the UK is that the parties are much more closed off to outside influence, and due to the presence of a major independence…
That's a bold and total wrong claim.
> with the result that politicians tend not to take policy development seriously.
Ah that's why Europe is such a shithole and the US is an enlightened kingdom.
> Parties end up standing for extremely vague positions even during election campaign periods
That is just wrong. Parties often commit to specific things.
> Because the system is in some sense inherently unstable you have a lot of government collapses
That's why Angela Merkel was only in her position for 2 years.
> and the promised benefits of representing everyone's views better doesn't happen in reality.
Ill taking anyway, thanks very much.
> Instead what happens is that every party just ends up being at a different point on the 1D ideological spectrum
Again, that's just false. The represented views are way broader then what you get in other systems. Sure you don't have anarchist parties and Nazis but that's because those are minority views.
> left and "center" parties form coalitions against the right wing party to deny them any representation at all, even if it means the government becomes deadlocked and can't do anything.
That's a very, very broad generalization. And even if its the case, its not necessarily wrong. If 25% are far right wing and 75% are strongly against that far right wing, then that should be reflected in the government.
> Overall the US system isn't perfect, but it's also not the great weakness Americans like to claim it is. The two parties are sufficiently loose and broad tents that they shift with the political winds easily
Having 2 parties is the outcome of an election process that is fundamentally broken and sometimes its a legally enforced duopoly. To claim that isn't fundamentally broken in terms of translating broad popular views into government is simply wrong. The European system are also broken in various ways but they are far better.