As someone from Ireland a country where 9 political parties are represented at government 10 including independents. How do you Americans feel about only being represented by two parties for a country preaching democracy it does not seem democratic?

There is actually another way of looking at it where you could say that America's system is actually more Democratic. Note, this is subjective and I don't necessarily believe it's true.

I'm not familiar with the Irish system, but from what I know of other parliamentary democracies, it would be a system of proportional representation, where every party is awarded seats based on the total portion of the vote (feel free to correct me if this is wrong.)

In the US, each district, which there are 435 of, has it's own specific person they elect and each state has two of its own Senators they elect. This means first past the post, which inevitably leads to a two-party system, as the parties are competing for each seat individually and not all the seats overall. However, this also means that each representative in federal Congress is actually closer to the people because he/she has a specific group they are elected by and responsible for. These same people can also choose to elect someone else the next time around, so the representative cares first and foremost about their constituents interests (or what said rep thinks is best for their constituents.) IMO it's possible to say that's more democratic for individuals to have a bigger say in their government and have a government that's more responsive to the needs of all citizens, even if it means a less efficient government

/r/AskReddit Thread