One party with multiple functional approaches that get whittled down through democratic consensus is more democratic than being told to pick between two relatively similar options. There is more of a gap between liberals and Maoists in the CPC, both of which hold power in office, than there are between the democrats and republicans.
Again: there are more than just two parties. And those parties are competitive at a state and local level. But sure, a single party that you can only choose pre-approved candidates is more democratic. In the US, and most western countries, you can choose to vote for a libertarian that would happily shut down the majority of the gov’t, and you can also vote for someone that’s a christo-fascist authoritarian. You can vote for a straight socialist. You can vote anywhere in between. All of them will likely be on various national ballots, and in the US most people reject them as being terrible candidates. In countries with a parliamentary system and ranked choice voting, you’ll end up with ten different parties that then have to create some kind of coalition before they can get anything done, which forces some kind of broad consensus. None of those choices would even be allowed to be voted on in a singe-party country.
But yeah, sure buddy, single-party systems are more democratic.
One party with multiple functional approaches that get whittled down through democratic consensus is more democratic than being told to pick between two relatively similar options. There is more of a gap between liberals and Maoists in the CPC, both of which hold power in office, than there are between the democrats and republicans.
Again: there are more than just two parties. And those parties are competitive at a state and local level. But sure, a single party that you can only choose pre-approved candidates is more democratic. In the US, and most western countries, you can choose to vote for a libertarian that would happily shut down the majority of the gov’t, and you can also vote for someone that’s a christo-fascist authoritarian. You can vote for a straight socialist. You can vote anywhere in between. All of them will likely be on various national ballots, and in the US most people reject them as being terrible candidates. In countries with a parliamentary system and ranked choice voting, you’ll end up with ten different parties that then have to create some kind of coalition before they can get anything done, which forces some kind of broad consensus. None of those choices would even be allowed to be voted on in a singe-party country.
But yeah, sure buddy, single-party systems are more democratic.
Cool talk.