A very good reply, Dave, and there are definitively communalities in our thinking.
But we differ on a good number of issues as well; we talked about that before.
Ranked Choice Voting is winner-take-all and, in as far as I have seen the results, there is barely a budging toward third parties in the United States (this is not Canada where third parties are automatically baked in the national setup). Most of the competition in the USA occurs between candidates of the same party or between candidates of the usual two parties.
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But… Proportional RCV is different because it incorporates (some) proportionality. Not the full real deal yet, but a good step in the right direction.
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Regular RCV is perfect if we don't want run-off elections, but that is where the true benefit ends.
RCV gives the voters the idea that they have options, but RCV is just winner-take-all, meaning that discrimination of the worst kind is included in the voting booth with it dividing voters in haves and have-nots in light of being represented. It is such a sad system.
In a system of Full Representation, the parties are playing second fiddle. They can jump as high and as low as they want, but the voters are the rulers of the nation. The power is vested in the people.
Once there is a coalition government (parties need to pour water with their wine to collaborate), the folks in control still need to look out for number 1, the voters. The voters are fickle and can wipe out an entire party in a single election. That is voter empowerment.
The parties can have their internal struggles, and even in your TDG there will be more struggles than you conjure right now, increasing with each step up toward the ultimate decision makers. There is not escape there, Dave; that is how power works.
The real question is where the moderating parts are found. Where are the humbling effects occurring in TDG at the highest national level where the biggest clashes between political ideals happen? Not sure if you worked that out yet.
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I tend to look at female representatives, because nations with Full Representation tend to have more females in their seats. That is not always true, culture plays an important role as well. Yet the nice part about female representation is what we know about the male-female reality in all nations: they are the same everywhere (except in Vatican City).
In my book, one in three representatives has to be female before a nation is even close to delivering on true democratic values. One in three is just the first spot when it is getting to be somewhere in the ball park.
In this respect, the world as a whole is improving, which is great, but when voting in races, when voting with a game included in an election, then females tend to get the seats less often than males. The game, any game, will always benefit males more than females. Full Representation does not have a game inside.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SG.GEN.PARL.ZS
The following is not to say that I changed the world of female representation, Dave, I wish I got that power. Yet when I took my political class at San Francisco State, there were big wigs of the Democratic Party involved in that class as teachers. I challenged one of them on the position of the USA on the list of female representatives in the world, and asked what the spot of the US was on that list. They completely had no idea how bad it was (back then, one in seven representatives in the US was female, they thought the USA was one of the best nations for female representation in the world). Three weeks later, this enormous discrepancy was a much talked about issue in papers and magazines, and from that moment on more and more women ended up partaking (and winning). These big wigs changed their minds about what needed to be done.
The point of this is not how I and my action changed the world (I am totally unimportant in this), but is about the reality that the political parties can be the lead of cultural changes. They helped the outcome through beneficial manipulation. That is the political world upside down. The people should be in the lead of cultural changes, not (ever) the parties.
I hope you get the fine point I am trying to make. When parties have too much power, then the voters are not in control enough. Only when these dominating parties are 'exposed' in their miserable results, then they change their behavior. In the USA today, we are doing much better than before, glad if I was of help in that, but we are still not in the ballpark where we need to be, female rep-wise.
Instead of promoting political freedom, both parties in the USA like it the way it is because that means they have all the power. If the majority of the winning voters like things differently, then they will deliver that toward the perceived majority of voters. They will.
Tet there are so many issues in the USA that are ignored, neglected, made unimportant, simply because the voters are pushed toward that competition in the voting booth with one another. Many cannot get their political agenda points come across — they are snowed under in the competitive races. RCV is not helping in that respect at all.
P.S. As said, I am happy about Proportional RCV because it is a step in the right direction. It is not the full deal yet, but it is a partial use of the correct proportional system. I am hopeful this will become popular, and then the step to the real deal will be easy to make.
