Comment by unishark
6 years ago
> Also, in India a person managed to lead a protest, form an entire new party and become the chief minister of a state because people were behind him. That is democracy as well. Tell me when has that happened in the states in recent times.
This seems like a really specific request. I'm not sure what aspect you're looking for. But for starters, here's an interesting wikipedia page for governors that went outside the major parties:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_third_party_and_indepe...
Looks like the most common thing in recent times is to just use the label "independent" rather than start a new party.
I think the point that GP made doesn’t have any equivalence in US two party system.
The person in question really did start a new party that was not coupled with any of the existing parties and won the capital state with crushing majority.
That is a sign of a working democracy in my book. I am not sure if US is one of the better version of a well functioning democracy given its two party system. I recall that it was one of the things that the founding fathers were afraid of when they were debating the constitution.
Jesse Ventura wasn't affiliated with either party, along with a lot of people on that list.
The founding fathers were afraid of democracy itself and put in many explicit constraints on it, never mind undesired self-organization like the two parties. So it's easy to find perspectives from which the US isn't the archytype democracy. But what's the point? That it somehow a bit farther down the road to authoritarianism as a result? I'm not sure about that.
They are state governors, but did the state have a majority that wasn't either of the two main parties? That's the point. In India, in this particular instance, majority of the population were sick of the political parties in the country, there were protests and then this person created an entire new party and this party went to get elected in the capital state. I think that's the what democracy should allow you to do.
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