[EM] Approval strategy: never approve challengers

[Juho Laatu]

On 29.5.2012, at 21.13, Michael Ossipoff wrote:

>> Subject: [EM] Approval strategy: never approve challengers
> 
> Juho:
> 
> You said:
> 
>> 
>> Here is one possible strategy for Approval that may be useful especially
> after a
>> reform from Plurality to Approval. The idea is simply that current large
> party
>> supporters should avoid accepting any of the candidates of their new
> rising
>> competitors. With this strategy it is possible to at least delay the
> change for a
>> while.
> 
> Dream on.
> 
>> 
>> In the first Approval election Green voters are happy to vote for their
> favourite
>> and also approve the Democrat candidate that is a good compromise for
> them.
>> 06: G, D
>> 47: D
>> 47: R
> 
> Again, you're engaging in wishful thinking if you think that only 6% of the
> public want something better than the Republocrats.

This is just a theoretical example.

> 
> By the way, most Europeans should want democratic reform in the U.S. I have
> no idea why you don't.

I don't want to tell other people what they should do. But I'm happy to discuss the properties of different solutions.

Maybe Europe has alrady had too many problems in the history with one country interfering with the internal matters of other countries, and therefore people nowadays want to respect the (whatever) opinions of others.

Multiparty countries differ from two-party countries in the sense that parties must be able to build coalition governments. Europe has also multiple countries that must cooperate. This is maybe another reason not to tell others right away what they should do and how wrong they must be now. Don't burn bridges since you must cooperate with them tomorrow.

I would not want to change my multiparty system to a two-party system but if countries that have a strong two-party tradition think that that is the best system for them, I'm ok with that idea and even happy to help them in making the best of that system.

> 
>> In the next election the Green candidate is already more popular, but
> Democrats
>> will not approve him [or her]
> 
> We can regard it as Progressives, Dem, and Repub, because traditionally
> we've had the pretense of Dem & Repub as separate competing parties. As I
> said, the Middle voters have no reason to approve anyone other than Middle.

The new party could also be parallel to the old party, i.e. the parties would not be on a left-right style one dimensional axis. Also in this set-up Democrats could refuse to approve G and expect (or hope) Greens to accept D.

> 
>> In the following election the same pattern appears again. The Green party
>> complains that the Democrats should approve also the Green candidate.
> 
> No they shouldn't.  

I did not assume that Democrats would be the middle party. From this point of view Green party is now bigger than Democrats, their roles have changed, and G can be seen to be the rightful winner.

> 
> Of course yes, if they know what policies would be better for them, and if
> they're at all in touch with what's acceptable or unacceptable to them, then
> they should approve the Green, but not the Dem.
> 
> 
>> I don't know what will happen after this. Will the Green voters abandon
> the
>> Democrat candidate and approve only G? 
> 
> Yes, when the results of the 1st Approval count have shown that there are
> more than two relevant and viable parties, and the media are no longer able
> to conceal their support percentage and platforms, and it becomes obvious to
> all that the Republicans and Democrats aren't different from eachother and
> don't really offer change, and don't match what, say, the Greens offer. The
> scam will have fallen through.
> 
>> Or will all Democrats approve also G?
> 
> No. If anyone still prefers Dem best, that person, if they know what s/he's
> doing, won't approve the Greens. The Democrat party will be telling its
> suckers to not approve anyone else (except maybe Repubs).

Ok, I can see the proposed strategy in action.

> 
> The Repubs will be telling their voters (if they still have any) to approve
> the Dem.

I doubt this would happen as long as Republicans have close to 50% support, as in the given example. Also Democrats may have major problems with approving Republicans as long as they think they are one of the two major parties.

If Democrats and Republicans start approving each others, they have already given up and are about to become "the old D+R party". In this example Greens would then be the other major wing of a two-wing system.

> 
>> Despite of this catastrophic situation in the end the proposed strategy
> could be
>> the correct delay strategy for the Democrat and Republican parties to
> follow.
>> They should stick to their compromise candidate position
> 
> Of course they'll try to maintain that scam, but it won't work.
> 
>> Is this "never approve challengers" strategy a good strategy for large
> parties
>> that fear that smaller nearby parties might take their position?
> 
> Yes.

Good, something agreed :-).

Juho