Fwiw you should support IRV if you have to (if it’s on a ballot against FPTP and is the only option), but it’s basically the bare minimum acceptable voting system. FPTP is simply not democracy, but IRV is barely okay. Any single-winner system is inherently worse than a proportional system, because it can be subject to gerrymandering, and it’s majoritarian. IRV might allow minor parties to exist without hurting their more-closely-aligned major party, but it won’t do a great job of letting them actually get representation.

Take Australia for example. Our House of Representatives uses IRV, and our Senate uses the proportional system of STV. Our major parties are Labor (centre-left) and Liberal/National coalition (right). Our most noteworthy minor party are the Greens (left). The Greens consistently get about 10%. In the House of Representatives, at the last election they achieved a record 2.7% of the seats in the Reps (their previous best was 0.7% despite over 10% of voters putting them first), and they currently have 14.5% of Senate seats, on the back of a 12.3% and 12.7% first-preference vote, respectively.

IRV helps, because it removes the spoiler effect in real-world scenarios. You should support it as better than FPTP if you have to, and not let the perfect by the enemy of the good. But it shouldn’t be what you aim for in an ideal scenario.

1. the voting system alone won’t break the two party system.

2. Approval Voting is a better voting method anyway.

3. We’re going to need to move to some kind of proportional system in order to get more parties, and sequential proportional approval is better suited for that task as well.

I’m only coming at you so strong because it’s important that we get this right the first time. Approval is the way to go, both in the short term and the long term.

For those that don’t know, approval works like this: vote for any number of candidates, most votes wins. That’s it. It’s dead simple while being one of the more accurate systems by multiple measures.

Link 1 Simulating Elections with Spatial Voter Models

Link 2 Simplified Spacial Model Example

Link 3 2012 OWS Polling

Link 4 Democratic Primary Polling

Link 5 2024 Republican primary

RCV has problems with spoilers, vote-splitting, and non-monotonicity. RCV is so messy we’re not exactly sure how often an RCV election was influenced by a spoiler, but it could be as high as 14%, which would put around 75 people into Congress thanks to a spoiler. We know our happened in the Alaska special election, for example.

Anyway, if you want to help switch your local or state elections to approval (and you absolutely should) volunteer here!

Is this a play on media trying to sell bidenomics as good for common, or most, people?

Yes, but in a way that makes it actually correct.

It’s about assuaging fears of people who think Bidenomics are extreme and will be worse for the working class than the Reaganomics that’s still somehow popular with Republicans.

It’s not a whole-hearted endorsement of every aspect of Bidenomics or a claim that Biden is a true leftist.

I think the implication is that rich people don’t have popcorn ceilings, so if you do, you don’t make enough money that his tax plan will hurt you. The premise seems flawed to me, but I could be interpreting it wrong.

He wasn’t lying, he knew he wasn’t gonna get much shit through Congress when he had a 50/50 split with two of those on his side being Sinema and Manchin and the other side having folks who possibly schemed in having his entire administration cancelled before it ever began