NOM

No system is perfect, no system ever will.
And as implausible and incorrect the first-past-the-post system is. It does have big advantages.

YOU GET A REAL CHOICE !

There is a Democratic Platform, and a Republican Platform, and you pick the one which suits you, and if your party wins, you might get it.

No such thing in Holland which has direct representation.
Here the latest poll for our house of representatives.
We have no districts, just 1 national list of various parties to fill 150 seats.

So
27 seats for FREEDOM PARTY
27 seats for LIBERTY PARTY
17 seats for CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATS
15 seats for the LIBERTARIANS
15 seats for the GREENS
13 seats for the COMMUNISTS
10 seats for the SOCIALISTS
9 seats for the PENSIONERSPARTY
etc. etc to 150 total.

So a government needs 76 seats to get any law passed, so you need at least 4 parties today..... imagine the haggling behind closed doors to hammer out an agreement on everything.
Meaning no voter gets what they want, they all get Multi-partisan plans.

As the Senate is voted in a full year later using an electoral college using districts, and the Senate must rubberstamp laws forwarded by the House of Representatives this is a political nightmare.

The US and the UK system, not good, but at least it´s rather clear. Which is not something you can say from the Dutch System.

This election was interesting because it showed the positives and the negatives of the electoral system in the United States.

Major positive: It is almost impossible to rig a decentralized election with quite literally thousands of independent districts
Major negative: A candidate can lose the popular vote and still lose the election

I agree, no system is perfect, all have ups, all have downs.

Meilingkie, which Dutch political party most resembles our Republican party?

Hmmm, that´s a tough question Moksha.

PVV, or FREEDOM PARTY
VVD, or LIBERTY PARTY

The first is Trump-ish, conservative but on social security they are very leftist.
The second would be called Rockefeller-Republican back in the 70´s, but they are very leftist on moral issues and critical about social security.

In 2013 there was a real race, many rightwingers decided to switch and vote LIBERTY PARTY
Many leftist decided to switch and voted SOCIALIST PARTY

The idea of both voterblocs was to keep the other out.
In the end partyleaders decided the most stable coalition was of these 2 opposing parties. They had 80+ seats put together.
And any other combination excluding the other big one would have entailed a coalition of 4 parties.

Many people were severely disappointed, they voted against one bloc, and got it anyway.

How is it that people in every country except USA know more about our political system and nuances than we do?

The past few years I have been adamant that the 2 party dominance in the USA is a big part of the problem, and my voting record indicates this. But Mel highlights the issue with too many parties.

With so many parties, do original legislation ideas get passed with lots of pork or does the final legislation look nothing like the original idea? I know you touched on this earlier, but I wasn't sure.

Well my friend Korihor

It does create a horrendously difficult taxsystem for example, with all kinds of taxbreaks, and subsidies.
And most laws get tailor-made and discussed behind closed doors.
the various parties get whipped to vote appropriately and it gets passed.

This cabinet has taken a different approach however.
Departments have been assigned to a specific party, and they do what they want to do with laws and policy.
So no more pork needed. And the other party grudgingly agrees.