If U.S. had Parliamentary-style government

@Burnley123 I get what you mean about voting the party out of power rather than voting against the party position, but I'm not as confident as you that he could survive a no confidence vote at this point in time. The progressive wing of his own party may actually be more upset with him than the Republicans because he separated the two infra-structure proposals as well as not being able to bring Manchin around, plus some of them have delusions of having stronger support than they actually have when it came to organizing the next coalition.

@dancingtongue I am not sure of that either. Do the progressive Democrats really hate Biden more than the Republicans? Do they have the numeric strength to bring him down and stand one of their own?

One thing about a Parliamentary system is that a party can indeed change leader without calling an election. Technically, we vote for MPs not the leader directly. Many times in the past, there has been a new Prime Minister without an immediate election.

Boris Johnson is under huge pressure here and could be replaced by his own party next year. Under a Parliamentary system, Biden might be in some danger of being replaced by another centrist Democrat but that would be done without calling an election.

@Burnley123 That is the part alot of people miss. Tanking the entire government and triggering an election itself is a huge political strategic move that is not done on a whim.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow Yes, and it's a gamble likely to backfire. We both know that voters are likely to punish parties that call for early elections. So it's really often a case of Turkey's voting for Christmas.

Yes, Trudeau broke even after calling an election but he underscored the pre-election campaign polling by quite a bit, which proves my point. Paradoxically, he would have won the election had he not called for it himself. Theresa May managed to blow literally a twenty-point lead in 2017, not that I'm complaining.

@Burnley123 Usually in a vote of non confidence it is the opposition that gets punished for irritating the public with an early election unless it is so bad they want the current PM gone too. It also usually requires both opposition parties to agree to take down the government too.


What Trudeau did was call an early election which is something that is pretty recent in Canada. It used to be every 4 years unless a non confidence vote is called. I believe it was the Harper Tories who changed things so you could call an early election for political advantage.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow You've always been able to do it here. The maximum term is five years. Both Thatcher and Blair both called elections after four because they were in dominant positions so it made sense to call it early to guarantee another five.

We've had three elections since the start of 2015, which is a sign of heavy political turbulence. Mostly because of Brexit.

@Burnley123 It is possible it was only a tradition. Tradition is kind of unwritten rules here. But calling early elections for political position has really only been a thing since the 2000s or the "naughties" as you Brits call it. 🤣

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow [quote]Tradition is kind of unwritten rules here.[/quote]

In Britain, it's the same. We have a constitution based on laws and tradition but not a US-style written bill of rights.

The Canadian Parliamentary model is most like the British one. You even have ridings, long after we changed the name to constituencies.