0 well as, as the . ready i'm having to human do a high and these, the headlines on al jazeera denise is present in the face. i. it has rejected criticism over the mistreatment of black african migrants and refugees on the border with olivia. 700 people have been left stranded without food or water for days. like training has spoken to the migrants from the libyan side of the border with 2 nation to this whitestone says libya just a few meters away on the other side is too easy and territory. and now we have to be really careful not to cross into, to using territory to speak to these migrants. i mean, they're here, we've been hearing from them about their situation since restored here. i have

never seen teresa and bring 40 of us. seems dispute here and how long have you been here right now? i'm yeah, almost. and i was 6 days, but i me some people here. so they were here before you did they say the year before the i pad, you know, you're still reading the so what i even one with money. see i use pregnant. he thinks so what i think he said don't you know, after we start thinking these things and we are taking it on something just to just to ya. talk to have an option then, you know? yeah, it's to be checked out or describe it. you know, sometimes when you, when you go to the shop, when it gets what i would recommend, you give it to the babies. you know, your, if it's the, it's very difficult to just to be supporting here. and we want to get out of you, as you can see, their situation is, is desperate. it's dire. they have received some sort of a, a bite from the living side. there are some accounts that the technicians have also showed up. but really, i mean, the hope is that some sort of solution can be figured out. malik trina, which is 0 on the libya intuition border. 6 people have been stab to death at

a kindergarten in china. authorities say 3 children are among the victims. a 25 year old suspects has been taken into custody in the long don't province. katrina, you has more from badging. it is extremely rapid. these kinds of attacks to occur. guns are legal and penalties for this kind of crime. they is very harsh. most. most of those are found guilty of intentional murder. they received the death penalty. however, tragically, this has happened in the past. just last year in august there was another attack and the kindergarten in junk see problems with 3 were killed. these with 3 children, so tragically, this does happen and following that is that there was a nation wide discussion about strengthening security around schools. it's likely that discussion will be reunited off to this. provide you as president joe biden is in london, but he'll meet you. k prime minister wishy soon act ahead of a keen nato summit. this week. biden's trip to europe will be dominated by the

summit. in lithuania, aimed at showing solidarity with ukraine bite and says it's premature to allow ukraine to joining the alliance. in the middle level, one russian commanders say air defense systems have intercepted for ukrainian missiles over the crimea and peninsula ukrainian missile strikes have also been reported in russ 12 and beyond in southern russia. but you in says sudan is on the brink of a full scale civil war, and the conflict could the stabilize, the entire region. airstrikes have been reported south of the capitol as the student is army and rapid support. current military forces continue to fight. the number of people killed during one soon floods in pakistan has risen to 76. at least 15 people have been killed in neighboring india. torrential season down corps over the past 2 weeks triggered flash flooding and lance lights, southern japan has seen some of the heaviest rain ever recorded there. floods and mud slides killed one person. 6 others are missing. roads are closed. train service

is disrupted and water supplies cut. nearly 2000000 japanese have been urged to see shelter. the new york state is on flood alert because of heavy rain. homeowner's recorded video is torrence of water approach, their properties, and submerged cars. us where the service has issued flooded warnings for several nearby accountants. member ration events have been held ahead of the 28th anniversary of the shrubbery to genocide. hundreds lined the streets of the bosnian capital as a truck carrying the coffins of 30 newly identified victims passed on his way to shrubbery. so they'll be buried with an 8000 people. mostly, most of the men and boys were murdered by bosnian serb forces in 1995 because of the headlines. and it was continues here on al jazeera after the bottom line. thanks for watching caesar the

a. hi, i'm steve clements and i have a question for almost 200 years. americans have generally been stuck with 2 political choices, either democrat or republican, but can that ever change? let's get to the bottom line. the american politics is mostly a 0 sum game. instead of debate on how to move the country forward, democrats and republicans both believe that fairway is the only way, and everyone else is sort of the enemy. instead of civil debate, we see a lot of threats in french warfare and as american political institutions deteriorate and become more and more toxic citizens have also become more polarized . the country is full of small parties, offering a 3rd way. but none of really taken off the ground. so is there any way to make american politics more representative, more responsive, more diverse, and more stable? today we're talking with lee drop men senior fellow and the political reform

program at the new america foundation. an author of breaking the 2 party do loop the case for multi party democracy in america. and also holly page, one of the co founders of no labels, a fairly new political organization that supports a centrist approach. that's really not exactly republican nor democrat. it's wonderful to have you both here in i think one of the big challenges in this country, li, if i can start with you, is to ask this question about the solvency of the choices we have. we have now. i don't know if you're going to win the g o p. nomination with the front runner. donald trump is, is now facing federal charges, a very unusual moment on the democratic ticket. a lot of people are looking at joe biden and saying this is the oldest person to ever run for officer to run again for office in the, in, in our history. and they're asking the question is, are, these are the only 2 choices we've got? i'd love to get your, your take on the choices and why we're stuck with these 2 possibly as

well. and it is a extremely unusual situation in our political history to have 2 candidates for president who are likely candidates or are both extremely unpopular and have a large share of americans who say that they don't really want either of these candidates. so i, i, i understand the reasons why many americans wish there were more choices. and i also wish there were more choices. but the presidency of our political institutions is the most winter take off and there can only be one president. so it does tend towards the 2 candidates, i think what the, the failures of our 2 party system to generate better choices. it seems quite clear to me, but the question i think that we all are trying to figure out is,

what do we do about that? and to me, we have to start with our electoral system, which means that we really need to think about ways that we can elect more candidates across a wide range of institutions who represent more partners. i think the challenge is that the presidency and the binary choice that we are facing in this election is a symptom of some deeper problems within our political system. but it's hard to address the symptoms. but we can address the core problems. so how do you do it lead because if i were a young person today and say conservative oil town like bartlesville, oklahoma, north of tulsa, i might have some similar views as people growing up in the bay area in san francisco might have some similar views with someone down in mobile, alabama,

but i also have issues that are different. i have different orientation, maybe different uh, sets of ideas about how and economy works. what is preventing that impulse of trying to aggregate some of those interests around our little, you know, bartlesville, oklahoma young person and have that eventually become a party or something with some political juice in the us political system. is that something that your vision of an alternative to the 2 party system would entertain? yeah, absolutely. so oklahoma is a very read state in terms of who, who gets elected, but in terms of who the people are in oklahoma, i think it, there is a lot more ideological diversity that's not well represented. so you have a system of elections for both the congressional delegations and the state legislature that relies on a single member districts. and in a single member districts, you can have only one winner and single member districts mean that 3rd parties are

treated as boilers and wasted folks. but if you move to a system of multi member districts in which votes are allocated proportionally by party support, which is the norm among democracies around the world. that creates opportunities for new parties to form a new parties to organize. and so under a system of proportional representation, if what you're talking about is a more moderate republican party, a. yeah, but that could be a party that gets 20 percent of the votes statewide, but it's not going to get 51 percent in any single district. so that there is not going to be a real reason for people to form that party. and that's why such a party doesn't for him because in our system of single winter districts, 3rd parties are wasted vote. we move to a system of more proportional representation with multi member districts. you would see more parties forming a holly, you were co founder of no labels. this interesting new organization that's trying

to posit that we should have choices that are neither neither republican nor democrat may be something in between a kind of pragmatic party. what are you trying to do with no labels? and is that part of the answer here is we talked to lee about trying to think beyond the stranglehold that the democrats and republicans have on the current system. absolutely. first of all, no labels was founded in 2010. so we have been around for awhile. and what we're really doing is giving voice to what we call the common sense majority, millions and millions. we have our numbers about 77000000 american voters who do not see their values and hopes and dreams for the country. and their families reflected in what the 2 parties are selling currently. so we are less committed to forming a 3rd party. we would like to see both parties kind of modernize and reform and speak more to the vast majority of american voters. what's the, how do you do that?

how do you, i guess, i guess the question is, how do you not become a trojan horse for one of the, one of the 2 parties and still provide a real viable alternative? well, we have a tremendous track record working through our allies in the house, in the problem solvers caucus and in the senate to tell us about the problem solvers cox. so the problem solvers caucus is a robust a caucus of the united states. house of representatives, co chaired by democrat, josh got timer and republican. brian sits patrick 64 members. they have several rules, one of which is if 75 percent of the caucus supports a piece of legislation, the entire congress has to vote for it. that they vote as a block and they are, they were absolutely instrumental in reaching the debt ceiling deal. and i think any sort of constructive movement in congress, but they will be at the center of it. but we, we have a track record our foot folks working together helped create and then pass be hard

to infrastructure legislation by having an alliance with the senate. they found a path forward. and that is why you had so much by partisan legislation passed last congress. the chip sacked electoral reform act, great american act doors. that was all of them. so we know this can work if you allow the elected officials who are committed to problem solving the space and the ability to talk with the other side and come up with the best collective solution. i want to go back to lee. but before doing that, you know, i know from public record that you've raised an awful lot of money, me to potentially put forward a candidate in 2024. in the race of joe mentioned his off and talked about larry hogan who is a republican leader of maryland who is said he's not going to run but, but nonetheless, i'm just wondering, are you going to spend all the money raising 2024. and who, who do you think it might be? well, this is a little bit different than almost any other conversation in washington state,

because this is really not about the elected officials. i think we're all exhausted by the idea that we're going to like this one or that one and magically it's all going to be good from then on out. this is about giving 77000000 american voters, a voice in the national conversation. we want all the elected officials to speak to us to and by the way, all we want is what's in our collective best interest, fiscal responsibility, a 21st century education program. i mean, things that are very general, but that the country needs to compete in the future. oh, thank you, lee. i love to hear from you about what you think about the chances of no labels breaking through. but i also want to hear from you about structurally, because you've written a lot about fusion voting and about, you know, some of these new fangled ideas that others are trying to rank twist voting, which we saw in alaska recently trying to create some different alternatives that produce result, all that or that i guess from the voters perspective,

draw from people more in the center than the extreme. so i loved it, just handicap, you know, give us your grades, no labels, right? choice voting. tell us what fusion voting is. give us a quick lesson in this. all right, so, so let's, let's, we have to landscape here. he bought a fusion voting and fusion. her voting is actually not, not a new fangled idea at all. it's something that is deeply american and was wide spread in the 19th century. and the basic idea is simple, is it's that multiple parties can dominate the same kid. so if you want to vote for job, i didn't on the democratic ticket, you can vote for joe biden on the democratic ticket. but say they, if we had a 3rd common sense party that also nominated job item because use the more moderate of state by didn't 1st, trump matchups, you could vote for joe biden on the common sense ticket. now, what does that do? both aggregate divided, but you've signaled that what you want are the uh,

policies and priorities of this common sense party, which could be the same thing as, as a what holly just mentioned could be something else, but it gives voters more power to signal what it is that they want their candidates and elected officials to stand for it. and right, right. choice voting is sort of the candidate and version of that. where instead of parties as nominating candidates who are now made by their party's parties, nominate their own candidates. but uh oh or independence run, but they are no longer spoilers cuz their votes transferring now i think i think political parties are really the essential institutions of modern representative democracy. you can't do modern democracy without political parties, political parties, aggregate and organized elections. so i like fusion because it's i see it as

a pro parties reform, right. it is an opportunity to build the local parties. i think just because our 2 parties are broken doesn't mean we should give up on the idea of political parties of the problem is we need more parties, right? and we need to are parties and fusion and proportional representation. allow us to do that. i think in terms of running a 3rd party candidate in presidential elections, that is a tremendous long shot. and there is really never been a successful 3rd party candidacy in america the, the electoral college. it is a winner take all system on top of a one or take all system. so with all due respect, holly i, it seems like running a 3rd party candidate in this presidential election is, is a incredibly unlikely winning strategy. well, lucky for us, we're not running a 3rd party candidate. we are running. the idea is if we get to the spring of 2024

and the american people are still pretty clear and what they're telling us right now, which is they do not want a repeat of 2020 the ideas potentially to have a unity ticket, a democrat and republican running together, but i agree with leave that the, the parties are basically here to stay. but they do need to modernize, they do need to start to address a, you know, a mere seconds, whereas they are half a part of your goal. yeah, exactly. put pressure on it's less than really i think about additional parties. and i heard catharine gale say this. i've got to give her credit, right. it's about the threat of another party. you know, and i think that the voters who, by the way, it's as hard as this is for me to kind of embrace, i try not to use word centrist because really it's about the politics of problem solving. and if you are committed to problem solving, no matter where you are in the spectrum, you're welcome at our table. and that's with the american people want, you know,

they really don't care about, you know, the latest machinations in washington. and i invite we to come with us and get out there around the country. is that what no labels is trying to do? you're trying to roll a bowling ball through the fragility of both parties right now. they, yes, i mean, you know, both parties have shown us time and time again. just as you say, donald trump read to find the republican party with 10 people, half of whom here is related to right. ok. bernie sanders, who's not even a democrat, basically took over the democratic party, the green, new deal bills back that are, those are his defining ideas. and every, you know, if you walk down the street, people understand the green new deal is affiliated with the democratic party. so we want the same attention and the same uh, you know, ideas address to those of us who believe that the priorities of the country should always come. first of right, the party li. i mean, i want to ask you

a bit about money real quick. i guess last election cycle, $144.00, uh, $14400000000.00. mean that is a huge amount of money. i had no idea that the political spending had reached that level. how i mean, when i heard that it, that explain to me why this is such a great business for political parties to be a number one. and how it's so hard to disrupt that is part of what cementing this to party doom loop. the amount of money that's involved and i don't think so what, what cementing the, the 2 party system is the fact that both parties have an opposition on monopoly because of the single wider election. so there's a, there's a lot of money that is going not necessary to parties. one of the parties is going to consultants now is consultants are affiliated with the 2 parties, but a lot of consultants and campaign operations could work for other parties. if there were more parties, right,

maybe that would just be more potential clients and more potential elections. there's a lot of money chasing very few competitive elections. we have a system in which less than 10 percent of congressional elections are, can contested maybe 15 percent or senate elections are congested. there's a handful swing states and then a bunch of local election. so there's all this money chasing very few outcomes. a lot of it is frankly just wasted. uh, the, so i, i think the 2 party system is, is, may, was right for disruption and opening up. and i, i think the problem, and the reason why we're so dissatisfied with the 2 parties is because the america is a much more diverse countries. and the 2 parties are trying to manage these practice coalitions. and there's only one way that they can really manage these practice coalitions, which is to demonize the other side, which is to say, now if you're, you might not love the democrats, but trump is destroying democracy. you might not love the republicans, but democrats want to impose the world new deal on you and the republicans are your

only alternatives. so the, the very fact that we have a 2 party system is the thing that is dividing our country and leading us to really hate each other. because these 2 parties are practice coalitions that are only bound together by the fact that so many people within those correlations really just like the other side. so i think the fundamental problem is the 2 party system . it's not about getting the 2 parties to serve the american people better because i, i love the more i that are, but we try that 1st. but it, listen, i have tremendous respect for anybody who spends their time and energy trying to, uh, you know, put us on a different path. but is one of the problems with all of the attention on, on the reforms is that it only focuses on campaigns in elections. right. and that's like putting all your energy and attention on the wedding. the marriages were,

all the action is the marriages were either, you know, the values are advanced or not. and the problem is that, that you could rank choice vote or, you know, fusion, right? so your way to whatever, but you get here and the parties still control a lot of what happens. well, that's why we ought to have more parties. because that mean the parties have to control parties organized politics. you need parties to organize and structure progress. the problem is when you have 2 parties that are competing for narrow majorities, they don't want to work together. the, in the, the fundamental reason that washington is so broken is because both parties are trying to eke out these narrow majority. i think that's true because if you look at what happened in the last congress, the record store a number of bi partisan bills that were very significant for this country past lot, you know, because they helped define the target of voters who, who supported them. it is, it, i mean they, they pass because democrats had

a majority and a few republicans went along on all of these important, you know, that's not what, let me just ask you this in the, in the last couple of minutes we have one holly, a lot of people have flooded me with research and, and position papers that if no labels were to run a candidate like joe mansion, all that's going to do is to get, is get donald trump elected, and that you are the bite in killing organization. that is a, you know, that is the dinner topic, does your uh, around town right now, and that is the concern there. i know, on the other hand, that as you talk about what no labels are trying to do to reach these many disaffected voters, you know, really approximately 80000000 people. as you said, we're not engaged in the political system. i'm just interested in how you respond to the issue about your going to basically be a trojan horse for republican interest to take down a donald or excuse me. well, go, barney, if you republican folks say the same thing to us,

but on the opposite side and listen, they will take down donald. yes, exactly. very concerned about that in some key states that we would be quite powerful in, right. but here's the thing, know levels isn't, we're not manifesting this, we're not creating this, we're giving voice to it. right? right. and all the political establishment has to do here in washington is speak to the common interest of the common sense majority voters, right? that's all they gotta do. they just really have to stop hitting us against each other. stop scaring us about, you know, the, the terrible things that will befall the country. should they lose power and government with a vision. so you know, competing as an american tradition, it's an american value. they can both compete for our votes and, and then if there's not a clear lane, then we won't advancing unity ticket. it's not that complicated. it's lee. and i really enjoyed your book and i think it's so important for people to pay attention

to this because you make something that feels true to me, that the legitimacy, the solvency of the system, is eroding and seems to be dying. and you're looking at ways to revive, if you were to play the lead rockman playbook of the 2 or 3 most important things. if you had the power, you would shift to get people to believe in the election system. again, what would you do as well? i would move to a system of proportional representation for the house. multi member, just search through and give people real diversity of choices. america is a very diverse and plural hosted countries and which people have lots of different values, lots of different life experiences, lots of different hopes. and we want to congress that looks like this country that looks like this country in terms of ideology, in terms of gender, in terms of age, terms of race. and can give everybody a voice to hash out those just disagreements. i and, you know, i,

i think that would be a tremendous way to really realize the promise of representative democracy in america. i think we've got to move beyond this artificial us versus them is a part official. my team versus your team. the, the only way that we can win is for you to lose, and that's what the 2 party system is doing to us. that is fundamentally splitting us into 2 warring camps based on these artificial distinctions now there, but there are some real disagreements. and i think my disagreement with holly here is that the political center right now is somewhat small. there are a lot of people who are unhappy with the 2 party system, but a lot of, but not a lot of them are political centers. they're kind of all over the ideological map and moderation in centers. and is it something in the if the system level, the property that emerges from the diversity of representation and nobody having dominant power. i love this conversation. unfortunately, we're gonna have to leave it. they are lead drop ment,

senior fellow at the new america nation and holly page, co founder of no labels. thank you so much for being with us today. thanks. i a thank you steve. so what's the bottom lines? the big 2 parties always argue that the alternative to them is chaos, and they've convinced the public that resistance is futile. these 2 parties are company in the system they've created. they loved predictability, and they hate surprises. they groomed their leaders over time. they raise tons of money and control the whole chain from top to bottom. and if they don't win or race who cares, they'll get another chance in a couple of years. that's literally the system america has. and it's structurally corrupt. there's just no other way to describe it. good ideas only happen in this country if they come through the 2 political parties and are absolutely crashed, if they don't, with the lack of innovation in a system that only allows 2 choices is destined to break down some day. somehow. maybe the race between one candidate who's accused of federal crimes and another who is the oldest candidate in american history?

well, this might just be the time when a 3rd choice sounds like a great idea. and that's the bottom line, the debating the issues of the day we got to start the intensive farming systems, the climate change, protect destruction. otherwise we won't be able to feed ourselves. everyone has a voice one up here says pipe top and meet you a and says this is american economic car wash. what would you say that the watching light target either, but it's only going to meet me is targeting vulnerable, but it's important to have this conversation we need to talk about and not about narrative the street on algae 0. we understand the differences between subconscious across the ground. so no matter how you take care, ouch is here to bring you the news and current to fast the tv,

the challenges there, the, the, the drum and do how these are the top stories on al jazeera, finishes president face ty, it has rejected criticism over the mistreatment of black african migrants and refugees on the border with libya. 700 people face dire conditions as they've been left stranded for days on the libyan border. the technicians broke the legs of these people. libyans are giving us water and food. it is too easy. a who put us here, but it is the libyans who have helped us with the police to end up with that good to risk you. us victim.