It’s what we’ve got, man. Your attitude, shared by far too many, helped get trump elected in 2016. I haven’t forgotten. I voted against Clinton in the primary, but wasn’t a fool staying at home or voting for the Green Party because she didn’t fit my preference as a Democratic candidate. I wanted to do what I could to get Clinton in office instead of trump, because that was the only real choice we had. Those like you helped get trump in office, and that directly led to the far-right extremists we have on the Supreme Court, but hey… you can be happy with your “clear conscious.” I voted against Nixon, I voted against Reagan. I’ve voted FOR every Democratic presidential candidate on the ballot, often holding my nose, since the 1960’s because the alternative was a Republican working for the rich, not the middle or the working class. You live in your fantasy, @DonnyMost. It blows my mind, but you go ahead and help elect the R’s. Trust me, they are grateful.
It's literally insanity what these people spew. The ""polarization" is too high complaint is hilarious. Welcome to the era of social media.
Nothing I have said "helps elect the Rs". Neither in theory, nor in practice. Unless of course there's an R on your ballot who is campaigning on fixing the problems I directly called out. But that's a pretty rare edge case. And those folks aren't normally aligned with the whole "stop the steal" nonsense, so it's not an existential threat. I'd have no qualms voting for a forward thinking Republican focused on these issues if I ever came across one, but the odds of that are basically zero. Also, nothing I said has anything to do with 2016, voting for hopeless spoiler candidates, or people staying home. I said as much quite clearly already. This is just you trying to pin more neoliberal failures on anything but its own incompetence and unpopularity. You know what I did advocate for? Focusing on a bigger, different problem. Perhaps instead of spitting on people for following their conscience, maybe some personal reflection is in order. Not that it's any of your business, but Ive voted in every single election I've ever been able to in my entire life and it has never been for anything BUT a Democrat (when given the option). I vote D because I have no choice, but I'm not deluded enough to think that Democrats (as presently constituted) are going to solve the real problem(s) I care most about. Spare me that rah rah nonsense. Fix the rules and the parties will follow. Vote for whatever you have to in the meantime.
In years past I have advocated for third parties as a remedy, but it's been clear to me since at least 2020 that there's no way for that to succeed because of FPTP and the spoiler effect. The only way a third party can succeed today is if it is accompanied by a fourth party at the same time and of the same size as to balance out the voter siphoning effect for the other end of the political spectrum. The closest thing we have going to this today is Forward. It's a third party but it's also non-exclusive and non-partisan, so in reality it's more of a movement/cause than a party in practice. It draws equally from the left and the right, and is focused primarily on electoral reforms that are not partisan in nature (apparatchiks of both parties hate duopoly busting because it threatens their exclusive place at the top of the pyramid). The absolute worst thing you can do is pretending that the problem will solve itself if we just "keep voting Democrat/Republican". You can keep voting for whoever you have to, but we have to apply pressure to change their incentives/behavior and that starts with supporting those who recognize and want to address the problem.
I don't blame anyone for voting exclusively one party. That isn't a character flaw, it's a flaw in our system. The number of times we are offered meaningful choice at the ballot box is practical zero. What I do blame people for is partisan cheerleading and blindspots. You can acquiesce to a system that is beyond your control, but to carry water for that system and its operators is lunacy.
I don't know, but it doesn't sound wise to make someone with not enough experience "the most powerful regulator in the world". Bad idea.
Count me in as someone who didn’t expect a lot from Biden and personally he still annoys me. He has far exceeded my expectations and given what looks like the likely field I have no problem supporting him again. I also agree that yea the US system has some big problems but so does every other system. Look at the parliamentary systems with many parties and they either lack a lot of stability and/or still end up dominated by two parties that form major blocks. If the US went to a parliamentary system we would still likely be dominated by a Democratic / Labour block and a Republican / Conservative block.
As someone who spent a good chunk of my adult life helping to develop a third party the solution appears to be to start at the state level. For a variety of reasons it’s very difficult to win nationally but winning a governorship is very possible and Jesse Ventura, Angus King Bernie Sanders and Lowell Wicker show that non D and R’s can win states. Winning a majority in state house legislatures is harder because of Gerrymandering but in closely divided states a few seats won by a third party can play a big role in tipping the balance of power. In MN getting things like IRV had to do with electoral strength of the MN Independence party and Greens winning. In Minneapolis at one point the Republicans were the 4th place party. So rather than trying to go big with a third party Presidential run starting locally can bring success. It also takes many dedicated people willing to do the dirty work of campaigning, fundraising and participating in things like caucuses. Why our politics seem so extreme and out of touch is that frequently those who participate the most are the most extreme. Consequently a lot of people complain about why we have a bunch of extreme single issue politicians because they are getting supported by single issue people who show up at local caucuses and go on to become state delegates who nominate those type of politicians. In other words a lot of people complain about our politics but few are willing to do what it takes to change it.
Majorities will always exist. The problem is with no alternative you have significantly less ability to influence them. If a plurality is necessary, minorities then have leverage and can broker deals and impact governance.
Sure but that doesn’t always work out that way. Just look at Israel and the UK where minorities parties have made politics more uncompromising and radical.
The UK has its own set of anti-choice/democracy problems that has led to that. Just because other people have their own dysfunctions doesn't mean we shouldn't be trying to fix our own. The perfect is not the enemy of the good here.
This is just a bunch of nonsensical buzzwords. An entire world filled with multi-party governments shows that they don't do any of those things or solve any of those problems. For an easy example, "reduced polarization" - parliamentary governments all around the world have empowered the extremes. In the US, the far-left and far-right crazies have very little actual power; they can kill things and scream a lot, but they can't actually gain power and pass things. Not so in Europe and other places around the world, where those extremes have actually managed to become dominant parties and win elections and drown out the moderate parties. Those countries have just as much or more corruption, inability to address problems, etc. You're right that our system has a lot of problems; you're wrong in thinking that a duopoly is the root cause of them. Those problems are the result of human nature and exist in all forms of government.
This poll means absolutely nothing. Poll questions have to be very clear and precise, all this proves is that people would rather have new candidates, which we know already. EDIT: Although this is a snippet so I don't know what other questions were asked here but someone saying they don't think Biden should run doesn't mean they won't vote for him. For example....I HOPE Biden doesn't run but if he does I'll be voting for him.
I don't think he would win either, but I would put the odds closer to 4 to 6. It's not a margin that I'm comfortable with, and I do not believe that any other Democratic candidate would have better odds than the incumbent. ps. Given Biden's age, the possibility of spoiler 3rd party candidates, the likelihood of election interference by Russia, and the usual big money and dirty techniques (like voter suppression), it wouldn't take much to close the odds.
I'm the oddball. I liked Biden years ago when he ran for POTUS and still like him today. I wasn't a fan of Obama. I did like Bush Jr (what a freaking mistake).
