There used to be more than two parties that got EC votes in the US, evolving going through schisms and mergers as they react to electoral realities.
. . . Agree? And? The resulting duopoly - a foregone conclusion - means boo Democrats bad? Whatās your point. EC is mandated duopoly. Letās get rid of it and whatever your point might be can be rendered mercifully moot.
Stein is controlled opposition, yes. But youāre swinging at ghosts - I want STV/ranked choice/etc and third party coalitions in Congress, not a token protest vote without a meaningful platform or experience.
Well, weāre in agreement there. Iām not jazzed about the coalitions only because I think itās another porkbarrel trap and I donāt have a good sense of how it would work, but, yes.
DoMA was quashed by a legal challenge, not Democrat led legislation
DoMA was an insult to humanity and all supporting Democrats should have been defenestrated from office. Ironically, the legal challenge was also from Democrats, so. I dunno. Politics.
āBipartisan consensus on foreign policyā despite being generally unpopular, enough that even Trump got to lie and run on āno more warsā
Iām OOTL since Nov. so not sure what this is in reference to, but if existing officeholders can hold trump to anything Iām not necessarily against it.
ACA . . . failed to offer a robust government option, meekly offering repackaged private insurance under slightly better terms
Yes. And it was a huge win we wouldnāt have otherwise had. Clinton spent all his first term capital on H4A and the rest of his initiatives were bought-and-paid for with more cops and less welfare or some other political extortion. Obama got it done. Itās better. Itās not possible from any other party, period. Some good. Youāre welcome. Thanks for hating the people who did the good.
Abortion not receiving robust protection from legal challenge in the last 50 years, relying on a (correct but) legally tortured right to privacy instead of a baseline agreeable standard via federal law or amendment
Yeah the protection was honored by all branches so letās definitely lose the 80ās & 90ās to conservatives by repeatedly running on that. All you need to do is roll back other progress and find the career politicians willing to be sacrificed. Oh, the party is all-powerful, and can just make them do it? Lol.
Look at this shit - abortion is illegal and these fuckers STILL won. You want them to spend everything on a constitutional amendment to support what was already legal - and fail - to prove theyāre genuine? Thatās stupid. Yes they should have done everything to protect that right, they failed. AND THEN lost again. I realize it sucks. Politics sucks, what a revelation. Compromise is less fulfilling than heroic purity. Huzzah weāve cracked it. Please.
And now the chatter is about ditching LGBTQ+ to court Hispanic and āmoderatesā after the 2024 generalā¦
Fuck āchatterā. Weāll get boatloads of chatter daily in the next four years. Iām out this time.
AOC just got blocked by Pelosi herself from the exact kind of āchange from withinā you argue for.
Yeah. Which was bullshit. Pelosi needed to go awhile ago. AOC is young. And by the by, your wildly successful third parties are not chairing House Oversight anytime this century. So. You just wanna lay down in the road and die? Okay, but that is a super weird strategy for change. Good luck? I guess.
Voters (and spoilers) organized and ran a massive protest and advocacy campaign over Palestine
Yeah. Voters and spoilers. Demanding action, instant change. Spoilers. And voters. What a fantastic wedge. Worked a treat. And now, Palestine is well and truly fucked. Nice work, voters and spoilers.
I suppose we keep on with the camps and so on and hope the trump admin is more receptive? Heh. Oh well. We tried to explain this a hundred ways but it was not a discussion. No one was interested in understanding anything except now, today, immediately. Well. Anyway. You got what you wanted there. Why, I donāt know. Itās the opposite of good, but you demanded it. Okay then, now itās here.
Unless youāre a donor or regular attendee at $3k-$500k per head fundraiser, or are one of the vanishing small intersectional group of voters who get microadvertised to death with focus tested messaging, you donāt matter to them.
No. Being active locally is free. They do listen. If you want to cut all ties with Israel and you are upset that haranguing the Poughkeepsie chair of the DNC isnāt getting it done, Iād suggest you reset your expectations of how national politics works. Coincidentally, that applies to third parties too. Itās hard fucking work if youāre not relying on corrupt racists and batshit evangelicals.
After Citizens United money is what runs elections,
Yeah. Itās a republiQan tactic and Democrats want to change it. Third parties should be helping.
and the Democrats insist on looming over the left wing political landscape and beating minority challengers, reinforcing the ālosing prospectā narrative for third parties.
You mean they win elections? Why, if it only takes money? Couldnāt Jill Stein or literally any and/or all of the 52 other parties cobble together enough for a freaking House seat or, god, Sheriff of Bumfuck or something? No. They canāt. The ālosing prospectā is a chimera. Quit believing in it.
Europeans manage to build actual coalitions all the time and govern effectively, listening to coalition parties (and thus voters who elected that strand of politician) whilst still managing to run an effective government.
Do they? Well good for them, thatās nice. Except the ones that donāt amirite? England, France, Germany, Australia - all having a little bit of a time with the relative conservative elements arenāt they? Hey howabout that Brexit, huh? Goddamn.
And with Mississippi having a larger GDP than Germany, and a lot of challenges Germany doesnāt have, letās just say itās possible an EU style governance may take more than one election cycle from naked authoritarianism.
America can legitimately be better, but you have to dare to hope for it, not resign yourself to the lesser evil every cycle, and then shout down everyone else who isnāt.
Very often it means hoping and resigning. The shouting down is an attempt to recognize weāre in serious jeopardy, but alas the idiots, thieves, and newly enlightened have eschewed knowledge, understanding, or responsibility and we are utterly fucked because of it. As to the OP, where are they now.
Massively cut election donations and establish universal FEC funding, and ditch winner takes all voting.
Agreed. And if it ever happens, in the history of this country as we know it, it will be a Democratic initiative. A mythical Congress of strong, independent, national third parties working together for common good in the next four years is more than a joke, itās a fucking lie. You can DO - right now, today, as a Democrat, or you can NOT DO today or at any other time in the next at-least-twenty years, as a third party.
Fuck āchatterā. Weāll get boatloads of chatter daily in the next four years. Iām out this time.
Politics is rhetoric encoded in law. So yeah, chatter matters because theyāre testing the waters to see what voters find agreeable and/or permissible. Trump is an embodiment of that shift, what previously was impermissible speech from a candidate has become normalized by a growing element.
Yeah. Voters and spoilers. Demanding action, instant change. Spoilers. And voters. What a fantastic wedge. Worked a treat. And now, Palestine is well and truly fucked. Nice work, voters and spoilers.
Who enabled it to be a wedge issue? Who permitted the slaughter to continue, meekly finger wagging while quietly green lighting more bomb shipments from our war stocks? Who bypassed internal checks that are meant prevent US arms going to war criminals?
I suppose we keep on with the camps and so on and hope the trump admin is more receptive? Heh. Oh well.
Idk bro I had a hard time explaining away why we need to fund, supply, and protect war crimes at a minimum, or genocide as the boot increasingly fits. I swallowed it and voted for Dem āharm reductionā in my swing state but ironically it looks like Trump may actually be the one to force a ceasefire. Not because he cares, but because he recognizes itās a loser issue that will quagmire him like it did Joe. Iām under no illusion heāll improve life there or revert apartheid, but so far heās willing to make Bibi fold - unlike Joe
We tried to explain this a hundred ways but it was not a discussion.
And look how that browbeating worked out in the end. āOur economy is strongā while inequality deepens. āIsrael has a right to defend itselfā while refusing any restraint or inquiry on their conduct. āI am the only one who can beat Trumpā after having a cold reboot on national TV. You. Need. To. Listen. To. Feedback. Stop blithely defending this shit, and demand better.
No. Being active locally is free. They do listen. If you want to cut all ties with Israel and you are upset that haranguing the Poughkeepsie chair of the DNC isnāt getting it done, Iād suggest you reset your expectations of how national politics works. Coincidentally, that applies to third parties too.
I donāt expect a political buffet of Ć la carte options in every political scenario, but Iād hope for more than a binary scale from āreactionary nativist racismā to āmilquetoast liberalā. Especially if the one side is going to loom over the left wing landscape and demand fealty to big-tent centrism, while the other side vacillates between holding back the clock or rabid attack dog.
You mean they win elections? Why, if it only takes money?
Again with the circular reasoning, seriously?Structural barriers under FPTP empower the duopoly. Third parties cannot win, except in extremely small districts or as a reaction to duopoly scandal, and so voting 3rd party IS a wasted vote. Winner take all goes brrrrr.
Do they [form coalitions]? Well good for them, thatās nice. Except the ones that donāt amirite?
France, coalition governments in 1988, 1993, 1997, 2012, 2022 and present. The historic cause? Voter discontent and partisan scandal causing minority voices to make gains, left and right. Modern cause: failure of neoliberalism heightened by anti-incumbent sentiment.
Germany
Germany has had stable coalition governments for so long itās practically a dynasty, so idk why you think this is a winning argument. AfD is an economic protest vote from the east tempered with populist racism. Again, failure of neoliberalism heightened by anti-incumbent sentiment.
Australia
Tbh Iām fairly ignorant of Oz politics, but Iāll note that Australia has STV and instant runoff, which in 2022 gave āthe tealsā 7 seats, from former rightwing seats via grassroots takeover and policy positions on issues like climate change.
all having a little bit of a time with the relative conservative elements arenāt they? howabout that Brexit, huh? Goddamn.
Twenty years of neo-liberalism and failed immigration policy of actual integration, instead abusing il/legal migration to fill āundesirableā and ālow skillā jobs in an effort to compensate for an aging and increasingly skilled/educated population, and increase GDP. Again, failure of neoliberalism heightened by anti-incumbent sentiment and supercharged by foreign influence campaigns.
That is what entrenched parties in a FPTP system give you. Sound familiar?
You can DO - right now, today, as a Democrat, or you can NOT DO today or at any other time in the next at-least-twenty years, as a third party.
See, they key difference is that I recognize that the Democratic establishment and leadership is actually pretty comfy with our nascent fascism. I am agitating for internal evolution because the old guard has failed, and we need a new strategy to meet the challenges of our new and changing realities. The āThird Wayā and Neoliberalism skated by on the long peace and prosperity after the Cold War ended. Globalism is increasingly under threat, and we need to adapt. The right has already tacked toward populism, when are you going to wake up to the reality that you cannot browbeat your way to electoral victory under universal suffrage?
chatter matters because theyāre testing the waters to see what voters find agreeable and/or permissible.
I disagree, but if you define the following, itās possible I might be persuaded to agree (Iām not asking you to per se just saying these are wildly undefined)
chatter
waters
testing the waters
they
Who enabled it to be a wedge issue?
An excellent question. There are a number of answers. Letās take āitā and āto be a wedge issueā as givens. That leaves us with āWhoā which I think we can agree means any person or organization, and then the trickier āenabledā.
Wedge issues exist by virtue of the fact that there are two or more differing opinions. Letās take a different example to explore this: the so-called transgender bathroom issue. If all bathrooms were unisex it wouldnāt be an issue. But, due to the fact that others have existed in the world before we got to this very moment in time, thatās not the case. Bathrooms in public areas were divided by sex long ago and have largely remained so until the last 40 years, say.
Now I donāt know anyone who cares what people do in the bathroom, but I do know someone who is very upset that trans people exist and need to use the bathroom sometimes. In a real-world scenario this would probably never come up, like, ever - at all, because they donāt frequent public places and they probably wouldnāt actually care in practice anyway. I disagree with them, fwiw.
The fact that we disagree then makes this a potential wedge issue between us. Is that issue āenabledā? If so, how? See, I would argue that the āenabledā part of it, is whoās putting it into the conversation constantly? Whoās making it accusatory, whoās driving the conversation into a quarrelsome direction? Well, in this case, conservative media as usual. Now itās a wedge issue because Fox News and 100 other sewers āenabledā it.
The āgenocide joeā stuff began appearing regularly when the election was heating up - exactly at the right time, and with maximum impact. Itās not a coincidence.
but ironically it looks like Trump may actually be the one to force a ceasefire. Not because he cares, but because he recognizes itās a loser issue that will quagmire him like it did Joe. Iām under no illusion heāll improve life there or revert apartheid, but so far heās willing to make Bibi fold - unlike Joe
Donāt kid yourself. Thatās not the case in any way, shape, or form. Bibi let Trump look like that in exchange for not changing a damned thing and in fact increasing arms and money and reducing any oversight whatsoever. And who in the hell on the right is going to protest that genocide? Nikki ākill them allā Haley? No. What weāre seeing with this presumptive cease-fire is exactly what was predicted - post-election ceasefire pending trump win that serves the bloody Likud. Ten seconds of quiet is all youāre going to get and then they bring in the developers to create beach resorts for the 1%.
Stop blithely defending this shit, and demand better.
Nobodyās defending āthis shitā, but pretending itās a childās toy where you can just push a button and everything magically happens is idiocy. The browbeating was trying to explain some or any details to a disinterested and ignorant crowd of puffed-up sloganistas with hardly a shred of interest in anything much deeper than a meme. Surprise, it didnāt go well because theyāre complete fucking morons. Now we all suffer. Will they learn? Maybe. But itās too late now.
Iād hope for more than a binary scale from āreactionary nativist racismā to āmilquetoast liberalā.
Oof, you and me both. Two words: Tom Daschle. That was where I started to understand how bugfucked the DNC operatives are. As a side note, Iām interested in how the legal system looks at technology and why is it federal judges STILL know jack fucking shit about how computers work? In 2025? Well, however it is, itās the same way the DNC knows jack fucking shit about how to communicate and act for the interests of the people who support them. AOC was just 12 years old then.
Winner take all goes brrrrr.
Well youāre not wrong there. But FPTP in a national election is something completely different to a city or local election. This is where third parties really show their ass. They have zero presence in the lowest levels where FPTP means 100 people . Win those, okay? Start there. Donāt start at the national level and be like āOMG itās so haaaarrd the Dems are meanā start local and build. The Greens have 153 people in local offices, thatās something. They should go from there to regional, then state. THEN national. Thatās just how it works. Itās not a grand conspiracy, itās the nature of large organizational communication. Learn it, Live it, Know it.
w/r/t European and Australian political coalitions, I can say theyāre better, but itās not all sunshine and rainbows. And theyāre not dealing with the same issues we are at the scale we are. Better, yes, we should get to something more like that, but if you think itās some sort of grand leap Iād caution that politics is still very much in play.
I recognize that the Democratic establishment and leadership is actually pretty comfy with our nascent fascism.
I disagree.
the old guard has failed, and we need a new strategy to meet the challenges of our new and changing realities.
Agreed.
The right has already tacked toward populism, when are you going to wake up to the reality that you cannot browbeat your way to electoral victory under universal suffrage?
Depends on what you mean by ābrowbeatā and āuniversal sufferageā. Do I think making a rational case for a political position is better than baldface lying and driving giant flags around in trucks? I do. Is that ābrowbeatingā? Because I donāt know what to tell you there. Adults need to run things, full stop. What we have with the right is full on prison break batshit frat party smash-n-grab. Theyāre not governing, they canāt. Itās just horrible things happening for four years while the press looks on.
As to āuniversal sufferageā if everyone had the vote thatād be great (they donāt for reasons) but even then, they stil have to GO DO IT. You canāt force someone to change their mind, and if they canāt see the immeasurable difference between the currently available choices after making any effort to do so whatsoever, then they have failed. And we all lose.
Canāt believe Iām again spending time to give citations and actual arguments when you retort with snark and vibes, peak pigeon rhetoric.
You have to prove youāre right, as you made the ridiculous unsupportable claim. Iāve already proven it, you refuse to admit it. Letās move on.
I make a point about electoral reform and that the duopoly is not a requirement
You refute that point
I point out how weak your links are, and offer more substantive details that your argument is circular
I say that a cursory search showed them, and if I were to fuck with enshittified google enough lād find many more examples.
Still waiting boss. Or are you going to hang your hat on the big bad tech overlords and your low effort initial retort?
If we applied anti-trust scrutiny to the parties, there would be forced breakups and structural barriers to them entrenching their grip.
Uh, sure. Or we could apply RuPaulās Drag Race scrutiny to the parties and put tape on their doors to make sure theyāre not sneaking out. Theyāre not businesses with products and markets.
Thereās a fundamental reason we donāt treat them like businesses (although the analogies are admittedly obvious).
So uhhh, which is it? My anti-trust argument is tortured and worthy of derision without dissection, or you agree that the business analogy works?
What is the FEC and the various thresholds for matching funding, campaigning restrictions, funding disclosure, etc etc before we even get to state level laws? What are ballot access laws and hostile legislation that protects the two-party system:
āThe Republican Party seemed to have a ālockā on the presidency after the Civil War; it won eleven presidential elections 1860-1908, whereas it lost only two. It was precisely the āfactionalismā of 1912 (ex-Republican Theodore Roosevelt bolting that party and forming the Progressive Party) which gave the Democrats a chance to win the White Houseā
So yeah. Not a great defense of an entrenched two-party system if you actually want change.
The resulting duopoly - a foregone conclusion - means boo Democrats bad? Whatās your point.
A structural barrier exists.
Group R benefits from it and messages against reform, holding the line internally for decades under big-tent conservatism, but canāt stop the leakage - sometimes co-opting it, but now resulting in multiple internal palace and mob coups when the group and their support structures donāt reflect the voters they claim.
Group D also benefits from it, but kinda sorta doesnāt like it. But Group D definitely doesnāt want to dealmake internally (because thatās work and means compromise), and so doesnāt really do shit about the structural barriers.
Group D leadership is mute, but permits criticism of the structural barriers whilst not expending meaningful or sustained effort to change said structural barriers.
EC is mandated duopoly. Letās get rid of it and whatever your point might be can be rendered mercifully moot.
So again. Am I dumb and wrong, or do you actually agree?
Iām not jazzed about the coalitions only because I think itās another porkbarrel trap and I donāt have a good sense of how it would work, but, yes.
Politics under our brand of capitalism is transactional, from donors, voters, senators, and intra-party life.
āVote for me and Iāll bring jobsā
āDonate to me to and Iāll fight green legislationā
āSupport my bill and then Iāll vote for your pet project in committee, and get it a first reading in the Houseā
Why wouldnāt you want more diverse representation? Iām not advocating for Tammany Hall style spoils system, but you cannot deny how the political wings and minority voter blocs get forgotten or taken for granted - see the generational divide between black voters. Those who lived during the civil rights era and saw a concerted fight for their dignity, overwhelmingly vote Dem. The younger ones who grew up in the lore, but watching Dem disunity during Ferguson/BLM/Floyd/etc whilst Dem pollsters clutched to the suburban voter - instead of fighting for better - are abandoning the party.
Iām OOTL since Nov. so not sure what this [bipartisan consensus on foreign policy] is in reference to, but if existing officeholders can hold trump to anything Iām not necessarily against it.
Obama is a great example of this. A DC outsider, campaigning on change, economic recovery, and criticism of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. But then empowers Hillary as SecDef whilst cranking up drone strikes and cross-border/foreign raids.
Yes, you canāt unwind the hundreds of US military bases and installations in a four year term - thereās security treaties, realpolitik to deal with, and state/non-state actors to be concerned with as the global police, but thereās always a place for empowering and relying on locals to fulfill their own security concerns. But then, weāre the global superpower with UN veto and economic muscle, so we play by a different rule book. Apparently.
And it was a huge win we wouldnāt have otherwise had. Clinton spent all his first term capital on H4A and the rest of his initiatives were bought-and-paid for with more cops and less welfare or some other political extortion. Obama got it done. Itās better. Itās not possible from any other party, period. Some good. Youāre welcome. Thanks for hating the people who did the good.
Whatās the fucking point of having supermajority power if youāre not going to wield it to make long lasting change that would benefit the country, not just reelection funds? And Iām not even talking M4A, even just having a genuine government healthcare option to compete with private insurance would have done so much, in non-competitive markets where people are mono-sourced either by employers or providers, providing a ābaseline but decentā care option for the poor and vulnerable so you arenāt bankrupted for daring to get cancer or need long term care, or stronger restrictions on vertical integration of providers and insurers, orā¦
Youāre cool with ābetterā and want me to be thankful? We just saw a vigilante murder the UHC CEO, and the bipartisan response is āmehā toāfuckemā due to decades of common discontent - but youāre happy with the status quo?
Yeah the [abortion] protection was honored by all branches so letās definitely lose the 80ās & 90ās to conservatives by repeatedly running on that.
No it wasnāt honored in the legislature, weāve had ātrigger lawsā on the books in deeply Republican states for decades. Theyāre at the āfind outā stage after giving the religious right that performative act.
No it wasnāt honored in the courts, Casey nibbled away the āstrict scrutinyā protection which opened the door to a patchwork of state level fuckery, and Webster which let a fence grow around state provision and funding, making Planned Parenthood a key provider in some states. Even Anthony Scalia openly talked about how he felt Roe was wrongly decided, and it needed primary legislation to avoid judicial re-interpretation and instability.
The religious fruitcakes who scream the loudest do not represent the country. Like I said: baseline protection. The GOP is lowkey fighting a political insurgency trying to intra-message this one after Dobbs because some level of protected access enjoys supermajority support, and the polling for a 100% ban has never peaked above 22% since Roe. Your revisionist history is filtered through chickenshit leadership who failed to stand tall and do something.
I constantly see establishment Dems point to X as why we cannot change the voting/election structures, but rarely to never see the same voices agitate to change those same structures.
Thatās your claim.
I make a point about electoral reform and that the duopoly is not a requirement
NOPE. You SAID: āI constantly see establishment Dems point to X as why we cannot change the voting/election structures, but rarely to never see the same voices agitate to change those same structures.ā
You see how you started with āI constantly see establishment Demsā blah blah blah? Okay? Not ārepublicans and democratsā not āthe duopoly of modern politicsā but āestablishment Demsā and how they never say anything about changing that duopolistic structure. I threw a flag on that play and called bullshit. As there were recent examples I was able to retrieve them quickly. You pouted, āThese arenāt good enoughā.
I point out how weak your links are, and offer more substantive details that your argument is circular
The UI of Lemmy that I"m using is such that I canāt have that comment side-by-side so Iām going off memory alone here, but: no, you didnāt. Make a convincing counter-argument.
Still waiting boss. Or are you going to hang your hat on the big bad tech overlords and your low effort initial retort?
My good dude, if you need me to pull up a history of āagitationā within the Democratic party towards institutional change and the political structure of these United States, the answer is, again, no. You doubt it? Okay. I guess weāll never know - OR - you could just look it up. Here - tell you what since youāre still on the olā pins & needles: make a post about it, weāll slug it out there. Lay out your position statement as it stands in your above quote that begins this reply, define your terms, and weāll get academic.
And since, as predicted already, you wonāt be satisified with that and you also donāt want to let it go, hereās what Iāll add as a coda: āthe Demsā make up; everyone registered as a Democrat in their state, everyone who is sympathetic to Democratic causes, and the 450 people who comprise the actual Democratic National Committee, depending on context. From the context of your quote, I interpreted it to be the former. There are many people since 1848 who have been Democrats who have argued for a change in the way voting is carried out and the structure of the voting systems. I have NO fucking idea what you mean by āagitateā but letās say the communicate their positions directly to allow for written communication (BECAUSE YOU CANāT WRITE LOUDLY). Given the first part (who) and the second part (what) I totally disagree with you. If you want to continue to make the case that all registered Democats are super duper into a duopoly, go for it.
So uhhh, which is it? My anti-trust argument is tortured and worthy of derision without dissection, or you agree that the business analogy works?
I said (iirc) the analogies are there. I do NOT think the āanalogy worksā though for the reasons stated. Two major political parties can be likened to a monopoly. It can be likened to two large ostriches in a field of chickens. However - ostriches canāt vote, and a political party is not a business under the law. The analogy is not the problem. The problem is you think because theyāre analagous that must equal the conclusion you draw (parties should be broken up). It does not.
What is the FEC and the various thresholds for matching funding, campaigning restrictions, funding disclosure, etc etc before we even get to state level laws? What are ballot access laws and hostile legislation that protects the two-party system:
What is the FEC? Itās the Federal Election Commission. If youād like to know more, check out their wikipedia article. You want me to summarize it for you? Okay: they set the policies and procedures by which candiates are allowed to campaign, votes to be cast, and votes transported and counted. I hope that helps.
What is matching funding? Matching funding says if your party raises X amount of dollars, the federal government will give you money to run your campaign. In 2024, that amount was One HUNDRED thousand dollars, total, split to at least 5,000 per 20 states. It is not restrictive for a national campaign, indeed it is intended to foster competition by providing those funds for viable campaigns. Believe it or not even Jill Stein received matching funds in 2024.
What are Campaigning restrictions? Well, aach state has some form of restriction on political activities near polling places when voting is taking place, such as limiting the display of signs, handing out campaign literature or soliciting votes within a pre-determined area such as not screaming right in the voters face as they are filling in their ballot. This is a well known tactic of third parties which is why the evil duopoly instituted them.
A lot of those are state level laws, too, fwiw.
What are ballot access laws? Wow these are really good questions. Well, ballot access laws are state laws that determine who will be eligible to appear on the ballot. For example in, Kansas, ballot access laws require presidential candidates to meet specific filing requirements, including obtaining signatures from at least 5,000 qualified voters for independent candidates. These laws mean that Deez Nuts, sadly, did not appear on the Kansas ballot for President in 2024. Clearly, this is a gross violation of the Constitutional right to Deez Nuts.
And just for fun, hereās an article on ballot access laws in russia which the Democrats are also responsible for somehow.
the āfactionalismā of 1912
What? What does that have to do with the fact that political parties are not legislated as for-profit businesses? You do love a good point, Iāll give you that.
A structural barrier exists.
Granted. Groups R and D benefit from it and also have their own problems with it and neither has made a specific party platform plank of addressing the need for more parties. Well reasoned.
EC is mandated duopoly. Letās get rid of it and whatever your point might be can be rendered mercifully moot.
So again. Am I dumb and wrong, or do you actually agree?
Absolutely. (heh, no, I mean Yes I agree the EC should be abolished) Sadly the DNC has not approached me to draft this part of the 2028 platform as yet. Hopefully they will have learned their lessons by then.
Why wouldnāt you want more diverse representation?
Well, if party A is going to represent 60% of my interests, and party B is going to represent 80% of my interests, and party C is going to represent 100% of my interests, I wouldnāt need parties D, E, F, and G because Iām already voting party C. Diverse representation should already be happening.
As this is in the context of coalitions, think of it this way: in todayās duopoly if you want to pass a law to give all public school kids free lunch you need to get your party on board - thatās one thing. Then you have to get a certain number of opposite party members on board, likely. Thatās pretty rare as-is. If you also had to get three other parties on board, my question is: why do we need five parties to give school kids free lunch?
The younger ones who grew up in the lore, but watching Dem disunity during Ferguson/BLM/Floyd/etc whilst Dem pollsters clutched to the suburban voter - instead of fighting for better - are abandoning the party.
Yeah the Dems should have done a lot more in the Ferguson/BLM/Floyd areas and they did not. Polling itself though is a huge clusterfuck of wrong. Letās please not get started on polling, I have opinions about polling, so to speak.
Iām OOTL since Nov. so not sure what this [bipartisan consensus on foreign policy] is in reference to.
I didnāt get that explanation exactly - youāre saying the bipartisan consensus on foreign policy is where D & R officeholders agree regarding other countries and itās something the voters donāt have a say in because thereās not a third (or more) parties there to weigh in?
Whatās the fucking point of having supermajority power if youāre not going to wield it to make long lasting change that would benefit the country, not just reelection funds?
Thatās an excellent question. I suppose we could ask Joe Lieberman - oh wait he dead. Anyway, yeah I dunno. Thereās an āinside baseballā level to national politics that probably explained how all that went down, presumably in book form, but I donāt know.
Fwiw I donāt think they got any huge bounce in election funds but I do know people who didnāt have any ability to see a doctor and then got one. So. Yāknow. Like I say, āsome good.ā Not ALL the good, just some. Itās almost always the only thing we can get. And thatās after lots of scrapping.
Youāre cool with ābetterā and want me to be thankful? We just saw a vigilante murder the UHC CEO, and the bipartisan response is āmehā toāfuckemā due to decades of common discontent - but youāre happy with the status quo?
Hold up there Cletus, thatās two whole different things there. I am, in fact, cool with ābetterā. Better is gooder. More gooder is better. Do I want you to be thankful? Fuck, I donāt care - Iām saying you got something out of a huge effort which had been in the works for years and was a hair away from imploding yet again with grave consequences for the people trying to make things better. If youāre not thankful, thatās for you to chew on, not me.
As to the status quo- fuck no. The two are not related in any way. The status quo is for shit. BUT: at least people who donāt have anything can get something. In this hellish area of politics, thatās fucking huge. And to be clear the hell part of it is all thanks to the republiQans. Who created and perpetuated this bullshit. ACA was all we could get because Obama had one big ticket item they were willing to give for five seconds and thatās what he picked. Even now they keep trying to kill it and reduce it and all the shithole states reject ACA money anyway. Was it a glorious victory? In a couple of ways, YES. Did it make everything super awesome? NO. Those are two different questions.
No it wasnāt honored in the legislature, weāve had ātrigger lawsā on the books in deeply Republican states for decades.
I think you misunderstood what I meant there. Passing a bad-faith law that had no validity and praying to jeezus that trump would win and appoint crooked ass fascists is not what I meant. Even then that was not decades. Find me the first instance of an anti-abortion trigger law. Is it before 2019? Iāll be surprised.
No it wasnāt honored in the courts
Did someone go to jail for having an abortion under Roe? Okay then if not honored, ārespected as lawā? āNot acted against with impunityā?
Your revisionist history is filtered through chickenshit leadership who failed to stand tall and do something.
Yeah but now youāre here with all the answers and a magical third-party wand. Iām sure thereās nothing you need to know, so get in there! Get 'er done! Iāll vote for it.
You have to prove youāre right, as you made the ridiculous unsupportable claim. Iāve already proven it, you refuse to admit it. Letās move on.
Uh, sure. Or we could apply RuPaulās Drag Race scrutiny to the parties and put tape on their doors to make sure theyāre not sneaking out. Theyāre not businesses with products and markets. Thereās a fundamental reason we donāt treat them like businesses (although the analogies are admittedly obvious). Itās because your scrappy, revolutionary PokĆ©mon Go party deserves to meet, advocate, advertise, and run for office without being audited by the Shithole State Assessor and OSHA.
So, again, no.
. . . Agree? And? The resulting duopoly - a foregone conclusion - means boo Democrats bad? Whatās your point. EC is mandated duopoly. Letās get rid of it and whatever your point might be can be rendered mercifully moot.
Well, weāre in agreement there. Iām not jazzed about the coalitions only because I think itās another porkbarrel trap and I donāt have a good sense of how it would work, but, yes.
DoMA was an insult to humanity and all supporting Democrats should have been defenestrated from office. Ironically, the legal challenge was also from Democrats, so. I dunno. Politics.
Iām OOTL since Nov. so not sure what this is in reference to, but if existing officeholders can hold trump to anything Iām not necessarily against it.
Yes. And it was a huge win we wouldnāt have otherwise had. Clinton spent all his first term capital on H4A and the rest of his initiatives were bought-and-paid for with more cops and less welfare or some other political extortion. Obama got it done. Itās better. Itās not possible from any other party, period. Some good. Youāre welcome. Thanks for hating the people who did the good.
Yeah the protection was honored by all branches so letās definitely lose the 80ās & 90ās to conservatives by repeatedly running on that. All you need to do is roll back other progress and find the career politicians willing to be sacrificed. Oh, the party is all-powerful, and can just make them do it? Lol.
Look at this shit - abortion is illegal and these fuckers STILL won. You want them to spend everything on a constitutional amendment to support what was already legal - and fail - to prove theyāre genuine? Thatās stupid. Yes they should have done everything to protect that right, they failed. AND THEN lost again. I realize it sucks. Politics sucks, what a revelation. Compromise is less fulfilling than heroic purity. Huzzah weāve cracked it. Please.
Fuck āchatterā. Weāll get boatloads of chatter daily in the next four years. Iām out this time.
Yeah. Which was bullshit. Pelosi needed to go awhile ago. AOC is young. And by the by, your wildly successful third parties are not chairing House Oversight anytime this century. So. You just wanna lay down in the road and die? Okay, but that is a super weird strategy for change. Good luck? I guess.
Yeah. Voters and spoilers. Demanding action, instant change. Spoilers. And voters. What a fantastic wedge. Worked a treat. And now, Palestine is well and truly fucked. Nice work, voters and spoilers.
I suppose we keep on with the camps and so on and hope the trump admin is more receptive? Heh. Oh well. We tried to explain this a hundred ways but it was not a discussion. No one was interested in understanding anything except now, today, immediately. Well. Anyway. You got what you wanted there. Why, I donāt know. Itās the opposite of good, but you demanded it. Okay then, now itās here.
No. Being active locally is free. They do listen. If you want to cut all ties with Israel and you are upset that haranguing the Poughkeepsie chair of the DNC isnāt getting it done, Iād suggest you reset your expectations of how national politics works. Coincidentally, that applies to third parties too. Itās hard fucking work if youāre not relying on corrupt racists and batshit evangelicals.
Yeah. Itās a republiQan tactic and Democrats want to change it. Third parties should be helping.
You mean they win elections? Why, if it only takes money? Couldnāt Jill Stein or literally any and/or all of the 52 other parties cobble together enough for a freaking House seat or, god, Sheriff of Bumfuck or something? No. They canāt. The ālosing prospectā is a chimera. Quit believing in it.
Do they? Well good for them, thatās nice. Except the ones that donāt amirite? England, France, Germany, Australia - all having a little bit of a time with the relative conservative elements arenāt they? Hey howabout that Brexit, huh? Goddamn.
And with Mississippi having a larger GDP than Germany, and a lot of challenges Germany doesnāt have, letās just say itās possible an EU style governance may take more than one election cycle from naked authoritarianism.
Very often it means hoping and resigning. The shouting down is an attempt to recognize weāre in serious jeopardy, but alas the idiots, thieves, and newly enlightened have eschewed knowledge, understanding, or responsibility and we are utterly fucked because of it. As to the OP, where are they now.
Agreed. And if it ever happens, in the history of this country as we know it, it will be a Democratic initiative. A mythical Congress of strong, independent, national third parties working together for common good in the next four years is more than a joke, itās a fucking lie. You can DO - right now, today, as a Democrat, or you can NOT DO today or at any other time in the next at-least-twenty years, as a third party.
Politics is rhetoric encoded in law. So yeah, chatter matters because theyāre testing the waters to see what voters find agreeable and/or permissible. Trump is an embodiment of that shift, what previously was impermissible speech from a candidate has become normalized by a growing element.
Who enabled it to be a wedge issue? Who permitted the slaughter to continue, meekly finger wagging while quietly green lighting more bomb shipments from our war stocks? Who bypassed internal checks that are meant prevent US arms going to war criminals?
Idk bro I had a hard time explaining away why we need to fund, supply, and protect war crimes at a minimum, or genocide as the boot increasingly fits. I swallowed it and voted for Dem āharm reductionā in my swing state but ironically it looks like Trump may actually be the one to force a ceasefire. Not because he cares, but because he recognizes itās a loser issue that will quagmire him like it did Joe. Iām under no illusion heāll improve life there or revert apartheid, but so far heās willing to make Bibi fold - unlike Joe
And look how that browbeating worked out in the end. āOur economy is strongā while inequality deepens. āIsrael has a right to defend itselfā while refusing any restraint or inquiry on their conduct. āI am the only one who can beat Trumpā after having a cold reboot on national TV. You. Need. To. Listen. To. Feedback. Stop blithely defending this shit, and demand better.
I donāt expect a political buffet of Ć la carte options in every political scenario, but Iād hope for more than a binary scale from āreactionary nativist racismā to āmilquetoast liberalā. Especially if the one side is going to loom over the left wing landscape and demand fealty to big-tent centrism, while the other side vacillates between holding back the clock or rabid attack dog.
Again with the circular reasoning, seriously?Structural barriers under FPTP empower the duopoly. Third parties cannot win, except in extremely small districts or as a reaction to duopoly scandal, and so voting 3rd party IS a wasted vote. Winner take all goes brrrrr.
France, coalition governments in 1988, 1993, 1997, 2012, 2022 and present. The historic cause? Voter discontent and partisan scandal causing minority voices to make gains, left and right. Modern cause: failure of neoliberalism heightened by anti-incumbent sentiment.
Germany has had stable coalition governments for so long itās practically a dynasty, so idk why you think this is a winning argument. AfD is an economic protest vote from the east tempered with populist racism. Again, failure of neoliberalism heightened by anti-incumbent sentiment.
Tbh Iām fairly ignorant of Oz politics, but Iāll note that Australia has STV and instant runoff, which in 2022 gave āthe tealsā 7 seats, from former rightwing seats via grassroots takeover and policy positions on issues like climate change.
Twenty years of neo-liberalism and failed immigration policy of actual integration, instead abusing il/legal migration to fill āundesirableā and ālow skillā jobs in an effort to compensate for an aging and increasingly skilled/educated population, and increase GDP. Again, failure of neoliberalism heightened by anti-incumbent sentiment and supercharged by foreign influence campaigns.
That is what entrenched parties in a FPTP system give you. Sound familiar?
See, they key difference is that I recognize that the Democratic establishment and leadership is actually pretty comfy with our nascent fascism. I am agitating for internal evolution because the old guard has failed, and we need a new strategy to meet the challenges of our new and changing realities. The āThird Wayā and Neoliberalism skated by on the long peace and prosperity after the Cold War ended. Globalism is increasingly under threat, and we need to adapt. The right has already tacked toward populism, when are you going to wake up to the reality that you cannot browbeat your way to electoral victory under universal suffrage?
I disagree, but if you define the following, itās possible I might be persuaded to agree (Iām not asking you to per se just saying these are wildly undefined)
An excellent question. There are a number of answers. Letās take āitā and āto be a wedge issueā as givens. That leaves us with āWhoā which I think we can agree means any person or organization, and then the trickier āenabledā.
Wedge issues exist by virtue of the fact that there are two or more differing opinions. Letās take a different example to explore this: the so-called transgender bathroom issue. If all bathrooms were unisex it wouldnāt be an issue. But, due to the fact that others have existed in the world before we got to this very moment in time, thatās not the case. Bathrooms in public areas were divided by sex long ago and have largely remained so until the last 40 years, say.
Now I donāt know anyone who cares what people do in the bathroom, but I do know someone who is very upset that trans people exist and need to use the bathroom sometimes. In a real-world scenario this would probably never come up, like, ever - at all, because they donāt frequent public places and they probably wouldnāt actually care in practice anyway. I disagree with them, fwiw.
The fact that we disagree then makes this a potential wedge issue between us. Is that issue āenabledā? If so, how? See, I would argue that the āenabledā part of it, is whoās putting it into the conversation constantly? Whoās making it accusatory, whoās driving the conversation into a quarrelsome direction? Well, in this case, conservative media as usual. Now itās a wedge issue because Fox News and 100 other sewers āenabledā it.
The āgenocide joeā stuff began appearing regularly when the election was heating up - exactly at the right time, and with maximum impact. Itās not a coincidence.
Donāt kid yourself. Thatās not the case in any way, shape, or form. Bibi let Trump look like that in exchange for not changing a damned thing and in fact increasing arms and money and reducing any oversight whatsoever. And who in the hell on the right is going to protest that genocide? Nikki ākill them allā Haley? No. What weāre seeing with this presumptive cease-fire is exactly what was predicted - post-election ceasefire pending trump win that serves the bloody Likud. Ten seconds of quiet is all youāre going to get and then they bring in the developers to create beach resorts for the 1%.
Nobodyās defending āthis shitā, but pretending itās a childās toy where you can just push a button and everything magically happens is idiocy. The browbeating was trying to explain some or any details to a disinterested and ignorant crowd of puffed-up sloganistas with hardly a shred of interest in anything much deeper than a meme. Surprise, it didnāt go well because theyāre complete fucking morons. Now we all suffer. Will they learn? Maybe. But itās too late now.
Oof, you and me both. Two words: Tom Daschle. That was where I started to understand how bugfucked the DNC operatives are. As a side note, Iām interested in how the legal system looks at technology and why is it federal judges STILL know jack fucking shit about how computers work? In 2025? Well, however it is, itās the same way the DNC knows jack fucking shit about how to communicate and act for the interests of the people who support them. AOC was just 12 years old then.
Well youāre not wrong there. But FPTP in a national election is something completely different to a city or local election. This is where third parties really show their ass. They have zero presence in the lowest levels where FPTP means 100 people . Win those, okay? Start there. Donāt start at the national level and be like āOMG itās so haaaarrd the Dems are meanā start local and build. The Greens have 153 people in local offices, thatās something. They should go from there to regional, then state. THEN national. Thatās just how it works. Itās not a grand conspiracy, itās the nature of large organizational communication. Learn it, Live it, Know it.
w/r/t European and Australian political coalitions, I can say theyāre better, but itās not all sunshine and rainbows. And theyāre not dealing with the same issues we are at the scale we are. Better, yes, we should get to something more like that, but if you think itās some sort of grand leap Iād caution that politics is still very much in play.
I disagree.
Agreed.
Depends on what you mean by ābrowbeatā and āuniversal sufferageā. Do I think making a rational case for a political position is better than baldface lying and driving giant flags around in trucks? I do. Is that ābrowbeatingā? Because I donāt know what to tell you there. Adults need to run things, full stop. What we have with the right is full on prison break batshit frat party smash-n-grab. Theyāre not governing, they canāt. Itās just horrible things happening for four years while the press looks on.
As to āuniversal sufferageā if everyone had the vote thatād be great (they donāt for reasons) but even then, they stil have to GO DO IT. You canāt force someone to change their mind, and if they canāt see the immeasurable difference between the currently available choices after making any effort to do so whatsoever, then they have failed. And we all lose.
Canāt believe Iām again spending time to give citations and actual arguments when you retort with snark and vibes, peak pigeon rhetoric.
Still waiting boss. Or are you going to hang your hat on the big bad tech overlords and your low effort initial retort?
So uhhh, which is it? My anti-trust argument is tortured and worthy of derision without dissection, or you agree that the business analogy works?
What is the FEC and the various thresholds for matching funding, campaigning restrictions, funding disclosure, etc etc before we even get to state level laws? What are ballot access laws and hostile legislation that protects the two-party system:
āThe Republican Party seemed to have a ālockā on the presidency after the Civil War; it won eleven presidential elections 1860-1908, whereas it lost only two. It was precisely the āfactionalismā of 1912 (ex-Republican Theodore Roosevelt bolting that party and forming the Progressive Party) which gave the Democrats a chance to win the White Houseā
So yeah. Not a great defense of an entrenched two-party system if you actually want change.
So again. Am I dumb and wrong, or do you actually agree?
Politics under our brand of capitalism is transactional, from donors, voters, senators, and intra-party life.
Why wouldnāt you want more diverse representation? Iām not advocating for Tammany Hall style spoils system, but you cannot deny how the political wings and minority voter blocs get forgotten or taken for granted - see the generational divide between black voters. Those who lived during the civil rights era and saw a concerted fight for their dignity, overwhelmingly vote Dem. The younger ones who grew up in the lore, but watching Dem disunity during Ferguson/BLM/Floyd/etc whilst Dem pollsters clutched to the suburban voter - instead of fighting for better - are abandoning the party.
Obama is a great example of this. A DC outsider, campaigning on change, economic recovery, and criticism of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. But then empowers Hillary as SecDef whilst cranking up drone strikes and cross-border/foreign raids.
Yes, you canāt unwind the hundreds of US military bases and installations in a four year term - thereās security treaties, realpolitik to deal with, and state/non-state actors to be concerned with as the global police, but thereās always a place for empowering and relying on locals to fulfill their own security concerns. But then, weāre the global superpower with UN veto and economic muscle, so we play by a different rule book. Apparently.
Whatās the fucking point of having supermajority power if youāre not going to wield it to make long lasting change that would benefit the country, not just reelection funds? And Iām not even talking M4A, even just having a genuine government healthcare option to compete with private insurance would have done so much, in non-competitive markets where people are mono-sourced either by employers or providers, providing a ābaseline but decentā care option for the poor and vulnerable so you arenāt bankrupted for daring to get cancer or need long term care, or stronger restrictions on vertical integration of providers and insurers, orā¦
Youāre cool with ābetterā and want me to be thankful? We just saw a vigilante murder the UHC CEO, and the bipartisan response is āmehā toāfuckemā due to decades of common discontent - but youāre happy with the status quo?
No it wasnāt honored in the legislature, weāve had ātrigger lawsā on the books in deeply Republican states for decades. Theyāre at the āfind outā stage after giving the religious right that performative act.
No it wasnāt honored in the courts, Casey nibbled away the āstrict scrutinyā protection which opened the door to a patchwork of state level fuckery, and Webster which let a fence grow around state provision and funding, making Planned Parenthood a key provider in some states. Even Anthony Scalia openly talked about how he felt Roe was wrongly decided, and it needed primary legislation to avoid judicial re-interpretation and instability.
The religious fruitcakes who scream the loudest do not represent the country. Like I said: baseline protection. The GOP is lowkey fighting a political insurgency trying to intra-message this one after Dobbs because some level of protected access enjoys supermajority support, and the polling for a 100% ban has never peaked above 22% since Roe. Your revisionist history is filtered through chickenshit leadership who failed to stand tall and do something.
Thatās your claim.
NOPE. You SAID: āI constantly see establishment Dems point to X as why we cannot change the voting/election structures, but rarely to never see the same voices agitate to change those same structures.ā
You see how you started with āI constantly see establishment Demsā blah blah blah? Okay? Not ārepublicans and democratsā not āthe duopoly of modern politicsā but āestablishment Demsā and how they never say anything about changing that duopolistic structure. I threw a flag on that play and called bullshit. As there were recent examples I was able to retrieve them quickly. You pouted, āThese arenāt good enoughā.
The UI of Lemmy that I"m using is such that I canāt have that comment side-by-side so Iām going off memory alone here, but: no, you didnāt. Make a convincing counter-argument.
My good dude, if you need me to pull up a history of āagitationā within the Democratic party towards institutional change and the political structure of these United States, the answer is, again, no. You doubt it? Okay. I guess weāll never know - OR - you could just look it up. Here - tell you what since youāre still on the olā pins & needles: make a post about it, weāll slug it out there. Lay out your position statement as it stands in your above quote that begins this reply, define your terms, and weāll get academic.
And since, as predicted already, you wonāt be satisified with that and you also donāt want to let it go, hereās what Iāll add as a coda: āthe Demsā make up; everyone registered as a Democrat in their state, everyone who is sympathetic to Democratic causes, and the 450 people who comprise the actual Democratic National Committee, depending on context. From the context of your quote, I interpreted it to be the former. There are many people since 1848 who have been Democrats who have argued for a change in the way voting is carried out and the structure of the voting systems. I have NO fucking idea what you mean by āagitateā but letās say the communicate their positions directly to allow for written communication (BECAUSE YOU CANāT WRITE LOUDLY). Given the first part (who) and the second part (what) I totally disagree with you. If you want to continue to make the case that all registered Democats are super duper into a duopoly, go for it.
I said (iirc) the analogies are there. I do NOT think the āanalogy worksā though for the reasons stated. Two major political parties can be likened to a monopoly. It can be likened to two large ostriches in a field of chickens. However - ostriches canāt vote, and a political party is not a business under the law. The analogy is not the problem. The problem is you think because theyāre analagous that must equal the conclusion you draw (parties should be broken up). It does not.
What is the FEC? Itās the Federal Election Commission. If youād like to know more, check out their wikipedia article. You want me to summarize it for you? Okay: they set the policies and procedures by which candiates are allowed to campaign, votes to be cast, and votes transported and counted. I hope that helps.
What is matching funding? Matching funding says if your party raises X amount of dollars, the federal government will give you money to run your campaign. In 2024, that amount was One HUNDRED thousand dollars, total, split to at least 5,000 per 20 states. It is not restrictive for a national campaign, indeed it is intended to foster competition by providing those funds for viable campaigns. Believe it or not even Jill Stein received matching funds in 2024.
What are Campaigning restrictions? Well, aach state has some form of restriction on political activities near polling places when voting is taking place, such as limiting the display of signs, handing out campaign literature or soliciting votes within a pre-determined area such as not screaming right in the voters face as they are filling in their ballot. This is a well known tactic of third parties which is why the evil duopoly instituted them.
A lot of those are state level laws, too, fwiw.
What are ballot access laws? Wow these are really good questions. Well, ballot access laws are state laws that determine who will be eligible to appear on the ballot. For example in, Kansas, ballot access laws require presidential candidates to meet specific filing requirements, including obtaining signatures from at least 5,000 qualified voters for independent candidates. These laws mean that Deez Nuts, sadly, did not appear on the Kansas ballot for President in 2024. Clearly, this is a gross violation of the Constitutional right to Deez Nuts.
And just for fun, hereās an article on ballot access laws in russia which the Democrats are also responsible for somehow.
What? What does that have to do with the fact that political parties are not legislated as for-profit businesses? You do love a good point, Iāll give you that.
Granted. Groups R and D benefit from it and also have their own problems with it and neither has made a specific party platform plank of addressing the need for more parties. Well reasoned.
Absolutely. (heh, no, I mean Yes I agree the EC should be abolished) Sadly the DNC has not approached me to draft this part of the 2028 platform as yet. Hopefully they will have learned their lessons by then.
Well, if party A is going to represent 60% of my interests, and party B is going to represent 80% of my interests, and party C is going to represent 100% of my interests, I wouldnāt need parties D, E, F, and G because Iām already voting party C. Diverse representation should already be happening.
As this is in the context of coalitions, think of it this way: in todayās duopoly if you want to pass a law to give all public school kids free lunch you need to get your party on board - thatās one thing. Then you have to get a certain number of opposite party members on board, likely. Thatās pretty rare as-is. If you also had to get three other parties on board, my question is: why do we need five parties to give school kids free lunch?
Yeah the Dems should have done a lot more in the Ferguson/BLM/Floyd areas and they did not. Polling itself though is a huge clusterfuck of wrong. Letās please not get started on polling, I have opinions about polling, so to speak.
I didnāt get that explanation exactly - youāre saying the bipartisan consensus on foreign policy is where D & R officeholders agree regarding other countries and itās something the voters donāt have a say in because thereās not a third (or more) parties there to weigh in?
(contād)
Thatās an excellent question. I suppose we could ask Joe Lieberman - oh wait he dead. Anyway, yeah I dunno. Thereās an āinside baseballā level to national politics that probably explained how all that went down, presumably in book form, but I donāt know.
Fwiw I donāt think they got any huge bounce in election funds but I do know people who didnāt have any ability to see a doctor and then got one. So. Yāknow. Like I say, āsome good.ā Not ALL the good, just some. Itās almost always the only thing we can get. And thatās after lots of scrapping.
Hold up there Cletus, thatās two whole different things there. I am, in fact, cool with ābetterā. Better is gooder. More gooder is better. Do I want you to be thankful? Fuck, I donāt care - Iām saying you got something out of a huge effort which had been in the works for years and was a hair away from imploding yet again with grave consequences for the people trying to make things better. If youāre not thankful, thatās for you to chew on, not me.
As to the status quo- fuck no. The two are not related in any way. The status quo is for shit. BUT: at least people who donāt have anything can get something. In this hellish area of politics, thatās fucking huge. And to be clear the hell part of it is all thanks to the republiQans. Who created and perpetuated this bullshit. ACA was all we could get because Obama had one big ticket item they were willing to give for five seconds and thatās what he picked. Even now they keep trying to kill it and reduce it and all the shithole states reject ACA money anyway. Was it a glorious victory? In a couple of ways, YES. Did it make everything super awesome? NO. Those are two different questions.
I think you misunderstood what I meant there. Passing a bad-faith law that had no validity and praying to jeezus that trump would win and appoint crooked ass fascists is not what I meant. Even then that was not decades. Find me the first instance of an anti-abortion trigger law. Is it before 2019? Iāll be surprised.
Did someone go to jail for having an abortion under Roe? Okay then if not honored, ārespected as lawā? āNot acted against with impunityā?
Yeah but now youāre here with all the answers and a magical third-party wand. Iām sure thereās nothing you need to know, so get in there! Get 'er done! Iāll vote for it.