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My wife and I were discussing this week how the current two party system has destroyed all political innovation and is rotting our brains.
I mean if you look at 99% of the threads and posts on this forum, you will see people who are 100% dedicated to claiming all credit for positive things on their political party, and blaming every failure on the other side. Such black and white thinking is just plain wrong, but no one can admit it, because showing some open-mindedness is potentially serving the enemy. This spy vs. spy way of running our country is ruining it, and turning us into deceitful idiots. Seriously.
Any suggestions for how we can break out of this trap we have built for ourselves here in the USA?
Internet forums and social media enable strangers to connect with others and say things they would be less likely to say, face to face. Seems to me many of those who frequent forums and social media trend absolute, black and white, thinking and/ or have a need to be outraged and blame.
Cable News turned news into news entertainment profit centers.
Politicians do what politicians have been doing all along. The money is simply larger now so the stakes are greater. The gloves came off with Citizens United.
Jeez, In today's political climate, you can't get two factions to reach across the isle and agree on anything. How would one expect to get 3 or 5 different factions to reach across the isle and agree on a compromise and get something done?
Jeez, In today's political climate, you can't get two factions to reach across the isle and agree on anything. How would one expect to get 3 or 5 different factions to reach across the isle and agree on a compromise and get something done?
What does "get something done" mean...well other than getting your neighbors money for something you want
I would love to see Citizens United overturned, but I doubt it would have a huge effect on the two-party system. Elections were awash in money before the decision. And I'd *really* love to rein in corporate personhood, in this and other arenas. Again, not sure it would change anything fundamentally. Like the shot clock in college basketball, it's still the same game, just a slightly different set of tactics.
The real way to fix this is a constitutional amendment for proportional representation. Dunno how feasible that actually is.
And then there is the non-partisan primary, which my state and a couple others are experimenting with. Can't see that it's made any real difference though.
What does "get something done" mean...well other than getting your neighbors money for something you want
Getting something done.......Hmmmm ...............Well for starters,
A comprehensive bill to fix our nation's infrastructure and create jobs in the process.
There is a bipartisan Comprehensive Immigration Reform Senate bill (S744) sitting in the house that would provide 40 billion for border enforcement. The house could bring it to the floor, amend it to their liking and vote on it. The would deal with the immigration elephant in the national living room that has been festering for 35 years.
Reform Social Security to make it solvent thru 2050.
Reform Welfare and other entitlement programs in a bipartisan manner.
Here's a snappy little idea. The house of representatives could introduce a bipartisan bill requiring all employers use E-verify in their hiring. Sure would solve a lot of issues and shut up the anti immigrant crowd.
All these need bipartisan reform, rather than one side throwing more money at the programs and the other side wanting to dismantle the same programs with no room for a middle ground and no give on either side.
More than a two party system would provide more gridlock than we currently have. As there would be small factions of special interest groups who wouldn't budge unless their demands are met and their agenda adopted.
Most people still support and believe in the system........they do not want change. This includes the scammish illusion that you have any REAL say in the direction of this country, D/R flimflamery.
Have a massive civil uprising where citizens are willing to kill politicians, corporate executives or anybody that stands in their way. Once its over, then basically start o whole government from scratch
Democracy exists to inhibit change. The unspoken implication of that sentence is the only way to "break out".
This is the most coherent statement I've seen so far in this thread.
The simple truth is that two-party rule is the inevitable outcome of democratic politics. Even in countries where there are more than two parties holding seats in parliament/congress. Its rarely more than three parties, and assuming none of those parties have an absolute majority(which is often the case). The other two-parties merely form a coalition, and rule as if they were a single party.
To understand why this is, first we must understand that the entire goal of political parties is not to get 100% of he vote. Their only goal is to get 51% of the vote. That is why they will change their positions on issues, if changing their positions gives them a shot of winning 51% of the vote. But in the end, there will effectively always be only two parties, or two largely similar ideologies as separate parties, who will run the system. And while in power, they will do everything in their power to win future elections.
As Mencken said, "Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule — and both commonly succeed, and are right...The United States has never developed an aristocracy really disinterested or an intelligentsia really intelligent. Its history is simply a record of vacillations between two gangs of frauds."
And this, "The state — or, to make the matter more concrete, the government — consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them."
In short, we have what we have because we are a Democracy. And people have been complaining about political parties since long before the US Constitution was ever ratified. George Washington in his farewell address complained tirelessly about political parties. His entire farewell address is practically nothing but a warning against political parties. Most likely because two members of his cabinet, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, were continually fighting with each other. And those two men ultimately led to the formation of political parties.
As Washington said, "The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it."
Which leaves me with my final quote by Mencken, "What is any political campaign save a concerted effort to turn out a set of politicians who are admittedly bad and put in a set who are thought to be better. The former assumption, I believe is always sound; the latter is just as certainly false. For if experience teaches us anything at all it teaches us this: that a good politician, under democracy, is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar."
And thus, as Lysander Spooner explained in 1867, "The ostensible supporters of the Constitution, like the ostensible supporters of most other governments, are made up of three classes, viz.: 1. Knaves, a numerous and active class, who see in the government an instrument which they can use for their own aggrandizement or wealth. 2. Dupes – a large class, no doubt – each of whom, because he is allowed one voice out of millions in deciding what he may do with his own person and his own property, and because he is permitted to have the same voice in robbing, enslaving, and murdering others, that others have in robbing, enslaving, and murdering himself, is stupid enough to imagine that he is a “free man,” a “sovereign”; that this is “a free government”; “a government of equal rights,” “the best government on earth,”2 and such like absurdities. 3. A class who have some appreciation of the evils of government, but either do not see how to get rid of them, or do not choose to so far sacrifice their private interests as to give themselves seriously and earnestly to the work of making a change."
The problem is Democracy itself, but what is the solution?
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...............Well for starters,
