Quote:
Originally Posted by NJmann
If we abolished those completely and started fresh
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Abolishment can never happen. People won't change their political convictions by degree or by force. Just ask any older or frequent voter about that question, and you'll get that answer.
A decree would only change the name of the party at the most.. But in America, a decree wouldn't even get far enough to do that much.
We have had many other parties in our past, and neither present major party is anything at all like it once was. The reason why the Republican and Democratic parties survived, and the Grangers, the Liberal Democrats, and the Whigs, along with dozens of other now-dead parties did not is because they adapted to changing times and changing voters.
The last major change came in my living history, but I'm older than you. It occurred about 50 years ago.
But this is no certainty that either or both of our major parties can survive, despite their long successful histories. Age alone had no inherent political advantages. If it did, then the Whigs would still exist, as they were the most successful party that died out.
Age brings on brittleness and unwillingness to change, and change depends on new ideas that have enough validity to be able to prove their worth to all opposing voters.
This means any of the present third parties could overcome the Republicans or the Democrats if their platforms caught enough voters' imaginations. And if their candidates captured the voter's hearts. And if that party could also capture the imaginations of the big money contributors who now keep our elections turning as they must turn.
It also means that a brand-new party could also arise and overtake all the others, old and younger. An independent party that is beholden to neither can always cherry-pick the best fruit from the tree once.
It happens in state politics and non-partisan politics, where the individual candidate's abilities often count for more than a party platform's adherence. The trick is to make it happen more than once, and more than just one candidate.
But when the right candidate comes along, it can happen quickly. The Republican party started very small as a group of radical independents with more extreme positions that were stronger than the entrenched positions of the Democrats and the Whigs, and all it took was Abraham Lincoln to make it happen for the Republicans.
Within 4 years, during an election in the midst of America's worst war, enough Whigs jumped over to the Republicans to make the party a dominant force.
The Whigs didn't just vanish afterward, but they died on the vine pretty quickly, and the rise of the Republicans forced the Democratic party into massive change to survive a possible overthrow of its own.
None of this happed due to abolishment. A decree will never change a person's deeply held beliefs. Ask the Catholic Church about that one. Or a Whig, if you can find one to ask.
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