Because Trump 2.0

[JWB]

Trump loyalty index:

https://www.axios.com/trump-loyalty-index-methodology-ae221db6-36a5-4b6b-b8e8-5e8e888bc3ce.html

[Skywalkre]

9 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

There are more than two parties in the UK. Yes, some MPs are against abortion, but I do not see why it needs to be an excuse that precludes cooperation. There are other policies than abortion that matter to people surely?

Many Americans tend to focus on a singular issue when they vote.  Abortion is one such issue that for large segments of both parties is something they simply can't waver on.  It varies from person to person, though.  A good friend of mine is pro-choice but votes R when she bothers to vote (she doesn't see RvW being overturned ever and her big issue is immigration).

Our system simply isn't set up to handle more than two major competitors.  Take the basic tenets of how the EC works.  You need 270 electoral votes to become POTUS.  If you throw in a third candidate and that candidate shares the same key position (such as their stance on abortion) as another candidate what will happen is those two will split their support making it easy for the third candidate to win (which none of the supporters of the other two want as in America today it's more about being against someone than for something).  You throw in a fourth or more candidates that split the vote and now you run into the issue of no one may even get enough votes to win outright.

I've championed for something besides R and D for more than a decade (if anyone recalls back in '16 I was naively hopeful we'd see the Libertarian candidate have a chance) but the reality is our system isn't set up for that.  We'd need an overhaul of how our Federal election system and government are run to make that happen... and something like that is unimaginable given we can't even get normal things like a budget passed on a regular basis. 

Edited October 17, 2020 by Skywalkre

[Brian Kennedy]

11 hours ago, Skywalkre said:

Will never happen.

First, there's no middle ground on the issue of abortion.

Second, back in '16 with both parties putting forward such unpopular candidates the Libertarian ticket actually wasn't bad yet only managed a paltry 4.5 million votes.  If there ever was a chance for a middle ground/third party movement to take hold that was it.

Lastly, as sad as it is at the end of the day most Rs are fine with Trump.  Not all of them are as rabid in their support as the posters here on TN... but when asked only a small percentage are truly dissatisfied with him.

What I'm more curious to see is if the Rs get swept badly like it's looking will happen this year... will there be any real effort to reform or will Trumpism be the defining element of the party for years to come?

I think the Republican Party has decisively shifted from old-school conservative to Trumpist (Bannonist, more accurately) policies and that’s not going to change no matter who gets elected. To be honest I don’t see that as a bad thing — a lot of Trump’s campaign positions actually made sense, and old school conservatism died after the Iraq War and with rising economic inequality in urban vs rural areas. My problem with them was always the messenger not necessarily the message. 

If the Republicans field a candidate four years from now who had a lot of the same positions Trump originally espoused, or at least a more moderated version — stop getting into foreign entanglements so much, devote more money to infrastructure, support local industry instead of the oligarchs outsourcing everything to China, light touch on stuff like gay rights, etc — and wasn’t an incompetent conman, I’d be inclined to vote for him/her. I think the whole Trump Experience has really shown that a lot of the conventional wisdom on both the Dem and Rep sides of where the country should be going circa 2016 was not really where most of the country thought it should be going  

 

 

Edited October 17, 2020 by Brian Kennedy

[Der Zeitgeist]

😄

[R011]

2 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

😄

And instead gets a senile Chinese agent or a viciously incompetent former prosecutor both from the party that gave the US Fast and Furious, IRS harassment of opponents, and kangaroo courts at universities.

[MiloMorai]

Which is the lesser of the two evils this time?

[BansheeOne]

5 hours ago, Brian Kennedy said:

If the Republicans field a candidate four years from now who had a lot of the same positions Trump originally espoused, or at least a more moderated version — stop getting into foreign entanglements so much, devote more money to infrastructure, support local industry instead of the oligarchs outsourcing everything to China, light touch on stuff like gay rights, etc — and wasn’t an incompetent conman, I’d be inclined to vote for him/her. I think the whole Trump Experience has really shown that a lot of the conventional wisdom on both the Dem and Rep sides of where the country should be going circa 2016 was not really where most of the country thought it should be going

Ties in with the idea that Trump may as well have run as a Democrat. For all the polarization in US politics, I think there is a large segment of (possible) voters who would accept positions contrary to traditional partisan beliefs if somebody declared them the new party line while mostly driving popular/populist policies agreeable to them. Trump is the best example for turning many Republican tenets from 20 years ago - free trade, military intervention, etc. - on their head; aided by the mechanism I noted earlier that the other party must by necessity be against what the leader of one camp espouses, which does most of the work of making it an identifying issue for your base.

Abortion is probably the divisive issue that remains most firmly wed to the political Left and Right, though I suspect even that is mostly due to certain ideological hardcore groups which parties think they cannot lose. If somebody dared to, he/she might probably find that the number of voters who didn't care enough outweighed the power of those groups. Trump's base doesn't seem to care much about gay rights issues anymore, in part thanks to flaming gay pro-Trumpers like Milo Yiannopoulos - an effect of another mechanism noted before, that all that counts now often appears to be pissing off the other side, like when members of their traditionally assumed supporter/client groups turn against them. The new frontline seems to be transgender politics, which numerically speaking is really taking the supposed problem down by an order of magnitude.

Even gun control appears to become an issue for dedicated activists rather than the broad mass of partisans. A couple weeks ago I saw people on American gunboards noting with satisfaction that the sales boom (again) triggered by the BLM riots wasn't just due to the usual suspects buying their seventh AR, but types looking like obvious Democrat voters. Of course by now it's dawning on the same guys that those may not all just buy guns because they're scared of the big bad rioters; as both sides ventilate each other in the streets, you have people taking shots at police cars, and left-wing militia outfits (of similarly variable competent appearance as their right-wing counterparts) like the Redneck Revolution and NFAC, their old comfortable narrative of "the others will start the next civil war, but we will win it, because we have the guns" doesn't feel so comfortable anymore. At any rate, the Left increasingly seems to make as good use of the Second Amendment as the Right.

[Stuart Galbraith]

8 hours ago, Skywalkre said:

Many Americans tend to focus on a singular issue when they vote.  Abortion is one such issue that for large segments of both parties is something they simply can't waver on.  It varies from person to person, though.  A good friend of mine is pro-choice but votes R when she bothers to vote (she doesn't see RvW being overturned ever and her big issue is immigration).

Our system simply isn't set up to handle more than two major competitors.  Take the basic tenets of how the EC works.  You need 270 electoral votes to become POTUS.  If you throw in a third candidate and that candidate shares the same key position (such as their stance on abortion) as another candidate what will happen is those two will split their support making it easy for the third candidate to win (which none of the supporters of the other two want as in America today it's more about being against someone than for something).  You throw in a fourth or more candidates that split the vote and now you run into the issue of no one may even get enough votes to win outright.

I've championed for something besides R and D for more than a decade (if anyone recalls back in '16 I was naively hopeful we'd see the Libertarian candidate have a chance) but the reality is our system isn't set up for that.  We'd need an overhaul of how our Federal election system and government are run to make that happen... and something like that is unimaginable given we can't even get normal things like a budget passed on a regular basis. 

Thank you, thats really a very interesting perspective.

[Murph]

43 minutes ago, MiloMorai said:

Which is the lesser of the two evils this time?

Trump hands down.  Not even close.  Orange Man or the Communists/Totalitarians.  Not even close.

[Murph]

Get rid of Wray, and hire a retired Texas Ranger to run that organization with power to sweep clean.  https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/10/confirmed-fbi-chief-chris-wray-hid-information-public-congress-executive-branch-absolved-president-trump-impeachment-video/

[Murph]

Please Dear G_d, let them make it so this year!  All I want for Christmas Santa is for them to follow through!  https://pjmedia.com/election/victoria-taft/2020/10/16/hollywoods-threatening-to-move-again-if-trump-wins-it-worked-so-well-the-last-time-n1065777

[rmgill]

4 hours ago, BansheeOne said:

 

Even gun control appears to become an issue for dedicated activists rather than the broad mass of partisans. A couple weeks ago I saw people on American gunboards noting with satisfaction that the sales boom (again) triggered by the BLM riots wasn't just due to the usual suspects buying their seventh AR, but types looking like obvious Democrat voters. Of course by now it's dawning on the same guys that those may not all just buy guns because they're scared of the big bad rioters; as both sides ventilate each other in the streets, you have people taking shots at police cars, and left-wing militia outfits (of similarly variable competent appearance as their right-wing counterparts) like the Redneck Revolution and NFAC, their old comfortable narrative of "the others will start the next civil war, but we will win it, because we have the guns" doesn't feel so comfortable anymore. At any rate, the Left increasingly seems to make as good use of the Second Amendment as the Right.

I know of a number of former left leaning folks who are going with the Trump direction. The various issues have opened their eyes and they're now looking to obtain firearms. One lives in the hood and has always liked the area for a lot of progressive reasons. The fact that her BF's trailer has been broken into repeatedly and tool stolen has substantially soured their view of the area. He even rented a storage shed to put the trailer in, he was followed and the shed/trailer STILL broken into. He's being farmed as it were. 

We might be taking her to the gun show this weekend to look for extra tools and components/ammo. 

Oh, re NFAC. Well, at least one friend of a friend who is black went to the Stone Mountain NFAC event, saw what was being said and decided that it was WAY off the fucking rails and left. The fact that they've had multiple NDs at their events with injuries AND the amount of ass-fuckery that's been documented of their guns is proof that in any sort of civil war, they'll be a hazard to themselves and more or less provide some crap weapons for whomever they fight with. 

The ass-fuckery included, .22 cal rifles being carried as some sort of battle rifle but with an obvious stove pipe jam. Indicates he didn't even clear the gun when picking it up. Muzzles rested on the ground in the dirt. One dude was trying to tactically carry TWO rifles in his arms, next to each other. 

NFAC will be a bigger danger to the black community they supposedly are there to protect. 

Edited October 17, 2020 by rmgill

[Brian Kennedy]

13 hours ago, BansheeOne said:

Ties in with the idea that Trump may as well have run as a Democrat. For all the polarization in US politics, I think there is a large segment of (possible) voters who would accept positions contrary to traditional partisan beliefs if somebody declared them the new party line while mostly driving popular/populist policies agreeable to them. Trump is the best example for turning many Republican tenets from 20 years ago - free trade, military intervention, etc. - on their head; aided by the mechanism I noted earlier that the other party must by necessity be against what the leader of one camp espouses, which does most of the work of making it an identifying issue for your base.

Well, in all honesty I don't think Trump himself (vs a theoretical person with policy stances similar to Trump) _actually_ could have run as a Democrat and had much chance of success; his Birther stuff pretty much made him persona non grata among Democrats (and honestly, I think it kickstarted his desire to be President For Real when Obama started mocking him for it -- the dude really hates being mocked). Plus the ethno-nationalist sprinkling on top would be an instant turnoff for the modern Democratic Party given its more multi-racial base, and the economic-populist stuff would piss off all the tech bros and other white-collar white people. Come to think of it, if anything Trump is basically a 1950s-era Southern Democrat. 

I largely agree with you about gay rights, gun ownership, abortion, etc. -- for better or worse those things have already been decided for the most part, IMHO. People vent about it a lot, but seriously nobody (in the sense that the laws would change, I mean) is coming to take away gay marriage and nobody is coming to take away AR-15s. Most people just don't give a shit enough to take action on those positions. 

Although I'd also add that there's a pretty big knowledge gap about why people actually vote for a President, given that it would fall in the realm of psychology much more than political science. In my opinion a lot of USAians vote based on whether or not they like the guy and identify with him, rather than because of policy positions (because most USAians are busy living their lives and don't give a f*ck about politics, plus they don't think their lives will actually change based on who's President, which is actually accurate). It's more like voting for who's going to be your symbolic King vs who's going to actually do things that will change your life. 

 

[Roman Alymov]

Russian take on recent events in US (automatic translation from   https://ria.ru/20201014/ideologiya-1579613104.html?fbclid=IwAR3XieePwFCwfrnJK8fb4eCxHaWBChfD_lhqGcZswEhQ0u_PqEhrjLEOvhE )

l government has started firing dissidents. Hundreds of thousands of people with higher education, a sought-after specialty and an active civil position are left without work for ideological reasons.
No one paid any attention to this tragedy in our country, because it is being played out in the United States, not in our country. But there is every reason to believe that the blast wave from it will reach us.
In short: at the end of last month, US President Donald trump signed an Executive order prohibiting the teaching of "divisive (society. — Ed.) concepts" at the state expense — in all US government agencies and organizations that are partners of the Federal government.
Now this decree has turned into a lot of concrete decisions on the ground, prohibited trainings are being stopped, specialists are being dismissed in anger and despair, and there is mass crying in the media and on the Internet.By "divisive concepts," trump's Executive order implies concepts that claim that:
any race or gender has hereditary advantages over others.
the state is basically sexist or racist;
an individual is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously, by virtue of their gender or race;
the individual must be discriminated against or promoted in part or in full on the basis of their race or gender;
persons belonging to any gender or race should not attempt to treat members of others without regard to their gender and race;
individuals have some responsibility for their gender and race, and must feel some guilt about their gender and race;
a meritocracy (i.e., "a hierarchy of society based on effort and achievement") and a work ethic that encourages hard work is racist or created by one race to oppress another.
The insidiousness of this decree is that all these theses, which are no longer allowed to be taught and promoted at the public expense of the United States, are the essence of an advanced ideology that claims to become the official ruling ideology of American society — and moreover, has a huge chance of becoming one in the near future .This ideology is now virtually the ruling one in the American University community; in 85-90% of the American media; it rules in Hollywood (remember the epic race-gender guidelines for Oscar-winning films adopted last month); it is taught under the guise of "diversity and inclusivity training", which, according to the latest available data, is used by 67% of American organizations (by the way, 15% of organizations in the United States even have "full-time employees whose task is to promote Diversity and Inclusivity").
This ideology is already forty years old, but for the first half of its history it was considered radical and was not taken seriously — until at the dawn of the new Millennium it turned out that it was implemented in dozens of prestigious American universities and was gradually moving from the category of "radical eccentricity" to "an idea that is better not to argue with".
This ideology is based on the thesis that society is not really United and does not consist of individuals — no, it consists of opposing groups, and some groups have always oppressed others, and it is necessary to fight this oppression — through the restoration of sexual, "gender", racial, group justice. The restoration of these rights is possible, of course, only through group discrimination of representatives of the "privileged" and the same group pushing of the "oppressed".
The trick is that at the moment (over the past twenty years) in America, not even tens, but hundreds of thousands of specialists have been trained and are ready to monitor compliance with this ideology.
They are not experts in any field of real knowledge.
September 1, 11:39
In the US, more than 50 black businessmen accused McDonald's of discrimination
They are not specialists in quantum physics, higher mathematics, the Napoleonic wars, medieval studies, epidemiology, Metalworking, Permian oxides, geodesy, or the organization of production processes.
They are specialists in finding out in human and social relations the injustice they have invented (or seen) and the oppression they have invented (or seen).
Injustice and oppression are their bread, their livelihood, and the object of their career. And if state laws are completely and completely free from any official oppression, privileges for any races, religions, genders and sexual orientations (and in the same USA this is already many years ago), this is not a reason for this giant army to take and disband itself with the words "we have fulfilled our mission, we are going to retrain as managers".
Any structure seeks to preserve itself and increase its influence. They do not think to dissolve themselves. They conclude that injustice and oppression lie not in formal laws, but in the people themselves, and even in equality itself.
Equality is no longer enough for justice to prevail. After all, if you look at people not as millions of individuals, but as representatives of certain "groups", it turns out that children of workaholics are more likely to receive higher education and do what they love, and children of alcoholics are more likely to sell drugs near school and end up in a juvenile colony. The conclusion is obvious: workaholism is a repressive and unfair idea.
..In fact, in this simple way, what we perceive as the "American idea" or the "big American dream" in the old-fashioned way has passed into the category of an outdated and repressive worldview during our life in America itself .
And in the last couple of years — as well as months and weeks — this change has taken on the most vivid political connotation. Because today's Democrats (in the sense Of the democratic party of the United States) socially rely on multiple organizations of "oppressed groups", on an army of political instructors-coaches on diversity and inclusivity, on activists of combat equality, who crush ordinary equality. And the Republicans, and especially the trumpists, rely on the old America that we remember from the films of the old Hollywood, on the old "big American dream" with its traditionalism and workaholism.
And trump's Executive order banning "divisive concepts" is a (very late, frankly) attempt to knock the financial ground out from under the feet of the warriors of the new justice.
...And now about why we should not laugh at what is happening on the other side of the globe.
The fact is that in any case, trump is, apparently, the last President of the former, "white", or "traditional", whatever you call it, America. Demographic calculations show that "trump's America" is melting, and "Democrat's America" is growing (due to more children in immigrant families, due to immigration itself, and so on). This means that even if this time trump wins and is re-elected, it is still very likely that the time of his opponents will come after him and it will last for a very, very long time.
And the whole point is that this future America, without any doubt, will be in the position of a "falling world hegemon", which means that it will intensify efforts to agitate and propagandize in the rest of the world.
And this, in turn, means that all the above-mentioned ideas of "combat equality" will become the subject of ideological export.
And if you think that we can't be accused of "privileges" (we don't have Negroes — descendants of slaves, we have a hundred years of sexual equality, our oligarchy can't be accused of insufficient diversity), then this is just naivety.
The other day a large article was published in the leading American University publication (https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/racial-politics-in-putins-russia/ ) researchers of racism — that in Putin's Russia, if you think about it, there is also racism: after all, we have (attention) Buryats. They are "assimilated" (in the sense that Buryats know Russian and make careers like all other normal citizens). The American movement "Black lives matter", the researcher hopes, will become a catalyst for the battle against racism in Russia.
..We will be blamed. And if we don't have groups to repent to and pay for, they will be invented. Russian Russians will be accused of oppression, and Russian Buryats will be accused of submitting to oppression. And if we allow it, our country will also be flooded with an army of ideological fighters whose profession and vocation will be to search for and invent differences and set everyone against each other.

[Rickard N]

On 10/17/2020 at 2:21 PM, Murph said:

Trump hands down.  Not even close.  Orange Man or the Communists/Totalitarians.  Not even close.

No offence Murph, but will there ever be a Democrat candidate that you would ever consider over any Republican candidate?

[Rick]

On 10/16/2020 at 11:30 PM, Skywalkre said:

Many Americans tend to focus on a singular issue when they vote.  Abortion is one such issue that for large segments of both parties is something they simply can't waver on.  It varies from person to person, though.  A good friend of mine is pro-choice but votes R when she bothers to vote (she doesn't see RvW being overturned ever and her big issue is immigration).

Our system simply isn't set up to handle more than two major competitors.  Take the basic tenets of how the EC works.  You need 270 electoral votes to become POTUS.  If you throw in a third candidate and that candidate shares the same key position (such as their stance on abortion) as another candidate what will happen is those two will split their support making it easy for the third candidate to win (which none of the supporters of the other two want as in America today it's more about being against someone than for something).  You throw in a fourth or more candidates that split the vote and now you run into the issue of no one may even get enough votes to win outright.

I've championed for something besides R and D for more than a decade (if anyone recalls back in '16 I was naively hopeful we'd see the Libertarian candidate have a chance) but the reality is our system isn't set up for that.  We'd need an overhaul of how our Federal election system and government are run to make that happen... and something like that is unimaginable given we can't even get normal things like a budget passed on a regular basis. 

Well...I'm not so sure about the many Americans and single cause voting. I think it is more of an  amalgamation of ideas and actions of one side vs the other side. Any cause du jour is amplified by the main-stream media and splintered by social media.

Ross Perot was the most popular third party candidate, who's entry threw the election to Clinton. That is evened out by the Ralph Nader robbing Gore of the votes he needed to win, and of Pat Buchanan and Harry Browne taking votes from the Bush side. 

The U.S. primary votes are where the different ideas are sorted out and condensed to the top vote winners in each party. The obvious example is the ever increasing Socialist/Marxist/Communist ideas and actions infecting the Democrat Party. 

We obviously do not need an overhaul of the federal election system. The Electoral College works as it was designed, preventing a few large population centers from deciding the course of our whole nation. What is needed is an overhaul of the American voter! 

[Rick]

On 10/17/2020 at 9:13 PM, Brian Kennedy said:

Well, in all honesty I don't think Trump himself (vs a theoretical person with policy stances similar to Trump) _actually_ could have run as a Democrat and had much chance of success; his Birther stuff pretty much made him persona non grata among Democrats (and honestly, I think it kickstarted his desire to be President For Real when Obama started mocking him for it -- the dude really hates being mocked). Plus the ethno-nationalist sprinkling on top would be an instant turnoff for the modern Democratic Party given its more multi-racial base, and the economic-populist stuff would piss off all the tech bros and other white-collar white people. Come to think of it, if anything Trump is basically a 1950s-era Southern Democrat. 

I largely agree with you about gay rights, gun ownership, abortion, etc. -- for better or worse those things have already been decided for the most part, IMHO. People vent about it a lot, but seriously nobody (in the sense that the laws would change, I mean) is coming to take away gay marriage and nobody is coming to take away AR-15s. Most people just don't give a shit enough to take action on those positions. 

Although I'd also add that there's a pretty big knowledge gap about why people actually vote for a President, given that it would fall in the realm of psychology much more than political science. In my opinion a lot of USAians vote based on whether or not they like the guy and identify with him, rather than because of policy positions (because most USAians are busy living their lives and don't give a f*ck about politics, plus they don't think their lives will actually change based on who's President, which is actually accurate). It's more like voting for who's going to be your symbolic King vs who's going to actually do things that will change your life. 

 

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yes, but if you had more than 2 parties, its likely you would have more than just 3. And if you had more than just 3, you would have more than 3 candidates for President. Which would mean either the left or the right would usually suffer about the same from other parties. For example, in the UK you had UKIP stealing the vote from left and right. We had the Greens stealing votes from the left. And moderate Conservatives sometimes vote with the liberal middle ground.

I think it not unreasonable to suggest there was a LOT of Democrats at the last election who voted with Trump because he was the least worst candidate. There are many who seem to be drifting back to Biden, because he is the least worst candidate. Thats not really a system amenable for getting the best candidate It seems to me. You have an incredible system of plurality in the primaries, and thats jettisoned to just compete over 2 candidates. Which is a strange setup, or so it seems to me.

[Rick]

A well thought out and written post. I would only begin to disagree with you -- and probably not by much -- on the last paragraph. I would say it is not so much psychology or political science as it is morality, economics, and especially power/control.

I firmly believe Trump won the G.O.P. primary not because he would be the best President, but because he would be the best to beat Hillary Clinton. And thank God he did! The majority of Americans who make this country work: believers in God, employers and employees -- especially those who do not earn a living from government -- are what make America great and these voters realize the danger Clinton represented and what the Democratic Party still represents(even more than four years ago!)

Our brilliant founding fathers had it right. The idea is not what government can do for you, it is the least amount of government that is needed. When you hear the phrase "Making government work for you" it WAY more often than not means governmental power, either federal, state, or local, that favors certain groups over the individual. Aka the power to control. In other words, tyranny! 

 

[Murph]

35 minutes ago, Rickard N said:

No offence Murph, but will there ever be a Democrat candidate that you would ever consider over any Republican candidate?

Only in local races.

[Rick]

33 minutes ago, Rickard N said:

No offence Murph, but will there ever be a Democrat candidate that you would ever consider over any Republican candidate?

I can't speak for Murph, but imo, the last decent Democrat was Dick Gephardt in 1988, but he was obviously inferior to the greatest President of the 20th Century -- Ronald Reagan. A distant second place Democrat would be Daniel Moynihan.

[Stuart Galbraith]

43 minutes ago, Rick said:

A well thought out and written post. I would only begin to disagree with you -- and probably not by much -- on the last paragraph. I would say it is not so much psychology or political science as it is morality, economics, and especially power/control.

I firmly believe Trump won the G.O.P. primary not because he would be the best President, but because he would be the best to beat Hillary Clinton. And thank God he did! The majority of Americans who make this country work: believers in God, employers and employees -- especially those who do not earn a living from government -- are what make America great and these voters realize the danger Clinton represented and what the Democratic Party still represents(even more than four years ago!)

Our brilliant founding fathers had it right. The idea is not what government can do for you, it is the least amount of government that is needed. When you hear the phrase "Making government work for you" it WAY more often than not means governmental power, either federal, state, or local, that favors certain groups over the individual. Aka the power to control. In other words, tyranny! 

 

Yes, but follow that thought If I may. If Trump was selected as the best person to beat Hillary Clinton, that is a very narrow window of political acceptability. If the Republicans had been forced to face the possibility of 3 or 4 other parties candidates into consideration, they would have had to have elected a candidate with a wide range of ideas. So, rather than facing the narrow range of possibilities that Clinton offered the electorate, he would have to talk about other issues, discuss other ideas. Climate change, healthcare, foreign policy, all sorts of issues that were glossed over. At which point, rather than hitching their cart to Trump, they would probably have selected someone with a wider political philosophy. Equally, I suspect that if the Democrats were not facing Trump, they would have had to have someone rather more convincing than Biden.

OK, so its a perfect theory, it has issues in practice. We had at the last election a basic choice between a Communist and an Idiot, so not surprisingly most people voted for the idiot. A charming idiot, but clearly an idiot for all that. Because we clearly have a problem with how we select leaders and, we have nothing very comparable to your primary system. I think in that area your system works brilliantly. But only If its given a requirement for more than a candidate with the narrowest perspective, which seems to have been the case with both Clinton and Trump. 

Having the least amount of Government is probably the right idea, right up to the point when you have a war, or a national crisis. At that point you want big Government, and nothing else but. History has proven that time and again, at least to my satisfaction if nobody else's.

[DKTanker]

38 minutes ago, Rick said:

I can't speak for Murph, but imo, the last decent Democrat was Dick Gephardt in 1988, but he was obviously inferior to the greatest President of the 20th Century -- Ronald Reagan. A distant second place Democrat would be Daniel Moynihan.

Dick Gephardt didn't run against Reagan, he was in the field that ran against CIA Bush.  That field included AlGore, Jesse Jackson, Dick Gephardt, Paul Simon and eventual nominee Michael Dukakis.  Oh, and early drop out, pre-dementia Joe Biden.

Had Sam Nunn, Senator GA (D), not voted against the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, he well may have prevented the Clintons from ever leaving Arkansas.

[DKTanker]

7 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Yes, but follow that thought If I may. If Trump was selected as the best person to beat Hillary Clinton, that is a very narrow window of political acceptability. If the Republicans had been forced to face the possibility of 3 or 4 other parties candidates into consideration, they would have had to have elected a candidate with a wide range of ideas.

As in 2020, in 2016 there were four political parties with enough ballot access to contend for the necessary 270 electoral votes required to win the presidency.  Those parties are the Republican, Libertarian, Democratic, and Green.  There are usually three or four other parties as well.  

For somebody that loves to lecture Americans about, well, everything, you know paltry little of what you speak.

[Stuart Galbraith]

14 minutes ago, DKTanker said:

As in 2020, in 2016 there were four political parties with enough ballot access to contend for the necessary 270 electoral votes required to win the presidency.  Those parties are the Republican, Libertarian, Democratic, and Green.  There are usually three or four other parties as well.  

For somebody that loves to lecture Americans about, well, everything, you know paltry little of what you speak.

How many of those other political parties have delivered a senator or Presidential candidate in the past 20 years? And if they are not, then clearly there would appear to be a fault in the system somewhere that prevents their doing so. If you dont have the option to vote for them, then what good are they?

Here is what I find bizarre. You have over 200 TV channels. You have Netflix, you have the Disney channel, you have options for television programmers coming out of your ears. You invented the supermarket. You invented Amazon. You have countless different options for guns, cars, hamburgers, mobile phones, because America believes in as much choice and opportunity as it can handle. And still, you settle for 2 major parties dominating congress or the White House. Seriously? 

200 years ago when the world was a simpler place, that made perfect sense. Today, you wouldn't tolerate that lack of choice in a hamburger chain, so why do you tolerate it in politics? 

 

If you want to perceive that as lecturing, its doubtless going to be an interesting experience the next time the mechanic questions you if you want to put a different make of tires on your car. I could well imagine the response if he told you that there was only two choices, and neither performed in the wet.

 

Edited October 19, 2020 by Stuart Galbraith