On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
- H. L. Mencken
While maybe technically true from a legal standpoint, voters have eyes. If they think he's unfit, they're less likely to vote for him in November. And to be crystal clear, I think the same applies to Trump. I said several days ago neither is fit (in the eyes of voters, to me) to be President. We deserve better choices.
Last edited by Evil Midnight Bomber; 2024-02-10 at 04:12 PM.
On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
- H. L. Mencken
I mean, from what I can see the ones participating in the primaries aren't really much better. The GOP primaries are a rogues' gallery of MAGA darlings whereas in the Dem primaries it was basically an anti-vaxer, a mystic crystal enthusiast and, the only challenger remaining, Dean Phillips, who floated the idea of putting Musk in a Cabinet position.
What choice is there, really?
Biden could be a zombie meat puppet piloted by Harris and would still be superior to Trump. The fact conservatives and our "concerned independents" are trying to push this angle just shows once again they got nothing.
- - - Updated - - -
You go ahead and do that in ~8 months. We'll wait.
“There you stand, the good man doing nothing. And while evil triumphs, and your rigid pacifism crumbles to blood stained dust, the only victory afforded to you is that you stuck true to your guns.”
Let's pretend that Biden is Senile and unfit, there is a process in place for that and like it or not Bidens Vice President is a hell of a lot better than anybody Trump is going to pick
Good luck with that in the US system, and I was specifically referring to the Primaries since that was what was being discussed.
I've long maintained that in order for the US elections to progress to something better the GOP as a party just needs to die. The Democrats are basically an amalgamation of differing opinions and varying degrees of "left" and "center" who have all basically banded together because the GOP are the alternative. Without the GOP looming, the Democrats could safely split into several different parties that better fit their respective ideals and maybe we could get a discussion going on RCV--and the elimination of the outdated Electoral College--to get a more fair and representative government going. And since the Democrats are already versed in working with one another within their party despite their differences it would probably be less like pulling teeth to get legislation passed with compromises that aren't two diametrically opposed extremes.
This is all a pipe dream currently, of course. But if the GOP keep going down the path of eating themselves maybe a decade in the future it might seem more viable.
That's all?
Without some big changes in how the elections work over there, that's never going to happen. How could it? As it currently stands, voting for a 3rd party is a vote against your own interests. Naturally, 3rd party would end up being either closer to Democrats or Republicans, and whichever it's closer to, would be where this new party's voters would mostly come from. It drains the votes from the party you agree on some things, and bolstering the position of the party you disagree with the most.
That's absolutely what would end up happening.
Last edited by btlcryct; 2024-02-10 at 07:06 PM.
That project is going to take decades with significant election reform, and will be impossible without it. It's like saying the solution to climate change is to evolve gills.
The only way we can realistically get to a place where a third party would be viable would be to eliminate the electoral college and gerrymandering, and implement ranked choice voting, and the only way that happens is if we get a solid democratic majority in power for long enough to pass that legislation without strong opposition from the GOP. Even then the DNC might not want to risk diminishing its own power.
Honestly, the biggest issue I see with the "third party" debate is so many have an upside->down perspective. Not a Grassroots perspective.
Start working on the local and regional levels. Then coalesce to an alternative upwards.
- Lars
Third parties and independents can and do win at the local and state level, but any races that are meaningful are going to get flooded with funding from the DNC or RNC and that's really difficult for a grassroots candidate to combat.
I think more realistic would be for splits to happen within the tentpole parties after meaningful election reforms. Ranked choice would be the big one because it would mean that voting for a less mainstream candidate doesn't risk ceding the office to the opposition party. The other big one would be exhaustive campaign finance reform, to minimize the impact PACs and wealthy donors have on the outcomes of elections.
In such an environment, there would be more room for competition from candidates within each party, and the potential for existing factions to break away and still secure adequate funding to campaign against the DNC and RNC.
I'm thinking of this more in terms of a post-Trump era where the GOP is weakened or fractured and MAGA has tuned out of politics, creating a landscape where you can have progressives, moderates, and conservatives on a more even playing field.
Sure, that'll help. The cards are still stacked against them even on a local level, however. Part of it is that, while more and more Americans want options other than "GOP" or "Dem", they're hesistant to vote for a third party for fear it will split the vote and allow the worst (for them) candidate a victory. This is another product of the FPTP system and why RCV is slowly becoming more popular. There are other obstacles, but this is a big one.
It boils down to people's choices. Yes, there are barriers, but Americans prefer these two parties over other options. At its core, that's why change does not happen.
That may seem "trite", but that's because of how simple that reality is. Americans choose the devils they know over any possibility of things getting better.
Last edited by Endus; 2024-02-10 at 08:13 PM.
Wrong again.
As I mentioned above, there is a hunger for more choices, but the fear of splitting the vote and allowing an opposition win is one of the major hurdles.More than half — 56% of Americans — believe the current parties do such a poor job that a third major party is needed, according to a survey by Gallup. Indeed, minor parties are seeing an uptick in support and interest in recent years.