I said our system works better with parties that are less ideological, not with fewer ideologies (if anything, the opposite would be true). That refers to the extent, not the number of ideologies. For instance, Congress is now more divided between the parties by ideology (as measured by DW-NOMINATE scores, a standard measure of ideology in political science) than they've been since Reconstruction:



I think our political system is not optimized for strongly ideological parties because systems with lots of veto points require more mechanisms for building consensus across the parties to pass legislation and more ideological distance between the parties makes consensus-building more difficult.

Notice also that you're conflating me making a descriptive claim about how the US government system is supposed to work with me favoring that system over others.

I know you don't view Bernie as not left enough now. But your priors are that voters really want a more leftwing candidate and that the establishment Democrats keep losing because they aren't enough to the left. Saying that voters are duped runs counter to the claim that they really want a more leftwing candidate. Saying that establishment Dems are godly campaign maestros runs counter to the fact that they often lose to Republicans (unless you think it's the left that just happens to be really bad at campaigning).

So instead you just throw up your hands and declare everyone inevitably corrupt and make baseless speculations about party leaders throwing the election. To me, the much more plausible shortcut here is to admit the obvious - voters are more or less voting for what they want.

As for whining about socialism - lol, okay. You whine constantly about neoliberal this and neoliberal that. You basically refuse to use conventional American political categories or terminology in describing people's ideological beliefs. At least Bernie calls himself a socialist, whereas I don't recall either Biden, Hillary, or Obama referring to themselves as neoliberals. But tell you what, I'll promise to not call Bernie a socialist in our conversations if you stop calling Democrats neoliberals.

Isn't America too Christian (generally religious) and capitalist to be center-left, at least for another generation?

Probably.

Was Clinton and Obama not center-left? Obama more so than Clinton obv.

Obama was the most Wall Street friendly President ever, I've been told by some Progressives.

Pretty centrist on civil liberties, center-right/right on economics and war, probably center on diplomacy, nothing really stands out as left in either cabinet, both pretty tough on crime AGs, both pretty right on drugs and incarceration.

Both talked excellent center-left games, but those we're just games. I mean, Obama had, like five theaters going on at the same time--Iraq, AfPak, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen/AP. Republicans dream of that leash.

Hold on now. Bernie doesn't actually run on socialist policies where Biden, Clinton et al absolutely run on neoliberal (what they used to call third way) policies. I honestly have no idea if Bernie is a secret socialist commmie who wants to rule the world. He may be but they're not the policies he's been running on for the last 5 years.

Not my priors. I believe that voters actually want center left policies for the simple fact that I believe voters want what's in their own and societies best interest. They are, in fact, duped by Democrats into thinking that's what they're getting. The jig is probably up or will be soon but that's been the game since Bill Clinton.

As I like to point out, NAFTA and the repeal of Glass Stegal hurt the people the Democrats pretend to represent very badly. The Democratic party is totally corrupt and bought off by the same donors who buy off the GOP. That's why we're having this discussion and you're not attending your local GOP meeting (or espousing what you think of as far left policies).

I'm pretty sure they both have the same ideology except for a few social differences that don't cost the donor class any money. And this is not the way the system should work. But if you're okay with it then that's your opinion. It is what it is.

I mean, I'll probably end up voting for a guy I know is going to be in a nursing home before his first term is up because the other guy is that bad.
That's probably the logical thing to do but it doesn't mean I'm feeling any loyalty to the people who forced me to make the choice.

They can all be put out to pasture afaic.

Obama himself bragged that he governed as a center right Republican.
He gave you a Republican health care plan (that you would have loved if Bush had passed it).

It's funny that the yahoo's thought he was a socialist Muslim.

lol@Republicans

You do know Romney is considered a RINO, right (I'm actually a fan of his, because of it)? As are most conservatives elected in New England. It's an association fallacy that the left loves using. The jokes on you if you think that health care plan is considered "center-right", you fell for political spin. Bush would never had enacted a health care plan like that, despite being more center-right than Obama.

Arlen Specter, William Weld, Margaret Chase-Smith, Nelson Rockefeller, etc...

Moderate New England Republicans.

Good to know the Heritage Foundation is left wing in your view.

Relative to what the rest of the world, forcing us to buy from private insurance and guarantee them customers is a pretty capitalist thing to do.

Sure, the marketplace was there but it didn't really compete as it wasn't competitive unless you were really sick, old, poor or all three, which isnt "left", it's normal. For middle income families with pre-existing conditions, they had to pay a lot of money in premiums, copays, and deductibles which is pretty third way. And the upper middle had to pay out of pocket which is pretty right wing.

Obamacare never really incorporated (incentivized) the healthy middle and upper middle class into the risk pool and never provided the competition To lower prices in the private market. He'll, my family's premiums went up $75 and was still cheaper than the marketplace.

Health insurance profits have been up under the ACA.
There isn't any reason to think that Bush wouldn't have enacted exactly the same plan as Obama did. And the only reason why it wasn't pushed for under a Republican administration is that it would have gotten enough scrutiny from the left (in whatever form we want to conceive of them) that it might have had trouble. Obama had the ability to get it passed.
Basically this:
Only Obama gets away with this. Not a Republican.

Lol. Here's a reason: George W Bush was a Republican and literally every single elected national Republican voted against the ACA. The Republican Party then spent the next 8 years having the repeal of the ACA as a primary campaign proposal. And if Bush had proposed a version of the ACA it would have passed more easily and with Democratic support (for instance, look at Medicare Part D).

Obama didn't get away with it - the Supreme Court essentially overturned the individual mandate.

Seems like results oriented thinking.
But do you think Republicans are opposed to more profits for health insurance companies? Sounds like if they are maybe we should be taking their lead.

Republicans didn't believe that as a society we should guarantee affordable access to health insurance for everyone before the ACA passed. Democrats did. A basic understanding of the political ideology of each party would tell you this. If noting that a policy contradicts a party's ideology and so they are unlikely to support it seems like results-oriented thinking to you, then your political model is lacking.
In this case, yes. I reject your model of politics where the cause for each individual political event is explained by whatever corporations benefit from it.

It's worth noting that despite much hand-wringing and drama, that Republicans did not in fact repeal the ACA.

So there is this imgflip page to create AI-generated memes: https://imgflip.com/ai-meme

You just choose a template, and the AI fills it. Just got an interesting result:

When you know your opponent is going to do exactly what you want (you'll give your donors what you promised and keep the cash flowing) AND you know you'll be able to use it against them politically, you basically hit the jackpot.

Then again, looking back on Clinton and Obama, there's not way this stuff isn't planed in advance. No one with power would give their adversaries what the want time and time again while being under constant siege like Clinton and OBama did. It's just not natural human behavior. They were getting something from the deal. And 'they' are not 'the people they claim to represent'.

Just sayin'.

I couldn't get that site to make anything that remotely made sense

via Imgflip Meme Generator

Wow, Mophismus lost his job to AI, these are pretty great memes.