Quote:
Originally Posted by lenC
First American election I'm following in depth and it's reaffirming my suspicion that a two-party system is dumb.
For example, just googled kasich+climate change:
"Some theory that's not proven" -> "I just don't know enough about it" -> "I know human beings affect it"
Such a sad sight to see a grown ass man slowly tipping the line so he won't piss anyone off. Seems if you're a politician in a two-party system, you're given a list of 15 things - these are the things you believe in, now go from there.
Would you guys prefer it if both parties broke up into three pieces?
Just for clarity, the "two-party system" is an extra-Constitutional development that was not fully anticipated by the FOUNDING FATHERS (who are the revered dudes who negotiated and signed the Constitution, in which they managed such reasonable accommodations as (i) the 3/5s compromise, (ii) the intentional insulation of government from the voting polity via the idiotic electoral college, and (iii) the intentional design of the Senate as the repository of the ELITE). The two-party system is not an intentional system.
It is also a terrible way of "democratically" participating in government. Think of it as an even more effective bulwark against public participation than the electoral college. In sum, the two-party system guarantees that myriad viewpoints not only
will not receive political consideration, but
by two-party fiat cannot possibly receive such consideration unless party elites - read: NOT the voting polity - deign such viewpoints politically advantageous.
The development of the parties over time is quite interesting. For example, the Republican Party of today is
in some ways the intellectual heir of the segregationist Southern Democratic Party of the Civil War era; the Republican Party of the approximate 1930s was socially progressive; the realignment of the Republican Party such that its most identifiable voting bloc is conservative 'Christian' white voters is a recent development; the
Smith v. Allwright (1944) decision that outlawed white primaries was a decision outlawing white primaries that were a
Democratic Party southern tradition dating back to at least the early 1900s. The idea that the Democratic Party is socially liberal and progressive and expansionist in spending, while the Republican Party is racist and conservative in spending is, basically, new. And weird; the roots of the Republican Party are extremely laudable, while the historical Democratic Party is kind of a ridiculous joke of a heinous organization that turned into something unrecognizable to an 1800s Democrat. To me, this is interesting to know not because it informs current policy but because it seems to demonstrate the eternal return of the elemental racism and anti-humanism that was elemental to the founding of this country and remains, unfortunately, elemental to the voting interests of swaths of the voting polity.
cliffs: the two party system is bad and stupid and doesn't even exist on purpose