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It Will Be an Election Unlike Any We’ve Lived Through. Are the Democrats Prepared?
(newrepublic.com)
this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2024
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politics
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Are the Democrats EVER prepared though?
"I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat." - Will Rogers, 1879-1935
"Democrats never agree on anything, that’s why they’re Democrats. If they agreed with each other, they’d be Republicans." - Will Rogers, 1879-1935
TIL you guys have been stuck with the same two political parties since the 1850s. No wonder they've gone a bit corrupt.
To be fair, the parties themselves have changed significantly since then.
To be fair, no two-party system is a healthy democracy, and the way our elections are designed it’ll stay that way.
Our election system is generally bad. Elections aren't controlled by the federal government, even for federal elections, they are run by counties (or whatever the locality calls a county - in Louisiana they are parishes) and each county runs their elections differently unless the state steps in and regulates it. Some states have mail in voting, some make you stand in line on election day. Some counties have FPTP voting, others might have STAR or RCV.
The only way I see things changing at all are two fold: publicly funded elections with no private money at all AND abandoning FPTP voting for a broader method with an added benefit of potentially eliminating primaries. I know parties would complain, but things would be much more democratic.
This is entirely correct. The only way to heal the nation is to take steps forward, not relying on an archaic system that ‘works’ and building out something that actually works.
We won't get rid of FPTP or gerrymandering so long as we elect our representatives from geographically defines districts. We should empanel state congressional delegations in statewide elections, rather than by districts.
In a state with 20 congressional seats, any party that wins at least 5% of the vote should have a seat. A party that wins 10% of the vote should have 2 seats.
Which means, get worse
Yep, as it has been since the 1850s
Yeahhh, you may find some people disagree with you on that one. I hear some stuff happened in 1861-1865 or something, for example.
America's founders biggest fear were political factions forming. But when they were concerned the voters were all landowning men, how could people with shared economic interests ever form factions?
That's what happens with a first past the post voting system. A ranked choice would open things up quite a bit, but that would require the people elected by the first past the post voting system to change it or mass revolution.
Someone call the French and let them know we actually do need them again.
It must be a proportional system. No other system produces viable 3rd parties.
American's lack of knowledge about Canada never ceases to amaze me.
Canada has effectively the same system as the UK, both being based on fptp, are you suggesting that fptp is fine in a preliminary system?
I've campaigned for an NDP candidate who was against fptp as many of us are, even our current PM ran on replacing fptp which never happened of course... however we have more than 2 "viable" parties despite not having proportional representation. You can apply definitions to "viable" at your will but they have won provinces quite recently and have many seats in federal and provincial government.
I looked over and the trend is away from two parties as well.
Americans are perfectly capable of manufacturing guillotines domestically.
Yeah, but the French guillotines have that certain je ne said quoi.
God damn it. It's been true that long?
It's almost like individual people have different opinions and want different things.
...yeah...but also, we all need to want Republicans to lose spectacularly.
It increasingly feels like that's the single unifying trait holding the democratic party together. That's the sole reason you see people telling everyone to get out and vote.
It's not "We need to get young people to vote because they care about progressive policies, and we can elect a candidate who will align with their views", it's "We need to get young people to vote because we can't let Trump win another term."
Because it is the only trait. The Democrats know it. As long as they act slightly more progressive they can enjoy massive corporate and AIPAC bribes just like the Republicans do.
Nothing will change if people vote Democrat this time. In 2028 some other Republican (or Trump again) will run and the Dems will go "Vote for us or we're going to get Genocided for real this time unlike the other 150 last years whenever a Republican won"
The Democrats are actually way more internally organized now. About 30 years ago during the 90s both parties reached almost unanimous internal ideological consensus' and essentially all vote as a single blocks. The state we're in now with this polarization is part of this, and an example of the increased factionalization of US politics.
It's crazy to think how there were staunch segregationist Democrats in to the 70s even as the party as a whole had been (successfully) catering to younger urban demographics that came alongside industrialization. We can't really imagine something like that occurring now. Even Biden was opposed to bussing and a lot of his "across the aisle" examples even today involve working with segregationist Democrats, not "across the aisle" as we interpret it now.
I actually like that about the Democrat Party. Shows how ideologically diverse it is because tolerance is a bedrock of the party ever since the two parties switched from being conservative and liberal. The GOP flipped within four years from being neocons to isolationists, and anyone who disagrees with the current identity is a RINO
"Ten degrees to the left of center in good times, ten degrees to the right when it affects them personally.' - Phil Ochs, 1966
Democrats and Republicans swapped ideologies and beliefs around 1936