For repubs politics has turned into team sports. It is no longer arguing about ideas and policies. This is always what happens in a first past the post voting system. Having a viable strong third party forces the need for compromise on all parties in order to pass any sort of legislation. But no third party in our current voting system will emerge because instead of voting for someone, which may cause the spoiler effect, I have to decide to vote against the more terrible option.
I don’t know, we went hundreds of years without this being as significant of a problem. The first overtly significant thing in this vein I remember was when McConnell said they wouldn’t vote for anything that came out of Obama’s administration because it was more important to ensure he was a one term president than to actually pass any legislation.
It had been getting bad before that for sure. Really, I think the bad times started when Republicans started courting evangelical christians as a way to grow their power (older folks will remember that Republicans used to be pro choice because they saw it as a government regulation issue, not a moral one). To do that, they went from saying Democrats were wrong to saying Democrats were evil. You can negotiate and compromise with someone you think is wrong, not someone you think is evil.
But that stuff isn’t inherent in a two-party system. We had one for ages without that problem.
the civil war did happen and the year it did was from a 3rd party being like “yeah the federal gov shouldn’t enforce the fugitive slaves act, but we shouldn’t ban slavery” I don’t think the US is necessarily facing slavery level of direness but we do need to decide whether we’re a modern country with a livable working class or a billionaire owned theocratic hellscape.
For repubs politics has turned into team sports. It is no longer arguing about ideas and policies. This is always what happens in a first past the post voting system. Having a viable strong third party forces the need for compromise on all parties in order to pass any sort of legislation. But no third party in our current voting system will emerge because instead of voting for someone, which may cause the spoiler effect, I have to decide to vote against the more terrible option.
This video explains it much better than I ever could
I don’t know, we went hundreds of years without this being as significant of a problem. The first overtly significant thing in this vein I remember was when McConnell said they wouldn’t vote for anything that came out of Obama’s administration because it was more important to ensure he was a one term president than to actually pass any legislation.
It had been getting bad before that for sure. Really, I think the bad times started when Republicans started courting evangelical christians as a way to grow their power (older folks will remember that Republicans used to be pro choice because they saw it as a government regulation issue, not a moral one). To do that, they went from saying Democrats were wrong to saying Democrats were evil. You can negotiate and compromise with someone you think is wrong, not someone you think is evil.
But that stuff isn’t inherent in a two-party system. We had one for ages without that problem.
the civil war did happen and the year it did was from a 3rd party being like “yeah the federal gov shouldn’t enforce the fugitive slaves act, but we shouldn’t ban slavery” I don’t think the US is necessarily facing slavery level of direness but we do need to decide whether we’re a modern country with a livable working class or a billionaire owned theocratic hellscape.
Lol. You don’t get to decide that though
no I dont, but its the issue at the heart of the modern US schizophrenia. It might seem insurmountable but there are only hundreds of billionaires.
Hundreds of billionaires with governments and armies on the payroll.
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