U.S. Politics: We're Saying Merry Christmas, Again

[mormont]

47 minutes ago, Relic said:

These parties should be allowed to fracture and split off into their own entities. Having two choices sucks, and has turned out to be really really divisive. 

A multi-party system doesn't provide a panacea for these issues. You have to negotiate coalitions, agreements, deals, etc. Eventually every political issue boils down to a binary choice: do this or don't, yes or no. Plus, smaller parties have splits too.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that a lot of the systemic problems you guys have are down to the two-party system and how that has worked over the last couple of decades in particular: I'm just warning that multi-party democracy has its issues too.

[Rippounet]

43 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

Government is literally the only treatment for this pattern

In the very long-run there are alternatives. But they require a level of socio-economic awareness and cooperation that is as yet unheard of in the history of mankind.
Nonetheless, there are movements in that direction. Some very smart people have realized that the current structure of our institutions makes them easy prey to corporate interests and lobbies, and that a different form of democracy might be able to yield better results.
It's all utopian at this point, of course. Especially since -and this is where you see how insidious and brilliant the current elites are- education is under fire throughout the West as well. I personally think the goal is precisely to prevent the appearance of too much socio-economic and political awareness. If the people were to realize that the current structures are not set in stone and are actually easy to modify through collective action, you could see incredible changes in the course of a single generation.
As it is, I think that in the long-run it will happen anyway, because there are factors that make the current system unsustainable. The only question is how long can it endure, and how many millions will suffer because of the greed and perversity of a tiny minority.

[Morpheus]

The full transition to calling a widow and her family liars

https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/922440008971292672

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

In two hours:

General Kelly: “Is nothing sacred anymore? I remember the days when the president could insult and demean gold star widows with impunity. But today’s disgusting media deems it fit to condemn such behavior. They’re so unpatriotic. Where’s their loyalty?”

[drawkcabi]

13 hours ago, Yukle said:

Perhaps the most dangerous but clever ideology ever propagated by the rich is the lie that governments cannot be trusted. Why do so many rich white men encourage you to ignore the government, to fight the system, to neglect voting because they're all liars, to withhold taxes and so on? Because they own the government. It works to their interests and your apathy is essential. Government is the only check against them controlling wealth they could otherwise be forced to share, and it's for their own sake that they don't want you to empower governments to act as a means against oligarchies forming.

Perhaps the most telling statistic: for all of their bluster about how you should ignore the government, millionaires are the most reliable people to vote in the USA.

I so completely agree.

Politicians are corrupt, greedy, untrustworthy only out for their own self interests.

So here's an idea, let's take a system that at least tries to put some oversight into governance, at least tries to regulate the powerful and just throw that all out, because oh yeah sure, things will surely be better when the people who have all the power have no one keeping them in check, looking into what they are doing, and making inquiries. Because human beings are far less corrupt, greedy, untrustworthy, and only out for their own self interests when they know they will not be held accountable for anything they do.

We can't trust what the people in charge say they are going to do, so let's just do away with them having to say anything.

The system is not just imperfect, it is bent completely out of whack, but throwing away what little power of the people we do have is not the answer.

[Dr. Pepper]

2 hours ago, Morpheus said:

The full transition to calling a widow and her family liars

https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/922440008971292672

 

I think the only thing surprising about this tweet is that he didn't use the word "liar". I assume it's only a matter of time because now that Mrs. Johnson is speaking with the press and demanding answers and so will continue to refute Trump's story which will only enrage him.  Republicans and especially Trump voters won't give a shit because they stand for nothing, and besides they'll like the appearance that they are putting a black woman in her place.  

[DMC]

6 hours ago, mormont said:

A multi-party system doesn't provide a panacea for these issues. You have to negotiate coalitions, agreements, deals, etc.

Perhaps the most important note of caution is multiparty systems often lead to centrifugal and fractional tendencies.  This has been around since at least Sartori but is, I think, fairly intuitive.  Does that really seem to be the best remedy for a polity that is currently perpetuating record levels of polarization?  Let's look at this practically - I'd think most could agree you're going to get at least four parties with a minimum threshold 15% or lower:  an establishment and an "extremist" party for each.  But, then, you could argue the GOP will be split between the establishment, the White Trumpists, and the Religious Right.  And one could easily envision splits on the left as well between racial, environmental, trade, or a number of issues.  This is a recipe for serious destabilization.

Everybody complains about gridlock, but its key virtue is maintaining the status quo, at least legislatively.  This is supported by what Cox and McCubbins refer to as negative agenda control - the majority party may not be able to get much of what it wants, but it is very good at preventing legislation it does not want.  Even with the pure destabilizing entity that is Trump, the GOP has largely maintained the status quo, at least legislatively.  Personally, I much prefer this than giving the extremists much greater opportunity for influence, on both sides.

All this doesn't matter though - it's never gonna happen anyway, Duverger's Law, blah, blah, blah.

[Kalbear]

8 hours ago, Relic said:

These parties should be allowed to fracture and split off into their own entities. Having two choices sucks, and has turned out to be really really divisive. 

There's nothing stopping them from doing so. The reason they don't is that breaking into smaller parties just ensures the biggest party wins when you have a winner-takes-all system.

Winner takes all systems naturally gravitate towards two strong parties (or even just one strong party). If you want multiparty politics1, you need to have multiparty electoral systems first. Doing the former without the latter just ensures the least fractured party wins.

ETA: A very good, short video on why this happens is here.

[DMC]

17 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Winner takes all systems naturally gravitate towards two strong parties (or even just one strong party). If you want multiparty politics1, you need to have multiparty electoral systems first. Doing the former without the latter just ensures the least fractured party wins.

ETA: A very good, short video on why this happens is here.

Er, to clarify you want to say PR (proportional representation) electoral systems lead to multiparty systems in that second sentence there.

Or, just google Duverger's law!

[Kalbear]

22 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Er, to clarify you want to say PR (proportional representation) electoral systems lead to multiparty systems in that second sentence there.

Or, just google Duverger's law!

In theory there are other systems that could promote multiparty systems - but yeah, proportional electoral systems lead to multiparty systems. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 hours ago, dmc515 said:

Let's look at this practically - I'd think most could agree you're going to get at least four parties with a minimum threshold 15% or lower:  an establishment and an "extremist" party for each. 

Do you mean four or more major parties that could at least in theory achieve the threshold, or a total of four or more parties regardless of the threshold? Because while I do tend to agree with this statement, I could also see a scenario where there's only three parties that can hit the threshold and a lot of smaller parties that might occasionally have a chance of making it. I'm not sure how many Blue Dogs and Country Club Republicans are left, but I think they combined with moderates who hate the right and the left could be a strong political force in your hypothetical, and it's possible that the three parties could eat up 86% of the vote share. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 hours ago, drawkcabi said:

Politicians are corrupt, greedy, untrustworthy only out for their own self interests.

Not really. Most politicians are good people who are stuck with making the difficult decisions that the average person avoids. 

[Yukle]

17 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

This is a magnificent post, the bolded bares repeating imo.

That's kind to say, as is what others said.  

[DMC]

21 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Do you mean four or more major parties that could at least in theory achieve the threshold, or a total of four or more parties regardless of the threshold? Because while I do tend to agree with this statement, I could also see a scenario where there's only three parties that can hit the threshold and a lot of smaller parties that might occasionally have a chance of making it. I'm not sure how many Blue Dogs and Country Club Republicans are left, but I think they combined with moderates who hate the right and the left could be a strong political force in your hypothetical, and it's possible that the three parties could eat up 86% of the vote share. 

I agree that the center's last-best hope to keep power under such a scenario is for the "center" right and left to unite into one party, but my sarcastic quotation marks belie such a possibility.  Fact is, while I may love the Tuesday Group or Murkowski and Collins right now, that doesn't change the fact I still couldn't stand most of them in the same party as myself - ok, maybe Collins, but definitely not Murkowski, and that's the point.  Further, most multiparty systems do indeed have one "mainstream" party each for left and right, so just assuming off of history here.

ETA:  Sorry, to actually answer your question - yes, I meant four different parties that could and would reach a 15% threshold.

[Bonnot OG]

Watching Nazis on twitter (alt right types are nazis) spew their bullshit makes me laugh. These are the people that cry about identity politics and whine about the world being too PC, yet their relabeling of Nazism to be alt right is very much being "politically correct". They know the connotation behind Nazism, so they want to make it more friendly and easier to digest. And they hate identity politics, yet they are calling for a white ethno state, which is a relabeling of Aryan nation which is also being "politically correct" about what they are looking for. 

They hate labels, yet they relabel nazism and Aryan nation. They hate identity politics, yet their calls for an Aryan nation / white ethno state is very much peak identity politics. They hate being politically correct, but they are being "politically correct" when they relabel Nazism to alt right and Aryan nation to white ethno state to make it easier to digest for potential recruits.  

I will not be shocked if Richard Spencer runs for office at some point in the near future, or one of his scumbag nazi followers. And I wouldn't be shocked if they run under the alt right label, and win.

[LongRider]

If you would like to address cyber bullying, Melania, I would suggest you click on the link and start with the 'A's'.  A nice gesture to start with would be to get that twitter bully to stop bullying the Gold Star widow.

 

 

[Altherion]

2 hours ago, Sword of Doom said:

Watching Nazis on twitter (alt right types are nazis)

You do realize you're going to run out of such words soon, right? Practically none of the alt-right type are Nazis. Spencer is about as close as they come to it and, if one stretches the definition a bit, might be labeled a wannabe Nazi, but even he and the few like him lack the organization, the corporate support, etc. that made the Nazis terrifying. The vast majority of the alt-right aren't anywhere close -- they may share one or two characteristics, but that means very little as these are not the most important ones. You'd think people who dilute political words to the point of meaninglessness would have learned the consequences of doing so after 2016...

2 hours ago, Sword of Doom said:

I will not be shocked if Richard Spencer runs for office at some point in the near future, or one of his scumbag nazi followers. And I wouldn't be shocked if they run under the alt right label, and win.

Spencer would be lucky to get 5% of the vote today and even though his prospects are improving, he's not likely to get more than 15% anytime soon. His followers are even less impressive. However... I wouldn't entirely rule out somebody significantly wealthier and more aligned with corporate interests who shares a substantial fraction Spencer's ideas (but isn't so vocal about it) running for a Congressional or gubernatorial seat relatively soon and winning. Trump moved the Overton window quite a bit nationally and it might be possible for it to move further locally.

[Darth Richard II]

mmm no, all of the alt right are just fucking nazis.

[Week]

21 minutes ago, Altherion said:

You do realize you're going to run out of such words soon, right? Practically none of the alt-right type are Nazis. Spencer is about as close as they come to it and, if one stretches the definition a bit, might be labeled a wannabe Nazi, but even he and the few like him lack the organization, the corporate support, etc. that made the Nazis terrifying. The vast majority of the alt-right aren't anywhere close -- they may share one or two characteristics, but that means very little as these are not the most important ones. You'd think people who dilute political words to the point of meaninglessness would have learned the consequences of doing so after 2016...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/opinion/alt-right-white-supremacy-undercover.html?_r=0

Quote

In Britain, Mr. Hermansson attended a private dinner of extremists where Greg Johnson, a reclusive leading American far-right figure who is editor in chief of Counter-Currents Publishing, explained the need to “mainstream this stuff — or, more precisely, we need to bring the mainstream towards us.”

Mr. Johnson later expressed confidence that this process is working. “I see the upward curve in web traffic, and the upward trend in quality and quantity of younger people getting involved,” he told Mr. Hermansson in conversation captured on hidden-camera footage. (During that same chat, he said he believed in ethnic homelands and favored telling Jews, “You need to go to Israel or we’re going to freeze you out of our society.”)

[...]

Some of Mr. Hermansson’s most arresting footage comes from a June meeting with Jason Reza Jorjani, a founder, along with the American white nationalist Richard Spencer and others, of the AltRight Corporation, an organization established to foster cooperation and coordination among alt-right groups in Europe and North America.

Mr. Hermansson and Mr. Jorjani met at an Irish pub near the Empire State Building, where the baby-faced Mr. Jorjani imagined a near future in which, thanks to liberal complacency over the migration crisis, Europe re-embraces fascism: “We will have a Europe, in 2050, where the bank notes have Adolf Hitler, Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great. And Hitler will be seen like that: like Napoleon, like Alexander, not like some weird monster who is unique in his own category — no, he is just going to be seen as a great European leader.”

More shockingly, Mr. Jorjani bragged about his contacts in the American government. “We had connections in the Trump administration — we were going to do things!” he said at one point. “I had contacts with the Trump administration,” he said at another.

There is evidence to the contrary -- these certainly sound like Nazis.The article goes on to describe the intentional, concerted effort of engaging with a younger audience through memes and jokes (essentially) to lay the groundwork for less public and more noxious views -- like those quoted above.

[Darth Richard II]

There's also the rallies they have, you know, where they dress up like nazis and wave around the nazi flag and do the nazi salute.