Attack on voting

[Spongebob]

The dems knew they'd lose the south in advance and still did it, giving lie to the idea that all politicans only do whatever they do because they believe it will get them more votes, since Biker mentioned it and all.  

100% true.  Truman, Kennedy and Johnson all pursued civil rights agendas that they absolutely knew were unpopular with whites, but they did this out of a moral conviction for justice.

As for lincoln the extremist progressive in a progressive gop...that's probably modern mythmaking.  Lincoln was a moderate, at best - and consider what that means for the rest of his party if he was "the most progressive".  

Let me be more precise.  Lincoln was not the most extreme voice on slavery in the mid 1800's, not by a long shot.  There were voices calling for full integration of blacks into white society, which Lincoln acknowledged he didn't think was possible.  He even contemplated shipping all freed slaves back to African nations, but realized that was logistically and financially impossible, not to mention cruel as a large percentage would die in the process.  BUT, Lincoln was definitely a progressive of the time and on the far edge.  He did want to end slavery, no question about it if you study his biographies, but he didn't really want to do so unconstitutionally.  If you read just one of the speeches he made or a single debate he had with Douglas, it becomes abundantly clear that Lincoln hated slavery and wanted it to end.  Lincoln was barely notable as a politician before he was elected POTUS, but his position on slavery was what got him there.  Keep in mind that he left the Whig Party to join the more extreme Republican Party.  So it's not modern revisionism, all the facts are there.

Whatever progressive element existed within the historic GOP was gone by 1912.

That's somewhat accurate.  Taft was less progressive than TR, but I wouldn't say he embraced conservatism.  When WW out-did the GOP in progressivism, I think that was the end of progressivism for the GOP and they began to become conservative again.

The dems knew they'd lose the south...and they didn't even try to keep those southerners from voting.  Compare that with the gop response to having lost the entire country more than three decades ago.  The republican party no longer believes in the united states or the validity of it's form of government.  They're christo-fascists on a mission to secure minority control over the majority in perpetuity.

It sort of reminds me of the Apartheid system in South Africa or I supposed you could compare it to the old plantation south.

[Mister Agenda]

The USA doesn't officially have a party system at all. That's why two parties always dominate. There is no Constitutional provision for parties, just majority rule; and that provides a keen incentive to form major parites that can get a majority and gain near complete control of the governmental levers of power.

[Spongebob]

Yes, that is true. A lot of people don't realize that the parties are not an official part of the government. The DNC and RNC have virtually nothing to do with the government; they are privately run organizations. Constitutionally, there's pretty much nothing we can do about that short of an amendment and I don't see that every happening. What's more, every state has the freedom to run it's elections any way it wants with only a few requirements. I think if anything were to change it would have to begin with the states.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Wouldn' t you be happier sticking your nose up a different ass every once in a while?

I could never stick my nose up your ass nor would I ever. Your head is already taking all the space up there 

Or if not happier at least less fucking miserable?

I'm not miserable 

Now if you have no counter to my point 

Piss off

[vulcanlogician]

^
Would, say, a three party system be better, though?

A "no party" system would be ideal.

The only downside is idiots would not have the option of pulling a single lever to vote.


Candidates would need to be judged on their history and their stated position on issues.


Vote for the candidate - not the gang..

In a democracy, the voters are ultimately responsible for who gets elected. If they're so stupid that they vote incorrectly because of a single lever option, converting to a no party system isn't really going to fix that.

[Spongebob]

Reasons why this idea holds no water:

A "no party" system would be ideal.

The only downside is idiots would not have the option of pulling a single lever to vote.

Candidates would need to be judged on their history and their stated position on issues.

Vote for the candidate - not the gang..

OLB proposes that we stop voting for representatives of a party and vote for individuals.  First of all, this would require the all political parities relinquish any and all power they currently posses, and that is a lot of power.  There is simply no precedent for such a thing to occur, not in our country or any other country for that matter.  How would anyone propose that this step be accomplished?  It's hard enough to get people to consider a "third" party like the Libertarian Party, which offers many good ideas.  The reason is simple, no one wants to waste their vote on anything other than the party that they believe can win and represent them.

Further, what this line of thinking really advocates is voting for populists because they appeal directly to voters and not to a party line.  In most ways, Trump was a populist.  He is not a true Republican, anyone can see that.  People old enough will remember Ross Perot, who ran as a populist in the 90's and made a little bit of a stir.  History is rife with people who rose to power through populism and the vast majority of them turned out to be disastrous.

We do have an established history of new parties rising to power.  We are currently in the 5th such 2-party system.  But a new party has an uphill climb; it has to pull voters from both of the parties in power to be successful.  The last to do so was the GOP, which took anti-slavery advocates from both the Democrats and Whigs.  If a few issues become important enough and neither of the parties in power are addressing them, that is an opening for a new party to emerge.

So, while I respect and appreciate OLB's unusually salient post, I don't believe it would accomplish what he believes it would, nor does it have any hope of actually happening, although I submit again that Trump is in most ways an example of what he is proposing.  Most Trump supporters are not supporting the vast majority of Conservative politics but rather responding to the populism of Trump.

So I'll argue again that the real problem is extremism in the two major parties and that can be traced to uncompetitive voting districts in the states.  If we made redistricting non-partisan, the result would be more competition and more centrist candidates and less extremism in congress.  The POTUS doesn't really matter all that much because congress writes the laws and holds the purse strings.  But with congress now occupied mostly by party extremists, we get this stratification and even a lunatic president becomes a focal point that they cling to.

[Spongebob]

Some states are enacting laws that will allow state election officials to overturn election results. Only Republicans are pushing these new laws. Let's say in 2022 we have a few states that are run by Republicans but they elect Democrats for the House and/or Senate (think about Georgia). Republican state officials will be able to declare the results invalid and hand the election to the Republican candidates. The criteria won't matter. We've already seen this when Trump badgered Georgia for 11,780 votes. He didn't say x number of suspicious votes from this county or that should be tossed, he just picked the number he needed and said go "find" them, IOW, manufacture them. That looks like the future of elections in Republican run states.

[Mister Agenda]

I was a card-carrying 'big L' Libertarian for about 20 years. I was active, went to meetings. My softening on the position was gradual and I started calling myself a 'liberaltarian', but still voted LP whenever they had a candidate I could vote for. I would even vote for a Green if they weren't running against a Libertarian, because the status quo was so awful and I wanted to take some sort of stand against it. If there wasn't an LP or Green candidate I went by whoever I thought was best for the job out of those available. Over time that became almost exclusively Democrats down ballot, but I live in SC so voting for a Democrat is fairly disruptive of the status quo. And I bought into the popular LP maxims 'voting for the lesser evil is still voting for evil' and 'there's not a dime's worth of difference between the Democrats and Republicans'.

Now I'm a Democrat and what tipped me over was America voting for the most obvious greater evil of my lifetime (I voted for Johnson in 2016) and the Democrats and Republicans sorting themselves into democracy and science vs. populism and conspiracy. I'm not loyal, I'll drop the Democrats like a hot potato if the Republicans ever become better than them.

[Spongebob]

@Mister Agenda I think that's a pretty logical approach to voting.

When OLB suggested we ditch the two parties and just vote for a candidate that truly represents us, I regarded this as populism, which it certainly is. But what I failed to acknowledge is the down ballot candidates. Since the Tea Partiers started their movement, there has been a steady wave of officials elected from local on up to federal who to varying degrees support this movement. Trump himself fits this example even though he isn't whole heartedly a TP, he spouts enough of their rhetoric to count, so that's why they support him. So, for anyone who hasn't been paying attention, the GOP has almost completely transformed from the conservative party that it was decades ago, to this new party. It's still called the Republican Party, but it has been infested with the Tea Party virus and no longer looks anything like it did 30 years ago. With that in mind, I suppose I should stop being surprised by how they behave.

[arewethereyet]

I've been following the discussion on a no party concept and on voting and some things came to mind.

I suppose I have always leaned Democrat but have only voted straight party ticket once or twice in my life. It seems to me that the best thing is to vote for the person that best represents you but there's a hitch. To study each and every candidate and make decisions is one heck of a task. When I get to the ones lower on the ballot after voting for the dozen or so people I am familiar with, I am faced with a list of people running for offices that I haven't even heard of. I don't know who Joe Blow is that's running for the 3rd district court or who Jane Doe is that's running for the assistant to the school board director. Then it's flip a coin or pick a party or leave it blank.

I'm not sure how this can be addressed but even if I did spend the time to dig deep into everyone on a ballot the chances of me remembering who I think is best (or least offensive) is not very likely when I get to dog catcher on page 15 of the ballot.