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The Illusion of the Blue Wave: A Critical Examination of Democratic Electoral Cycles
Over the last decade, the terms “blue wave” and “blue storm” have become synonymous with the hopeful anticipation of electoral change driven by the Democratic Party. Each election cycle brings renewed optimism for a shift away from conservative governance, yet the concrete outcomes often fail to materialize. This essay delves into the recurrent theme of blue waves, illustrating how expectations…
Hey, U.S.! Maybe you should CHANGE your election system! (Everybody’s doing it...)
*India and Greece (and others) have a “none of the above” option on ballots, which allow voters to indicate disapproval without sitting out the election. (Nevada does this, too!)
*Australia and Ireland allow voters to rank their choices. In the U.S., this would allow people to vote for a third-party candidate, knowing that their second choice might get the vote in later counts. (So fellow issuecrats could vote for Jill Stein as their first choice, with Hillary as backup--and NOT sacrifice their Green Party preference at the risk of detracting votes from Hillary and boosting Trump’s chances.)
*Uruguay and Australia (and others) have MANDATORY voting, where eligible voters can be penalized if they don’t cast their ballot. (Before you roll your eyes, kindly remember that in the U.S. we are PENALIZED for many things of lesser importance, such as paying traffic fines and taxes!)
*Brazil and Greece (and others) hold elections on WEEKENDS so that it’s more convenient for voters. (I guess these countries actually WANT their citizens to be able to vote, go figure!)
*Canada (and 13 states in the Union) allow ELECTION-DAY VOTER REGISTRATION. We need to make this a FEDERAL initiative so that all 50 states do this!
*France and Switzerland (and Oregon) have automatic voter registration for eligible citizens. THIS is the antidote for ALL of the U.S.’ registration woes.
*Canada and Japan both have significantly shorter campaign seasons. Canada’s longest campaign season was 11 weeks; Japan’s typically last for 12 days. In the U.S., we’re forced to endure the negativity and pettiness for 600 DAYS.
Time for the U. S. of A to give in to a little peer pressure!!
(Time Magazine sourced for some info.)
Marco Rubio is an ideologically flexible quite enough-opportunistic rather plain surface type of politician and with his role staging.
So: It’s not his election year, this year it’s the political roles who been co-constructed with the establishment (Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, etc.) versus the guys from outside the formal political system (Bernard Sanders, Donald Trump).
But his flexibility and his at least superficial telegenic equipment could make him a promising candidate for another election cycle. When counterbalancing and structural re-adjustment (by the converging of different anti-establishment waves) is temporarily done.
New Post has been published on Giter Done News
A noo artikle has dunben rote ahn WWW.GITERDONENEWS.COM CALT
GOP Senate Incumbents Complete Primary Season Sweep
Back n' March, Mitch Mckunnell made a brash predicshun about hoe Senate Republicun incumbants would fare agin Tea Partee insurgants n' t'upcomyun' primree seesen. “I reckon we air goin ta crush 'um everwhar,” t'mineritee leed'r tole t'New York Times. “I don’t reckon thay air goin ta have a san...
More congressional Republicans break tax pledge for sake of looming fiscal crisis
http://dlvr.it/2XfcBx
Election fatigue: Are we done yet?
Everybody raise your hand if you can remember the last time politics wasn't front and center, outside of a natural disaster?
If you can, was it for a period of time longer than six months?
Think about it. I'll wait.
Yesterday, I discussed my love of the constitution, from a liberal point of view.
At some point, I predict that I will thoroughly deconstruct the erasure of the anti-establishment clause from modern politics, discuss the corporate hegemony and layout some basic economics. Today, I'm just tired.
I mean, REALLY tired. I have election fatigue.
From 2004 onward, (and I'm not even talking about the debacle of the 2000 election,) we've been in what feels like an ever-narrowing spiral of ALL POLITICS, ALL THE TIME.
Look, I have absolutely no doubt that there are men and women on the right who are just as disgusted by the extremist takeover of the republican party as I am.
I also have no doubt that there are an awful lot of us on the left who are disgusted by the fact that both parties have turned into a kind of Political Burlesque, Vaudeville, Reality TV entities who we just can't get away from.
Hey, 24-hour news cycles, thanks for that. /sarcasm.
We never get to take a breath away from political wrangling. It used to be that we had at least the illusion of government being something that was different from politics.
Not anymore.
I'm exhausted. Nobody has ideas anymore, they have talking points and buzzwords. Everybody has a party line and nobody engages in dealing with flaws or strengths, they just attack each other and deflect the question.
How is that helping?
There are real problems in the world. I mean: REAL, BIG HONKING PROBLEMS faced by real people. All anybody in Washington cares about is campaign donations and beating the other guy/girl. Aren't they supposed to serve the people?
Yeah, that's gone.
We need to be able to take a breath and look at the world around us without it being about politics.
There's been genocide for over 5 years in the Sudan. There's war in the Congo. Peace in the Middle East is more of a pipe dream than ever, and North Korea keeps thumping its shoe on the podium.
There's famine and drought and tsunamis and earthquakes and fires and riots and we are all still wrapped up in the politicizing of events that shouldn't be political.
This is what we've become, and I'm not sure we know how to stop.
In a rational, just world, election cycles would be limited to 1 year ahead for the Presidential election and 6 months for the House and Senate. In a perfect world, House races wouldn't happen every two years. How can someone be expected to do a job they're fighting to keep from the day they take office?
And we wonder why nothing actually gets done.
It's a feedback loop of anxiety and rage and partisanship and when do we get to the business of government?
I blame the money factor, too. The amount of money in the election process these days, would solve an awful lot of real world problems. Unfortunately, as our self-concept and identity becomes ever-more welded to our political identities: people would rather give money to politicians they're convinced will make things better in the future, than actually DO something about problems where people are dying today.
Raise your hands: How many of you are exhausted by the political process?
How many of you think that both parties are failing at representing their constituents?
How many of you are going to be so burned out by 2012 that you won't care anymore who wins, as long as you don't have to hear about the damn election for a while?
How many of you know that the day after election day, the cable news channel pundits will be talking about 2016?
I once drove to Boston from Pittsburgh. It took 13 hours (rush hour traffic on the Mass Pike on a Friday. . . yeah.) It takes roughly 6 hours to drive across Pennsylvania. What I remember, though, is Connecticut. Connecticut was the state that WOULD NOT END. I'd look at the map, and wonder, "HOW AM I STILL IN CONNECTICUT?"
Election cycles are like that, in the 21st century. There's never an endpoint, where we can say, "All right, now they'll get down to work and we can get a break."
The point of elections is to decide who represents we the people, regardless of party. If they never stop running long enough to do the job, are ANY OF THEM representing us?
People talk about term limits for the House and Senate, and I've come to agree with that. Anyone who's more concerned with keeping their job than doing their job, isn't going to do the job.
So we don't have a government, so much as 536 people who are trying to look like they're doing the job and sucking up to the people who'll give them the money to try to keep it.
Raise your hand if you just want the politics to go away and people to be committed to serving their constituents.
Now, raise your hand if you think there's a chance in hell of that happening anytime soon.
That's what I thought.
(NB: Constituents for the purposes of all of my political writings do not equal partisan adherents, but the people in an elected official's district/state/country. An elected official is supposed to actually represent the people who live within those areas, end of story. I get really ticked off when people assume constituents means the people who voted for someone or contributed to a campaign, or espouse the same point of view. Noooo. Elected officials are charged with representing the PEOPLE.)
