#two-party system

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Right’s Hardliners Would Rather Lose Elections Than Culture Wars

And the finance wing knows it.

During the Obama years, some of the Republican Party’s leading finance wing bosses started playing with fire. The Koch Brothers poured a fortune into the creation of the Tea Party, a hardline group that made it clear that the would rather lose elections than lose the culture war. They primaried career GOP politicians and replaced them with swivel-eyed loons (and normie politicians who were willing to vote like swivel-eyed loons).

These hardliners changed the conservative coalition’s balance of power. By making it clear that they would rather see Democrats in office than Republicans who reneged on their culture war promises, they put the fear of (an evangelical) God into their leaders.The Tea Party marked a turning point for the US conservative movement and then conservative movements around the world.

Hardline conservative policies — total abortion bans, groomer panics, institutionalized racism, historical revisionism, support for white nationalist — are not popular.

Ideas like universal medical care, expanded transit, humane immigration policies and infrastructure spending enjoy commanding majority support among both Republicans and Democrats.But the hardliners threw the steering-wheel out the window. They’ve made it clear to GOP party bosses that they would rather lose elections than lose the culture war.

- The Right's Hardliners Would Rather Lose Elections Than Culture Wars: and the finance wing knows it

[fashionlandscapeblog]

Here's a little story and my 2 cents:

Honduras (where I'm from) experienced in 2009 a U.S. backed coup d'état, which led the country to live a lot of what the United States is currently undergoing, namely the extreme polarization of society, the fear of the rampant threat of a scapegoat (in HN it was communists who would allegedly take away your children, belongings, etc) or foreign forces (in HN's case it was Chavez, in the case of the Ú.S. it's illegal immigrants), and the outrageous lies from all mainstream media to justify the illegal regime's repressive actions against the population. Zelaya's wife is the current president of Honduras and none of that is happening, because neither of them is a socialist (not that socialists take away your belongings or children lol), but social democrats. I will never ever forget when Manuel Zelaya (the democratically elected president ousted by the putsch) clandestinely returned to the country after being ousted, specifically when Hillary Clinton qualified this action as 'reckless' and instead of supporting his return, she pushed for new elections.

On the other hand, a huge part of the population (the resistance) realized all of this and started to educate themselves and others politically. They took action through activism, protests (which received violent crackdown resulting in the death of peaceful unarmed protesters by the military), art, culture, etc.

People realized we had a two-party system problem, where the very same elites that backed the coup controlled both and whoever was in power (like Animal Farm's pigs vs the humans). The part of the population that was aware of all of this worked incessantly for 12 years to break the two-party system. They succeded, but for that the country paid a high price: 3 far-right extremely corrupt narco governments that managed to entirely plunder an already extremely poor country. Only then, the majority woke up. It seems a recurrent fact in history that the the worst has first to happen for change to occur, which is extremely sad.

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

'Democrats now doing DeSantis stuff'

[redwolfben]

If enough of us stop supporting the two main parties, voting for them, donating to them, volunteering for them, etc and turn that energy instead to the alternatives, the two main parties won't be able to survive!

[aunti-christ-ine]

[liskantope]

One of the satisfying things for me about studying America’s presidential elections, and one of the things I find aesthetically appealing about the American election system, is the consistency of how they are scheduled and run. It’s actually really remarkable that we’ve done 59 presidential elections since the debut of our constitution in 1788, elections that have always taken place like clockwork in November of each divisible-by-4 year. I doubt there’s another country which has a similarly long record of electing (whether by popular votes or some other mode of determination) their top statesmen in such a consistent way and with a timeline so neatly broken up into regular terms. Most of our presidents’ times in office can be measured by whole numbers of 4-year terms, the exceptions coming only from deaths in office and one resignation, with the rest of the 4-year term being taken over by someone else. There’s also something nice about the simplicity of our party system, although when I switch from abstract geekery to thinking in terms of social concern I loathe our two-party tribalism.

I’ve tried to learn and understand more about the history of British politics and elections, and it’s a mess of prime ministers attaining their positions in ways that are murkier for me to grok (sometimes elected, and sometimes chosen by the reigning monarch?) and have clearly evolved over the decades, and who leave office mainly by resigning due to “not being able to form a government” (the quotes are to indicate that I don’t fully understand how that comes about or exactly what that situation consists of). British prime minister enter and leave office in all different types of years and seemingly all times of year, and many of the best-known prime ministers (e.g. Winston Churchill) had multiple disconnected periods in office, as opposed to our one president (Grover Cleveland) who simply ran in three consecutive elections and got into power for the first and third but not the second of those corresponding 4-year terms.

(Please feel to enlighten or correct me on what I got wrong with the British political system, which I am very hazy on. I’m even hazier on the mess of a system that Italy has, despite living for years in Italy and having Italians repeatedly explain it to me.)

[joematar]

‪two-party system has been the same lie since the 1830s‬

[like-the-brightest-star]

Just your daily reminder that the two-party system blows:

Here in Ohio, we’re voting for our state auditor today. Now, we have 3 choices here:

1. A current state representative who is a law school grad with 8 years of state senate experience under his belt. As far as I can tell, no experience in finances or auditing.

2. Another law school grad with 5 years of congressional experience under his belt. Hasn’t been anywhere near politics for the past 7 years. Again, no easily visible experience in finances/auditing.

3. A 32-year accounting and auditing veteran who also worked as an adjunct professor after getting his masters(in finance). In addition to being totally qualified, also seems like a nice guy: does a lot of community services, tutoring, and coaching in his spare time.

Seems like a total wash, right? Candidate 3 seems astronomically more qualified than Candidates 1 & 2. Here’s the problem though: Candidates 1 & 2 are Republican and Democrat respectively. “Who cares? Candidate 3 still seems infinitely more qualified than either of them: he’s definitely going to win right?” Yeah... none of our local news groups are even talking about Candidate 3- or his credentials- because he’s 3rd party.

All of this isn’t even touching on all the discussions we could have about qualified candidates of any party being ignored because of their party affiliation: plenty of moderate candidates- with excellent credentials- that aren’t going to win because they aren’t “hard-line” enough to get their party’s support.