EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 3564
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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets. Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source. If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread | ||
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Mohdoo
United States15743 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States24055 Posts
On March 26 2022 18:55 gobbledydook wrote: How do you make sure that the majority who currently oppose your revolution come to accept it? I can see that either you do what Stalin did, which is crush them with your state power, or you have to go back to electoral politics to obtain legitimacy. Do you mean elections (something communists support) or "electoral politics" which is a reference to the US's bourgeois "democracy"? | ||
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Nick_54
United States2230 Posts
On March 25 2022 12:01 lestye wrote: The lesser of evil is still evil….but at least one party isnt run by a cargo cult trying to subvert democracy. I think he answer is to primary the fuck out of democrats you dont like. I don’t think a politician failing to deliver because we’re under the weight of the filibuster is the same thing as a party run by a bunch of zealot homophobes who don’t believe in science or climate change. Yeah the filibuster has nothing to do with the broken student loan forgiveness promise. Not racing to the polls to support that. If its a close vote or if they lose maybe it will push the dems further left or help some better candidates rise up. | ||
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NewSunshine
United States5938 Posts
On March 27 2022 09:05 Nick_54 wrote: Yeah the filibuster has nothing to do with the broken student loan forgiveness promise. Not racing to the polls to support that. If its a close vote or if they lose maybe it will push the dems further left or help some better candidates rise up. That's what we were hoping when COVID exposed a lot of the cracks in our right-wing capitalist framework, and we had the chance to hold a primary as a referendum on not just Trump, but what we expect from new Democratic leadership, in this batshit new time we find ourselves living in. Still got Joe Biden, and he's still being painted as some hard-left socialist despite literally nothing about him being hard-left. Hope springs eternal, but I'm not holding my breath. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Slydie
1957 Posts
On March 27 2022 10:11 JimmiC wrote: He likely means elections that allow multiple parties and ideologies. Single party elections are not democracy. 2-party elections have profound democratic problems as well. Many very important decisions are made within a political party, but if there will only ever be 2 of them, the voters can't flee to a similar one if they screw up. Even single-issue voters can have serveral parties competing for them. In most of the west, parties rise and fall all the time, and in France and Italy, ruling parties were recently made from scratch (2009 and 2016). Good luck ever achieving that in the US! | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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gobbledydook
Australia2605 Posts
1. Coalition governments are more susceptible to falling apart because there are more parties involved. Deadlock becomes more likely, see Belgium for a good example. 2. When coalition parties form governments, they need to compromise on their policies. This means that voters might not get what they voted for even if their preferred party wins the election. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Gorsameth
Netherlands22440 Posts
On March 28 2022 10:55 gobbledydook wrote: As opposed to the deadlock that US congress has been in since like 2010? (Obama's first midterm election where Republicans took control and decided to not do anything) Both under Trump and now Biden the governing party had full control of all 3 branches but managed to get nothing done because the parties do not agree internally. There are also disadvantages to a proportional system. You end up with a bunch of parties each without a majority, so you need to make deals to form government. This has the following implications: 1. Coalition governments are more susceptible to falling apart because there are more parties involved. Deadlock becomes more likely, see Belgium for a good example. 2. When coalition parties form governments, they need to compromise on their policies. This means that voters might not get what they voted for even if their preferred party wins the election. Also the notion that a government falls apart and new elections happen when they are unable to govern is a feature, not a bug. I'd rather have a new election and try again then just keep a deadlock where nothing happens until the next scheduled election. Make no mistake, Republicans and Democrats are also a coalition, they are just rigid rather then fluid. Are progressives that voted for progressive policies from progressive candidates getting what they voted for now that Democrats won? No because the conservatives in the coalition stop it. And unlike a proportional system where the progressives, if they make up a large voting share, can negotiate with other parties to form a government that will agree to at least some of their proposals in exchange for some of the other side and get something done, you now simply have Manchin saying no to everything and progressives being entirely powerless. | ||
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Simberto
Germany11905 Posts
The democrats might split into: Progressives and greens (maybe those are two parties) Neoliberals Soft-conservatives While the republicans might split into Libertarians Sane conservatives Crazy religious party Fascist white nationalists There are a bunch of possible coalitions here, you might even have a situation where parties just form coalitions for specific issues. And we would actually see how voters distribute between those groups, instead of just grouping people together. We could see how many people really vote progressive. The republicans who are scared of leftists could vote for a sane conservative party instead of having to vote for a party that is partly filled with fascist white nationalists. | ||
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Laurens
Belgium4557 Posts
The problem with proportional system is doubled in Belgium because we essentially consist of 2 regions (Flanders and Wallonia) and each region has its own political parties. So Flanders has a green party, a socialist party, a libertarian party, ... Wallonia has its own green/socialist/libertarian party, etc. Makes forming a government twice as hard. Especially since the regions vote differently, for example in Wallonia the socialist party is the biggest party while in Flanders the socialist party was only the 5th biggest party. On the other hand, the two most popular parties in Flanders were the one that wants to make Flanders independent and the extreme right party, the former has no Walloon equivalent and the latter's Walloon equivalent got no seats. You can imagine it's a bit of a nightmare to form a coalition government with this situation. The top 2 Flemish parties gathered 27% of the vote together, but they have 0 support in Wallonia, so no Walloon parties want to form a coalition with them. The 3rd biggest Flemish party has only 8% of the vote. The biggest Walloon party 9%. The result is a coalition of 7 (!) different parties who have very different POVs on every single topic. Lots of quarrelling and nothing gets done... I don't think it would ever get this bad in the USA (or anywhere else really), because presumably there would be just one socialist party, one green party, etc. So yeah I'd argue Belgium is not 'a good example' for this reason, we are a pretty unique case. Look at The Netherlands or Germany instead. | ||
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Slydie
1957 Posts
Maybe there would have been enough voters to form a party from Bernie and leftwards too, in Norway, there are 2 of them, and neither of them joined recent the centre/left government. The same recently happened to the right. | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands22440 Posts
On March 28 2022 20:53 Slydie wrote: The country would still be polarized no doubt, same as plenty (if not all) proportional representation countries have degrees of polarization. But I genuinely think it would be less. I think it is very hard to tell how more parties would have worked out in the US, the country would still be polarized, and getting things done would still be difficult, but it would still solve democratic problems and keep the parties more honest. Maybe there would have been enough voters to form a party from Bernie and leftwards too, in Norway, there are 2 of them, and neither of them joined recent the centre/left government. The same recently happened to the right. Your generic conservative Republican wouldn't feel compelled to defend his part of psycho nutcases based on them being 'his party' be simple process of not being a Democrat. Nor would 'the left' throw everyone on 'the right' into the same pile of Qanon dictator loving fascists. | ||
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Simberto
Germany11905 Posts
This leads to less partisanship and fewer mudslinging. Because to get elected, parties actually need to look good themselves. And if two people sling mud at each other, they both look dirty, and the other parties who didn't get involved win. | ||
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r00ty
Germany1078 Posts
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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plated.rawr
Norway1676 Posts
Less about "im gonna do this, and fuck that guy", and more "how're we gonna help each other to do this while fucking that guy?". | ||
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Zambrah
United States7393 Posts
On March 28 2022 22:03 plated.rawr wrote: I wouldnt be surprised if the two-party system of the US is a main factor in why the country is split, and any attempts at unifying the country, or at least make it less directly polarized, would have to start with reworking the federal political framework. Without fptp and with smaller, more ideologically diverse parties, the political discourse would be forced to be more about seeking cooperation from close-but-different parties, something that could seep into everyday interpersonal psychology as well. Less about "im gonna do this, and fuck that guy", and more "how're we gonna help each other to do this while fucking that guy?". Its a very big part, it incentivizes all of the dirtiest aspects of American politics, tribalism, mudslinging, entrenching corruption from moneyed interests, its a huge problem and given America's raging hardon for it's founding fathers youd imagine theyd be more willing to get up in arms about not having only two real political parties. | ||
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LegalLord
United States13779 Posts
On March 28 2022 22:03 plated.rawr wrote: I wouldnt be surprised if the two-party system of the US is a main factor in why the country is split, and any attempts at unifying the country, or at least make it less directly polarized, would have to start with reworking the federal political framework. Without fptp and with smaller, more ideologically diverse parties, the political discourse would be forced to be more about seeking cooperation from close-but-different parties, something that could seep into everyday interpersonal psychology as well. Less about "im gonna do this, and fuck that guy", and more "how're we gonna help each other to do this while fucking that guy?". No, the split definitely has a lot more to do with economic anxiety that is hard to properly direct. In countries with proportional representation the parties will largely just try to form a consensus against the people, making sure to hitch together as many incompatible "mainstream" parties against any sufficiently dangerous populist and other fringe views - often at the cost of losing governmental cohesion. This happens a lot in Europe these days; the US just does the "coalition building" by choking out the non-mainstream elements during the primaries (successfully with Sanders, but Trump slipped through all the anti-populist defenses somehow). If the government system were different, the underlying reasons for the split would remain. Things worked a lot more smoothly, say, 50 years ago in the US, and the system of government was the same. | ||
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