Many of those things aren't incompatible with many Republicans, as their embrace of Trump shows. Being for gun control is, I'll grant you.
The Republicans and Democrats use it though, and use it as a weapon to maintain power. Yes you can, it has it's own issues but the one putting the label of "conservative / liberal" and saying everyone exists on this spectrum and everything politically has to fall somewhere in the line of this spectrum is the two parties. Isreal has three parties, and no it's not perfect there either). The idea that all that matters politically is conservative / liberal values and which way you lean though is kind of a western thing to put new labels on tribalism. Were in that situation through yes failures of our system, but also because of the abuse of power by the republicans and democrats to say well if you lean my direction even if you don't like our guy at least it's not their guy. So the established political parties can basically maintain power because they've dealt with the third option by snuffing them out and the guys they can give you can range from extreme to moderate to whatever just because that's the choice given you by those powers. I think all systems fail at some point, I sure couldn't design some perfect system that works for 300M people, heck I probably couldn't get one to work for 3 people, but the current system of choose a Dem or an R or you're wasting your vote is extremely frustrating because whether your opinion is it's the cause is the parties, or the cause is just the system, the fact is the parties ACTIVELY fight third parties, especially if they're viewed as "moderate" on the conservative/liberal scale. Our political parties should be actively seeking whats best for the people of the country, not just what protects their interests.
Well said. Having seen what Parliamentary systems have done in places like Italy or Israel - I would say no thank you - in both countries I have seen the minority holding power over the majority - because neither of the big parties could form a government without them. Yikes.
By going by what you just said though, their embrace of Trump is basically just they picked one guy because it wasn't the other sides girl. I also want to really apologize now if it sounds like I'm attacking you or anything like that. It's not my intent. I will try to remain respectful.
Is it really any better here where two parties continue to sell us out? To send our kids off on wars for oil, I mean we can go on and on on the failures of our system. Yes there are definitely issues with Isreal (I don't know much about Italy so I can't say), but they're just different issues, I'm not sure if they are "worse" issues or not that's kind of subjective I guess(?).
I would take the US's system over Israel's system every day of the week and twice on Tuesday. You basically have a tiny portion of the population (the ultra-orthodox) which control everything in the country because no-one can create a government without them. In the US we have the super-rich minority that do the same, but at least you can make a reasonable argument that they invest in the economy for themselves which helps many - something you can not say about the situation in Israel and the ultra-orthodox (which by the way, oppose the idea of the state itself). I believe they are now going for the 3rd time to elections since they were not able to create a majority in the last 2 elections within the last year, basically meaning that the government is temporary and acting without any real oversight. Yikes.
You mean like the oversite trump has, one side says hah we got you you're impeached, the other side nope. - Ok, I'm being sort of disingenuous. I wasn't making the argument that Isreal has it right, my argument is for the US though, our two-party system seems to have really broken down the past couple decades (at least). I'm not claiming we have it worse than the rest of the world either. I believe that they have sold us that super-rich people like the idea of big government who will form laws to keep them rich and keep competition at arms length, that military spending has become a money-laundering scheme for Friends and Family of the government (it's not even going to "protect" us!!!!), that while many of them pretend to be really at odds the political elite of the DNC and GOP have enjoyed the dividing and conquering of the US while they get richer and more powerful in the process, and I'm of the opinion that viable third parties could help to break down what we have gotten into. Is it the only answer? I guess not.
Trump certainly has more oversight on him than what is happening in Israel. In over 70 years of the country - they never had a government without the ultra-orthodox party. Never. Always in control. Now viable 3rd party options is a nice idea - I am just saying that a multi-party coalition option is a gateway to minority rule. Maybe the 2-stage option Minstrel mentioned earlier might be of interest, but in theory, the primary selection is a bit like it - even if we end up with 2 nominees, there are very different people campaigning to be these nominees as we see the difference between the Warren/Bernie of the world vs. the moderates in this primary season.
I understand. I think I said this above I don't know if we can come up with a "perfect" solution to any of this that "everyone's happy" in fact my guess is there is almost no chance of that ever happening, but I think for where we are at now in this country right now a viable third party would do good things for us. It could definitely be a gate-way into other problems (and some of those may be more severe), but again we're not going to get a perfect solution. My main issue really comes down to my belief that the two parties we have currently have taken the American people and instead of serving them have used them as step stools to their own power, or fortunes (sometimes both) so from my personal point of view, I have no trust there when it comes to them.
In many cases, I agree. As the tweet someone else posted said, Democrats who vote for Bloomberg are all but saying that they'd have been okay with Trump if he had run as a Democrat. I don't think Bloomberg will actually win the Democratic nomination (as Trump obviously did in the 2016 Republican primaries) but if he somehow did, I think many Democrats would vote for him because "he's not Trump" or "I hate Republicans." Except, he is very Trumpian. Just a more genteel (but certainly not gentile!) version. I didn't take it that way. Feel free to criticize what I say all you like--I'm fine with that. I wouldn't post if I was bothered by someone contesting what I say.
I think maybe something like 3% of republicans may vote Bloomberg but those 3% are never-trumpers anyway. I think it’d be more likely they don’t vote at all though. I think if Sanders is the Dem nominee though, and Bloomers runs independently, a good portion of the Biden/Klobuchar/Pete dem backers could very well vote against Bernie.
Eee gads. “If your conversation during a presidential election is about some guy wearing a dress and whether he, she, or it can go to the locker room with their daughter, that’s not a winning formula for most people. They care about healthcare, they care about education, they care about safety, and all of those kinds of things.” ~Michael Bloomberg https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...erg-black-latino-men-comments-new-controversy
Good questions but dammit, now my mind is on what crandc will serve for the event. You bastard, I'm starving.
This is great... https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/bloomberg-enrages-trump-by-buying-greenland
As one who has said things along those lines - that definitely wasn't what I meant. What I meant is there are people registered Independent who like Republican policies, admire Republican politicians, consistently vote Republican, dislike Democrats, disagree with Democratic policies, etc. Those people have the same beliefs and behavior as partisan Republicans, they just prefer to call themselves Independents. But in every way that actually matters, they are Republicans. [Or reverse the parties, there are plenty of those too] Those are very different than the 'I hate both parties and I wish they'd die' Independents, or the 'I kinda like both parties a little, and dislike them a little too' Independents. barfo
Yes, he does have some qualities (or lack thereof) that Trump has, but there are some big and useful differences: he's not an idiot, he has actually managed a large organization, he probably (I'm guessing) hires qualified people rather than crooks... barfo
Neither Trump nor any Republican I know is for any of those things. I can't say the same for many Dems I know.
And being focused on he is.... https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/19/senate-bloomberg-trump-115324
