OMG Politics, I'm over it already.

[sonik]

ITS

 

[sonik]

TOLL

 

[sonik]

ON

 

[sonik]

ME

 

[Chad]

ahhhhemmmm.....the last decent republican candidate was dwight eisenower

Decent in that he was capable of being president. W is the worst president in my lifetime, Romney would have been a disaster with a republican congress and McCain picked Palin. So Dole wouldn't have been a disaster

 

[sonik]

"As a medical doctor of course I support vaccinations. I have a problem with the FDA being controlled by drug companies." — Dr. Jill Stein

http://www.snopes.com/is-green-party-candidate-jill-stein-anti-vaccine/

 

[Theodore]

Sonik is a communist Bernie Bro under the spell of Putin.

 

[sonik]

 

[Help!I'maRock!]

Stein and Johnson suck just as bad. An anti Vaxer doctor and a libertarian.

But back to the point, taking Nader off the ticket, would you have written in or not voted or W or Gore? It's tough to answer that honestly now that we know the outcome of W's presidency. It would be tough to admit voting for the worst president of our lifetime

But your vote or mine wouldn't have mattered anyways, we didn't live in Florida.

A vote for either Johnson or Stein is really a "None of the Above" vote. Neither will win. One might get 5%, which is worth voting for.

Had Nader not been the third party candidate, I'm sure there would have been another.

 

[Flamencology]

Bad candidates? Sure.

But there are far more bad voters.

 

[jp_nyc]

But there are far more bad voters.

There are, but the election system itself is fundamentally broken. America needs to rethink the way primary elections work so that more people participate. There should be two federal voting holidays, one in early summer and one in fall, to ensure that people can vote. States that choose not to hold their elections on those days they should be ineligible for federal funding of any kind. And in the long run we should explore mandatory voting with a “none of the above” option just to make sure people get involved.

An even bigger problem is media reform. We need to find a way to revive good coverage of local politics. This way people know who they’re sending to the state houses before those people can end up in Congress.

 

[Flamencology]

There are, but the election system itself is fundamentally broken. America needs to rethink the way primary elections work so that more people participate. There should be two federal voting holidays, one in early summer and one in fall, to ensure that people can vote. States that choose not to hold their elections on those days they should be ineligible for federal funding of any kind. And in the long run we should explore mandatory voting with a “none of the above” option just to make sure people get involved.

An even bigger problem is media reform. We need to find a way to revive good coverage of local politics. This way people know who they’re sending to the state houses before those people can end up in Congress.

I think that there needs to be a paradigm shift in how Americans see the constitution. It's an old document and absolutely archaic relative to those of younger (relatively, as in 19th and later) democracies. It's disturbing to me how it's revered as a sacred text delivered from on high, and no one is stopping to ask "are there better ones?"

Voting reform has been something on my mind for a long time. I've been a proponent of the popular vote and for instant-runoff voting for years.

 

[Help!I'maRock!]

I think that there needs to be a paradigm shift in how Americans see the constitution. It's an old document and absolutely archaic relative to those of younger (relatively, as in 19th and later) democracies. It's disturbing to me how it's revered as a sacred text delivered from on high, and no one is stopping to ask "are there better ones?"

Voting reform has been something on my mind for a long time. I've been a proponent of the popular vote and for instant-runoff voting for years.

American Exceptionalism prevents the question from being asked.

 

[Chicken Man]

I think that there needs to be a paradigm shift in how Americans see the constitution. It's an old document and absolutely archaic relative to those of younger (relatively, as in 19th and later) democracies. It's disturbing to me how it's revered as a sacred text delivered from on high, and no one is stopping to ask "are there better ones?"

Voting reform has been something on my mind for a long time. I've been a proponent of the popular vote and for instant-runoff voting for years.

Yeah, I'm not sure how our current system would work for a third-party candidate who could actually win some states. I suppose I could look back at the last time there was a viable third party--maybe all the way back to the dawn of Republicans--but it seems like, with the electoral college, if there are more than two parties, then nobody's getting to 270 electoral votes, and the House decides.

If people want viable third parties, they either have to build them at the state and local level until they can become a major party, or work on changing the constitution. Voting for a third party presidential candidate doesn't really accomplish anything, ever.

 

[Beyer160]

No it wouldn’t. Libertarians are politically irrelevant because most people don’t want to privatize schools and roads and withdraw from America’s role as the only geopolitical superpower. Even Republicans who lean Libertarian like the Pauls get booed and laughed at in GOP primary debates. One general election debate appearance would be all the Libertarians will ever get because when people hear Libertarian positions on national TV the party would go right back to nowheresville in the polls. The only thing that could make Gary Johnson not the laughing stock of a debate would be putting Jill Stein on so she could talk about her anti-vaccination and anti-wifi nonsense.

You're assuming the Libertarian party won't evolve, though. It's been languishing in the political shadows for years as the bong-fueled fantasy of Poli Sci majoring Ayn Rand fanatics because nobody takes it seriously. However, once Trump is finished pounding the GOP's bloody corpse into the ground, there is going to be a political vacuum to fill, one to the right of the center/right Democrats but not as far right as the smoldering remains of the GOP. If real money starts coming in and the party starts to look nationally viable, former GOP strategists and donors will get involved and the Libertarian party will re-align itself as basically the modern GOP without the overt racism and xenophobia, and with bongs. In economic policy, there's actually a good amount of overlap between what the Libertarians say they believe, and what GOP lawmakers actually do anyway.

There's been talk of the need for a new liberal party to counteract the rightward shift of the DNC too, but the Libertarian party is light years ahead of the Greens in organization and viability. Really, if liberals want a new party they're most likely going to have to start one from scratch while conservatives have one almost operational.

As we used to say on the old site, Reading Is Fundamental. It is clear that my high-school level rhetorical obfuscation muddied your reading of my statement, because I meant the opposite of what you're claiming I said.

Again, here's what you said (emphasis mine)-

Liberal-conservative and Democrat-Republican are continuums on two different planes. HRC is a Democrat, because she is registered to vote as a Democrat, has served as a Democrat, and was nominated by the Democratic Party. Is she a liberal? She is the most liberal major party candidate running for president this year. On a global political scale, she's probably a centrist. Is she a progressive? I'd say, given the starting point (present day America), her platform is progressive.

I understand your point that Clinton isn't much of a liberal and you were intentionally setting the bar low, but you still intimated that her political positions are at least tenuously liberal. It's sort of like claiming someone is "a little bit pregnant" then denying it. And we can debate the differences between "liberal" and "progressive," but you also clearly stated that "her platform is progressive." If you didn't intend this meaning in your passage, perhaps a refresher in Diction & Rhetoric is in order.

Posts on the last couple of pages that sneer down at mainstream Dems and the ideological compromises they often make really illustrate an important point...an important rule in general life, really. Fuck the far-left. There is no choice that need be made, no agreement brokered, no compromise offered. There is no room for them in any constructive political movement and they will bring destruction to your party just as capitulating to the far-right has brought misery to the GOP. Undermine them, marginalize them and ignore them like the witless anarchist-communists that they are.

The difference between the far left wing of the DNC and the far right wing of the GOP is that over the last 30 years the far right has managed to sway national politics overall in their direction, and the Democratic party has followed them. Republicans claim to revere Ronald Reagan, but today he would be viewed as a RINO. The Tea Party wing of the republican party is insistent on heading full-bore toward a fascist theocracy, while those on the far left are just trying to move their party back to the starting point.

 

[Beyer160]

If people want viable third parties, they either have to build them at the state and local level until they can become a major party, or work on changing the constitution. Voting for a third party presidential candidate doesn't really accomplish anything, ever.

It is critically important to build third parties locally, and the Libertarian party has been doing this for decades- which is part of the reason Johnson is doing as well as he is. In my area, there are Libertarian candidates on the ballot in nearly all state and local races. As for voting third party nationally, if a candidate receives 5% or more of the popular vote their party qualifies for matching federal funds (estimated around $10 million at the 5% level- nothing compared to Clinton or Trump, but much more than Johnson has raised on his own, and a nice shot in the arm for continued growth of the party).

 

[Honkridge]

Have I missed the "You gotta win to govern" post?

 

[Chicken Man]

I understand your point that Clinton isn't much of a liberal and you were intentionally setting the bar low, but you still intimated that her political positions are at least tenuously liberal. It's sort of like claiming someone is "a little bit pregnant" then denying it. And we can debate the differences between "liberal" and "progressive," but you also clearly stated that "her platform is progressive." If you didn't intend this meaning in your passage, perhaps a refresher in Diction & Rhetoric is in order.

I think you're just trolling, and so I'm done with you.

 

[Flamencology]

Libertarianism's only platform is economics, and libertarian economics are proven bullshit based on inflexible and juvenile fantasy and doctrine.

 

[VoidTerraFirma]

The difference between the far left wing of the DNC and the far right wing of the GOP is that over the last 30 years the far right has managed to sway national politics overall in their direction, and the Democratic party has followed them. Republicans claim to revere Ronald Reagan, but today he would be viewed as a RINO. The Tea Party wing of the republican party is insistent on heading full-bore toward a fascist theocracy, while those on the far left are just trying to move their party back to the starting point.

Yes, of course, the Occupy movement is just a group of rational, patriotic FDR fans. Cool story...