2018 U.S election

[Takhisis]

Wouldn't it be nice if Independents and Third Parties in the U.S. were actually viable and successful, outside of a few regional flukes and protest votes. Then American politics would actually be interesting and TRULY dynamic and worth following for anything but the collateral damage the idiots who get elected bring down on the rest of the world...

And yet people get scared of a Nader that will just allow Dubya to steal an election.

No. Most third parties in the US are single-issue parties and it is generally a bad idea to elect single-issue parties to govern an entire nation.

Aren't you the one who says that he'll vote for any political party as long as they let you ‘keep your guns’ and to hell with every single other aspect of their platform?

 

[Hrothbern]

40% of the voters want a new political party to vote upon in another country with a first-past-the-post system dominated by two polarising parties.

Almost half of voters say they would vote for new party in election
Neither Tories nor Labour offer a strong leader according to voters, Observer poll finds
About two in five voters would be highly likely to vote for a new party in the political centre ground at a future election, a new poll for the Observer has revealed.
Just over a third (35%) also say they felt unrepresented by the existing main parties on offer, according to the latest Opinium poll.
It suggests there is appetite for a new party, with both Labour and the Tories suffering from long-running internal strife. While there is regular talk of new parties and splits, many possible supporters are put off by the difficulties of making a new project work under Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system.
https://www.theguardian.com/politic...say-they-would-vote-for-new-party-in-election

 

[onejayhawk]

And yet people get scared of a Nader that will just allow Dubya to steal an election.

True that. Gary Johnson came very close to costing Trump the election.

Johnson was once polling almost 10%. On election day he received 3.27%. Even so, he had more than the margin victory in MI, NH, PA, WI, FL, MN, NV, ME, NC, and CO. If you subtract Jill Stein's tally from Johnson's, you still get the first four. It's fair to say that voters abandoning Johnson for Trump swung the election.

J

 

[innonimatu]

He definitely got elected on votes cast just to thwart the most hated woman in the country.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I find it very fascinationg that this doesn't happen in the US, i.e. that there are not replacements for one party or another based on region or state (never mind, say MN).
It happens in other fptp countries like Canada and Australia.
I suppose the issue is that you can primary people in the US and that way grievances and dissatisfactions get channeled even in places where one or the other party is weak to the point of irrelevance.

The US system is not just fptp, it has had a lot of structural regulation added by the two parties to ensure that they are the only two parties. The hoops that a third party candidate has to jump through while their two opponents from the entrenched parties get to just say "here we are again" tip the field almost beyond overcoming. And if a third party starts to look like it might actually be getting somewhere the big two can be counted on for some bipartisan legislation to add some new hoops in the process. In the interest of fairness, of course.

 

[AdrienIer]

Interestingly the 538 lite model, while giving the dems the house and the reps the senate on its forecast is doing the opposite in terms of individual races. It's saying that the dems are favored to win NV AZ and TN while losing ND (hence winning the senate), and are only favored to win 21 house seats (+22, -1 in MN) coming up just short of retaking the majority.

 

[Patine]

I'm not convinced by that argument at all. The reason there is no Wild Rose party taking over the Idaho legislature or some Alternate League For Social Justice is the minority party on some certain city councils (with Ds as majority) can hardly be that the major parties in the US are particularly strong, if for no other reason that they kind of aren't that strong in international comparison.
I renew my suspiscion that primaries as a pressure valve actually kind of... work.

I find this quite unsatisfying and don't mean to endorse this arrangement, in case you feared i could hold such feelings.
And yes i know about many of the shenanigans you mentioned, but from my vantage point the truely curious thing remains why this is not, if you will, fanning the flames of some sort of uprising.
Look at Trump. In Europe that would be a new party; he just stole one. Because it's easy. Way easier than in Australia or Canada, let alone PR countries.
And that's the national level, not some city council, which should be way easier.

You are far too easily satisfied and placated with the pablum continuously fed to you by the Duopoly, it's campaign propaganda engines, and it's rigged electoral system's voter information handouts and education. They like good little sheep like you...

 

[metatron]

You are far too easily satisfied and placated with the pablum continuously fed to you by the Duopoly, it's campaign propaganda engines, and it's rigged electoral system's voter information handouts and education. They like good little sheep like you...

Not only is the bulk of what you said about me untrue.
Not only could you easily know one datum or another about my identity that renders the core thrust of your claim moot.
No, actually, my post explicitly pronounces the opposite of the view you claim i held.

That's a truely amazing level of misunderstanding. And i am somewhat confident i'm not the one to blame for it.

 

[Takhisis]

Look at Trump. In Europe that would be a new party; he just stole one. Because it's easy. Way easier than in Australia or Canada, let alone PR countries.

He didn't steal it. He might have not been in it from the beginning, but he jsut said what the rest of the party/movement had been saying for decades.

 

[Rashiminos]

Incidentally, all US CFCers should be thinking about giving up some time this fall to work for the Democrats. Canvassing is best but phone banking helps, just showing up at events helps. Anything and everything we can do to break the Republican grip on Congress this fall. The future of the country is riding on our shoulders (not us as in CFC posters but us as in all Americans).

Uh no, although I can see where the confidence to make that call comes from.

I don't know if it will be Sanders specifically, .

From the anti-capitalist POV, Sanders has spent too much time bending to the whims of neoliberals after the Hillary nomination. They require someone who is a lot more strident, if not younger.

re you expecting him to start a "hey, I'm Hispanic too" campaign and try to compete for the HIspanic vote that O'Roark is trying to turn out? That seems like a path just fraught with peril in the party of D'ump. And we have to remember the Trumpists are not really firmly on his side to begin with since he is after all "Lyin' Ted," the great satan who tried to stop their hero.

I think Ted might be in a lot more trouble here than you are giving him credit for...and trying to get him out of it will take a mountain of cash.

If that sentiment were particularly strong in Texas, Cruz wouldn't have made it out of primaries. We can assume that Cruz is fine for registered Republicans and other pre-Trump righties.

 

[Patine]

Incidentally, all US CFCers should be thinking about giving up some time this fall to work for the Democrats. Canvassing is best but phone banking helps, just showing up at events helps. Anything and everything we can do to break the Republican grip on Congress this fall. The future of the country is riding on our shoulders (not us as in CFC posters but us as in all Americans).

I believe all Americans who care about their nation, it's future, it's progress, it's dignity, the retention (or regaining) of a constitutional government that is answerable and accountable to it's people, and the end of smug, arrogant, corrupt, complacent, and apathetic politicians who take their constituents, and even whole states', vote for granted because of a party nomination they have secured and for no other merit, would actively work to utterly destroy the vile, corrupt, internally destructive party Duopoly of the Republicans AND Democrats in a massive legislative revolt akin to the Clean Hands electoral event in Italy in the '90's. But who am I kidding - this is dreaming here - most Americans, for all their patriotic, nationalist, "America First" bravado, don't really value their nation and it's advancement THAT much - and the voting record shows it...

 

[Hrothbern]

I believe all Americans who care about their nation, it's future, it's progress, it's dignity, the retention (or regaining) of a constitutional government that is answerable and accountable to it's people, and the end of smug, arrogant, corrupt, complacent, and apathetic politicians who take their constituents, and even whole states', vote for granted because of a party nomination they have secured and for no other merit, would actively work to utterly destroy the vile, corrupt, internally destructive party Duopoly of the Republicans AND Democrats in a massive legislative revolt akin to the Clean Hands electoral event in Italy in the '90's. But who am I kidding - this is dreaming here - most Americans, for all their patriotic, nationalist, "America First" bravado, don't really value their nation and it's advancement THAT much - and the voting record shows it...

yes...duopoly indeed
And that in a country where cartels of the business are illegal

 

[Patine]

yes...duopoly indeed
And that in a country where cartels of the business are illegal

But, despite, being illegal, they exist there too. Ask any American who lives in one of the huge swaths of U.S. territory where Comcast is THE ISP, how much choice of Internet access they have - prior to actually getting online and arranging for a new service provider online (and I think Comcast has ways to sabotage that at times). I've heard many horror stories from a lot of Americans who live in Comcast's monopoly area - even monopolies are illegal, on paper, in the U.S. And let's not forget the LONG-STANDING (and for most casual computer users, still extant) MacOS-Windows Duopoly. And many towns and small cities in the U.S., from what I've read and heard, suffer a Walmart monopoly on all retail. WHERE ARE THE TRUSTBUSTER!?

 

[Rashiminos]

I believe all Americans who care about their nation, it's future, it's progress, it's dignity, the retention (or regaining) of a constitutional government that is answerable and accountable to it's people, and the end of smug, arrogant, corrupt, complacent, and apathetic politicians who take their constituents, and even whole states', vote for granted because of a party nomination they have secured and for no other merit, would actively work to utterly destroy the vile, corrupt, internally destructive party Duopoly of the Republicans AND Democrats in a massive legislative revolt akin to the Clean Hands electoral event in Italy in the '90's. But who am I kidding - this is dreaming here - most Americans, for all their patriotic, nationalist, "America First" bravado, don't really value their nation and it's advancement THAT much - and the voting record shows it...

Americans have divergent conceptions of the future and are tribalizing accordingly. Those in search of common ground find that their first task is preventing that ground from becoming no man's land. It would appear that the chosen method for breaking the 'duopoly' is putting them at each other's throats.

 

[Hrothbern]

But, despite, being illegal, they exist there too. Ask any American who lives in one of the huge swaths of U.S. territory where Comcast is THE ISP, how much choice of Internet access they have - prior to actually getting online and arranging for a new service provider online (and I think Comcast has ways to sabotage that at times). I've heard many horror stories from a lot of Americans who live in Comcast's monopoly area - even monopolies are illegal, on paper, in the U.S. And let's not forget the LONG-STANDING (and for most casual computer users, still extant) MacOS-Windows Duopoly. And many towns and small cities in the U.S., from what I've read and heard, suffer a Walmart monopoly on all retail. WHERE ARE THE TRUSTBUSTER!?

Is that not a general issue ?
If you do not enforce laws, all laws, and nothing but the laws
the protection of the state to her citizens is at stake

 

[Zkribbler]

WHERE ARE THE TRUSTBUSTER!?

Under the control of the federal government, which is under the control of corporate lobbyists.
There once was NY AG Eliot Spitzer who kicked butt, but he's been disgraced and deposed.

 

[Takhisis]

in a massive legislative revolt akin to the Clean Hands electoral event in Italy in the '90's

Mani Pulite did end the traditional duopoly of corrupt self-serving parties and replaced them with a personalistic populistic regime led by a senescent media mogul with a history of sexual abuse and racist politics galore.

 

[onejayhawk]

But, despite, being illegal, they exist there too. Ask any American who lives in one of the huge swaths of U.S. territory where Comcast is THE ISP, how much choice of Internet access they have - prior to actually getting online and arranging for a new service provider online (and I think Comcast has ways to sabotage that at times). I've heard many horror stories from a lot of Americans who live in Comcast's monopoly area - even monopolies are illegal, on paper, in the U.S. And let's not forget the LONG-STANDING (and for most casual computer users, still extant) MacOS-Windows Duopoly. And many towns and small cities in the U.S., from what I've read and heard, suffer a Walmart monopoly on all retail. WHERE ARE THE TRUSTBUSTER!?

Having lived in one of those small cities, Walmart is not something you suffer. It's a major improvement. It is also not a monopoly. Small stores learned what Walmart would stock and offered other things, which improved the selection available.

J

 

[rah]

Yeah, I've heard a lot of people in rural central Illinois express that exact same claim.

 

[Zkribbler]

In Georgia, voting while black is a prohibited political act.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/black-voters-matter-bus-georgia_us_5bc76a27e4b055bc947ce32b