#Two Party System

[septictankie]

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

You know what really stings? I think Democratic politicians genuinely believe their Republican colleagues are good people who have mistaken morals and can be reasoned with. I don't think there's any vitriol from left to right in Congress, but from right to left there's nothing but pure, visceral DISGUST AND HATRED.

Say there are two senators; Democrat Dan and Republican Rob. Dan and Rob have worked together for 30 years, they play golf on weekends, they send each other Christmas cards, they invite each other to family birthdays and weddings and funerals and whatever, they have co-authored a hundred bipartisan bills. Dan considers Rob a close personal friend despite their differences. Rob sees Dan as a pathetic dancing monkey that has been trained to shit itself for Rob's amusement. Rob would slaughter Dan's family in front of him and force feed him the corpses if he thought it would help the Republican party.

How do Democrats respect people who will never respect them back? The Republicans aren't laughing WITH you, they're laughing AT you. You can shift as far to the right as you want, you can offer endless concessions, it doesn't matter, it'll never be enough. Nancy Pelosi once said "America needs a strong Republican party." I wanna say this was around 2018 or 2019, at a time when some pundits thought the Republican party was going to collapse under Trump's weight or split into a dozen warring factions (how times change). She was trying to sound magnanimous. Her point was that it's important to have two parties to check and balance each other, to give the American people the freedom to choose the direction they want the country to go in, BLAH DEE FUCKIN BLAH.

What is this, The West Wing? We're not in high school civics class, Nancy. There's not a single Republican who wants anything less than total domination. Ask a Democrat how many seats they IDEALLY want in Congress, they'll say maybe 250 in the House, 55 in the Senate, comfortable and potentially achievable majorities, but Republicans want it all, 435 and 100. Mitch McConnell would never say he wants there to be a strong Democratic party, I guaran-fucking-tee you that.

[dankmemes23]

[ksjanes]

Once a upon a time, a U.S. president, George Washington wasn't formally affiliated with a political party. Could this ever happen again?

[animentality]

[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.

[minisoc]

oh Hillary, never change. this is her message on earth day.

oh and btw

[dappersappho]

2024 election, a summary

[whydidisavethistomyphone]

Good to see that in the post apocalyptic universe of mad max politics hasn’t changed.

[thoughtlessarse]

Amidst mounting popular opposition to the Trump administration, the Democrats are responding by seeking to prevent any opposition to the corporate-financial oligarchy and its war on the working class. Just over 100 days into the Trump administration, there is mounting anger over the government’s assault on immigrants, its sweeping attacks on workers and social programs and its efforts to establish a right-wing dictatorship in the United States. Trump’s poll numbers are falling sharply, and recent weeks have seen demonstrations involving millions of people in cities throughout the United States. The response of the Democratic Party is to smother this opposition and prevent it from challenging the domination of the corporate-financial oligarchy and the two-party system, through which the ruling class carries out its policies of imperialist war and social reaction. This perspective was clearly articulated by the New York Times, speaking for the Democrats, in its lead editorial published on May 1, under the headline, “Fight Like Our Democracy Depends on It.” While purporting to lay out a strategy for opposing Trump, the editorial is primarily concerned with the dangers posed by a mass anti-Trump movement. It is necessary, the Times writes, to develop a “patriotic response” to the Trump administration. This opposition must be developed “soberly and strategically, not reflexively or performatively.” The editorial cautions against “maximalist” opposition, which might “prioritize emotion over effectiveness.” By a “patriotic” and non-“maximalist” opposition to Trump, the Times means an opposition that is based on support for American imperialism and the profit interests of the gigantic corporations. And behind the concern over “emotion” lies a deep and abiding fear of explosive social opposition, above all, from the working class. Thus the Times calls for a

continue reading

[counterintelligenceprogram]

With Liberty and Justice for All

Cities are Democrat. Democrats are proud of this.

Blacks are Democrat. Democrats are proud of this.

Homosexuals are Democrat. Democrats are proud of this.

Democrat cities fill prisons with black homosexual Democrats and homosexual Democrat guards watch them on the toilet. Democrats are outraged at this and blame Republicans.

Republicans take blame for what they did not do. Republicans are proud of this.

Republicans suggest not giving taxes to cities which give sanctuary to criminals. Democrats are outraged at this.

Democrats blame crime on the poor, and racist government policies.

But the poor and the government employees who make policy are Democrat. Democrats are proud of this.

Democrats suggest fixing the crime problem by stealing more money, and murdering black babies. Republicans are outraged at this.

Democrats are outraged at this Republican outrage and suggest Republicans be arrested for being outraged. Republicans are outraged at this and suggest Democrat employees arrest more Democrats for being outraged.

Everyone is arrested for being outraged. Everyone is outraged. Everyone is arrested. Which spreads the flu. Flu season is hyped as an excuse to put everyone under house arrest. You are all under arrest.

[cazort]

I've seen a small number of people on Tumblr advocating for voting for Jill Stein, the green party candidate, and a lot of them seem to take for granted the idea that she is better than Harris. None of them really make a convincing case for her, they just seem to assume that she is, particularly on the issue of Palestine.

But here's the thing. I don't even think she's a good candidate. Like I consider her borderline unacceptable, whereas I consider Harris to be a genuinely good candidate. It's bad enough that if I were in a state like Maine or Alaska that had ranked choice, I'm not even sure I would rank Jill Stein above Kamala Harris.

Why don't I like Jill Stein?

Inexperience. She has only held one political office, the town meeting (like city council) of Lexington, MA, a city with population under 35,000. This community is an extremely affluent community that leans very far left; in 2020 nearly 81% of the community voted for Biden and under 17% for Trump. Interestingly, in this own community where she served as a local elected official, in her 2016 run she still only got 1.3% of the vote, so she isn't even popular in the one place she has the most experience. She has never held state- or national political office and she has lost every other election she has run in. Her lack of experience is related both to her ability to win (people are unlikely to vote for someone who lacks experience) and her ability to do the job if she were to win. And it's not unrealistic for independents and third-party candidates to get elected to bigger offices. There have always been a few in US congress and it would be more attainable to get into a state congress; a few green party members have done this recently: Shane Robinson served in the MD state house until 2019, Henry Bear and Ralph Chapman in Maine. One, Fred Smith, even got elected in Arkansas as a green party candidate although he later changed back to a Democrat. The point is that there are even people in her party who are more experienced.

Disregard for the consequences of her actions. She threw at least one national election, the 2016 Presidential election, for Trump, and we are still suffering the consequences. Jill Stein's actions contributed to outcomes including the loss of abortion rights, all sorts of horrible environmental consequences, all sorts of negative consequences for immigrants, and a long list of other problems. This scenario is fully preventable; it could be prevented for instance by calling on your followers to only vote for you in states with ranked choice and non-swing states, and then giving a conditional endorsement of the next-best candidate and calling on your supporters to vote for them in swing states that lack ranked choice. She could have made this call and prevented the calamity we lived through, but she didn't. This shows great irresponsibility.

Age. She is already getting very old; she is currently 74 which is only 7 years younger than Biden and 4 years younger than Trump. Age was one of my biggest objections to Biden, was a big factor in me disliking Trump, and is a major reason I think Harris is a big improvement. And Jill Stein is much closer to Trump and Biden in age than Harris. Age is a big concern for me because older people are likely to be or become out-of-touch on many issues and also may experience cognitive decline.

Platform. Jill Stein's platform is objectively worse (and weaker) than the national/global green party's platform. One of my favorite things about the green party is that they tend to take a systems approach to environmentalism, through things like carbon tax which work with the market rather than against it. In countries where the green party has a significant number of seats in the legislature, like Germany where they control 117/733 seats in the Bundestag, they often end up cooperating with pro-business parties like Libertarians and even the center-right party on some issues, and this makes them better able to achieve their goals. But Stein takes a more stereotypically liberal "tax and spend" and regulatory approach making her not much different from the mainstream of the Democratic party in this regard. I.e. she supported the "green new deal" which is supported by many Democrats and to some degree by nearly all Democrats. This approach makes it less likely she would be able to appeal to and/or cooperate with moderates and independents.

Lack of a realistic plan to win. There is a realistic path for an idealistic third-party candidate to win the presidency, and it is through getting ranked choice implemented in more states first, thus removing the spoiler effect. And it particularly through embracing TVR (total vote runoff) over IRV (Instant Runoff Voting, which Alaska and Maine use currently.) Jill Stein hasn't even mentioned TVR, and although she has voiced support for ranked choice, it is not a point that she emphasizes particularly strongly. She is not active in the Fair Vote movement which is the largest movement to implement ranked choice in most states. To me, this sends the message that she's not really in it to win, she's just here to make a statement.

She's not a serious candidate, not a good candidate, and not an acceptable candidate.

I don't say this lightly, but I think that if I wanted to, I could mount a more successful third-party campaign for the presidency than she has. I think I would be a better candidate for president than she is. And I think I could make a more realistic path towards those goals than she has.

And I don't even think I'm particularly good. I know other people who could probably even do a better job than me. This is not saying I or these other people would be good candidates. It's more saying how I just see Jill Stein as being inadequate.

And this is why I think Jill Stein is a really lousy candidate. She is not the idealistic third-party candidate to break us out of the two-party system.

And when you see this, you see that all the people pushing her as "the only good candidate" are really pushing anti-vote propaganda. They are trying to manipulate the left into throwing the election.

This election cycle we have a legitimately good candidate: Harris. She ticks all the boxes. She is younger than Biden. She is more progressive yet while being rooted in reality enough to bring in moderates. She has called for a ceasefire in Palestine, and has been critical enough that she's attracted ire and backlash from the Israeli hardliner and AIPAC-funded crowd. And her track record as Attorney General when you start scrutinize it, is surprisingly and refreshingly good. Go look it up and see for yourself.

[dankmemes23]

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

This is a quite interesting and thoughtful piece that everyone on the left should read.

By Vicky Osterweil

"A divide has quickly emerged between them and people who have not been sucked up in the emotion, activists and radicals who are incredulous at the enthusiasm, trying desperately to remind these Walz-pilled posters that Democrats are currently behind the genocide in Gaza, that Kamala is in fact already in power. The aforementioned enthusiastic supporters are responding with some variation of 'yeah, we know, but stop killing our vibe.'

"The Cassandras, meanwhile, are speaking with hard-won-knowledge and wisdom from decades in the fight, and are trying to stop people from rushing into the same mistake made during Obama's campaign, or indeed Bernie Sanders' (or Corbyn's, or Syriza's, or Podemos' etc. etc.) They're trying to protect these erstwhile friends from throwing themselves behind a campaign that can only ever betray them. But because they're not acknowledging the power of the affect shift, perhaps because they genuinely don't share it, they are left sounding to the memers like they're arguing against feeling good itself."

[intooned]