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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Not what I am suggesting. If the DNC tries to rig the primary, they may induce a party split which would hand the election to the GOP. Or you end up with the insurgent actually winning and then kicking the DNC. Or the conventional candidate throws a carrot to the insurgent candidate's supporters by kicking the DNC. Manipulating the primary environment only works to a point and will create backlash. I doubt that the DNC will run these risks.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
If the GOP brass are willing to play ball and collude with them on that matter to avoid another Trump scenario, it could work, at the cost of formalizing America as an oligarchy in all but name. That doing so would radicalize the now disenfranchised fringes of the parties (progressives and the various far-right ideologies) would be an unfortunate side effect. Either way, it's already looking like we're at the cusp of either another major realignment of the political parties in America*, or a potential crisis that results in an oligarchy forming.
*: The last of which either happened during the great depression with FDR or during the 1960s when the GOP embraced the Southern Strategy.
edited 28th May '16 12:28:01 PM by CaptainCapsase
Trump has been subtly hinting that he'd start riots if the RNC tried to rig the convention. I doubt that the RNC is willing to risk that, especially since it would cause outraged voters to abandon the GOP.
The party systems are not all powerful. Overplaying their hands can get them into trouble.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
This isn't something that would happen this cycle, it would happen after Trump gets thoroughly trounced the GOP leadership is desperate to remain in control of their party. If the DNC leadership is facing a similar crisis with ideological descendants of Sanders threatening to overtake the party, they might very well opt to band together and "seize" the Republic.*
*: By which I mean using tricks like gerrymandering, electoral fraud, and voter suppression to render any non-major party candidate non-viable while simultaneously making the parties far less open, and far more ideologically restrictive, creating in effect a guided-democratic oligarchy. To a greater extent than it already is that way.
edited 28th May '16 4:21:32 PM by CaptainCapsase
I am not sure the DNC and RNC could get away with a guided-democratic oligarchy, at least without invoking mass protests against both parties. It is obvious that there needs to be some change from the way things currently are even if only to allow the establishment to remain in control. A majority of Republican voters support the ideals of Donald Trump on one end, and a significant minority of Democratic voters support the ideals of Bernie Sanders on the other end. Neither candidate would have gotten as far as they had if there wasn't a decent amount of support behind their respective ideas, and neither side would be happy at their opinions being marginalized by both parties.
That being said, there is a history of the political parties having major realignments... In fact, BOTH the New Deal
AND the Southern Strategy
could be considered major realignments. The environment is ripe for a Seventh Party System to form.
That's the sort of realignment I'm talking about, though it's not necessarily something we should look forwards to; most of the major party changes required a major crisis to occur in order to facilitate them; the Civil War, the Great Depression, the various crises the American system faced in the early days when its legitimacy was not taken for granted, and so on, and I have little doubt that the current power structure will fight this sort of realignment tooth and nail; in fact, it's already doing that; just look at the electoral map for the House of Representatives. It's abundantly clear that the GOP feels threatened, and I'd say this particular electoral cycle shows the same is true of the democrats.
edited 28th May '16 5:14:02 PM by CaptainCapsase
I would say the Great Recession counts as the major crisis here. Even if it was not as bad as the Great Depression, it still approached that level. It was after the Great Recession that conservative movements like the Tea Party showed up and the Republican Party started being completely obstructionist. The radical leftist movement among millennials is a direct result of the sheer obstructionism of conservatives in the Republican Party.
Wizard Needs Food BadlyThe fact that we've had an active primary season isn't a sign of imminent collapse, it's just democracy in action. It's not always pretty, but the fact is that the two candidates that got the most votes are going to get their party nominations. The system is working as intended.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.![]()
That there's been an active primary season is the sign of the collapse (of the current arrangement of political parties in the US), it's the fact that there's an almost universal disapproval of congress, abysmal approval ratings of our government in general, and the fact that these sort of realignments have typically correlated with periods of obstructionism.
I would argue they are one and the same, or at least they are sufficiently interconnected such that a major cultural realignment is something that inevitably results in major political realignment occurring in parallel.
edited 28th May '16 6:26:47 PM by CaptainCapsase
To be fair, I think the realignment has already happened... The Republican Party has already been taken over by the ideals of Trump and the future of the Democratic Party lies in the millennials who are much farther to the left in political views than prior generations were comparatively.
Wizard Needs Food Badly
It may have happened in the Republicans, if Trump goes on to win the presidency, but the democrats quashed their insurgent candidate this cycle. Largely, in my opinion because Sanders failed to manipulate the "propaganda" system of corporate media in the same way Trump did. Which admittedly, might not be possible for a left wing candidate, and certainly would be difficult for someone without Trump's preexisting celebrity.
edited 28th May '16 6:34:07 PM by CaptainCapsase
Eight years from now, the millennials will be eight years older, and ready to vote for the next President who will have to be more to the left than Clinton is. The Democrats also just barely quashed their insurgent candidate this round. Also, Trump doesn't have to win the presidency to redefine the Republican Party... He's done enough by guaranteeing he got the Republican nomination.
edited 28th May '16 6:49:35 PM by GameGuruGG
Wizard Needs Food Badly![]()
Perhaps, but that's eight years from now. It might be inevitable, but by definition we can't say the realignment has already happened when we are talking about an election that far in advance.
I think right now things are still in transition in both parties. The Republicans are further along certainly, but I don't think we can confidently say where they are going to land until the dust has settled from the election.
edited 28th May '16 7:03:40 PM by Falrinn
LOL
He just torpedoed any chance of a socialist platform being viable.
There's no way in hell Democrats are taking any chances with a left-wing demagogue socialist. Any socialist that runs is gonna get stomped into the fucking ground, and rightfully so.
Keep those fucks away from the Party at all costs.
New Survey coming this weekend!![]()
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: Fair enough points, though centrism may be hampered from the stubbornness of the Republican Party to compromise despite how far to the right they are. It's hard to favor the center when one party is so far from the actual center and unwilling to even approach the center.
edited 28th May '16 7:28:18 PM by GameGuruGG
Wizard Needs Food Badly@Fox: I agree completely; the left deserves better than the corporatist-imperialists known as the democrats. (The world in general deserves better than the overtly racist corporatist-imperialists known as the Republicans)
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Or he wasn't running in the right year; if there'd been another economic crash right before primaries, Sanders probably would've won, for example.
edited 28th May '16 7:34:19 PM by CaptainCapsase
The hard left will never get anywhere, but that's because the hard left don't contest elections, they don't belvie in democracy. Sanders doesn't repent the far left, he represents the general left as opposed to the center left.
As for the red scaring about Socalist (even Democratic Socalists like Sanders) being some giant evil that must be kept away from government, meh.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Hard left includes actual democratic socialists (people who want to achieve socialism through democratic means, rather than people interested in adding socialist policies to capitalism for the sake of economic stability) and/or libertarian socialists like Noam Chomsky and his following, and those people are generally quite interested in the democratic process.
edited 28th May '16 7:38:03 PM by CaptainCapsase

edited 28th May '16 12:21:30 PM by CaptainCapsase