Poll of the Day > This whole two-party / "primary" system is killing us.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Think about it. As long as there are political "parties" in general, these primaries are going to keep funneling candidates down to the most extremist options possible on each respective side (the so-called "champion" of said party's beliefs), because voters HATE compromise.

Meanwhile, because voters hate compromise, the "moderates" (the ones who try to objectively see the valid points from both sides, and would actually be great for uniting the country as-a-whole) don't even have a toddler shit's chance of winning anything..., ever. Even if they'd be fantastic candidates in a general election, they get OBLITERATED in their own primaries, because they're seen as half-hearted to their precious party. This political system fuckin sucks!

TL;DR - Primaries / parties make it where you HAVE to go all-in with your party's rhetoric, or you lose. End of story. The only way a fair or "open-minded" candidate will ever have a shot is if the party system goes away entirely (which will never happen.) Sooner or later, we're going to get so divided that we're fucked (another civil war, assassination, etc.).

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It's just an interview process. Yes they love the company and are a go getter ninja and are totally not going to just show up to work and maintain the status quo like every job ever.

if bernie wins the nominee then it will be trump vs commun/socialist, not trump vs democrat
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Ninja politicians....that would rock. Your new president is the last one standing!!!

6 Ninja enter, one ninja leaves.

Election 2020......from the shadows of death......This time it really will be a blood bath.


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Krazy_Kirby posted...

if bernie wins the nominee then it will be trump vs commun/socialist, not trump vs democrat

Fun fact. Bernie was in my hometown this evening (speaking at church less than 10 minutes from my house). He drew a decent crowd (mostly African Americans, given the church / community demographic there). But, I live in NC, so it's hard to tell where loyalty lies in these parts.

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wolfy42 posted...

Ninja politicians....that would rock. Your new president is the last one standing!!!

6 Ninja enter, one ninja leaves.

Election 2020......from the shadows of death......This time it really will be a blood bath.

If nothing else, it'd make for much more exciting media coverage than the decades-old "red vs. blue" maps.

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shipwreckers posted...

If nothing else, it'd make for much more exciting media coverage than the decades-old "red vs. blue" maps.

Just imagine the senate voting for stuff lol.....we need 75% to pass this bill (suddenly 30 senate members don't show up/go missing), woot passed easy!!

Best president evar!!!

Always voting by ninja in the future.

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lmao imagine thinking moderates actually care about compromise

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I'm a moderate and I care, and in fact tried really hard for years to promote it in people from both parties, tons of Americans wants compromise and to stop having both parties sabotage each other (and our country as a whole in the process). It's so freaking depressing at this point and we all feel so powerless that I'm sure many have completely given up and even stopped voting, and I can't blame em.

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if there are two parties then I demand some cake

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Hot take: The two party system is the symptom, not the cause

We got a two-party system for a few reasons, but by far the biggest is the godawful First Past the Post voting system.

Now, the two-party system is so entrenched that merely changing the voting system won't auto-correct it, largely due to the complete lack of campaign finance laws to prevent the pooling of massive amounts of funds by each party from extremely wealthy donors, the fact that the presidential debates are run by Dems and Reps instead of a government or non-political entity, the electoral college, etc...

But it's the single biggest root cause and nothing will improve until it's changed. Even just going to ranked stack voting would at least make it easier for moderates to win primaries. (I'd go w/ a system where people can just vote for as many candidates as they want, and whoever gets the most votes wins; then the ones that have a platform at least tolerable to the broadest group of voters will pull ahead)

Krazy_Kirby posted...

if bernie wins the nominee then it will be trump vs commun/socialist, not trump vs democrat

Republicans are so far to the right in this country that they think anyone to the left of the center-right Democratic party is a communist.

CaptainStrong posted...

Republicans are so far to the right that they think anyone to the left of the center-right Democratic Party is a communist.

It's not just Democrats who are unfairly stereotyped. Republicans are often blanketed as Bible-thumping, oligarchical racists. That's kinda the entire point of this topic. Many, MANY people (on BOTH sides) are actually closer to center, but no centric leadership will ever have a chance of actually getting in office. Our broken system inherently funnels candidates downs to polar extremes (by its very design).

That sucks for any fair, open-minded people who want to see the country united.

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shipwreckers posted...

Think about it. As long as there are political "parties" in general, these primaries are going to keep funneling candidates down to the most extremist options possible on each respective side (the so-called "champion" of said party's beliefs), because voters HATE compromise.

Meanwhile, because voters hate compromise, the "moderates" (the ones who try to objectively see the valid points from both sides, and would actually be great for uniting the country as-a-whole) don't even have a toddler shit's chance of winning anything..., ever. Even if they'd be fantastic candidates in a general election, they get OBLITERATED in their own primaries, because they're seen as half-hearted to their precious party. This political system fuckin sucks!

TL;DR - Primaries / parties make it where you HAVE to go all-in with your party's rhetoric, or you lose. End of story. The only way a fair or "open-minded" candidate will ever have a shot is if the party system goes away entirely (which will never happen.) Sooner or later, we're going to get so divided that we're fucked (another civil war, assassination, etc.).

so what you are saying is that if voters were more open-minded, moderate candidates would be successful?

Don't forget the biggest issue of all, which is demagoguery.

CaptainStrong posted...

Republicans are so far to the right that they think anyone to the left of the center-right Democratic Party is a communist.

bernie saying castro did good things after "taking office" is praising communism
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Fam_Fam posted...

so what you are saying is that if voters were more open-minded, moderate candidates would be successful?

That wouldn't really help though, because the system itself is rigged to funnel down to extremes (since, the "open-minded" candidates would be bringing views into their own party that goes against party rhetoric, which is political suicide in a primary). The companies that fund the bulk of campaign media and ads trash moderates by design (since, for example, a Republican that supports abortion rights is an easy target for Republican mudslinging). Even in the democratic primaries right now, anyone who even dares go against the grain with even semi-moderate arguments will be obliterated in democratic ads and debates.

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streamofthesky posted...

by far the biggest is the godawful First Past the Post voting system.

I agree completely. FPtP is an archaic system that really only exists due to the technical limitations of the time (it kept things simple). The same can be said of the electoral college (no matter what philosophical "voice of the rural man" argument people give).

Could you imagine having to HAND COUNT all of the votes from a state back in the 1800s, and get a full, national popular vote without any risk of tampering??? The electoral college and FPtP were instituted BY NECESSITY. That's not the case anymore here and now.

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Another reason that the Electoral College won't be going away anytime soon is that when there IS a problem (e.g. the Florida Recount in 2000), the problem is isolated to one state. If you dump ALL VOTES in the country into a national popular-vote pool, voting issues (like voter fraud, which is handled differently from state-to-state) would be much more difficult to track.

Also, it would take much, MUCH longer to actually call an election, since you'd have to actually wait until every single ballot is counted (including absentee ballots). Heck, in the 2016 election, they were still finding more Hillary votes in CA almost a full month after the election had been called.

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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WS2Bsq5PDmU
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Why do all electoral votes in one state go to one side? Unless it is a 50/50 split
Shouldnt the area they represent go to who was voted for?

So lets say a state like Texas, which almost always wins with the Republicans, one area votes in a Democratics, give that electoral to the Democratics. Goes with Cali also, if one area votes for the Republicans, that should reflect on the state.
I feel like this would start to sway those deep red/blue states sides more as they see areas not as deep as people once thought.

This would allow third party to get some electoral votes in, and allow them to grow.

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The only way to get away from the two party system is ranked choice voting.
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Krazy_Kirby posted...

bernie saying castro did good things after "taking office" is praising communism

So everything Castro did is bad? What if Hitler fed a homeless dude? Does that mean that feeding the homeless is bad, and that saying feeding them was good makes you a Nazi?

Krazy_Kirby posted...

bernie saying castro did good things after "taking office" is praising communism

This covered the whole hysteria over that rather well:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/25/opinions/sanders-cuba-comments-werent-wrong-bodenheimer/index.html

shipwreckers posted...

but no centric leadership will ever have a chance of actually getting in office.

Donald Trump is the first non centrist president we've had in over 20 years.

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we should have dogs as president

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Zareth posted...

Donald Trump is the first non centrist president we've had in over 20 years.

GWB was too closely knit w/ the religious right to be "centrist". But yeah... George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and Obama all were centrists. Carter, Nixon, Ford all seemed to be too from what I've read.... Basically just Reagan, GWB, and Trump that are the fringe presidents.

Mr Hangman posted...

Whether a more moderate candidate would be more electable in the general election is a constant topic of discussion throughout primaries. And usually the more moderate candidates are the nominees.

And enough of this enlightend centrism BS. The obvious right thing to do on most issues is usually a more extreme position than either party is willing to go. People fear radical change because doing it is an admission of the plainly obvious fact that we all have to pretend not to know: the people in charge are both wildly incompetent and wildly immoral.

Unfortunately, idealism often outweighs facts (on both sides of the aisle). The "confirmation bias" people show in political choices is very real, and it isn't going away. (How else do you think Trump retains so many followers?)

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shipwreckers posted...

(How else do you think Trump retains so many followers?)

Constant brain washing by getting "news" from Fox, Rush, Alex Jones, etc....?

shipwreckers posted...

I agree completely. FPtP is an archaic system that really only exists due to the technical limitations of the time (it kept things simple). The same can be said of the electoral college (no matter what philosophical "voice of the rural man" argument people give).

Could you imagine having to HAND COUNT all of the votes from a state back in the 1800s, and get a full, national popular vote without any risk of tampering??? The electoral college and FPtP were instituted BY NECESSITY. That's not the case anymore here and now.

The electoral system specifically exists to even out potential imbalances due to population and is entirely in keeping with our Democratic Republic, unlike your archaic belief that it should merely be a popular vote.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


The obvious right thing to do is to stop leaving so much in the hands of the federal government and let the people decide at lower levels for themselves. The US is too large and unwieldy to be governed so heavily at a nationwide level. And if more decisions were made at the state level, you could get away with the extremes that would never fly nationally.

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shipwreckers posted...

, the "moderates" (the ones who try to objectively see the valid points from both sides, and would actually be great for uniting the country as-a-whole

Lmfao

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Zeus posted...

The electoral system specifically exists to even out potential imbalances due to population and is entirely in keeping with our Democratic Republic, unlike your archaic belief that it should merely be a popular vote.

In all fairness, there were MANY views that went into the electoral college design (both practical and philosophical).

https://www.history.com/news/electoral-college-founding-fathers-constitutional-convention

*From the History.com Article*
"So why does the Electoral College still exist, despite its contentious origins and awkward fit with modern politics? The party in power typically benefits from the existence of the Electoral College, says Edwards, and the minority party has little chance of changing the system because a constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds supermajority in Congress plus ratification by three-fourths of the states.

Plus the old-school electoral system has its benefits. With the Electoral College, for example, theres no chance of a run-off election or a protracted national recount."

So, yeah, philosophical bullshit aside, it's been kept all this time for its PRACTICAL benefits (namely it's risk-reduction of massive recounts, which is literally what I said earlier).

You're not arguing with me, Zeus. You're arguing with historians.

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Two party system equals establishment collusion. Washington didnt want parties. Gee, maybe its because it would ruin America.

shipwreckers posted...

In all fairness, there were MANY views that went into the electoral college design (both practical and philosophical).

https://www.history.com/news/electoral-college-founding-fathers-constitutional-convention

*From the History.com Article*
"So why does the Electoral College still exist, despite its contentious origins and awkward fit with modern politics? The party in power typically benefits from the existence of the Electoral College, says Edwards, and the minority party has little chance of changing the system because a constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds supermajority in Congress plus ratification by three-fourths of the states.

Plus the old-school electoral system has its benefits. With the Electoral College, for example, theres no chance of a run-off election or a protracted national recount."

So, yeah, philosophical bullshit aside, it's been kept all this time for its PRACTICAL benefits (namely it's risk-reduction of massive recounts, which is literally what I said earlier).

You're not arguing with me, Zeus. You're arguing with historians.

"Plus" doesn't denote a main benefit, it denotes an added benefit. I'm not arguing with historians, I'm arguing with somebody who is pretending that historians are arguing something that they aren't. All that aside, you're still attempting an appeal to "authority" which is even more egregious given that "historian" is an absurdly nebulous, somewhat meaningless title and there are so many historians with differing views that you can find one to support just about any point you'd like to make.

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Raddest_Chad posted...

Two party system equals establishment collusion. Washington didnt want parties. Gee, maybe its because it would ruin America.

You beat me to it. George Washington predicted this at the founding of the country, and it happened anyway, so the people are essentially getting what they deserve at this point, unfortunately.

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join the brain slug party
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I_Abibde posted...

You beat me to it. George Washington predicted this at the founding of the country, and it happened anyway, so the people are essentially getting what they deserve at this point, unfortunately.

He probably eventually realized that a party system, in particular a two party system, is the inevitable result of first past the post voting, but at that point in old age and on his way out of public life, knew he couldn't do anything to stop it. :(

Zeus posted...

you're still attempting an appeal to "authority" which is even more egregious given that "historian" is an absurdly nebulous, somewhat meaningless title and there are so many historians with differing views that you can find one to support just about any point you'd like to make.

Meh..., as long as you acknowledge that there are far more layers to the electoral college rationale than the philosophical, ideological arguments, it's all well and good.

Ideology is inherently subjective, and more often than not, it's a terrible reason to do or not do something.

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The electoral college system is obvious garbage but the presidential politics are only a portion of the issue. It's not like a moderate can actually get anything done anymore than an extreme candidate can once elected. What is even the point of a party system that allows such wild differences in opinion on policy? It's borderline arbitrary. Imagine every politician actually voted for bills based on what they believe instead of what gives them better standing within a party.

Then again the point of democracy is kinda vague to me. It should be obvious that a random citizen lacks the knowledge to make important political decisions. Idk man, it feels pretty doomed either way. Other than hope a good candidate plays the game better than the shitty ones, something voters really have no way of even knowing, what choice is there?

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YoukaiSlayer posted...

The electoral college system is obvious garbage but the presidential politics are only a portion of the issue. It's not like a moderate can actually get anything done anymore than an extreme candidate can once elected.

That's completely untrue. You're infinitely more likely to find common ground when you're closer to the center on a good many issues whereas an extreme stance often doesn't even get support within the individual's own party.

YoukaiSlayer posted...

What is even the point of a party system that allows such wild differences in opinion on policy?

Because you're never going to get everybody simpatico on everything. Instead they'll be together on some issues, apart on others.

YoukaiSlayer posted...

Then again the point of democracy is kinda vague to me. It should be obvious that a random citizen lacks the knowledge to make important political decisions.

That's why you have all kinds of democracies. In some systems, you might have individuals vote for a local politician who handles voting for higher-ranking politicians. The average person could therefore be reasonably informed when it comes to that one race and leave everything else in their hands.

However, as much as people fixate on national races, voters routinely choose candidates for lower posts where the only thing they know is the party affiliation and the candidate's name... and, in many of those cases, people aren't going to directly notice the impact anyway. Do you know the name of your city/town's Treasurer and City/Town Clerk? I've met both of the ones for my area, but I can't remember their names and -- despite having gone to the Clerk's office on a few occasions -- I'm honestly not sure how much difference it'd make if somebody else had got elected. There are a *lot* of low-information political decisions people routinely make that probably would be better handled by political appointment although, from a practical standpoint, it might come out the same. Doubly so when you get ridiculous public measures where voters are asked to consider measures that contain largely unrelated items, such as one to put in new sidewalks and demolish older state-owned buildings.

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Zeus posted...

That's completely untrue. You're infinitely more likely to find common ground when you're closer to the center on a good many issues whereas an extreme stance often doesn't even get support within the individual's own party.

I mean, it factually happens. All that matters is the color, not the policies. An extreme stance isn't going to work either, no stance is, thats my point.

Zeus posted...

Because you're never going to get everybody simpatico on everything. Instead they'll be together on some issues, apart on others.

Then why have them be under one banner? Just let everyone stand for their own beliefs and let the voters choose entirely based off of policy instead of this "well I'll vote this guy because I'm a democrat and can't let the damn republicans win even though I don't agree with anything this democratic candidate says". That's the motivation behind MOST votes. MAYBE the person votes based entirely off one key issue like healthcare or war but I'd be willing to bet if you quizzed every voter on the 2 presidential candidates policies, 99% would fail that quiz, and yet they still get power over the outcome. That's just frankly terrifying.

Zeus posted...

That's why you have all kinds of democracies. In some systems, you might have individuals vote for a local politician who handles voting for higher-ranking politicians. The average person could therefore be reasonably informed when it comes to that one race and leave everything else in their hands.

The average person CAN'T be reasonably informed about most issues though. You can maybe have a say on where you want your local tax dollars going but that has virtually nothing to do with influencing national politics. Even with just looking at local tax spendings, how many people are really qualified to know what the best way to spend that money is? They vote for the politician, all of whom are generally liars, that seems the most trustworthy. Actually voting for a good candidate in even a local election is 100% coincidence and theres no way you could be reasonably informed on how they will perform even in local office.

People simply won't spare the time and attention to educate themselves on these matters and then some matters require knowledge you can't actually get as a citizen. This is one of those great if only people would stop succumbing to human nature kind of things.

From my perspecitive, I can't even remotely trust a random person on the street with making important decisions due to incompetence, and I can't remotely trust the people in charge due to corruption. I don't have any solutions. It just seems fucked. I guess I'm just hoping that whoever cons their way into office coincidentally is competent and a good person, but what are the odds of that? And then thats not even enough, because of the balance of power, you'd need a majority of like 400 people to coincidentally be competent good people before our government actually worked well. What kind of odds are those? 1%? Not even. Like, it's so broken you can't just fix one thing and have it work, you'd need to fix like 20 things, all against the will of the people who have all the power. Maybe some benevolent AI will take over the world or something.

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streamofthesky posted...

This covered the whole hysteria over that rather well:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/25/opinions/sanders-cuba-comments-werent-wrong-bodenheimer/index.html

An excerpt on his words (similar to what he mentioned at the debate last week - emphasis mine):

Looking closely at his words, Sanders made a nuanced statement recognizing both the errors of the Castro regime and the gains made during the Revolution. He stated to Cooper, "We're very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba but you know, it's unfair to simply say everything is bad. You know? When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing? Even though Fidel Castro did it?"

@Krazy_Kirby is on quite the misinformation campaign, but you could tell that since she's/he's merely regurgitating talking points instead of engaging in any substantive thought or debate on the subject. Trolls like that are best ignored.

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fatbaldguy0 posted...

An excerpt on his words (similar to what he mentioned at the debate last week - emphasis mine):

@Krazy_Kirby is on quite the misinformation campaign, but you could tell that since she's/he's merely regurgitating talking points instead of engaging in any substantive thought or debate on the subject. Trolls like that are best ignored.

Best ignored for the sake of one's own health / stress levels, sure.

But I never liked the idea of ignoring them and thus letting their utter bull shit go unchallenged.

I guess on this board it's less important since topics vanish after awhile anyway. Usually my concern is more w/ someone coming along and reading a topic later on, and taking some troll's garbage seriously b/c no one ever called them out over it.

CaptainStrong posted...

So everything Castro did is bad? What if Hitler fed a homeless dude? Does that mean that feeding the homeless is bad, and that saying feeding them was good makes you a Nazi?

So the real question is why doesn't Bernie also praise Hitler? The reason he doesn't is a pretty good fucking reason for not praising Castro, and the fact that he's so fine with Castro says quite a bit about Bernie. It also costs Democrats the moral high ground in arguing that praise strongmen and dictators because, if Bernie becomes the DNC's candidate, he will have done exactly that. And it's just one of many reasons why nominating Bernie is effectively re-electing Trump.


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Zeus posted...

It also costs Democrats the moral high ground in arguing that praise strongmen and dictators because, if Bernie becomes the DNC's candidate, he will have done exactly that.

Hey look, Zeus is actually admitting that he holds the dems to a double standard.

When Bernie gets nominated Zeus can finally just come out and openly praise (neo) Hitler.

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Zeus posted...

So the real question is why doesn't Bernie also praise Hitler? The reason he doesn't is a pretty good fucking reason for not praising Castro, and the fact that he's so fine with Castro says quite a bit about Bernie. It also costs Democrats the moral high ground in arguing that praise strongmen and dictators because, if Bernie becomes the DNC's candidate, he will have done exactly that. And it's just one of many reasons why nominating Bernie is effectively re-electing Trump.

Oh joy, a Godwin fallacy!

Because Castro is anywhere even remotely comparable to someone who invaded other countries, causing millions of deaths from war, and abducting many millions more of civilians and sending them to concentration camps to be enslaved, tortured, and murdered.

Don't you get upset when people compare Trump to hitler? Point out how ridiculous that is? Fuck, you even argue endlessly that people calling themselves "neo-nazis", draped in swastikas, doing the nazi salute "aren't actual nazis."
But...you have no problem being a hypocrite, I see.

Uh, the quote shown didn't imply that bernie liked castro. If anything it was saying even bad people have some good ideas and it's important to consider the idea itself and not just where it came from.

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Blighboy posted...

Hey look, Zeus is actually admitting that he holds the dems to a double standard.

Hey look, Bligh is trying to pull a double standard because he doesn't believe that people criticizing others for doing something shouldn't do that thing themselves.

Blighboy posted...

When Bernie gets nominated Zeus can finally just come out and openly praise (neo) Hitler.

I know Bernie is bad, but suggesting that he's Neo Hitler is just fucking offensive and you should be ashamed.

streamofthesky posted...

Oh joy, a Godwin fallacy!

Oh joy, a Godwin invocation!

streamofthesky posted...

Because Castro is anywhere even remotely comparable to someone who invaded other countries, causing millions of deaths from war, and abducting many millions more of civilians and sending them to concentration camps to be enslaved, tortured, and murdered.

Wait, so you're saying that you shouldn't compare a guy who abducted, tortured, and murdered to another guy who abducted, tortured, and murdered? So basically should we also not criticize Ted Bundy for his crimes because somebody else did much worse? Get your moral relativism bullshit out of here. Castro was a mass murdering psychotic dictator, plain and simple. And the fact that Bernie is so okay with him should sound warning bells in your mind.


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Zman, right on queue 4 days later

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