Sep 13, 2020 People’s beliefs would be better represented if people just chose a party & voted imo. Centrists & independents lead to overly competitive presidential elections & divided governments that leads to nothing getting done. Choose a party & vote, the losing party will have to change/adapt if they want to win elections. No? I think they can be academics but you also find them among people that aren’t really politically engaged. Which btw...is another reason why I think people should choose a party. Voters who register to a party are much more politically engaged.
Sep 13, 2020 Not sure what you’re really talking about lol. The fluidity of our electorate has (until recently) been a perk of the system not a flaw. And today the vast majority of people Are partisan and swear allegiance to a national party that doesn’t tbh care about them. So this feels like a kind of moot, and again self consciously academic POV. But you do you lol.
Sep 13, 2020 Like I think the fact progressive states like Maryland and Massachusetts consistently vote for moderate republican governors to manage the state is a sign of a healthy system. Or the progressive contributions of the once might New England Republican Party ... was a good thing!
Sep 13, 2020 Right so maybe we ought to court people who like to pretend they’re in the middle into their proper corners + the other half of the eligible voters that don’t vote & get this show on the road. Parties respond to losing elections but it’s hard when elections are becoming increasingly more competitive & essential coin flips because you have a small but significant portion of voters that like to pat themselves on the back for voting both ways + a large chunk of people who just don’t vote. Voting behavior is all about group attitudes & group attachments. The idea of the rational voter who meticulously considers all his options, having legitimate positions on all policy issue, is largely a myth. People will change their political beliefs to match their partisanship before vice versa. So instead of banking on voters becoming these rational, consistent, logical vote choice makers, court people into best fit political parties & allow the parties to change based on win/losing.
Sep 13, 2020 again, you lose me man. isnt this already happening? why is some voters being conflicted about party politics a bad thing lol. ..this is already happening yes? i dunno this feels reductive. states (for a variety of reasons - economic, social, etc) are constantly changing, shifting demographics. its may take a generation but alot is still in flux. again we are parsing alot of poli sci minutia for an eminem message board but, im not sure "people patting themselves on the back" is as big a symptom as ur making it out to be lol. and to be totally candid, i think regular folk not voting isnt as Big a factor as the constant handwringing suggests. in fact, i would argue what we are seeing now - qanon, tea party, what have you - is exactly what happens when otherwise banal normies get off the bench and have their parochial, local existences and preferences perverted for national interests. wouldnt it be great if those voters hadnt been guilt shamed for 20 years to stop being so apolitical? (this is mostly a hunch btw.)
Sep 13, 2020 I'm definitely more left leaning but I've voted republican before and probably will again. I'm not voting for someone I think is a piece of s--- just because they're a democrat when the guy on the other side has better ideas or I just don't think he's as much of a piece of s---. Choosing a party and having to vote for everyone who is on that side is idiotic
Sep 13, 2020 Yeah but I mean it was between him and Corzine so there are no winners in that one. His handling of Hurricane Sandy was great and then he just became the worlds biggest (literally) piece of s---. Basically abandoned NJ near the end to try and get a presidential bid going
Sep 13, 2020 to an extent, very slowly. It could be happening faster/more responsive to voters or Americans grievances in general with the parties. We’re def getting a bit too deep into this for a hip-hop message board but if you’re really interested in how people develop political beliefs, partisanship, determine vote choice etc. should read the work of Zaller, Achen, Bartels, etc. There is a tendency for voters, especially voters that aren’t as politically engaged, to align with the middle of the spectrum because that seems reasonable. In reality, they aren’t in the middle of spectrum though, so you have these voters, voting both ways, tipping the scale in major elections to essentially make themselves feel good. Not necessarily voting for their best interests. I don’t care about the optics of progressives electing moderate Republicans & if it makes people feel like we all get along. It’s stalling policy that can actually improve people’s lives. The QAnon folk & tea parties were never apolitical. If it weren’t these fringe groups, they would have found another. I’d argue instead that the reason for the rise of these groups is because Republican Party leaders have continuously winked & hinted support for them (well..before Trump who now just pretty much says it outright) & now they’ve become a pretty significant fraction of the GOP. Why? Because Republican voters see party elites endorsing these ideals & conform their beliefs to match their partisanship. high levels of political engagement is necessary for a healthy representative democracy imo.
Sep 16, 2020 I don’t know about real actual centrist policies or parties I just meant people in Facebook comment debates. You’re trying to read an entertaining beef between rich white communist U.S college students vs autistic alt right memers with 12 fb friends, then self proclaimed centrists come in and type out essays that could be summed up as “I don’t have an opinion or know anything about this topic other than everyone is wrong” interestingly since this blm stuff the social media centrists are increasingly finally picking a side.. Any news article now will have someone saying “I’m a centrist but protestors are Nazis and Hitler was a socialist and if black people don’t want to get shot -” Etc Not that it’s a bad thing Im glad they finally have an opinion
Sep 16, 2020 Yeah... there are r-----s in both parties. Democrats ignore them and Republicans elect them as President and swear their lives to them. Donald Trump isn't a conservative. In 2000 he ran for President with Bernie Sanders' platform. Tax the rich to the max, single payer universal healthcare, abortions for everybody... he was to the extreme left of Al Gore. No one cared. The dumbest Republican (George W. Bush) won the primaries, when he should have been disqualified for revealing how stupid he was... Bush then lost the General Election and was appointed the Presidency by Supreme Court Justices who had their jobs because they were given to them by his dad and his dad's boss. Bush then f----- up America and the world and Fox News and Talk Radio got him a second term to f--- everything up worse. Trump spent the Bush 8 years begging to be took seriously by the Democratic Party... he bashed Bush at every turn and demanded that Bush be impeached. No one cared. He endorsed Hillary in the 2008 primaries and when a black guy got the nomination... he became a Republican. Obama was born in America (Hawaii). In 2008 he ran against John McCain who was born in not America (Panama), in 2012 he ran against Mitt Romney who was born in America (Michigan), Mitt's father George, also ran for President, George Romney was born in not America (Mexico)... in 2016 Trump almost lost the Republican nomination to Ted Cruz, Cruz was born in not America (Canada). Trump became the darling of Republicans by being the most visible racist Birther. A Birther is a racist who thinks only white people should be able to be President and who doesn't care where white people are born. Now America and the world are f----- up again and Republicans are going to stick with Trump forever or until JFK Jr comes back in his spaceship and changes his registration to: Republican. You see the difference?
