What To Do To Reduce Partisan Dysfunction In Politics

Right around 1860?

So you grew up in a Little House on the Prairie?

 

Nope. Judges should determine whether the defendant has violated the person or property of the plaintiff.

 

I will use this post to respond to the question enboldened and offer up some disconnected thoughts on the OP. To the question - I haven't got a friggin clue. I really don't!. We can't tell media how to cover politics and we cannot go back to the pre-cable days or disconnect the internet. I am left with only a clichéd answer. We have to educate our youth better, and stress critical thinking skills, logical fallacies, data analysis, statistics. We have teach about propaganda, advertising, demographics, and how they function on the population. Teach history, civics and debate and get these kids involved.

1. Then we have to decide as parents that exclusive exposure to our values, views and ideas needs to have an expiration date.
This notion that 'intellectual freedom' and its access to controversial ideas,is something for students in universities and professors to enjoy, has got go. We have high schoolers who's parents have a cow if their cherub hears a pro-life opinion if they are pro-choice. Republican parents who flip out if a socialist view is expressed in a citizenship class. Kids who get all bent out of shape if they are forced to read an essay in favor or opposed to same sex marriage. We have decided that students are entitled not to deal with ideas they don't find comfortable.

Before we offer third parties such as libertarian, neo Nazi or Green or socialist Party for 18 year olds to vote for, do you suppose they should be seen as mature enough to see those platforms, and ideas and their literature at 16 or 17?

2. The question "Do I vote for who I like/who I think will do the best job....or do I vote for who I think can win?" does not disappear as long as we expect parties to decide who their standard-bearer will be.
W can add more viable parties such as socialist or libertarian, or constitutional, include them in debates, and insist that they get equal billing in voter pamplets but we still end up with their members asking this question because government cannot tell private organizations how they should run their primaries. I am not so sure that we should throw the idea of a single party standard-bearer out the window but I am sure government cannot force it . I need convincing.

3. That said, I am definitely in favor of promoting the strength of third parties or candidates without any affiliation. The two party system no longer can absorb new ideas from outside its narrow and predictable scope. Media won't cover ideas and those two parties won't promote them. Almost any way that we can break the duopoly I am good for.

4. I am inclined to support ranked voting among candidates as long as each party has autonomy over its own process to choose who gets to be the standard-bearer for a given race. You can pick the republican as your number one, Libertarian as your number two, constitutional party candidate as your number three or Joe Smith unaffiliated as your number three instead.

 

Sorry for sounding trite...

but...

Whatever, dude.

 

I'm sorry, but with statements like; "We were heading down the road of socialistic indoctrination" and "...path to socal justice is the creation of some Global Socialist Utopia"....it sounds like you might be living in an alternate reality. At the very least, you could have elaborated what socialism means to you and provide an example of how how we are racing towards that "dreaded Global Socialist Utopia".

But see, this here is the problem. Both sides, but more on the Right than the Left, has resorted to this level of labeling to dismiss any true discussion. This is the same tactic that Morton Downey Jr and Rush Limbaugh employed in the early days of the Fringe Right to silence any critical thought or discussion. It was a crude form of shouting down your opponent, and many on the right do this today as an automatic inflection without even realizing where they learned it.

Right wing media is at the root of this great divide in my opinion. What to do about it is another thing altogether.

 

Hey, I appreciate your thoughtful response.

Here's an unsolicited tip: Ascribing blame, such as "hey, you did it first!", will kill the discussion. There is always something that happened before whatever offense was committed against the other side (Just, please, stop calling me a RACIST! simply because I disagree with you.).

I can't think of a way to respond to the rest of your post. I see it completely opposite to your point of view (Who is shutting down who? Really?). We are in totally different realities. We will both continue to believe that ours is closest to the actual reality.

 

What if it isn't a systemic failure? What if it is a cultural rift?

While we have always traditionally struggled to "create a more perfect union" and interpreting that to mean the sort of things you are suggesting, it requires the belief that we are in this struggle together. From some of the posts on here, it doesn't seem like many on the right give much credence to that belief, and certainly the current White House occupant has demonstrated repeatedly he has no intention of unifying the country.

 

The labeling is due to a fundamental understanding of the differences between authoritarianism and freedom. If you'll note, you didn't explain WHY this label of socialism doesn't apply. It's almost universal that when a socialist starts complaining about being called a socialist, they never explain why the label is inaccurate.

Also, "elaborated what socialism means to you" is another variation on that same theme. You're not saying "socialism is X, and I do not believe in X", but rather saying "I'm not a socialist, and it's your job to explain why I'm not".

It's rather boring to have to keep defining socialism (communal ownership of the means of production) and have socialists say "moi?" right after they've said something like "well, I believe that those 1% rich guys are taking far more than their share of the profits!"

 

I'm stopping you with that first line.

Anyone who continues to support Trump is obviously for authoritarianism and against freedom. The man worships authoritarian despots. Anyone wilfully ignorant of the evidence of that has no authority to lecture on socialism, let alone communism.

 

You probably should have stopped prior to hitting the "post reply" button. Red herrings and ad hominems are just too boring.

 

That seeming dysfunction sir exists because the people at the top of the political food chain are far more interested in control than they are in empowering the people, hence the gun control attempt, the massive increase of the welfare state expenditures never mind the massive increase in crime from the former and enslavement and poverty in the case of the latter both of which are used to justify even more attempts to control your life through the bureaucracy. Prosperity comes from empowering people, poverty from trying to control them. More government equals less wealth generation, more poverty, more crime, and more societal dysfunction.

 

For the major parties, selecting their candidates is done by the hard core of each party. Most of the moderates have fled each party leaving pretty much ideologues. During Eisenhower close to 80% of the total electorate identified with one or the other major party. Independents numbered 18-20%. Today you have 55% identifying with the two major parties with independents rising to 45%. The center, center left, center right have left both parties becoming independents.

An Eisenhower whom no one knew his party affiliation prior to his announcement to run as a Republican, wouldn't have a chance of winning either parties nomination. Too moderate, too non-partisan. Understand back during IKE's day there were only around 12-15 primaries and some of those were non-binding. We hadn't entered the modern primary era yet. That wouldn't begin until 1976. The party leaders of each state pretty much decided whom their delegates would support come convention time.

IKE came along at the right time. The Republican Party had just lost 5 straight presidential elections and anyone who might win was given a good looking at at. Ideology really didn't matter to them, just someone who could lead them back into the oval office, just win baby. Of course that was a completely different era of politics back then. Both parties had their conservative and liberal wings. Both were relative close ideological to each other.

Another Eisenhower would stand a snowball's chance in Hades of gaining either party's nomination. Not hard core enough. Looking back on that era, it is almost like both major parties have been hijacked by ideologues.

 

And Ike had the advantage of being the general who won WW2 (which was fresh in the collective memory) at a time when the we had just fought the Korean War to stop the spread of communism, and Russia was regarded as a major looming threat. People trusted Ike to be strong, but not reckless, in the defense of our country.

I am a part of that 45% you speak of who are disaffected by both parties. I truly believe the time is right for a third party - I mean a major third party.

 

Excuse the book

Three glaring obstacles to a viable third party. One - Republicans and Democrats write our election laws and they do so as a mutual protection act. They have a monopoly on our electoral system and neither is about to give it up even if it means helping the other major party out at times. This leads to ballot access. Both major parties have automatic ballot access in all 50 states. Third parties and independents must jump through hoops to get on the ballot. Petitions, different time periods and the amount of signatures needed in the 50 different states. Tons of challenges to those signatures by both parties if one succeeds. Also is the presidential debates. Once the League of Women's voters allowed Perot into the debates, the two major parties pulled the presidential debates away from them by forming the so called bipartisan debate commission. There will be no more third party candidates ever included in the debates.

Two is financial. Corporations, wall street firms, lobbyist, special interests, mega, huge money donors give tens of millions of dollars to the two major parties. None to third parties. You seen this in the presidential race of 2016, Hillary raising and spending 1.4 billion, that's right, with a B to Trump 969 million. That's almost 2.4 billion dollars between the two major parties. In third place was Gary Johnson at 3 million. What chance does a third party candidate have when out spent 2.4 billion to 3 million. Those moneyed elites aren't about to give money to third parties, they spend enough propping up the two major parties, buying their favors. A lot of those I mentioned above give to both parties, that way regardless of who wins, the elected will owe them.

Three - Is believing the propaganda put forth by both major political parties. That is a vote for a third party candidate is a wasted vote. It becomes self fulfilling. One has to get out of that mindset. It becomes a I really want third party candidate C to win, I really, really like him, but he probably has no chance. If I vote for third party candidate C, then major party candidate A might win which I loath, I don't like major party candidate B either, but major candidate B is the lesser evil or the least worst candidate of the two major parties. So in the end, people who want a third party candidate, who really like a third party candidate, end up voting for major candidate B because major candidate can win just to stop major candidate A.

That mindset has to change. Just saying I want a viable third party isn't enough. One must follow through with action and one's vote. To do otherwise leaves the monopoly of the two major parties in place. About a week prior to the 2016 election third party candidates were polling at around 15%. On election day, third party candidates received 6% of the total vote. In other words 60% of those who liked and wanted a third party candidate over the two major party candidates bought their propaganda of voting third party was a wasted voted and voted for the major party candidate they thought was thelesser of two evils.

What if they followed through? 15% isn't enough to receive any electoral votes. Interesting, if one believes the exit polls, those who moved away from their first choice of a third party candidate to vote for the major party party candidate they least wanted to lose probably cost Hillary the election. Those who planned on voting third party, but switched to a major party candidate on election day in order to vote against the other major party candidate, Trump won those voters 55-45 over Hillary. Regardless, switching to a major party candidate cost both the Libertarian and Green Party federal matching funds for the 2020 presidential election as neither received 5% of the vote.

 

I didn’t mind the book. I write them too from time to time.

You’re right about everything.

But a couple of things.....

Usually a third party represents a fringe. The third party I’m thinking of would represent the large middle. And ...

When opportunity presents, usually someone jumps to take it.

 

Usually they do. Green, Libertarian, Constitutional Parties all represent the fringe. Perot came the closest to representing the middle in both 1992 and 1996 as representing the middle. Here's a good article on the 1992 Perot race.


http://www.pollingreport.com/hibbitts1202.htm


Exit Poll Data and the Perot Vote
Now, let’s briefly consider the 1992 exit poll data and the actual composition of the Perot vote. According to the exit poll data, 38% of the Perot voters said they would have voted for Clinton in a two way race, 38% would have voted for Bush, 24% would not have voted. Perot won 30% of independents, 17% of Republicans, and 13% of Democrats. Put another way, of his 19% popular vote share, 8 percentage points came from independents, 6 from Republicans, and 5 from Democrats. Fully 53% of Perot’s vote came from self-defined moderates, 27% from conservatives and 20% from liberals; so about 10 points of his 19% came from self-described moderates, with 5 points coming from conservatives and 4 points from liberals. We also know from the exit polls that the Perot voters were angrier at the political system than supporters of the other candidates.

Notice Perot won 30% of independents and 53% of moderates. Even so, he ended up with but 19% of the total vote. This in 1992. In 1992 according to Roper independents made up 27% of the total electorate. Today independents make up 45% according to Gallup who does party affiliation on an average of a monthly basis. So if Perot had got that 30% of independent vote today which is 45% instead of 27%, instead of 8% of the total electorate, it would have been 13.5% upping Perot's total from 19% to 24.5%.

https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/how-groups-voted-1992/

So yes, you hit the nail on the head. The right candidate is important. But that candidate needs money to get his message out and to get an organization in place among a lot of other things. Perot spent approximately 60 million of his own money in 1992. That was a lot back then. Yep, the right right independent or third party candidate who has the money to be heard, willing to spend his own money at least in the beginning. Along with the shrinking and very much disliked major parties by America as a whole, it could be done.

 

No challenges. The constitution is quite clear in that it give the states the manner of how they run their elections. Every state via their state legislature could go to the jungle primary system as I call it. The jungle primary is new to Georgia, but not the runoff. We've always had that as far back as I can remember and I was born right after WWII. Prior to this year, each party had their primary as usual, but the 50% plus one vote has always been there during my life time. There has been times in the past where the Libertarian Candidate or some other third party deprived one of the two major parties candidates the required 50% plus one and we went to a runoff between the top two which has always been the two major party's candidates. That happen in one of our senator races between Coverdale and Fowler. It has happened in may of our state races also. But our special election in CD-6 was the first jungle primary type election in this state where all 18 or so candidates appeared on the same ballot on election day. My state representative was decided in a runoff election in 2016.

Plurality voting or winning via a plurality hasn't been an option in Georgia. I'm more of a realist when it comes to the electoral college. I see of no way that an amendment doing away with it could ever garner 2/3rds of the House, 2/3rd of the senate and 3/4ths of the states to accomplish that, A constitutional amendment is required. That doesn't mean the states can't change the way they award their electoral votes. The constitution leaves that entirely up to the states. Maine and Nebraska today award their electoral votes via the congressional district method. Pennsylvania thought about doing that, but decided against it. Pennsylvania thought it would dilute their power that way.

 

Simple and to the point . . .

A third party isn't going to solve the REAL problems we are currently facing. I shouldn't have to spell this out. The REAL PROBLEM is government corruption of picking and choosing political winners. It should NEVER happen.

The American PEOPLE will surprise democrats AGAIN in Nov. The 2016 election surprise was because Comey let Clinton off the hook for her crimes. The 2018 election surprise will be because corrupt bureaucrats tried to remove a sitting president, without evidence. That's FASCISM.

A third party would only muddy the divisions, and likely NO ONE will have a majority. That makes things much worse. Tell dems they've been losing elections since 2010 (Obamacare) and are now at levels of power not seen SINCE 1929. When they FINALLY realize they need to move toward the center then they will begin to recover some of their losses.

But if this government corruption continues to play out, then democrats will become powerless if not history.

Steve

 

“My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders..." - Hillary Clinton 2013

 

Frist off, I am a realist, perhaps a bit of the pragmatist and not an ideologue. At least on most issues. I don't mind taking tiny steps at a time in order to achieve the big picture a long way down the road. Ranked voting has the plus in that it could be initiated by the state/s without a Constitutional Amendment. What you or one needs to do is find a state willing to try it. A guinea pig sort of. States are controlled by one or the other major party or split. First priority would get the two major parties in any one state to agree to try it. I think for most states they would have to see the results before they change their voting methods either from a plurality winner or runoff.

Personally, I'm not keen on a ranked system. Mainly because when I vote, most of the time I only want that one candidate and none of the rest. I think most Republicans and Democrats when they vote only want their candidate to win most of the time and probably would be loathed to give the other party a number in a ranked system. But we don't know that.

Here's something else to think about, If I had to rank the 2016 candidates for president, I would put Johnson one, Stein two, and leave both Trump and Clinton blank. Neither one was my third or fourth choice. The idea with my vote was to try to defeat both major party candidates, I would refuse to rank them.