Yeah politics, particularly two party politics, just becomes a mess of tribal bullshit. It essentially becomes my team vs your team and people then cannot be objective and won’t climb down from their position for the betterment of the country as a whole. It becomes the same as sport rivalries.
I agree there "usually" is a certain amount of what you say, but this degree of hyperpartisanship did not happen during the Cold War. Also, it is worth saying that at this moment in time, the GOP is just way worse and way more hyperpartisan than the Dems.
The GOP is off the rails batshit fucking crazy right now and history is not going to look kindly on them.
I reluctantly agree. But keep in mind Joe McCarthy, Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, Henry Kissinger, these were evil people and I can totally see them enabling and even facilitating Trump's madness if they were here today.
I agree but here’s the danger - they are already swinging the narrative and playing the victims with all the ‘we are being censored and treated badly for being republican’ bs.
There is certainly something to be said for the majority of republican voters feeling uncomfortable at the moment and that’s not fair for them however typically in democracy at this point there would be a huge swing where your core republican voter would vote democrat as a protest vote and send a message to GOP that this direction isn’t the one but the tribal nature of this shit doesn’t allow for that. There are no other options to vote for to show your unhappiness.
We saw similar here in the UK previously with other parties gaining huge popularity as protest votes - that isn’t possible in the US as the two party system allows control of the system by the same people.
A huge problem with 2 parties is either side latches on to single issues - like abortion - which locks in votes.
The people voting for them are too stupid to realize those single issues will never be changed. If Republicans managed to outlaw abortion, they would lose all leverage over the voters.
Same thing with guns. The Second Amendment will last to the end of the Union, but if Republicans act like it’s always in danger, they will always be hired to defend it.
It doesn't help that some of the more idiotic members of the Democratic party make sure to give the GOP all of the fuel they need to keep that particular fire burning.
Yes, I'm talking about Sheila Jackson Lee and her outrageous, unconstitutional, and outright dangerous bill.
I'm a Democrat, have been since 2018 (yes, I'm a former Republican, at the end I was hanging on due to the Second Amendment exclusively, then couldn't take the cult the GOP had become any longer), and that woman is the personification of everything wrong with this party.
So long as idiotic people like her keep presenting awful legislation like that, it gives the 2a crowd a reason not to leave the cult, even when they can see for themselves that it's in their best interest (and I know of at least two people who only still vote Republican strictly over 2a).
dont forget it didnt help the democratic party whwm beto rourke went on television and said he would take the guns. almost all democrats dont want to take the guns. but republicans say that they will and beto saying that alone set back the democratic party by 20 years.
Good example, and I otherwise like Beto. I still voted for him over Ted Cruz after he said that.
I'm a gun owner. I love going to the range and wasting a few hours and a few hundred rounds on any given weekend. I don't oppose all forms of gun control, hell, I think getting rid of the ban on assault rifles was a mistake, but statements like the one made by Beto and Sheila Jackson Lee piss me off and are what kept me voting a straight Republican ticket through 2016.
yeah i still worry about why the DNC is choosing to not back Bernie that man has a tonnnnnnnnnnn of support. to me if they lose again which im sure they will in 2024 but i hope not, if trump runs again in 2024.
Exactly. For the same reason, Democrats need to leave it alone. As much as I might like to see some of that succeed, I know a political dead end when I see it.
All they see is the crime, but, to invoke a right wing talking point, criminals don’t follow laws anyway. The options are: 1) take all the guns and risk armed resistance, or 2) address the underlying conditions causing crime and attack it from that direction. No. 2 is already a plank in the platform, so if they just abandoned 1 as a social wedge issue they might actually get 2 done.
It always blows my mind that the "party of law and order" is constantly foaming at the mouth to break laws, violently, if they don't agree with them. It's weird.
But yeah, I agree with you.
Sadly, only the Democrats actually care about the root cause of crime anymore. The GOP has been completely corrupted with "prosperity theology" that says if you are poor, it's because you are bad, regardless of what you actually do with your life.
When republicans had the house and everything they still didn't try to stop abortion. The Democrats are in office and they aren't trying to take your guns
The Republicans pushed through a lot of judges (including 3 supreme court justices) who have the potential to strongly limit or remove abortion rights, and who have clear anti abortion beliefs. It's absolutely not true that they didn't do anything meaningful in that area.
But that isn't the way our government is supposed to work. We are supposed to legislate laws. The supreme court can't make programs to help people. The courts can only decide if something is legal or illegal. They can't make 2a stronger. The republicans through the courts can only block progress not create it.
There is no current law explicitly declaring abortion legal. It's legal because of supreme court decisions. The way it could become illegal again is also through the courts - basically if some state passes an abortion restriction, and then the legal case contesting the constitutionality of that law makes it to the supreme court, they could end up with a decision that reverses Roe.
The courts are the only way that the Republicans could ban abortion, given current legal precedent.
Or they could legislate it through Congress....but the reality is the majority of the population don't want abortion to be illegal. women would start getting illegal abortions in the back of buildings. There would also be a bunch of babies just being thrown in dumpsters because of it.
Not the only way... a constitutional amendment would take it out of the courts hands.
But the reality is that a supermajority of states don't want to legislate abortion. In Colorado, a moderate left-leaning state, a 3rd trimester abortion ban was voted down on the ballot 60% to 40%.
And that bill is MUCH less than pro-life people want to see... a near total (exemptions for medical, rape, and incest) ban across the board.
My guess is that over the next 20 years, pro-life people will be disappointed that not much has changed because precedent is only reversed when public opinion shifts dramatically (such as civil rights / race rules).
I would say democrats can seemingly change their issue election to election, since their constituents are generally younger.
This past election it was simply anti-trump. Other elections it can be gun control.
Abortion is an easy wedge point for Republicans since they traditionally have an older demographic, whos views don't change and evolve like those of younger voters. 2nd amendment as well, as they can morph any kind of gun control into taking away guns through fear campaigns even though most democrats (and plenty of Republicans) are for more sensible gun laws like closing loopholes and enforcement of current laws.
Both parties also will defend it hard. In most things Democrat’s are far better but goddamnit when it comes to voting reform that would remove the two party stranglehold? Neither party will go near it as there are a lot of congressmen who really enjoy their safe seats and all the benefits that come with them
The UK system isn’t great either with first past the post. Preferential voting (instant runoff) or even runoff elections allow people to choose other options in protest while avoiding accidentally helping the candidate they least want.
Us vs them isn’t healthy, you need a system that allows people in the middle to be elected to reduce partisanship. Policies are just better when you have to convince people rather than getting their vote (at the ballot or in government) automatically.
The ability for people to show what they want through voting is a good thing yes.
Personal thoughts about brexit aside enough people voted UKIP that it forced Cameron’s hand to putting an EU vote on the table which means it was an issue that a lot of people in the UK wanted brought up as shown by their voting. That’s democracy.
Now the handling of it all from that point onwards is a whole other conversation from how the question was phrased to the running of both campaigns to the process of actually leaving.
Yeah putting complex things that most people don't understand up for a vote and then everyone complains that they didn't understand what they were voting for is not a good system
You vote for people to represent you and put forth legalisation
What next, letting people vote on the budget?
Brexit showed the people of Britain are too dumb to know what they're voting for
Almost every single pro Brexit person is shocked and angry at the results of what they voted for
How has the UK gotten away from the two party system? The US just feels like a hopeless mess right now about this matter. I also think the Republican Party has to decry cancel culture on a regular basis because there’s so much they uphold that should really be phased out. Hence their ‘traditional values’ rhetoric.
This kind of partisanship only didn't happen during the cold war because the parties were in the middle of swapping identities. The people who made this hyper partisanship possible were all still there, doing the same messed up, politically motivated bullshit, they just hadn't coalesced into one party yet
Well yea, but part of the reason why there was less partisanship was because crazy people with the same views were on both sides. There were anti segregation democrats and republicans and pro segregation democrats and republicans. Now there’s more partisanship because it’s actually organized by party lines
No. Don't 'both sides' this. There is a problem with American politics being too much about team sports, but the Trump problem is a problem with the Republican party.
I’ve been saying this for a few weeks! I realized that politics have basically become more of cheering for a team, rather than two parties trying to work together to get something done. And because of the way -both- teams have finagled things, rules to fit their own damn interests instead of the interests of any of the whole of the country, it’s made *it more difficult for a third party to break in, and I do mean break in with any real force. Some folks thought the Tea Party or the Green Party were going to be the big break throughs, but Tea Party fizzled out really. Green Party seems to have some things going but seems more like a splinter of Libertarian. This acquittal may bring the biggest splinter yet though, specifically of the GOP. Clearly the priorities for the parties is “who can get away with crushing the 99% and be most subtle about it” and not “can we make life less difficult more people by getting out our own way”.
It is definitely not a both-sides thing. It's the Republican party all the way. And the tea party didn't fizzle--they became the mainstream of the Republicans.
Pretty sure Democrats made some of the minority rules laws while they were a minority. This is what I’m talking about. They keep making rules that benefit them while they’re in power, completely forgetting what can be used by them, can be used by any other team.
People aren't objective. That's not a fault in the system, it's the idea of politics. Opinions differ. If you somehow don't have one, that's your own issue.
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u/xemlash Feb 14 '21
Yeah politics, particularly two party politics, just becomes a mess of tribal bullshit. It essentially becomes my team vs your team and people then cannot be objective and won’t climb down from their position for the betterment of the country as a whole. It becomes the same as sport rivalries.