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“American democracy simply cannot function without two equally healthy and equally strong political parties,” J Michael Luttig told CNN on Wednesday. “So today, in my view, there is no Republican party to counter the Democratic party in the country.
“And for that reason, American democracy is in grave peril.”
For that reason?
That's the reason?
I think the real reason is that the people in power keep touting this idea of only two distinct parties. Having only two parties means you have only two directions to go. Which is destined for extremism.
The FPTP voting system reinforces that. Any third party is just going to be a spoiler for one of the majors without voting system reform.
This is the correct answer. Third parties are rarely viable in first-past-the-post systems. More info on Duverger's Law here.
If we had more viable parties it would be much harder to do regulatory capture and corrupt every party, and even if that happened new viable ones could spring up at any time. We might actually get candidates that represent diverse political opinions. With more parties one party would be unlikely to have a majority or supermajority, and our representatives would have to work together and form coalitions to get anything done. Politics wouldn't be a team sport about defeating the other side, it would be about shared goals and constructive legislation. Candidates would want to appeal to voters who they might be the second or third choice for, meaning scapegoating, vilifying and othering segments of society would be a losing strategy. Ranked choice voting has few downsides for anyone but those who want a corrupt system they can capture and a society they can divide.
Actually, it's destined for a centrist corrupt government. The recent "extremism" is a reaction to how upset people are at the corruption, corporate welfare and blatant monopolies that run our country.
When things get bad people look towards the extremes. That's what we're seeing now. Things aren't good, they haven't been for a while. Populism and fascism rise during bad times. Look at what happened during the great depression and lead up to WW2. America could of easily slipped into a fascist Nazi style state. Thankfully we got the greatest president the country has ever seen instead.
Except the two party system pits two opposing sides against each other, inevitably leading to them pointing fingers at each other to rile their base and get votes. The extremism comes from frustration, yes, but it is stoked by the "us vs them" mentality that politicians abuse to trick their constituents into voting for them instead of "the other guy".
Right wing extremism is a global problem and is manifesting even in parliamentary multi-party systems, though. All they need is a scapegoat to rally around and they're good to go. Look at anti-immigrant movements in Europe as an example.
Fighting about things is going to happen in any political system.
Go back a few years. Circa 1960, the two parties had both Liberal and Conservative wings. There was no shame in a pol voting with the other party.
You need a multi party system like a lot of countries round the world. No clear winner = who can quickly form the larges coalition. It usually boils down to two main parties with a lot of also-ran's.
Over here we even have The Monster Raving Loony pary!
Both the democratic and republican party are several smaller parties tied together into two disgusting rat king. If one of them disappear today there will be an instant split of the surviving party into two new rat kings. The collapse isn't what they fear. They fear that the Overton window would move left.
And even a big move to the left would still leave us leaning right.
I think it’s very clear that the republicans in government are moving far right, but the electorate in general is steadily moving left.
Every year, about 4 million Americans turn 18 and gain the right to vote. In the eight years between the 2016 and 2024 elections, that’s 32 million new eligible voters.
Also every year, 2½ million older Americans die. So in the same eight years, that’s as many as 20 million fewer older voters.
Which means that between Trump’s election in 2016 and the 2024 election, the number of Gen Z (born in the late 1990s and early 2010s) voters will have advanced by a net 52 million against older people. That’s about 20 percent of the total 2020 eligible electorate of 258 million Americans.
And unlike previous generations, Gen Z votes. Comparing the four federal elections since 2015 (when the first members of Gen Z turned 18) with the preceding nine (1998 to 2014), average turnout by young voters (defined here as voters under 30) in the Trump and post-Trump years has been 25 percent higher than that of older generations at the same age before Trump — 8 percent higher in presidential years and a whopping 46 percent higher in midterms.
And according to voter data. Gen z is very progressive especially on policy:
https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/The-Exit-Polls.pdf?x91208
In 15-20 years nearly half of all boomers will be dead. The current gop can’t win a single national popular vote. Without half these boomers, they will collapse or move left. And the Overton window will shift considerably left. And with Europe moving right in a lot of counties, I’d say it wouldn’t be surprising to see the US as left as Europe in a shot time.
Also: Europe is not as left leaning as people tend to think. Aside from trains and healthcare they’re not all the left wing. And it is moving right. I’m an Italian citizen and I see it happening in Italy, and many other counties.
He's got a point. The Republican party is fundamentally not healthy at all.
Yes, but the framing of it reads like the Democratic party being too powerful is the worst possible outcome, rather than the Republican party destroying society.
Ding ding ding
It's honestly impressive how accurate and succinct that part of his analysis is. I actually do agree that the long-term viability of the establishment GOP could be in serious trouble, and that the outcome a few years hence, of the Democrats as the only viable political party in Washington, would be a big problem for several different reasons. And, I think this is literally the first time I've heard that fairly serious topic being raised anywhere in the media.
But, our democracy is facing another slightly more pressing and short-term problem at the moment...
Nonsense. It's very unlikely that a party with members as diverse politically as Joe Manchin and AOC would form a monolithic power block in the absence of the GOP. It's far more likely that the Democratic party would fragment.
They could. Actually having the party fragment would be among the best options; the AOC wing is pretty tiny right now, and either switching to a non-ridiculous non-FPTP voting system, or fragmenting the party, would position it to actually be able to gain some traction.
One worse way it could shake out is the Democratic primaries become the main event (loosely divided between a progressive wing and an establishment wing). A lot of the establishment people who run the system would actually like that better, because the primaries don't have to operate as democratically as the general elections, and a lot of people would still "have to" vote for the Democrats, so in practice it would be a small minority progressive wing within a largely-establishment party. Pretty similar to now except with more corruption. Like I say, I think there are a lot of problems with that outcome.
For now. What will the Democratic party look like in ten years without a decent opposition party?
Bullshit. Institutionalized racism, misogyny, homophobia, and white Christian separatism as party platform. No matter how "conservative" Republicans claimed to be, The Southern Strategy was the core value and singular driving force for the past 60 years. MAGA isn't a symptom, it's result
"MAGA" is literally the abbreviation of a Reagan campaign slogan.
Yup, he isn't original he's just a immoral guy who wants Daddy to be proud, ironically he wouldn't be done he worked very hard to remove the stain of pimping and racism from their fortune only to have dumb dumb here make the trump name an international joke.
Nah motherfucker, all republicans own this shit. Suck it up, traitors. Worthless fucking filth.
As an old guy, I'd have to agree, though as a leftist turned anarchist, I don't give much of a fuck.
I think back though on the Republicans of my youth, and it really was a notably different party.
It's sort of weird to phrase it like this, but they were assholes with principles. I mean - they were shallow, bigoted assholes then too, but it was more common then for them to still be like the old '50s All-American cliche - patriotic, proud, moral, hard-working, honest... conservative in the old sense of the word. I didn't agree with them at all but at least they had a relatively coherent, if shallow and ignorant, ideology that they generally actually lived by.
Somehow though, especially over the last 20 years or so, they've morphed into this bizarre and startlingly toxic mix of psychopaths, hypocrites and grifters. They have no principles at all really - just things and people that they hate - and it's not even vaguely about trying to accomplish things that they sincerely (if mistakenly) think will make the world a better place, but just about fucking over everyone else. And even themselves, if they can colorably believe that by doing so they'll manage to fuck someone else over even more.
I sincerely believe it's a sort of collective mental illness, and truth be told, I think it can only lead to the collapse of western civilization, and the US in particular. There's nothing really that can stop it. It's effectively a closed loop in which greedy psychopaths fuck things up for their own profit and privilege, ignorant psychopaths look for someone to blame for the fact that things are fucked up, power-hungry psychopaths point them at some vulnerable fringe group and tell them that it's all their fault, then while everyone's distracted, the greedy psychopaths fuck things up even more. And 'round and 'round it goes, like a turd circling a toilet bowl. And there's only one way that can end.
There's nothing really that can stop it.
Things that can stop it:
What does the opposite of stopping it:
- Fatalism that makes the good people who outnumber the bad not show up to vote
It’s the same as the “all politicians are the same” moan.
No, they’re not. It’s the crooked ones that want you to believe that they’re all the same, because that’s what keeps the crooked ones from being voted out.
It should be noted that the last three of those things require the exercise of authority to enact, and that authority is vested in people and institutions that flatly will not exercise it in pursuit of things that will in any way undermine their privilege or that of their wealthy cronies and patrons, and all of those things would do just that.
This is where it becomes relevant that the Democrats are only relatively less corrupt than the Republicans. They feed at the same corporate trough as the Republicans - they just have to, and do, play a somewhat different game to stay in office and maintain their privilege.
The Democrats have already demonstrated that when they have uncontested power - the presidency and congressional majorities - they will still find a way to fail to actually deliver. That's not just supposition - it's established fact. It's what they've already done. There's certainly no reason to believe that they're going to do any differently in the future.
Now that's not to say or imply that I disagree with you fundamentally. The first half of your list would at least slow the decline and putting Democrats in office would be broadly better than putting Republicans in office.
But the Democrat establishment, and the DNC in particular, is too corrupt and too compromised to provide more than token opposition to the oligarchy.
Elsewhere in this thread, a poster wrote of the possibility of the Republicans self-destructing snd the Democrats fragmenting. I don't think that's particularly likely, but it is attractive, since it would serve not only to eliminate the most overtly corrupt and destructive party but to provide a rallying point for those who call for genuine reform - the handful of actually decent politicians of the AOC/Sanders type could potentially have some real influence instead of just being lone voices made ineffectual by their subservience to a well-established and thoroughly corrupt party hierarchy.
Again though, I don't think it's at all likely.
I’m an old guy who also turned anarchist. I unfortunately agree with you. But I’m gonna fight the fascism as long as I can. These kids deserve better.
Well… maybe so. This may be the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it—that we are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable. The tragedy of all this is that George McGovern, for all his mistakes and all his imprecise talk about “new politics” and “honesty in government,” is one of the few men who’ve run for President of the United States in this century who really understands what a fantastic monument to all the best instincts of the human race this country might have been, if we could have kept it out of the hands of greedy little hustlers like Richard Nixon. McGovern made some stupid mistakes, but in context they seem almost frivolous compared to the things Richard Nixon does every day of his life, on purpose, as a matter of policy and a perfect expression of everything he stands for. Jesus! Where will it end?
-Hunter Thompson, "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72"
I think it's the way a lot of empires end. Everything gets easy, and without the survival element to keep people honest, over generations the people just lose touch with reality. They think migrant caravans are coming. They think all they need to do is half-ass their way through college and they deserve to get out make six figures still half-assing it. they think Trump is a genius, they think their adult kids are off the pills. The adult kids don't really grasp what the pills are really going to do to them and everyone around them, because everything's been mostly fine so far. Et cetera.
Speaking as another old guy, I wish I could disagree with you on your conclusion. 🥲
A political party is a collection and assemblage of individuals who share a set of beliefs and principles and policy views about the United States of America.
Remember when the Republican party simply didn't put out a party platform running up to the 2020 election? They released a one page document that just said "We stand for whatever Donald Trump wants." That was weird, huh?
That was the point where the Republicans ceased even pretending to be a normal political party and embraced their new identity as a fascist death cult. They don’t even have a platform. They literally stand for nothing.
Wait, seriously? That happened?
Former judge. Regardless, at this point, if you're still holding on to the label "Republican" for yourself, you're complicit.
Lindsay Graham was right about one thing!
This guy actively attacks the LQBTQ+ community, all the while being one himself, if the rumors are to believed.
I think those rumors are most likely true.
If it weren't for NDAsI think the world would be a better place. The rich and powerful get to hide their embarrassing and or criminal behavior with the help of the judicial system. As designed I suppose, but wish it were different
This is the best summary I could come up with:
American democracy has by most measures been in grave peril since 6 January 2021, the day Pence, as vice-president, took Luttig’s advice and refused to attempt to block congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election win.
Trump, 77, pleaded not guilty, as he has to 74 other criminal counts, in New York over hush-money payments to a porn star and federally regarding his retention of classified information.
In New York this week, regarding a civil suit in which Trump was found liable for defamation and sexual assault, a judge said it was not defamatory to call the former president a rapist.
Nonetheless, Trump leads Ron DeSantis of Florida, Pence and the rest of the field by more than 30 points, firmly on course to face Biden again.
Luttig told CNN: “A political party is a collection and assemblage of individuals who share a set of beliefs and principles and policy views about the United States of America.
A respected conservative judge who was considered for the supreme court under George W Bush, Luttig made a tremendous impact with his January 6 testimony.
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