MetalDestroyer
Heaven's Football Bat
Name a candidate
US Political Discussion: Biden/Harris Edition (Rules in OP)
- Thread starter mongey
- Start date
This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links like Ebay, Amazon, and others.
Drew
Forum MVP
See, though, this is the thing.
Biden's still making sure federal funding is there to replace that bridge. He's serving the voters of Baltimore, and of anyone who depends on goods and people flowing out of Baltimore and elsewhere through the country.
He IS serving us. Does it matter that his professed reason for doing so, "I've taken a train across that bridge loads of times," is wrong, if he's still serving voters? I'd say you'd have a case if he was out there saying "the federal government will get this taken care of," and then privately telling Baltimore to go figure it out on his own, but he's not. If at the end of the day he still does right by voters and follows through on his commitments, does it really matter if he's ever taken a train across that bridge?
Go back to my post approx 20 pages ago when I said we need to stop treating primary opposition as harmful to the party (or democracy) at large.
This site may earn a commission from merchant links like Ebay, Amazon, and others.
Oh, I'm with you. On my local election scorecard, incumbency is minus two points. But, at the federal level, I had been voting third party for decades, with two exceptions: Obama (2008) and Biden. I didn't like Biden, but he's a hell of a lot less destructive than Trump. Either way, though, it's lose-superlose.
Now is the perfect time for a 3rd party hero. The majority of Americans* (*according to the polls that confirm my bias on this) don't like either mainstream option this time around. So... where are they? Where's my Ross Perot-Ralph Nader-Jill Stein chimera?Hell, even Vermin Supreme is sitting this round out. I think that guy is a nut, but, at this point, he'd still be a close #2 for me if there were only 3 options.
RFK JR - Google Goldigger Chick 2024
I agree 100%.
However....
How on earth can that be enforced if the parties don't care?
...and the people will never reach a point where they care enough to give a third party more than 15% of the vote?
spawnofthesith
Well-Known Member
Yeah historically I've always used my ballot as a throwaway third party protest vote
I made my first exception in 2020 for Biden
I'd have to read up on the procedure for making it on the ballot in a primary but my understanding is that the DNC can bitch and moan, but as long as you follow the procedure they've gotta hold a primary.
To some extent, Obama ran a bit of an insurgent campaign in the primary and won so it's possible.
The bigger problem is less about the party just picking someone, more about the discouragement I mentioned above. I had a guy in my office a couple weeks ago that has some influence in the Democratic Party at the local and state levels, and he was going on and on about how dangerous Cornel West and Marianne Williamson are. "Biden is going to be he candidate, let it go". We should be making the best candidate claw their way to the top, and instead we approach it as "don't let people in our own party sow distrust and poke holes in the handpicked candidate that THE ENEMY will use."
And it's a slippery slope of logic. To be honest, Biden should have been the candidate in 2016 and just wrapping up his second term. The party big wigs took him in the back room, said "it's Hillary's time" and he stayed out of it. The only competition she had was a Socialist that's not even a member of the party and he took her to the woodshed for a while there. Biden would've walked into that nomination clean if he wasn't discouraged from running.
And I know that it's cliche but I still do believe MOST politics that effect our lives the most are local, and those are places where it's much easier to effect change anyway.
Drew
Forum MVP
Broken record here, the parties are doing what is - for lack of a better word - economically rational for them. Not in the narrow "that's where the money is" sense, but in the broader "they're doing what maximizes their utility" sense. They see an incentive structure, and respond to it in a rational manner.
The US constitution gives a tremendous amount of party to anyone who can put together a simple majority of votes. So, its rational, from the perspective of maximizing the value of your vote as a representative within that government, to form a coalition that can represent 50%+1 of votes in the chamber. There's some upside to going above 50%+1, if you can do so without unduly diluting your coalition, but the more you dilute it the harder it is to hold consensus (as the GOP is finding today). So, a "shoot the moon" strategy isn't as useful, as finding a series of positions that will win you a narrow majority.
Since part of this power is the ability to create districts at the state level, then you have a second-order incentive there, to create districts where you're likely to win a narrow majority of seats by a comfortable margin, and lose a narrow majority of seats by a wide margin. As a result, very few sets are actually competitive. If you hold one of them, your biggest risk isn't losing to someone from outside your coalition, it's losing to someone taking an even more aggressive position than you do. As a result, you hollow out the center, and over time more and more space exists between the two parties and it becomes harder and harder to form compromises because the electoral incentives favor people who don't compromise. Paradoxically, the parties have an incentive, if weak, to minimize extremism a little since it makes it harder to hold together a 50%+1 coalition, though obviously it's not a strong incentive. Still, look at the Republican House of Representatives today.
Broken record, these are themes I've gone on about a whole bunch here, but for anyone touting "third party candidates" as an answer, it bears repeating that if you said that to one of our founding fathers they'd have no fucking clue what you were talking about because they never envisioned political parties. Political parties were merely the obvious response to a Constitution that gave fairly broad powers to a simple majority.
So, if you think third party candidates are the answer, really you're only half right, or at best maybe you're looking at least a step down the line. The better question you should be asking yourselves here is, "how do we create a situation where third parties can be viable?"
There are any number of possible answers here, from a constitutional re-write to more of a parliamentary system, to things like ranked choice voting that reduces the "cost" of a vote for a third party by allowing you a second (or third, or fourth) choice, to a constitutional or successful Supreme Court challenge to gerrymandering to produce a map of legitimately competitive districts, which likely in and of itself wouldn't make third parties more viable, but would radically change the incentive structure for existing parties.
As it stands though, equilibrium for the US Constitution is two closely-balanced political parties. For nearly 250 years, whenever a potentially viable third party started to emerge, within a cycle or two it was either absorbed into an existing party and its positions were co-opted and became part of theirs, or it supplanted one of the parties and became the dominant party in a two-party system, itself. That will continue to happen.
We will never have a "third party" in the United States so long as our Constitution provides a disproportionate share of power to a simple majority, and 50% plus one vote gives you a LOT more power than 50% minus one vote. Calling for third party voting as a solution ignores 250 years of political history in this country. You need to change the incentives, not the representatives.
Briz
Lifelong Learner
Hear me out. What if we ignored the media propaganda arm of both parties (they're biased political hacks that have eff you money and a a vested interest in politics), and we voted for candidates that compromised in a multi-faceted way to represent the whole of America? What! We have to give a little on both sides? We can't run roughshod over the "others?" Yeah, we have to compromise sometimes. That's how life works. And I'm talking normal compromises, not fringe.
If you think all of this divisiveness isn't designed to gin up emotional support, if you think that we don't have more in common than what we're being told to believe, I have a bridge that I'll sell you on the cheap.
If you think all of this divisiveness isn't designed to gin up emotional support, if you think that we don't have more in common than what we're being told to believe, I have a bridge that I'll sell you on the cheap.
Drew
Forum MVP
I don't recall Sanders ever getting as close to becoming the nominee in 2016, as he did in 2020, when briefly he was the Democratic frontrunner, until he imploded.
I still think - as someone who is NOT a fan of the guy - Bernie's fatal error in 2020 was continuing to run an ant-establishment campaign when suddenly he found himself the frontrunner. Running as an outsider works when you ARE an outsider. When suddenly you look like you might actually have a realistic shot of representing the Democratic Party in the 2020 election, as the candidate with the largest plurality of support in an election where no one has a simple majority, you can't then go and run against the Democratic party and expect to win. It's logically self-defeating. Even some token nods towards party unity and not stepping away from his vision but showing how the party establishment could be part of it, and we'd be talking about President Sanders' odds against Trump today.
Instead, he sort of forced the Democratic establishment - which, frontrunner or not, was still a sizable majority of the party, as (again, running as an anti-establishment candidate) he never managed to get majority support within the party - to rally around a single establishment candidate, and Biden was the most plausible option. What Sanders needed to do was exactly what Obama DID do - run as an insurgent, but offer enough of an olive branch - just enough, I understand it was touch and go into the final 24 hours that Clinton was going to actually give an address and endorsement at the party convention that year - to allow the rest of the party to grudgingly get behind him.
For now this is just kind of an interesting historical footnote, but with a resurgent Trump, if the jackass actually goes on and wins in November, then that's going to be a very costly strategic mistake for Sanders, for all Americans.
Drew
Forum MVP
Read my (very long) post above you. This isn't about media control or anything like that, it's as simple as we allow a simple majority of votes to set the legislative agenda, so parties sprung up to find positions that could pull narrow majorities.
It's almost a purely mechanical response to the US Constitution. Why would we suddenly have a viable third party NOW, when we didn't for 250 years, during a time of less centralized party politics, and less consolidation in the media?
Drew still triggered by talking about Sanders lol. This is what happens if you try to make a dent in the handpicked candidate.
Drew
Forum MVP
Nah, 2016 I don't think he was ever that much of a threat. I think Clinton lost primarily because she didn't understand how much of a political liability being a Clinton was, and because she decided to try to run the map to prove a point, rather than shore up her margins in swing states. 2020, I think Sanders could have won, he just miscalculated.
I don't like the guy personally, and he's not well liked in Vermont, which I think is telling. But I don't disagree with all that much of his policy objectives. Means, sometimes, but not aims.
Still triggered.
Anyway, compare those popular vote numbers to other notable Democratic contests (2000, 2004. 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020). Only 2008 was closer. From a guy that's not even in the party.
EDIT: Anyway, go back to my original point. If they let Biden run in 2016, he'd have won handily. Primary and general.
Drew
Forum MVP
I agree with you on Biden. I DO think even a slight pivot on Sanders' part, and he could have won the primary, AND the general, in 2020.
Briz
Lifelong Learner
Vox populi @DrewH ? It's a big "what if," but what if we got back to states' rights and compromise? As a Christian, there's a million things that could offend me every single day. However, I don't let those things bother me to the extent that maybe some do. I look at the bigger picture. Yes, my faith in God drives my decisions in life, but i also understand and accept that I can be a productive member of society, let others make their life choices, and choose not to let everyone else live rent free in my head. Harmony is compromise. Back to my original point, are you comfortable with self-serving, self-enriching lifelong politicians that are funded by you, lying directly to you on a daily basis? I would think that whatever your stance is on objective truth, that should be offensive. It's not a left or right issue. It's a "can we compromise on what's truly important" issue.
And let me state clearly, I'm comfortable enough, and self reliant enough, to not need a bloated bureaucratic nation state to tell me how to live as a decent human. We accept a two party system. We, the people, can absolutely change that option.
And let me state clearly, I'm comfortable enough, and self reliant enough, to not need a bloated bureaucratic nation state to tell me how to live as a decent human. We accept a two party system. We, the people, can absolutely change that option.
I like the guy and I think he's a joke candidate for POTUS in a primary. One step above guy with the boot on his head or "rent is too damn high".
I agree with you on Biden. I DO think even a slight pivot on Sanders' part, and he could have won the primary, AND the general, in 2020.
Hillary Clinton with as outstanding a resume as you could find for the job (8-years in the White House, US Senator of a major state, runner up in presidential primary by .1%, Secretary of State). And she still ran pretty tight against the Socialist and lost against "grab em by the pussy" "I can shoot someone on 5th avenue and not lose a vote" "you're fired" reality show scam artist guy. She was awful, and that's what happens when the party "picks" their candidates a year early.
I know Biden was dealing with the loss of Beau, but there's a lot of stories about how he was dissuaded from running. It stands to reason he wrote a book and went on a very serious cross-country tour of "talks" tantamount to campaign/rally/town halls. Even he himself said at the time (and after Beau passed) he didn't run because he didn't think he could beat Hillary in a primary. Coming from the then sitting VPOTUS.
If we started normalizing a rigorous, open primary system (with other systematic and culture tweaks) we'd start seeing candidates we actually like rather than "yuck vs more yuck"
The whole third party getting absorbed is probably a natural thing for the reasons you explained here. But it hasn't really happened in the past couple decades. The green party hasn't been absorbed into the democratic party, the libertarian party hasn't been absorbed into the republican party, etc. You could say that these parties don't need to absorb their smaller constituents, and you'd be right from an economic standpoint. Well, mostly. But then look at how thin presidential margins have been and ponder the size of third party votes in the hypothetical case that ALL of those went into a party. It *could have* made a difference in the ultimate outcome of at least three elections. Hmm.
So what is going on here? Well, I think the third parties are unfairly portrayed in popular culture as nutty. Ross Perot was not a bad candidate, technically. He tried to explain shit to people in a way that was easier to understand. Lots of people at the time looked at him scratching their chins and wondering "what if," but... SNL absolutely mocked him. When Nader ran, no one took him the least bit seriously, but he would have done a better job than Bush Jr., which is who we got. Then exactly what the Green party predicted happened. Gary Johnson was lambasted for saying shit that actually made perfect sense with his platform, like not giving a shit about what was going on in the middle east, because, well, we honestly do tend to get way too involved.
And this is sort of the folly of democracy. To paraphrase Osho, democracy is government for the people by the people, but the people are idiots. We vote for the worst possible option all of the time. There's no fixing it, because you can't snap your fingers and make everyone magically know what's best for them. So we watch our idiot box tell us for whom to vote and we vote and we are disappointed when the government sucks at doing it's main job of protecting our freedoms.
So why do I vote third party? Because fuck the parties. That's why. They don't care about me. They don't care about you. They care about power. In democracy, power equals votes. So, they benefit from keeping us dumb, because the dumber we are, the more we tend to be happy with the status quo and the less we care about their tyrany. Trump found the paradigm shift of getting people who are dumb to feel smart by pointing this out but leaving out the fact that he's a big part of the problem. I don't know how.many times in 2016, I heard something like "Trump will get rid of the career politicians who cowtow to corrupt billionaires!" ignoring the ironic fact that he'd be replacing at least one of them with the very same corrupt billionaires these people fear.
I recall my parents being worried that Bush Jr. was cutting funding for higher education and promoting NCLB in primary education in order to dumb down future generations to make them.easier to corral. Maybe they were right, because here we are.
As much as I agree in spirit, it's important to understand that the way people hear about any candidate is through the media. At least at the national level. Nobody is going to become president from going door-to-door and running zero ads and doing zero debates.
There's no winning strategy here. We already lost. 2016 was the best chance to get a third party to actually mean something, and it was a huge failure. No third party has any shot in 2024, and won't in 2028 nor 2032 nor 2036, if we even still have a country by then.
Briz
Lifelong Learner
Unfortunately, you're right about third party. But, what if? What if we could agree on a third party candidate that didn't run on "my way or the highway, toe the party line," but acknowledged our differences and united us around the numerous issues we share in common? Maybe it's a pipe dream, but it certainly doesn't have to be. It's a choice we willingly make every time we cast a local, state, or federal vote. If I can have atheist friends that I cherish, our nation can certainly find a middle ground. The problem is the facade and sleight of hand - look over here, hate that person, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. I could be wrong, but I believe the divisiveness we're seeing is by design to establish and maintain power and money. When I hear truth and honesty that's not designed by a speech writer to tickle my ears, I love it. That's why MSM is dying. People know they're being lied to and they're tired of it, on the left, middle, and right.
That's why I don't understand why, in a civilized world, we give blatant liars a pass because they're "our guy" or "our girl." Enough. Every hour you work pays their salary. Maybe there's a movement to abstain from voting until something changes. Again, it's a big "what if," but not impossible.
