Change within your lifetime of the Democratic and Republican party.

Democrats:
Much less anti-militarism. George McGovern, the conscience of the Senate for years, would never have been nominated today. Democrats join with Republicans in the endless gushing over those wonderful wonderful troops and say all the patriotically correct things.

Much more afraid to stand up to the NRA and come out in support of gun control.

The Democrats have been free to move to the right since the Republicans have ceded everything left of center-right.

Republicans:
Now completely controlled by the lunatic right wing fringe.

Cannot admit that government has any useful purpose.

Forced to out-suck up to the military in competition with Democrats.

Have purged all of its sane members. The few sane members must pay lip service to batshit crazy ideas just so they don’t get primaried by the batshit crazy.

Well, if all that’s true, that means it doesn’t matter who wins if you’re a right-winger. Either way, you get right-wing policies.

There’s a kernel of truth to that, but I’ll need the Democrats to move a little further to the right.

BobLibDem doesn’t seem happy to imagine GOP governing:

How might a “lunatic” with “batshit crazy ideas” react to such a characterization? Let me guess: We’d hear only non sequitur in response.

It’s almost charming how “conservatives” cannot handle shades of gray. This is even discussed in neuroscience journals.

Not exactly, it could be – to take a very rough analogy – of voting for someone who wants to increase your income if you are in certain brackets by 10% versus 20%. Both are good but one is better.

Like you said, there is some truth to it but it is not the whole picture. There are some real differences in the social arena and in the whole approach to government, even if it doesn’t make as much of a difference in actual policies that are advocated in the fiscal arena.

If they did that, the FEMA-death-camp thing would be for real.

I used to call myself an independent and voted 30 - 40% of the time for Republicans, 40-50% for Democrats and the rest of the time for independents.

After the Republicans became the party of crazy, I totally stopped voting for them, even relatively reasonable ones. They are relatively harmless as a minority party that slows change down a bit (not always a bad thing), but when they become the majority party all restraints come off and they let their inner insanity free to go about destroying things willy nilly. It then will be up for subsequently elected adult Democrats to pick up their messes.

I wouldn’t say that. With Democrats able to govern (meaning a Dem Speaker and 60+ Dems in the Senate with a Dem president) we’d get reasonable middle of the road policies. But it’s like a three-legged stool, knock down one leg and everything falls apart into chaos. Now we have one party unable to govern and the other unwilling to participate.

The Democrats cannot move far enough right to court adaher’s vote, nor should they try. The right-most Democrat is well to the left of the left-most Republican. There is no sense in moving further right for the Democrats, that wing is populated by those who wouldn’t vote D in any circumstance.

And much earlier by Archilochus in the hedgehog/fox analogy. They know One Big Thing, while progressives and moderates know many things.

Actually, I’ve found that it’s liberals that can’t handle nuance.

They can. I’d take Clinton budget policies in a heartbeat. heck, I might get a chance to vote for just that in 2016.

None of them?

I welcome your vote for Hillary. What state do you live in and would your vote make a difference?

Florida, and it’s not a sure thing. Depends on the GOP nominee. If it’s Jindal or Christie, I’m voting Republican. If it’s anyone else, I’ll probably vote for Clinton. Cuomo can win my vote too, given that he’s been impressive as New York governor.

I have to admit that you are much more receptive to voting for a D than I ever would be to vote for an R. Short of the Democrats nominating Charles Manson, I can’t see myself voting Republican.

Yes, the theory in question would predict that result.

If you’re liberal, you’d never vote R. You’re either Democrat or Green. Conservatives have a home in both parties. Well, probably not social conservatives, but I’m not a social conservative.

Of course, then why vote Republican? Or why continue to support the current anti-science crop?

Depends on the candidates. My first vote for a Republican for President was John McCain. I’ve never voted for a Bush, I’m not likely to.

For Congress, I’m a lot more reliably Republican, but I did support Bill Nelson over Katherine Harris.

And it made him the only one that I would possible voted for. But only if Obama, Biden, Clinton, and John Edwards all dropped out and the Dems nominated Nader.

Because of the amount of corruption, bribery, and behind the scenes politics i have decided i am not a rep or a dem because both parties only interest is in people and things that bring them lots of cash. Both parties work together behind closed doors everyday negotiating your country, your rights, and your liberty and freedom right out from under you in order to make a large amount of cash or to please some corporate executive, or to please share holders. Tyranny is rampant in america today and if you trust anyone in washington you are majorly uninformed about the fact that america is falling like a 747 in a nose dive at full throttle. Yes our entire government is that evil and corrupt.