Honestly, to me the number and names of parties is immaterial. I believe that a one party state would produce factions within the party that would serve a similar purpose as separate parties.
What I would like, however, is parties or factions that are not adversarial enemies. Does a business “work” if everyone is in an adversarial relationship with their co-workers? Does a marriage “work” if the couple is in an adversarial relationship? Why then do we accept, and even celebrate, political parties in strong opposition to each other? Why not have differing viewpoints and try to accommodate the differences, without playing as if winning is the most important result?
Possibly. Even probably. (My French Hen…) But a one-party system has a huge advantage in self-policing. They can use their power to marginalize dissenters, splitters, and reformers.
We’ve seen this within the Republican Party, beginning with Reagan’s Rule, “Never criticize a fellow Republican,” and currently with their heavy-handed dis-invitations to people perceived as RINO. They’re much more centralized in campaign fund-raising and funding.
You guys make it sound as if you believe the political parties are the prime movers in all of this, as if we are just passive observers, watching the political parties run us collectively over the cliff (we won’t even get into putting all of the blame on any one party). That’s simply not the case. The voters are the ones who push the parties to do whatever it is they are doing. Without folks voting these clowns in we wouldn’t have these situations in the first place. But we do because ‘we’ vote for left wingers and right wingers who are so diametrically opposed that they simply refuse to compromise. Why? Well, because invariably, those who DO compromise are seen as soft towards the other side and they lose the next election. So, what we have is political posturing that seemingly shows no compromise. WE are the ones who have brought us to this.
It’s ironic to me having been on this board so long how the worm turns. I remember when it was ardent Democrats on this board bemoaning the fact that Democrats WERE compromising with the Republicans and how it was Republicans angry that the Democrats wouldn’t compromise more. Now things have shifted the other way.
We have one Party that has no policy.
It defines its self exclusively by what is opposes.
We need a new generation of actual, positive Republican policymakers.
It also needs to abandon Know-Nothing-ism, anti-Science-ism and anti-intellectualism.
To be clear, I am not advocating for a one-party system, and I’m not suggesting that anyone else is, either. I’m just asking: if the Republican party were to utterly collapse, what is likely to happen and what is the best-case scenario?
So far, the consensus seems to be:
What would happen: Democrat control for one or two election cycles while the Republicans sort their party out. Back to business as usual, but a step or two back from the brink.
Would could happen: Barring unlikely extremes, such as the introduction of Westminister-syle government, once the Republicans are irrelevant, the Conservative wing of the Democrats would gradually form its own replacement party and the Democrats would split.
What probably would not happen: A long-term one-party state. The rise of the Greens etc. to be the main second party. Any real radical reform.
The collapse of the Republican party, the political marginalization of most of its members, and the Democrats splitting into new parties. The farthest right of which is left of what the Democrats are now. The “why” of course is that I think America is much, much too far to the Right.
America continues its slide to the Right, ending with the present system fully collapsing into a Christian-Corporate fascist state.
The modern Republican Party, and since the days of Nixon (probably Goldwater), has been horrible and getting worse with each election cycle. I could do without it. However, if given a vote to eliminate the Republican Party, I would vote no. The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t and all that. But at the rate the Republicans are hurting themselves, it doesn’t look like they will be viable in 2014 or 2016 and are self-destructing. Which is what they deserve.
Nixon was a horrid President but I don’t have a sense of the Republican Party of that era being particularly bad. The struggles were largely reasonable from Eisenhower through maybe Carter, and while Reagan was more moderate than many who came later, we went into the Dutch era with some balance and came out of it careening to the right, with the Republicans getting more and more ideologically driven and isolated until we have the present insanity.
I can’t argue with Nixon being a horrible president, but many of his policies were very good. Founding the EPA, opening China, and cutting loose the price of gold for three. Nixon was a moderate - to the right of the Rockefeller wing but to the left of the Goldwater wing.
The difference between the party then (and I was a member then) and now is that no one thought about driving out one faction or another. All of them, from left to right, understood the importance of compromise both within the party and outside of the party.
The only thing wrong with the Republican party today is that the extremists have driven the more moderate types out and scared most of the rest. It needs a near-death experience so the tea party faction can be purged.
I may disagree with McCain, but he puts his country first. Ted Cruz puts Ted Cruz first.
California is an interesting case. Much of the less densely populated central valley is very Republican - the Bay Area and LA is mostly Democratic. And Orange County may be changing from Rep to Dem. Republicans in California are suffering from the same changing demographics which are affecting the country as a whole, just faster. They refused to give up on their anti-immigration policies and got their butts whipped.
Just like in Congress, the Republicans in California got a lot of 2/3 requirements passed which led to gridlock. Eventually the voters rebelled and got rid of some of them, then the voters really rebelled and got rid of enough Republicans that the 2/3 majority rule in the legislature no longer helped them. Of course they were unable to gerrymander the state, which is where the national Republicans have an advantage.
If the national Republicans don’t start moderating their positions, they may be just as irrelevant in a decade.
I think I’d like to see the Republican party stop being the party of insane religious morons and go back to being the party of Ronald Reagan, George H W Bush, Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani. I mean you may not have liked their politics, but at least they weren’t insane.
Personally I don’t think it matters. The system is designed as a series of checks and balances. There are two parties not so that one is perfect. It’s because most Americans are moderate independents and will tend to vote for the other if one party gets too far to the right or left.
One of my pet political fantasies over the years has been an option on the ballot for None of the Above. If enough people voted that option, new candidates would have to be chosen.
Well, lo and behold, they just instituted this in India. Maybe the idea will spread.
IRV/STV/preference voting will not foster third parties. It’s less favourable to them than FPTP.
What you want to that aim is proportional representation, or multi-member electorates, for reduction in gerrymandering or some combination. You shouldn’t assume that third parties inherently deliver diversity of legislative opinion or better government.
One difference between the left and the right is that when the left disagrees with the right, they regard the right as evil. When the right disagrees with the left, we just think they are in error or deluded but not evil.
This is why the left is so violent. This is why conservative speakers can’t go on a university campus w/o bodyguards and adequate security. Seriously…how man conservative student groups have thrown pies at liberal speakers? or shaving cream? The funny thing about leftists is that sometimes they shout down their own side b/c they aren’t left enuf.
Here is the difference tho. Both parties have loonies. The Democrats, however, give their loonies a place of honor at their convention. The GOP distances itself from its loonies. I don’t think even Ann Coulter can get an invite to the GOP convention.
So you don’t see how people could consider wanting to, say, amend the Constitution to enshrine bigotry against a minority “evil”?
I mean, I could just as easily say that the most “mainstream” extreme leftists I can think of are the radial environmentalists, and they never get anywhere close to national conventions, while Pat Robertson spoke at Republican ones.
