Success!
I’m genuinely curious what you’re referring to here. I assume It’s got something to do with the Philando Castile shooting, but I can’t quite figure out what.
The highest priority must be the rapid reduction of GOP power. Join the Democrats and work to moderate their worst ideas. Hope for the Democrats to become a dominant party. Don’t worry — just as the Era of Good Feeling soon led to a fracture in the old Democratic Party, so a new, hopefully saner, conservative party will re-emerge once the GOP disintegrates.
This argument always confuses me. Do you need Yet.Another.Cite that it is the GOP which forces up the national debt?
[2] Baffle me again. There is one party most supportive of personal liberty and it isn’t the GOP.
[3] If this minor issue is really so important to you, name your faction “Democrats for Guns” or such. Be an activist and help other pro-gun rational thinkers feel welcome with the Dems.
adaher, I was raised as a conservative Republican. I only broke with the party in the last few years because I couldn’t stand how extreme they were getting. I am still registered as a Republican but I’ve been voting for Democrats lately, including Obama for his second term. I did vote Republican for Governor in MD because Hogan seemed sane and decent enough. I remain registered as a Republican in the hopes that someday I can make a difference during a primary and because it doesn’t stop me from voting for who I want in general elections. I consider myself a moderate these days and don’t really feel I belong to either of the two main parties right now and I’m too moderate to try one of the wacky third parties. But I do feel the Democrats better represent my thoughts these days. I just hope they don’t go insane and shift too far to the left, but they might in response to Trump and the Republicans
Republican Presidents have a very bad record on deficits, but Republican Congresses with Democratic Presidents and GOP governors and legislatures have a much better record. Over here in Florida we’ve benefitted nicely from 19 years of Republican governance. We are now #1 in fiscal health.
You COULD start from the position that BOTH the Democratic AND the Republican parties need to be forced into non-existence.
From there, the pragmatic viewpoint needs to take over: if the Republican Party stops existing and the field is left to the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party, being a loose coalition of single-issue advocates joined primarily by a vague desire that the world be a better place for EVERYONE on the planet (and a perhaps quixotic belief that this is possible), will surely split into factions, which will inevitably coalesce into no more than two core groups.
If the Democratic Party disappears first, the Republican Party, being the more disciplined, will inevitably achieve hegemony, and funnel power upward toward the most ruthless. It is not inconceivable that ALL power will ultimately be placed in the hands of a single person, who will likely decree that it be passed down to his or her progeny. The spectre of theocracy being a part of this is also a distinct possibility.
Obviously, in order to avoid America devolving into a dystopian hellscape, the thing to do is to work toward the dissoluton and elimination of the Republican Party. Membership in the Libertarian or Green Party will not enable you to help facilitate this outcome.
Missed the edit window: Or, you could align with a third party, endorse the dysfunctional status quo, and hope for a political deus ex machina to come along and stop entropy from letting the dystopian hellscape scenario happen anyway (albeit at a slower pace).
I would suggest that you not try to align with a party, but rather make your advocacy be on behalf of issues on which you feel strongly. That’s the idea behind the ACLU, for example, which is why they aren’t in bed with either major party.
I do hope you’ve purged the poison from your system that defined what you wanted to be done as being exactly the opposite of what someone else wanted done, with no more thought than “the stupid” you deplore having been given to it. That has held you back for a long time, just as it continues to hold back so many of the Faithful of the party you’ve traditionally, and reflexively, supported.
Yes, the structure of the US government forces us into a two-party system, and all progress is made through the parties even if sometimes outside pressure is needed. You need a sober, objective assessment of what the parties really stand for in terms of general attitude toward government’s role in public life, *without *relying on party propaganda or other fake news to tell you what that is, and you’ll likely find yourself far more in accord with one party than the other. There should be no reluctance then to claim that party as your own.
To the OP: Just vote for whoever seems the most sane in the election. That was the purpose of elections to begin with, before parties, just trying to select people who you trust to actually govern with sanity and caring.
Actually doing that doesn’t seem like a horrible thing, I would hope?
I left the Republicans for good in 2008, but had largely left them by 2000. I never joined the Dems though. When I vote in a primary, I un-register that week. (a NJ requirement to stay no party.) In the end I vote for the Dems. I was a Hawk, Cheney broke of that. I loved the party of Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln and Ike but the modern Republican Party is terrible. Worse then the Dems and much more hateful.
I campaigned for the man that probably started the quick slide downhill. Reagan was to me good for the country at the time but what he brought into the party has destroyed it I feel.
I hate how disorganized the Dems are but I see no choice in election after election but to choose the Democratic Candidate as the least bad candidate. This last election was the worst of it. Voting for HRC over Trump was unpleasant but how could I vote for Trump.
I’m an independent. I don’t belong to a political party. I vote far more often with Democrats than with Republicans for the past…long time. But there are elements of the “loony left” I don’t agree with - but I find more harmless currently than the equivalent on the other side.
Make a difference by supporting causes and candidates you agree with. Have conversations. You are in a great place to point out right now that “Mitt Romney is really a pretty ethical guy - we probably should have demonized him - but Trump is an ASSHOLE” And start to be the person we need more of - and more visibility that they exist - the reasonable moderates. The people who aren’t all or nothing.