# "The Rotten Core of Our Political System" **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [May 18, 2022, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rotten-core-of-our-political-system/964611 "2022-05-18T13:25:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2022, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rotten-core-of-our-political-system/964611/1 "2022-05-18T13:25:39Z")
I’d say don’t read this article or the referenced book if you ever plan to get a good night’s sleep again. ☹ [gifted link] > **[The Rotten Core of Our Political System](https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2022/05/this-will-not-pass-book-review-democrats-republican-political-power/629895/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share)** > > In their new account of the 2020 election, two New York Times reporters reveal just how broken American democracy has become. > Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin are star political reporters for _The_ _New York Times_ , and their scoops in [_This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future_](https://bookshop.org/books/this-will-not-pass-trump-biden-and-the-battle-for-america-s-future/9781982172480) have already [made headlines](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/21/us/politics/trump-mitch-mcconnell-kevin-mccarthy.html). But the book is more interesting than just for perishable news that will attract ogling Washington insiders. It’s a document of decline and fall—a chronicle that should cause future readers to ponder how American leaders in the early 21st century lost the ability and will to govern. Step back from the page-by-page account of congressional Republicans’ desperate grasping for Donald Trump’s favor or the Biden administration’s struggle to pass its legislative agenda: You’re confronted with a world of almost unrelieved cowardice, cynicism, myopia, narcissism, and ineptitude, where the overriding motive is the pursuit of power for its own sake. It’s rare that a politician thinks about any cause higher than self-interest. > > The book’s Democrats are at least sane, but they’re beset by petty quarrels, forever trying to solve the “identity politics’ Rubik’s cube,” and dragged down by a pervasive exhaustion; their elderly leaders are unable to grasp the brutal political forces swirling around them. The Republicans are hell-bent on the destruction of American democracy, or else too craven to stand in the way—the result is the same. Each party has a handful of impressive young politicians, but because they take governing seriously, they’re probably doomed to obscurity or defeat. > > … **The book’s impact lies less in any headline revelations than in the accumulation of small details that can almost seem routine but that reveal the deeper condition of American democracy.** > … My bold. There is some bothsiderism in the discussion, but the bottom line is: > The failures of the book’s Democrats do not threaten the republic. The rotten core around which our democracy has begun to collapse is the Republican Party. > … No big surprises here, but the quantity of small surprises is discouraging in the extreme. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2022, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rotten-core-of-our-political-system/964611/2 "2022-05-18T14:54:16Z")
I just read it. You’re right, nothing too surprising at all really. The article is a good (though depressing) capsule summary of what’s wrong with our political system. I might read the “This Will Not Pass” book if it shows up as an online library selection. Weirdly, I clicked the link to the book itself and the [bookshop.org](http://bookshop.org) listing has the book for sale in hardcover and compact disc formats. Who sells books on compact disc anymore? Also, the hardcover is (rounding up) $28 but the compact disc is $37? ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2022, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rotten-core-of-our-political-system/964611/3 "2022-05-18T15:07:25Z")
I left the book link in the article and didn’t check it out. Here’s the amazon link: > **[This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America's Future - Kindle...](https://www.amazon.com/This-Will-Not-Pass-Americas-ebook/dp/B09L9DL15P)** > > This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America's Future - Kindle edition by Martin, Jonathan, Burns, Alexander. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and... Oddly, the amazon page offers a CD, too. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2022, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rotten-core-of-our-political-system/964611/4 "2022-05-18T15:09:00Z")
Thanks for the link to the article, but I don’t find anything here particularly new - it’s already my brand of cynicism - and am unlikely to buy the book. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![TedBaiamonte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a698b9/32.png) [@TedBaiamonte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TedBaiamonte)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rotten-core-of-our-political-system/964611/5 "2022-05-19T02:19:45Z")
Book seems like trivia to me that misses the point completely. Plato and Aristotle defined history as the battle between freedom and govt. Our politics understands that. Republicans are for freedom while Democrats are for govt ie socialist nanny state govt. Since the country is split down the middle on this issue it stands to reason that our politics is dirty messy and indecisive, but don’t let that distract from the underlying ideas involved. ---
**Author:** ![Turki-lurki](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/turki-lurki/32/7168_2.png) [@Turki-lurki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turki-lurki)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rotten-core-of-our-political-system/964611/6 "2022-05-19T02:39:47Z")
I agree with your last sentence, if nothing else. Perhaps we can also agree that our only productive path forward is to find a way to jointly verify facts. Without a shared reality citizens will be ineffective in filtering out the self-serving BS of pols in both parties. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rotten-core-of-our-political-system/964611/7 "2022-05-19T02:42:17Z")
> [@TedBaiamonte](#): > > Our politics understands that. Republicans are for freedom while Democrats are for govt ie socialist nanny state govt. You made this baseless assertion previously. Do you think repeating it makes it so? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rotten-core-of-our-political-system/964611/8 "2022-05-19T02:44:16Z")
> [@TedBaiamonte](#): > > Republicans are for freedom while Democrats are for govt That’s a ridiculously simplistic analysis and one that really makes absolutely no sense, which this guy named Thomas something-or-other (you may have heard of him) refuted in a certain document that tends to get worshipped as sacred by people who’ve never read it; > [@](#): > > We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.– **That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men** , deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Atop that, you’re going to have to try pretty hard to convince me that the party that wants to ban contraception and gay marriage, throw women in prison for having a miscarriage, forbid schools from teaching history that might hurt white people’s feelings, prohibit social media platforms from content moderation, strip copyright protection from companies that won’t give them money, ban Muslims, prevent black and brown people from voting, block funding to help a democratic state fight off an invasion by a hostile fascist regime that meddles in our elections, overturn election results if they don’t like them, and rewrite the laws of the land based on Protestant evangelical fundamentalism, is in any meaningful way “for freedom”. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rotten-core-of-our-political-system/964611/9 "2022-05-19T03:10:01Z")
> [@TedBaiamonte](#): > > Plato and Aristotle defined history as the battle between freedom and govt. There’s been a lot of political philosophy done in the last 2500 years, you know. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rotten-core-of-our-political-system/964611/10 "2022-05-19T05:03:04Z")
These days, claiming that “Republicans are for freedom, not for government” is just a desperate ploy to distract from how absolutely incompetent and irresponsible the Republican Party is at governing anything. The Republican Party is firmly in the grip of its own extremist lunatics and trolls. and consequently incapable of formulating a reasonable and intelligent governance policy of any kind, because all its key constituents want to do is indulge their delusional fantasies and “own the libs”. So Republicans pretend that being able and willing to actually formulate and implement reasonable and intelligent governance policies is a bad thing, and being a bunch of delusional shit-flinging toddlers constitutes “freedom”. If any of their voters are plagued by moments of sanity where they start to wonder whether governments are in fact supposed to be figuring out and implementing reasonable and intelligent policies for the benefit of their citizens, the Party screams “socialism!” to terrify and distract them until the moment passes. ---
**Author:** ![TedBaiamonte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a698b9/32.png) [@TedBaiamonte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TedBaiamonte)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rotten-core-of-our-political-system/964611/11 "2022-05-19T05:50:52Z")
It doesn’t seem to me that the facts Are the biggest issue although certainly facts are important. The biggest issue is the concepts involved. Do you like the concept of big liberal socialist fascist progressive government or do you like the concept of freedom from government as our founders did when they wrote the constitution. ---
**Author:** ![TedBaiamonte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a698b9/32.png) [@TedBaiamonte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TedBaiamonte)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rotten-core-of-our-political-system/964611/12 "2022-05-19T05:51:55Z")
If it is baseless can you give us the reason it is baseless. ---
**Author:** ![TedBaiamonte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a698b9/32.png) [@TedBaiamonte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TedBaiamonte)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rotten-core-of-our-political-system/964611/13 "2022-05-19T05:53:58Z")
I have no idea why you are citing the declaration of independence in regard to my statement that Republicans are for freedom and Democrats are for government. Can you explain the connection? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rotten-core-of-our-political-system/964611/14 "2022-05-19T05:56:34Z")
> [@TedBaiamonte](#): > > I have no idea why you are citing the declaration of independence in regard to my statement that Republicans are for freedom and Democrats are for government. Did you not read what I quoted? It is one of the founding principles of the American state that the reason government exists is to protect the freedoms of the people. “Freedom” and “government” are inexorable from one another, and it is preposterous to claim that one party is “for freedom” and the other is “for government”, especially when the party that you purport to be “for freedom” is openly fascist and aims to restrict and eliminate the freedoms of most of the population. > [@TedBaiamonte](#): > > Do you like the concept of big liberal socialist fascist progressive government Tell me you don’t know what “socialist”, “fascist”, and “progressive” mean without telling me that you don’t know what “socialist”, “fascist”, and “progressive” mean. You may as well have said they’re Commie Nazi Satanic poopooheads. > [@](#): > > do you like the concept of freedom from government as our founders did when they wrote the constitution. Please explain to me how the people who wrote the document establishing a government desired “freedom from government”. And no, I don’t like “the concept of freedom from government”, because, as another philosopher who lived and died since Aristotle’s time could tell you, freedom from government is as such; > [@Thomas Hobbes](#): > > During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man. > > To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues. > > No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. ---
**Author:** ![TedBaiamonte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a698b9/32.png) [@TedBaiamonte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TedBaiamonte)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rotten-core-of-our-political-system/964611/15 "2022-05-19T05:59:42Z")
The Republicans are for capitalism and the Democrats are for socialism. To give you an idea of how important that is look at China which switched to republican capitalism in the late 1970s after Mao died. They went from 0 capitalist businesses to 80 million capitalist businesses and instantly eliminated 40% of all the poverty on earth, saved another 60 million from slowly starving to death under socialism and moved 800 million human souls up from subsistence Socialism to the capitalist middle class. if you want to see what the Democrats can do to America look at the great depression. FDR is a great hero to the Democrat party even though his great depression lasted 16 years and caused a world war that killed 80 million people. That should give you some idea of how much dangerous the Democrats represent for America and for the world. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rotten-core-of-our-political-system/964611/16 "2022-05-19T06:01:07Z")
> [@TedBaiamonte](#): > > FDR is a great hero to the Democrat party even though his great depression… How was a world wide financial crisis that started four years before he took office “his” Great Depression? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rotten-core-of-our-political-system/964611/17 "2022-05-19T06:01:55Z")
> [@TedBaiamonte](#): > > The Republicans are for capitalism and the Democrats are for socialism. Please define “socialism”, if you will. > [@TedBaiamonte](#): > > To give you an idea of how important that is look at China which switched to republican capitalism in the late 1970s after Mao died. They went from 0 capitalist businesses to 80 million capitalist businesses and instantly eliminated 40% of all the poverty on earth, saved another 60 million from slowly starving to death under socialism and moved 800 million human souls up from subsistence Socialism to the capitalist middle class. Perhaps you should move to China if you think they’ve got it so sweet there. I eagerly await your field report. > [@](#): > > FDR is a great hero to the Democrat party even though his great depression lasted 16 years and caused a world war that killed 80 million people. 1. There is no such thing as “the Democrat party”. 2. FDR took office in 1933, four years after the Great Depression began. 3. The Great Depression did not last 16 years. 4. FDR did not cause World War II, which began when Hitler, who by your logic was a “republican capitalist”, invaded Poland. 5. FDR’s administration oversaw the creation of Social Security, the minimum wage, the 40-hour workweek, the NLRB, rural electrification through organizations like the CCC and the TVA, the Telecommunications Act, SNAP, and many other programs that have increased the American people’s standard of living, quality of life, and overall lifespan. If “freedom” and “republican capitalism” are in opposition to these public goods, then those philosophies are evil. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rotten-core-of-our-political-system/964611/18 "2022-05-19T09:53:52Z")
> [@TedBaiamonte](#): > > Book seems like trivia to me that misses the point completely. Your responses seem to me like trivia that miss the point completely. But I appreciate the attention you’ve drawn to my thread. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rotten-core-of-our-political-system/964611/19 "2022-05-19T12:04:09Z")
> [@TedBaiamonte](#): > > The Republicans are for capitalism and the Democrats are for socialism And the democrats want to seize WHICH means of production again? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2022, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rotten-core-of-our-political-system/964611/20 "2022-05-19T13:17:07Z")
No, you answer my question first. Do you think repeating baseless assertions makes them true? Nothing you have posted as a basis for your statement is based in reality, just mimicking the moronic drivel of the Republican party before Trump sent them all the way down the drain. Your nonsense is not even up to date. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-rotten-core-of-our-political-system/964611.md?page=2)