Coalition governments can certainly have their own problems.
But at least no one can bitch they have little choice at the polls.
75% person every time. Easy.
Uhh… what? No idea what that has to do with anything I was saying or arguing.
You’re totally misinterpreting my analogy. Which is partly my fault, as it was somewhat unclear, because in my fictional village, there was an election, but then also a flood, and I’m trying to analogize the flood in the analogy to an election in the real world.
Let me rephrase things slightly. There’s no mayor in the village at all. Rather, there was a random smart guy named Shmernie Shmanders in the village who tried to convince everyone that we should all work a little harder and build a stone wall. But most people didn’t listen. For whatever reason. So there is no stone wall.
And flood season comes. And you were someone who really took Shmanders seriously, and you wanted to build the stone wall, and you canvassed for the stone wall. But now, it doesn’t matter how sensible the stone wall idea was, it doesn’t matter how right you were and how wrong everyone else is. There is no longer any time to build a stone wall.
The only two possible outcomes are flood kills everyone and sandbag wall.
You still have a civic responsibility to help build the sandbag wall. You owe it to yourself and to the village as a whole. And you might think “but if I don’t carry a sandbag, then maybe ‘they’ will get the message and see how few sandbags there are, and realize that we really do need the stone wall next time”. Sure, maybe. Did ‘they’ get the message the last 5 floods when we only barely had enough sandbags? No, of course not. Because there is no ‘they’. And while you’re dicking around with trying to decide whether messages will or not be received by mysterious theys, if we don’t get enough sandbags this time the flood will KILL US ALL so get your damn sandbag.
If we don’t get enough votes Trump will win a second term and appoint several more justices to the SC and continue his war on governmental checks and balances and McConnell will continue to appoint judges and suppress votes and democracy as we know it in the USA will be fatally wounded and no progressive policies will have a chance generations, if ever. So pick up the damn sandbag and vote for Biden.
I did not misrepresent your analogy at all. What you’ve given me here is an entirely new analogy.
I mean, if I were a third party voter, my response gets real simple real quickly.
No.
OK? No. No, I’m not going to pick up the sandbag. I did not create this situation. I am dealing with it. You are not my feudal lord, and I am not your serf. Unless we are living in anarchy already–in which case, the analogy is over before it begins, as there’s nothing to vote for in an anarchy–SOMEONE is responsible for making sure the flood doesn’t happen. That someone has screwed it up five times. Who’s to say they won’t screw it up six? The fact that you believe I’m going to pick up a sandbag just because you tell me to (not even saying “please,” I might add) pretty much tells me the opposite.
So no. No, you don’t get to just walk away from this one. No, I’m not going to enable your incompetence, short-sightedness, and lack of vision. This time, Dear Leader, you are on your own. This time, YOU pay the check.
And you know something? There have always been floods, OK? Crops have been ruined and people have drowned since before biblical times. It has rained on the just and the unjust. Supreme Court justices are no more immune to death than anyone else, and we will always have power-hungry people willing to suppress the rights of the less fortunate. Me picking up the sandbag, voting for a total zitbrain, or making excuses for why things just have to be the way they are isn’t going to change that. Not one bit. The last I checked I lived in a free society where no one gets to tell me what I can and can’t do within the boundaries of just law or for whom I can and can’t vote. If I can’t vote my conscience, if I have to follow the party line and excuse the party screw-ups, why even give me a vote to begin with? People speak of incrementalism. Show me one example, just one on the presidential level where incrementalism actually worked, and maybe I’ll reconsider. Probably not, though.
If you want to play the game, if you want to chow down on the same poopsicle they’ve been feeding you since the Clinton years, be my guest. There’s the sand, and there’s the bag. I’m through being the patsy.
That’s more or less what I would say if I were a third-party voter. That’s more or less what I would say if the flood were threatening my village. Then I’d find a new village and a new game and a new candidate. You’re welcome to come along. But I’m not playin’ and I’m not stayin’. Not with the old guard.
You dont. Let us say you belong to the small Doper party. The platform of the Doper party matches what you want almost to a T. Yay!
But they then form a Coalition with the Asshole party, a party you despise and hate. The coalition picks the leader of the Asshole party for PM. You hate that guy.
You really have no choice. Yes, your Doper party, in forming that coalition will likely get a bone tossed to it- free coffee mugs for members or extra jackboot polish 
for the leaders. But 99% of what you joined the Doper party for isnt gonna get done.
Or you can join one of the two big partys- which are effectively like the USA Dems vs Repubs. And you might get 60% of what you want *when they are in power. *
If you’re including yourself in that “our job” comment, then I’d suggest humbly that you join us in that exercise of responsibility to convince instead of incessantly repeating the arguments of those third party voters. As if “we” don’t already understand their thinking… Yeah, we know they (and you) don’t like the Dem nominees in 2016 and 2020. No shit. They (and you) were wrong about Clinton and you’re wrong about Biden. Because it’s not about committee votes from 20 or 30 years ago, or about campaign contributions from 1 percenters, or ties to powerful industries, or about rhetoric used in floor debates and speeches; it’s about which sets of priorities, processes and philosophies are going to prevail in Congress and in the Executive branch.
Fuck any more analogies, let’s go with a raw statement of the electoral reality. Right now we have an Executive branch determined to tear down the system and replace it with a dumbed down fascism borne of white resentment, greed and bone deep, proud ignorance. And those assholes are doing everything they can to suppress votes and to cheat the majority out of power. If that set of priorities and disdain for process and lack of coherent philosophy prevails, we may indeed not have another shot at fixing things until we’re rebuilding what used to be our country after it all collapses. Assuming there’s enough of us left.
You were wrong in 1976, you were wrong in 1992, and you’re wrong now.
I’ve been listening to that since Reagan. Hell, how many posters in 2016 were wondering out loud if we were going to have elections in 2020? And yet, here we are. At some point, the barnyard animals are just going to tune Chicken Little out.
I’ll most likely vote Biden. But I’m not going to blame anyone who doesn’t, and xenophon, that includes Trump voters. I’m a dem, and I’m sick of Biden’s shit.
Yes, what you said… But I wouldn’t feel guilty, I’d feel… powerful. Plus, its the only way to have leverage. If you keep voting for the evil of two lessers, they take your vote for granted and will never do shit for you.
I think the only wasted vote is voting for someone you can’t stand, which is the case in this and the last election.
I don’t know what 1976, 1992 and Ronald Reagan have to do with what I said about priorities, etc. But hey, good for you for fearlessly facing the Trump years, Linty Fresh. This administration is exactly comparable to Reagan’s, so what, me worry?
If only I hadn’t expressed that regretful chicken littlism in 1976. I know I was only 3 years old but I was just repeating what my parents told me to.
Now, on the other hand, if I had never expressed opinions about the fragility of democracy in any of those other examples, then I guess we’d have to discuss this case on its merits instead of conflating me with what other people said previously.
I actually did say Carter would be a shitty president in 1976. (But I was young, politically ignorant and inexperienced at the time, so it was just a lucky guess.) -But what I didn’t say was anything about fascism or antidemocratic conspiracies in the Republican party. Didn’t start seeing the antidemocratic movement until Speaker Gingrich, and didn’t start seeing the authoritarianism, shading into fascism until the Cheney administration. YMMV.
How do you think a democracy works?
Would I like it if I started a party that always got its way and won the election? Everything I ever wanted to happen would happen because no one could tell me otherwise?
Sounds great if I am running the show. Also sounds like a dictatorship.
Democracy is about making compromise. Something conservatives have almost completely forgotten about in the US.
Making deals and giving some and taking some is the bread-and-butter of a democracy. Also, your coalition will probably have a few BIG things it will not compromise on so it will compromise a little or a lot on a whole slew of other stuff.
Do I care about that other stuff? Sure! But that is part of the deal.
A dictatorship is way, way, way worse unless you are the one always getting his way.
You though Gerald Ford would be better? :dubious:
But I would concede you are mostly right about how downhill the GOP has gotten and when.
You can vote for whichever candidate you want. If you don’t live in a swing state, your vote won’t matter.
Why shouldn’t you vote for the person you think is the best candidate [who is a third-party candidate]? In a swing state, your vote does count. It is a given that the third-party candidate will not win. Voting for the third-party candidate makes you a Morally Superior Voter. But the practical upshot is that you are actually voting for the person you least want to win.
Sure, but you said “But at least no one can bitch they have little choice at the polls.”. In a parliamentary system, they have only slightly more chance than the two party system. Both rely upon compromise.
As I pointed out before: *Oddly, trump got very excited and claimed massive fraud when it was shown that he lost the Popular vote. The dems could claim a mild but not very relevant moral victory in winning the popular vote. So the popular vote mattered to both sides.
So, no, your vote is never irrelevant.*
I am not sure what point you are trying to make.
Many here are griping that they do not want to vote for the piece of shit Party A and B offer. I mentioned ranked choice so you can vote for whoever with a clear conscience.
You mentioned other countries that do that but still have problems. I said at least the person got to vote for who they wanted.
Then…not sure where you are going with this.
Oh, no. I was angry at Ford for pardoning Nixon. I just thought Jimmy would be crappy because I thought Kennedy should’ve been nominated. (Again, I was young, ignorant and mostly sneered at ‘politics.’ I idolized the name Kennedy because of JFK and RFK, and knew next to nothing about Edward Kennedy or Jimmy Carter. I was eligible to vote for the first time in 1976, but I didn’t. -That’s how dumb I was.)
-By the way, I acknowledge that Carter’s was not a successful administration by most measures, but I think he’s been a national asset continuously as an ex POTUS.
Well, they get to vote for who they want here.
If you are saying in a parliamentary system, the ability to vote for a minor party means something, you are incorrect. No more than here.