CDZ Could it be too late for a viable third party?

[WinterBorn]

So the fact that he smoked weed is your complaint? Hillary had more baggage than the carousel at Hartsfield, but someone who smoked weed occasionally is the issue?

He started as a door-to-door handyman and built one of the largest construction companies in New Mexico. But smoking weed is the issue?

He used the veto more times than the other 49 governors combined, and cut the fat from the state budget. But weed is the problem.

Registration for voters in the state is 2 to 1 democrat, but he won running as a republican. But weed!

Yeah, I don't want the guy trippin' balls next to the nukes for some reason.

Hillary might be corrupt.. and she has a lot of baggage (but again, all the stuff Republicans accused her of, never one conviction, she must have been Professor Moriarty and Keyser Soze combined.)

You also glossed over my point about a team. (Okay, my comment about Cheech and Chong was snarky). Who was Gary going to bring in with him? The Democrats and Republicans have a deep bench of Senators, Congressmen and Governors to run the major agencies. The Libertarians have... um...

"Trippin balls"? Been watch Reefer Madness again?

I didn't ignore your other point. I didn't take it seriously. First I thought your only problem with Johnson was that he favors legalization of marijuana. Now your excuse is that he doesn't have a line of cronies and people he owes political favors? Really? Here is a thought. Maybe he would bring people in who have qualifications for the jobs.

 

[Olde Europe]

The middle is unclaimed territory

Who told you that? Mac? An unthinking punditry on the rightarded plutocrats' hook?

Obama/Biden was center to center-right. Sanders/Warren are center to center-left. The center is well covered. None of them would so much as mildly challenge the labor-capital power structure or the existing wealth distribution, which would arguably mark the beginning of the "far left". All they can come up with is to make sure not all of the income gains go to the top 10%, which is, again, a solidly centrist position. The fact that - seen from the center - Republicans are over the horizon, does not change the political center. Neither do the lost and wailing self-proclaimed "middle grounders" somewhere between Democrats and over-the-horizon Republicans.

 

[JoeB131]

"Trippin balls"? Been watch Reefer Madness again?

I didn't ignore your other point. I didn't take it seriously. First I thought your only problem with Johnson was that he favors legalization of marijuana. Now your excuse is that he doesn't have a line of cronies and people he owes political favors? Really? Here is a thought. Maybe he would bring people in who have qualifications for the jobs.

I really don't want to run a government on the notion that a bunch of right wing hippies (which is what Libertarians are) might know someone, maybe, who knows how to run the National Transportation Commission, especially when their premise is that National Transportation should be run by "enlightened self-interest".

But again, i have a simple enough solution. Get rid of the Electoral College, go to what France has. if no one clear 50%, we have a runoff. Then you can have Dope Smoking Gary try to tell us how well his ideas will work, until he gets eliminated in the first round and they harsh his mellow. His consolation prize can be a copy of Dark Side of the Moon.

 

[WinterBorn]

"Trippin balls"? Been watch Reefer Madness again?

I didn't ignore your other point. I didn't take it seriously. First I thought your only problem with Johnson was that he favors legalization of marijuana. Now your excuse is that he doesn't have a line of cronies and people he owes political favors? Really? Here is a thought. Maybe he would bring people in who have qualifications for the jobs.

I really don't want to run a government on the notion that a bunch of right wing hippies (which is what Libertarians are) might know someone, maybe, who knows how to run the National Transportation Commission, especially when their premise is that National Transportation should be run by "enlightened self-interest".

But again, i have a simple enough solution. Get rid of the Electoral College, go to what France has. if no one clear 50%, we have a runoff. Then you can have Dope Smoking Gary try to tell us how well his ideas will work, until he gets eliminated in the first round and they harsh his mellow. His consolation prize can be a copy of Dark Side of the Moon.

Who said the cabinet has to be Libertarians? What makes you think they won't just offer the jobs to the most qualified person? Its what he did at the state level.

Removing the Electoral College makes the flyover states into serfdoms.

 

[Mac1958]

While each wing has deluded themselves into thinking that they represent "America" (no, seriously), there are many people who lean one way or the other who don't have such a narcissistic view of their own opinions. We know that the best ideas and innovations can come from across the spectrum, if we stop screaming and let it happen.

The wings won't admit that they're the problem, and they're being dead serious. They really do believe that. If they can just "beat" the other "side", they'll show us how wonderful they are, really. They have all the answers, really. We're just too stupid to see it. Really.

Unfortunately, the wings are twice as loud and angry and egotistical as the rest of us put together. And we're seeing the predictable result of that attitude.
.

 

[evenflow1969]

I just had a fairly terrifying thought.

If a strong, viable and popular third party party can't rise up in the middle of THIS partisan disaster, maybe it never CAN.

Is it possible that independent and moderate voices are now so unwelcome in both "major" parties that they will no longer be allowed to see the light of day? Did we, as country, shut the door to independent and moderate thought so quickly and so firmly that they simply no longer have a place?

I hope I'm wrong here.
.

Too late for it to happen in a short period of time. I say it must hapen or this nation will falter. While sex is binary politics is not. Our world and nation is much moree complex than a two party system is able to serve. The p[ath to more parties is through local elections. If we want to create viable alternatives to the two party system we must oprganize and gets this done at a local level and over time install nationally.

 

[rightwinger]

"Trippin balls"? Been watch Reefer Madness again?

I didn't ignore your other point. I didn't take it seriously. First I thought your only problem with Johnson was that he favors legalization of marijuana. Now your excuse is that he doesn't have a line of cronies and people he owes political favors? Really? Here is a thought. Maybe he would bring people in who have qualifications for the jobs.

I really don't want to run a government on the notion that a bunch of right wing hippies (which is what Libertarians are) might know someone, maybe, who knows how to run the National Transportation Commission, especially when their premise is that National Transportation should be run by "enlightened self-interest".

But again, i have a simple enough solution. Get rid of the Electoral College, go to what France has. if no one clear 50%, we have a runoff. Then you can have Dope Smoking Gary try to tell us how well his ideas will work, until he gets eliminated in the first round and they harsh his mellow. His consolation prize can be a copy of Dark Side of the Moon.

Who said the cabinet has to be Libertarians? What makes you think they won't just offer the jobs to the most qualified person? Its what he did at the state level.

Removing the Electoral College makes the flyover states into serfdoms.

They are still over represented in the Senate

Hardly a serfdom

 

[JoeB131]

Who said the cabinet has to be Libertarians? What makes you think they won't just offer the jobs to the most qualified person? Its what he did at the state level.

At the state level, he was still a Republican with a whole party infrastructure behind him... and he wasn't smoking dope every day.

Removing the Electoral College makes the flyover states into serfdoms.

so we should make the big cities where people ACTUALLY LIVE serfdoms instead?

This craziness of overrepresenting barely populated states is what is nuts.

 

[Olde Europe]

Removing the Electoral College makes the flyover states into serfdoms.

so we should make the big cities where people ACTUALLY LIVE serfdoms instead?

This craziness of overrepresenting barely populated states is what is nuts.

Not being over-represented / being somewhat under-represented in the vote count for president amounts to "serfdom".

SMH. Yeah, I know, you just picked up the term, but really, nothing good comes out of joining their hysteria.

 

[JoeB131]

Not being over-represented / being somewhat under-represented in the vote count for president amounts to "serfdom".

SMH. Yeah, I know, you just picked up the term, but really, nothing good comes out of joining their hysteria.

One person. One vote. Fairly drawn congressional districts that are competitive.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

I just had a fairly terrifying thought.

If a strong, viable and popular third party party can't rise up in the middle of THIS partisan disaster, maybe it never CAN.

Is it possible that independent and moderate voices are now so unwelcome in both "major" parties that they will no longer be allowed to see the light of day? Did we, as country, shut the door to independent and moderate thought so quickly and so firmly that they simply no longer have a place?

I hope I'm wrong here.
.

A third party would need to incorporate a philosophical, cultural tradition to which a huge chunk of the electorate could relate. What tradition - outside the (economic) libertarian-conservative / liberal-progressive traditions - could that be? The OP doesn't say, and probably doesn't know.

A third party would need a galvanizing set of issues, societal / political problems afflicting a huge chunk of the electorate, which this new party, as empowered by its philosophical outlook, would be uniquely positioned to solve, whereas the other major parties are not. What issues could this be? The OP doesn't say, and probably doesn't know.

The current front-runner in the Democratic field is, last I checked, Biden - a solid centrist. Buttigieg is a centrist. Harris is arguably a centrist. Klobuchar is a centrist. That's just those off the top of my head; I am sure there are more. The OP's fearful contention that "independent and moderate voices [are] now [...] unwelcome in both 'major' parties" is quite obviously otherworldly. Not to mention incorrect. The underlying contention is the figment of the OP's very active imagination, the "hard-core left" that has taken over the Democratic party, when there is no such thing as a hard-core left in the U.S., none of any import or influence.

There is, however, a hard-core right, and, arguably, it has taken over the GOP. So, if there is a third party to be formed, it needs to rescue whatever serious, reasonable conservative thought and policy-making can be rescued from the current-day reactionary train-wreck that is the GOP, and hope to get national notoriety fast, and not least quite a number donors lined up.

All that would, of course, collapse into a two-party-system again, since the winner-takes-all voting system pretty much preforms that. The third party that poses the highest risk of a "vote thrown away" in a FPTP system dies in short order. How to change that voting system, and with what to replace it... the OP doesn't say, and probably doesn't know. He's fine grousing about the hard-core left he invented. The two parties remaining would, of course, be subject to the exact same (at least pretty much the same) societal, financial, economical forces as are the parties right now, they would have to fight for their respective bases' attention and support just as they do right now, and in short order the creation of that fabulous third party would result in the exact same thing the OP bemoans and decries, and has been for years. The lesson is, a third party doesn't solve a thing, particularly not the problems of an apathetic, ignorant electorate with a gigantic surplus of resentment and the attention-span of a gnat.

So, finally, how is it ever too late for anything? How is it possible to state with any confidence the conditions for an event are right at this time, and then never again? Short of nuclear self-elimination, that never happens, in the exact same way as "the end of history" never happens. Never. It was, however, "a fairly terrifying thought".

“The current front-runner in the Democratic field is, last I checked, Biden - a solid centrist. Buttigieg is a centrist. Harris is arguably a centrist. Klobuchar is a centrist.”

Correct, the Democratic Party is as a whole centrist – both at the National and state levels; the likes of AOC and Sanders are fringe elements, interlopers in no manner representative of a majority of Democrats or the policy positions of the Party.

Indeed, the Democratic Party is a victim if its own success, in that the Party’s positions on the issues are supported by a majority of the American people – such as privacy rights for women, the right of same-sex couples to marry, protecting voters’ rights, comprehensive immigration reform, and the decriminalization of marijuana.

Independent and moderate voices are both welcomed and expressed in the Democratic Party as demonstrated by the leading candidates running for president.

That Independent and moderate views don’t gain any traction at the National level is the consequence of incompetent Democratic candidates and an incompetent Democratic Party, not the lack of a third party.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

They need an I am mad as hell and not going to take it anymore moment

Oh, for pity's sake. The last time we were made to behold the like was in 2008/9, when the tea party got traction, invaded the GOP and infected them with their prion disease of the brain. Look what that got us into a decade later.

And what you learn from it is, We definitely need to repeat that experience? Really? Because the last time it worked like a charm.

The Tea Tards ran from the extreme right

True.

In fact, there was no ‘tea party’ – it was nothing more than Republicans and conservatives hiding behind the façade of a ‘third party.’

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

In the end it’s foolish to perceive a third party as a ‘panacea’ for all that ills the American body politic.

Other democracies with viable multiple parties have governments even more dysfunctional than that of the United States.

 

[Mac1958]

POLL: Is your party Centrist?

 

[Kilroy2]

even though there are two parties, each parties has people with a wide diversity of opinions

Say if there was one party, they would still fight amongst themselves.

If there were three parties then in any scenario it will be two against one. Still in a democracy it is all about the numbers

Just as there are male and females maybe two is the perfect balance.

Parliament style government do have multiple parties. Yet for the PM to lead they must have an air tight majority. If they can't get a majority then the government fails.

Yea or Nay

Us VS Them

In the end there can only be One until he is defeated by someone else

 

[GLASNOST]

"Could it be too late for a viable third party?"

They say it's never too late but the Military-Industrial Complex has the country sewn up and the likelyhood of an honest third party being able to survive a battle against all of that money and power and corruption (without finding a dead horse's head in their bed) is pretty close to impossible.