Is there really any difference between parties? (1 Viewer)

[pinkham13]

They are both corrupt, the fringes on both sides don't even argue over policies but all boogeyman scare tactics.

You can't free think without being accused of being a snowflake, racist, white supremacist, socialist or whatever ist you want to apply.  

Its party over country 90% of the time.

God forbid you agree with something from the other party.  

No one is held accountable.  Dems pretend to be but in reality they don't. Repubs are just brazen now without remorse.

Everyone runs with hyperbole, no decorum and or whatabouts.

Gone are the days of public forums. You cant even hold school board meetings without death threats.

There were times when conservatives wanted to ban rap and video games, not Dems want to censor speech.  No one is kind to one another.   God forbid we learn about race and how it affected the US.  God forbid we stop cancelling people for making a freaking mistake.   Stop blaming everyone else for your ####ups.

They all tout all these things that the other side is going to do to ruin your life yet none of it is actual policy.  They are try to be cute with their twitter and quotes when in reality the majority talk #### to keep their votes and don't do a gosh darn thing.

And don't forget all the guys that vote against something then if it passes, tout how great it is for their constituents.

They are all hypocrites, they'll say people should never do X then do X. Or ##### and moan that the other party guy did this and then do the same gosh darn thing.

Redistricting,  voter fraud , its all smoke and mirrors crap.

Giant bills with 700 things crammed in them, all crap.

Sit down and ####### talk to one another and worry about the American people.  

But then again 50% of the American people are too stupid to know what actually affects them and will vote their party no matter what and ##### and complain the other people are doing this to strip away our life, ruin our future whatever

I've said before - if you are a overly political person - I most likely won't be friends with you IRL.  Any bumper sticker, flag, yard sign - I judge you negatively  .... I'm wrong for doing it but I still do

Giant bills with 700 things crammed in them. Passed in the dead of night on Christmas! Totally written by Pfizer and or the insurance industry or the military  depending on the bill. Congress creatures don’t even read it. Dems nor Pubs. Just get my pork in and pass pass pass.

 

[dkp993]

They are both corrupt, the fringes on both sides don't even argue over policies but all boogeyman scare tactics.

You can't free think without being accused of being a snowflake, racist, white supremacist, socialist or whatever ist you want to apply.  

Its party over country 90% of the time.

God forbid you agree with something from the other party.  

No one is held accountable.  Dems pretend to be but in reality they don't. Repubs are just brazen now without remorse.

Everyone runs with hyperbole, no decorum and or whatabouts.

Gone are the days of public forums. You cant even hold school board meetings without death threats.

There were times when conservatives wanted to ban rap and video games, not Dems want to censor speech.  No one is kind to one another.   God forbid we learn about race and how it affected the US.  God forbid we stop cancelling people for making a freaking mistake.   Stop blaming everyone else for your ####ups.

They all tout all these things that the other side is going to do to ruin your life yet none of it is actual policy.  They are try to be cute with their twitter and quotes when in reality the majority talk #### to keep their votes and don't do a gosh darn thing.

And don't forget all the guys that vote against something then if it passes, tout how great it is for their constituents.

They are all hypocrites, they'll say people should never do X then do X. Or ##### and moan that the other party guy did this and then do the same gosh darn thing.

Redistricting,  voter fraud , its all smoke and mirrors crap.

Giant bills with 700 things crammed in them, all crap.

Sit down and ####### talk to one another and worry about the American people.  

But then again 50% of the American people are too stupid to know what actually affects them and will vote their party no matter what and ##### and complain the other people are doing this to strip away our life, ruin our future whatever

I've said before - if you are a overly political person - I most likely won't be friends with you IRL.  Any bumper sticker, flag, yard sign - I judge you negatively  .... I'm wrong for doing it but I still do

Great and extremely accurate post!

Fear mongering is at the top of page 1 in both red and blue playbooks.  If they were musicians they would only be able to play 1 note.  Yet we all happily dance along.  

 

[Da Guru]

They are both corrupt, the fringes on both sides don't even argue over policies but all boogeyman scare tactics.

You can't free think without being accused of being a snowflake, racist, white supremacist, socialist or whatever ist you want to apply.  

Its party over country 90% of the time.

God forbid you agree with something from the other party.  

No one is held accountable.  Dems pretend to be but in reality they don't. Repubs are just brazen now without remorse.

Everyone runs with hyperbole, no decorum and or whatabouts.

Gone are the days of public forums. You cant even hold school board meetings without death threats.

There were times when conservatives wanted to ban rap and video games, not Dems want to censor speech.  No one is kind to one another.   God forbid we learn about race and how it affected the US.  God forbid we stop cancelling people for making a freaking mistake.   Stop blaming everyone else for your ####ups.

They all tout all these things that the other side is going to do to ruin your life yet none of it is actual policy.  They are try to be cute with their twitter and quotes when in reality the majority talk #### to keep their votes and don't do a gosh darn thing.

And don't forget all the guys that vote against something then if it passes, tout how great it is for their constituents.

They are all hypocrites, they'll say people should never do X then do X. Or ##### and moan that the other party guy did this and then do the same gosh darn thing.

Redistricting,  voter fraud , its all smoke and mirrors crap.

Giant bills with 700 things crammed in them, all crap.

Sit down and ####### talk to one another and worry about the American people.  

But then again 50% of the American people are too stupid to know what actually affects them and will vote their party no matter what and ##### and complain the other people are doing this to strip away our life, ruin our future whatever

I've said before - if you are a overly political person - I most likely won't be friends with you IRL.  Any bumper sticker, flag, yard sign - I judge you negatively  .... I'm wrong for doing it but I still do

This sums it up.

 

[belljr]

Forgot to add something about violent protest/looters being politicized along with other crap that has no business being politicized but I was tired

 

[zoonation]

Here’s a difference: the Dems, for all their faults, would not tolerate the open racism and bigotry being levelled at a sitting member of congress by disgusting people like Boebert and Greene.  The GOP should be totally embarrassed and ashamed of itself.  Omar is getting death threats.  The GOP has no moral compass.  

 

[Herb]

Here’s a difference: the Dems, for all their faults, would not tolerate the open racism and bigotry being levelled at a sitting member of congress by disgusting people like Boebert and Greene. I feel like this is correct, but wouldn't go so far as to fully agree with it.  The GOP should be totally embarrassed and ashamed of itself.  This would require them to have shame, which we all know has not existed in the GOP in at least 12 years, since the end of the W administration. Realistically, the pandering shamelessness goes further back to Gingrich in the 90s, and maybe even earlier. Omar is getting death threats. Omar is a bigot and a bad example for your point, IMO. That doesn't mean she deserves death threats, but she is kind of vile.  The GOP has no moral compass.  And they never will again. They win elections without it, and with the gerrymandering they've put in place, they'll keep getting voted in all over the nation despite controlling a shrinking minority of votes.

 

[Sparky Big Time]

January 6th taken seriously?  By whom?  Not Trump.  Not anyone left in the Republican Party.  It appears law enforcement not only didn’t take it seriously, they were told to back off, and they did.  So did national guard. 
 

Imagine if Republicans had won Georgia?  This inquiry never even happens.  

The government. It was a departure from the allowance of cities to be burned and looted, I saw this as legitimate progress.

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

Those situations, when they exist, should mostly be temporary, affecting only the short term, as part of the natural ebb and flow of electoral politics in a democracy. They become unhealthy and dysfunctional only if they become permanently entrenched as part of a positive-feedback loop of some kind. I don't know whether something like that is happening now.

Gerrymandering seems like a pretty good example of an unhealthy positive-feedback loop.  To be clear, I'm not necessarily referring to natural gerrymandering like the Senate example you identified.  I'm referring more to intentional gerrymandering of districts within a state, where a party can artificially increase its power relative to its support within the state.

Gerrymandering seems to be a good example at first because once a party gains control of a state legislature, it can draw up districts in a way that increases its advantage in future elections ... and keep repeating that process.

The process can't be repeated indefinitely, though. Once you've got districts drawn up really well for your side, you can't keep getting further improvements there. The advantage becomes, at best, fixed -- rather than ever-increasing. In theory, once the advantage is maxed out, it can be overcome if the minority party moves to the center while the majority party becomes more extreme, and then things may see-saw back the other way. (The nationalization of politics can make this a lot harder in any given state, but let's put that aside and skip to the next point.)

There is a way in which gerrymandering can lead to such an extreme positive feedback loop that it becomes a knockout punch.

Traditionally, elections are administered by civil servants, overseen by statewide officeholders. Partisans from each side can jointly scrutinize certain aspects of vote-counting, etc., but partisans from neither party can unilaterally screw with electoral results, including in national elections (e.g., for President).

Suppose in a given state that the Secretary of State certifies vote totals in a presidential election, and the Governor certifies the state's electors. The Secretary of State and the Governor are both elected in a state-wide elections, so gerrymandering isn't a factor. The people holding those offices can't go completely off the rails while maintaining their job security just because they're in a crazy district. You'd expect them to give effect to the will of the people in their state when it comes to certifying presidential votes.

But suppose that, due to gerrymandering, the state legislature is under no such constraint. State legislators can go completely off the rails and remain safe. Suppose further that the state legislature decides to take electoral oversight responsibilities away from the Secretary of State and/or Governor and take charge itself.

In that situation, you could have a purple state whose state legislature, due to previous gerrymandering, is dominated by members whose seats are safely red. A presidential election that went 51-49 in favor of the Democratic candidate would have been respected by the Secretary of State or Governor, but may be condemned and defied by the state legislature. The state legislature may certify the election for the Republican candidate -- contrary to the actual votes -- because they've given themselves the power to falsely cry fraud and to "find" however many votes the Republican candidate needed to win.

When votes don't count anymore, temporary electoral advantages become permanent -- and democracy is destroyed.

I'd like to think that this is just a hypothetical possibility, completely academic. It's not. In Georgia, a new law gives the General Assembly the ability to appoint the majority of the State Election Board by removing the secretary of state as the chair. Something similar has been proposed in Arizona, and I'm not sure how many other states.

 

[timschochet]

I want to keep abortion legal and available. I want what I regard as reasonable gun control laws. I want police to stop mistreating minorities. I want most illegal immigrants to be given a path to citizenship. I want the United States to continue its international commitments to NATO, South Korea, and Taiwan. I want a certain amount of political correctness. I want to do something about climate change. I want every American citizen  to be able to vote without restrictions. 
 

These things are important to me and they motivate who I will support and vote for. And on all of these issues, there is a significant difference between the two parties. So no they absolutely not one and the same. 

 

[roadkill1292]

Gerrymandering seems to be a good example at first because once a party gains control of a state legislature, it can draw up districts in a way that increases its advantage in future elections ... and keep repeating that process.

The process can't be repeated indefinitely, though. Once you've got districts drawn up really well for your side, you can't keep getting further improvements there. The advantage becomes, at best, fixed -- rather than ever-increasing. In theory, once the advantage is maxed out, it can be overcome if the minority party moves to the center while the majority party becomes more extreme, and then things may see-saw back the other way. (The nationalization of politics can make this a lot harder in any given state, but let's put that aside and skip to the next point.)

There is a way in which gerrymandering can lead to such an extreme positive feedback loop that it becomes a knockout punch.

Traditionally, elections are administered by civil servants, overseen by statewide officeholders. Partisans from each side can jointly scrutinize certain aspects of vote-counting, etc., but partisans from neither party can unilaterally screw with electoral results, including in national elections (e.g., for President).

Suppose in a given state that the Secretary of State certifies vote totals in a presidential election, and the Governor certifies the state's electors. The Secretary of State and the Governor are both elected in a state-wide elections, so gerrymandering isn't a factor. The people holding those offices can't go completely off the rails while maintaining their job security just because they're in a crazy district. You'd expect them to give effect to the will of the people in their state when it comes to certifying presidential votes.

But suppose that, due to gerrymandering, the state legislature is under no such constraint. State legislators can go completely off the rails and remain safe. Suppose further that the state legislature decides to take electoral oversight responsibilities away from the Secretary of State and/or Governor and take charge itself.

In that situation, you could have a purple state whose state legislature, due to previous gerrymandering, is dominated by members whose seats are safely red. A presidential election that went 51-49 in favor of the Democratic candidate would have been respected by the Secretary of State or Governor, but may be condemned and defied by the state legislature. The state legislature may certify the election for the Republican candidate -- contrary to the actual votes -- because they've given themselves the power to falsely cry fraud and to "find" however many votes the Republican candidate needed to win.

When votes don't count anymore, temporary electoral advantages become permanent -- and democracy is destroyed.

I'd like to think that this is just a hypothetical possibility, completely academic. It's not. In Georgia, a new law gives the General Assembly the ability to appoint the majority of the State Election Board by removing the secretary of state as the chair. Something similar has been proposed in Arizona, and I'm not sure how many other states.

The danger of this happening is being largely ignored by the mainstream media, which is pretty scary considering Republican shenanigans in 2020 now appear to be just a practice run for '24 and many more of the necessary pieces have been put in place.

Red state legislatures in Wisconsin, North Carolina and Pennsylvania are also looking to flip possible statewide Dem wins.