11th May 2021, 6:10 AM
(7th May 2021, 6:13 PM)A Black Falcon Wrote: With how the Republicans have gone all-in on the "big lie" that Trump won the election and are moving towards kicking their most prominent member who is willing to speak out against that lie, Liz Cheney, out of her leadership position, yeah, their party is pretty much gone, they are now opposed to democracy pretty openly so long as Donald Trump is around; they prefer Trump's good graces to democracy. I don't have anything ELSE good to say about Liz Cheney, but that one thing is worth mentioning.
I don't think the Republican Party is going anywhere, but yeah if their party collapses and gets replaced with some other party yes, that would be fine. You just need two major, successful parties to have a functioning system.
If there's one thing I've learned in the past 12 years, it's that two parties may be enough for the system to work... for the parties, but it is NOT enough for the system to work for the people, not close to it. We would be vastly better off if we could realistically see parties rise and fall decade by decade. I don't care if the democrats as a party survive so long as progressive values and those willing to push them do. Heck, if the republicans had some kind of internal freakout and suddenly veered left in a desperate attempt to win over people like me, well, assuming they could somehow prove they meant it and were going to vote for progressive things, I'd go republican in a snap. We need variety not for it's own sake, but to assure that parties don't become complacent and stagnate pushing for corporate greed over the people's interests. Your Joe Machines and Kirstin Cinammons are not the exclusive sources of this kind of self centered greed in the democratic party. It's only through pressure from a growing progressive wing within the party that we're seeing this frankly surprising leftward growth of Biden, and I am happy to see it. Here's hoping that as time goes on we may even see him flip on medicare for all and announce he supports it, but heck what we've got already is still far more than I ever expected. And I had reason to. I lived through Obama's disappointment of a presidency (relative to what's needed I mean, of course he's a paragon compared to Bush and definitely compared to Trump), and frankly, that's what happens in a two party system. They stop competing on ideals their voterbase wants and just compete on what amounts to a captive audience. Why else would the republican party leadership be so dead set against what their OWN voterbase supports? That makes ZERO sense in a true democracy, but it makes perfect sense if they know their base only has two options period.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)