A question to American Lemmy users: from what I can tell you are Democrats for the vast majority : would you consider voting for a Republican president if you aligned with his ideas, or if the Democrat candidate was an unredeemable piece of shit? The two party system makes zero sense to me because it doesn’t seem, at first glance, that they’re a huge overlap, people are not willing to go to the other side often, it seems. … what’s the point of having debates and stuff then?
Before the Tea Party movement in the Republican party, yes I definitely could have been convinced to vote for a Republican candidate. I was actually intending to vote for John McCain for president because at that time in history, both parties really did still have their crazy branches, but the relatively rational adults who knew how to compromise for the good of the country still ran the show, and I was genuinely concerned that Obama didn’t have enough political experience to be president.
Then McCain nominated Sarah Palin for his Vice President. That was such a pandering, cowardly, caving to the will of the utterly ignorant, insane extremists in the Republican party move that I voted for Obama. And then the entire Republican party got so mad that a black guy was president that they collectively lost their whole fucking minds.
Republicans no longer want to govern. They want to break things and stay in power and that’s it. That’s their entire platform. There’s nothing to debate because they literally aren’t even trying to DO anything useful. Their entire political position right now is “do the opposite of what Democrats want.” They have nothing to vote FOR. People who vote Republican right now are doing so only because they’re voting against the bogeymen in their own heads.
Within the Democratic party, there’s debate about how to handle climate change. There are people who advocate for slow, cautious changes and still see fossil fuels having a small role to play in the future. There are others within the Democratic party that want more drastic action, and make a huge government spending program to try to rapidly move the US energy to renewables (even naming it after one of the biggest US government programs made during the depression). That’s normal politics. And it’s all within the Democratic party.
The GOP mostly deny climate change exists. A few GOP members suggest that climate change is happening, but is a natural event not caused by man.
The recent house drama from the speakership battle was caused because 10 nutjobs didn’t want to fund any social programs and wouldn’t approve the budget. Most GOP compromised and made a TEMPORARY budget proposal that the Democratic reps would vote for. This caused the hardliners to remove the speaker. Because he had the audacity to compromise on a TEMPORARY budget.
Removing policy aside and just looking at behavior, many GOP members do not believe in compromising to get things done. There’s attempts to not hold elected officials accountable (unless they are from the other party). It’s very little cooperation and more retaliation.
A single GOP senator didn’t like that the US military would reimburse a servicemember’s travel for medical care if they lived in a state where some reproductive treatments weren’t available. This one senator has single-handedly denied 360 military promotions and nominations to military positions. The Senate has historically tried to make it where being the minority party still had some power, so the rules let this happen (the other GOP senators on this committee weren’t blocking, just the one guy).
The Democratic senators became so fed up they decided to change the rules to prevent a single committee member from blocking promotions. While most GOP senators publicly condemn this guy, many said this rule change was too much. So it looks like the rule change vote will be along party lines, although the #1 GOP senator has said it might be necessary to vote through to get the military back on track.
The last GOP senator really known for being reasonable and wanting to work collaboratively (McCain) died. He was respected by both parties until Trump came along, and now the GOP don’t really hold his legacy in high regard.
Sorry, a lot longer than I intended, but it’s a pattern showing no desire to try to govern effectively. Putting all issues of policy aside, I think it’s a bad idea to vote for the GOP.
I would absolutely vote Republican if they were just a bit to the left on abortions, education, and unions. Actually unions and teamsters would totally support Republicans if they weren’t openly hostile to them.
Right now they’re just different flavors of big government endlessly growing and I really think some libertarians need some wins to shake them up.
The answer, unequivocally, is “Abso-fucking-lutely.” But, you phrased the question wrong because you assume that people that vote Democratic are Democrats. They are not. Something like 20-30% of people who vote exclusively or near exclusively Democratic consider themselves Democrats, whereas Republican voters are around 50-60% for their respective categorization.
This isn’t particularly strange if you think about the authoritarian vs anarchical political dichotomy these two voter bases lean to for more than a second. The real problem with that is that Republicans, as a general rule, would never align with socialist values. So, while technically they could, anyone that claims to be a Republican with my values is almost entirely likely to be lying.
But, you missed a big thing in American politics: The moderate voter. We have a large group of people who consider themselves moderate, for reasons that all range within the realms of apathetic ignorance to willful ignorance. These people have either no moral quandaries with either particular side, are general unaffected by politics in a way perceivable to them, or are people who lean one way but do have moral quandaries with that side. Debates between parties are for them, which is why it’s about presentation, media sound bites, and moderate views.
There IS some degree of factionalism within the two party system. It is much more pronounced in the Democratic Party. Ever since Reagan in 1980, the Republican Party’s factionalism became severely diminished. The Libertarians are kind of their most loosely held affiliation.
The primary system is largely designed help direct and influence the political platforms of the two parties. The two parties have made some significant pivots and switches over its history.
But far more importantly however: What has really happened is the Citizens United and lesser known Speechnow decisions by the US Supreme Court effectively legalized corporate buyout of the American electoral system.
A question to American Lemmy users: from what I can tell you are Democrats for the vast majority : would you consider voting for a Republican president if you aligned with his ideas, or if the Democrat candidate was an unredeemable piece of shit? The two party system makes zero sense to me because it doesn’t seem, at first glance, that they’re a huge overlap, people are not willing to go to the other side often, it seems. … what’s the point of having debates and stuff then?
Before the Tea Party movement in the Republican party, yes I definitely could have been convinced to vote for a Republican candidate. I was actually intending to vote for John McCain for president because at that time in history, both parties really did still have their crazy branches, but the relatively rational adults who knew how to compromise for the good of the country still ran the show, and I was genuinely concerned that Obama didn’t have enough political experience to be president.
Then McCain nominated Sarah Palin for his Vice President. That was such a pandering, cowardly, caving to the will of the utterly ignorant, insane extremists in the Republican party move that I voted for Obama. And then the entire Republican party got so mad that a black guy was president that they collectively lost their whole fucking minds.
Republicans no longer want to govern. They want to break things and stay in power and that’s it. That’s their entire platform. There’s nothing to debate because they literally aren’t even trying to DO anything useful. Their entire political position right now is “do the opposite of what Democrats want.” They have nothing to vote FOR. People who vote Republican right now are doing so only because they’re voting against the bogeymen in their own heads.
Within the Democratic party, there’s debate about how to handle climate change. There are people who advocate for slow, cautious changes and still see fossil fuels having a small role to play in the future. There are others within the Democratic party that want more drastic action, and make a huge government spending program to try to rapidly move the US energy to renewables (even naming it after one of the biggest US government programs made during the depression). That’s normal politics. And it’s all within the Democratic party.
The GOP mostly deny climate change exists. A few GOP members suggest that climate change is happening, but is a natural event not caused by man.
The recent house drama from the speakership battle was caused because 10 nutjobs didn’t want to fund any social programs and wouldn’t approve the budget. Most GOP compromised and made a TEMPORARY budget proposal that the Democratic reps would vote for. This caused the hardliners to remove the speaker. Because he had the audacity to compromise on a TEMPORARY budget.
Removing policy aside and just looking at behavior, many GOP members do not believe in compromising to get things done. There’s attempts to not hold elected officials accountable (unless they are from the other party). It’s very little cooperation and more retaliation.
A single GOP senator didn’t like that the US military would reimburse a servicemember’s travel for medical care if they lived in a state where some reproductive treatments weren’t available. This one senator has single-handedly denied 360 military promotions and nominations to military positions. The Senate has historically tried to make it where being the minority party still had some power, so the rules let this happen (the other GOP senators on this committee weren’t blocking, just the one guy).
The Democratic senators became so fed up they decided to change the rules to prevent a single committee member from blocking promotions. While most GOP senators publicly condemn this guy, many said this rule change was too much. So it looks like the rule change vote will be along party lines, although the #1 GOP senator has said it might be necessary to vote through to get the military back on track.
The last GOP senator really known for being reasonable and wanting to work collaboratively (McCain) died. He was respected by both parties until Trump came along, and now the GOP don’t really hold his legacy in high regard.
Sorry, a lot longer than I intended, but it’s a pattern showing no desire to try to govern effectively. Putting all issues of policy aside, I think it’s a bad idea to vote for the GOP.
Right now? Absolutely fucking not. In the past? No, probably not.
I would absolutely vote Republican if they were just a bit to the left on abortions, education, and unions. Actually unions and teamsters would totally support Republicans if they weren’t openly hostile to them.
Right now they’re just different flavors of big government endlessly growing and I really think some libertarians need some wins to shake them up.
So, the issue we see is that the republican party has often run democrats, and then had them flip to republican after election.
I don’t trust most democrats either at this point.
The answer, unequivocally, is “Abso-fucking-lutely.” But, you phrased the question wrong because you assume that people that vote Democratic are Democrats. They are not. Something like 20-30% of people who vote exclusively or near exclusively Democratic consider themselves Democrats, whereas Republican voters are around 50-60% for their respective categorization.
This isn’t particularly strange if you think about the authoritarian vs anarchical political dichotomy these two voter bases lean to for more than a second. The real problem with that is that Republicans, as a general rule, would never align with socialist values. So, while technically they could, anyone that claims to be a Republican with my values is almost entirely likely to be lying.
But, you missed a big thing in American politics: The moderate voter. We have a large group of people who consider themselves moderate, for reasons that all range within the realms of apathetic ignorance to willful ignorance. These people have either no moral quandaries with either particular side, are general unaffected by politics in a way perceivable to them, or are people who lean one way but do have moral quandaries with that side. Debates between parties are for them, which is why it’s about presentation, media sound bites, and moderate views.
Anyway, hopefully that answers your question!
That’s because you haven’t seen it for what it is - a glorified “good cop/bad cop” routine.
There IS some degree of factionalism within the two party system. It is much more pronounced in the Democratic Party. Ever since Reagan in 1980, the Republican Party’s factionalism became severely diminished. The Libertarians are kind of their most loosely held affiliation.
The primary system is largely designed help direct and influence the political platforms of the two parties. The two parties have made some significant pivots and switches over its history.
But far more importantly however: What has really happened is the Citizens United and lesser known Speechnow decisions by the US Supreme Court effectively legalized corporate buyout of the American electoral system.
And now we got fascists.