[POLITICS] Right-Wing Hypocrisy
- Thread starter Saelune
- Start date
Recommended Videos
Because there are two states - expansion and contraction. Fear-based politics taps into well-worn neural pathways of instinctual cautious behaviour and is a much easier response to stimulate in a voter base.Samtemdo8 said:
Explorative optimism is much harder to sell because people don't have frames of reference for growing up and out and including more in your world, it's the unknown.
And we get to choose from two parties who basically exemplify these two simple options and we allow them to shape our lives, because humans are idiot herd animals.
Because people keep making oppression their political platform, therefor people must make opposition to oppression part of their platform. But then you have apathetic 'centrists' who think there is middle ground between equal rights and unequal rights.Samtemdo8 said:
Until equal rights, until fairness is just considered the only stance, there will be stark conflict between the sides.
Oh and lying and hypocrisy also need to go. That's one of the most infuriating things. Atleast when someone is honest and not a hypocrite, you can use facts and logic to refute them, and they will accept the logical conclusion.
How? Like if they're purging voting roles and keeping people from voting, like the GOP, then yeah sure. But how are the dems undermining democracy?Marik2 said:
Saelune said:
Gone but not forgotten.TheIronRuler said:
I disagree. The concept of a political party is just the extension of freedom of association, when it comes to politics. If I get together a group of people who all want to advocate for a certain political topic, that is functionally a political party, regardless of what name is put on it. Now, hyper partisanship is bad. That much is beyond dispute.Marik2 said:
I disagree. Political parties themselves aren't the problem; that our electoral and legislative systems give undue power to political parties, and unregulated political activity by incorporated third parties, are.Marik2 said:
CM156 said:Saelune said:
Gone but not forgotten.TheIronRuler said:
I disagree. The concept of a political party is just the extension of freedom of association, when it comes to politics. If I get together a group of people who all want to advocate for a certain political topic, that is functionally a political party, regardless of what name is put on it. Now, hyper partisanship is bad. That much is beyond dispute.Marik2 said:
Political parties stimulate peoples inner tribalism and it will usually lead to hyper partisanship. At the end of the day, it's just high school cliques. Democracies only work when ideas are free and the public is actually informed. I'd like to talk more about it, but I am not going to write an essay on my phone.Eacaraxe said:
I know the founding fathers were totally against political parties for the same reason. And then went ahead and pretty much made political parties out of their own ideology. It's easier said then done. If you want a vote, you need a platform and thus a party. Going independent doesn't make you not a political party. And...Marik2 said:
Political parties are an extension of tribalism. If you got rid of political parties, it wouldn't diminish tribalism, it would show up somewhere else. Plus, politics would become more about cults of personalities. Imagine Trump but every single time and on every side. It would be about one person says, not a party. Which, I think, is worse.Marik2 said:
And none of leads to better information being relayed to the public or better free speech or allowing people to say what they think. The way you win is politics is to lie about political opponents. Best lie wins. Getting rid of parties doesn't make this better.
You're never, ever getting rid of parties and party structures, it's not called the iron law of oligarchy just because it sounds cool. Best-case scenario is to limit their power by keeping parties as fractional and divided as possible, only engaging in coalition-building to pass legislation on a case-by-case basis. That's where Duverger's law comes in; the US is practically purpose-built for a two-party system by having the worst-possible convergence of electoral and legislative systems: first-past-the-post plurality, single-member districts.Marik2 said:
The American problem is truly unique, because when it comes to electioneering and lobbying we're the fuckin' wild west. Not only do we allow parties to become large and influential enough to exercise duopolistic control and terrorize voters into not stepping outside the big tents, but we allow interest groups and the donor class carte blanche to capture the parties themselves. And as if that wasn't enough, we allow profiteers to capitalize upon everything mentioned above in exchange for favors, access, and influence.
Just so we're clear about this, by "profiteers" I mean the media. The politico-media complex is very real.
Which is why, even though you have the logic backwards, your statement about a free marketplace of ideas and the necessity of an informed public is absolutely correct. We currently have neither, because our national discourse is at the discretion and mercy of a handful of for-profit media corporations, whose only obligation is to maximize profit to shareholders. However, even supposing we solve for that, we're still left with a duopoly enabled by our form of government, itself under the influence of oligopoly.
The catch-22 is that to reform the government, the parties have to be reformed. Reforming the parties requires wrenching party control away from interest groups and donors. Restricting interest groups' and donors' influence requires government reform.
I think it's more complex than that.CM156 said:
A political party is different from an informal grouping of individuals with certain shared policy positions. The political party has a "life of its own" - its own funding, its own power bases, its own objectives. Although individuals can differ within a party, the existence of a party drives individuals to more limited representation and policy as it will corral differences in members and voters away from individual belief into party lines, which is of course reinforced by parties selecting representatives more on the basis of consistency with general party lines.
For instance, let's sake overturning Roe v Wade. By democratic measures, this appears to be exceptionally unpopular: for decades, polls suggest support for Roe v. Wade has been varied between 20-40% higher than overturning it. But the Republican Party is aggressively trying to overturn it. Why? I'd put it to you because the ~30% minority that want Roe v. Wade overturned have achieved political capture over the Republican Party, so it has become an institutionalised policy of the the Republican Party despite its overall weakness at a national level.
Because that's literally the point. If everyone got along and had the same beliefs, politics wouldn't be a thing.Samtemdo8 said:
As for the topic itself...I mean yeah, I suppose. The GOP is an absolutely shameless, hyper-partisan political party that doesn't give a damn what they have to do to win. They also have all manner of lies, propaganda, and policy to aid them in doing so. They've turned themselves into a Jesus-plated, American football team and their base fucking loves them no matter what they do. As long as they say the right words and are against the right people, they won't give a shit and support their team. They've shown that time and time again, and have been more and more blatant about it. There's no working with them, there's no compromising with them. They just need to be defeated, it's as simple as that. It's why any notion of "bi-partisan" anything at this point is fucking laughable.
I honestly don't think anything is going to really change though, not for the better anyway. They're going to keep being awful, and their opposition is going to keep being absolutely fucking incompetent. I think more out of ignorance than malice, but either way they're not really being a proper opposition. The Democratic leadership is stuck in the past and refuses to see the present.
- Apr 1, 2009
- 15,526
- 4,295
- 118
- Gender
- Whatever, just wash your hands.
Political parties were an inevitability with democracy. Especially with how we set up voting in this country. If you can only vote for one person then it will always become an either or situation and which ever group is more organized will win and they will probably stay organized. Thus creating a party.Marik2 said:
To limit that we would need a preferential voting system. We would still end up with political parties but we would have more of them instead of just two big ones.
Also, outlawing political parties is impossible since they are literally just a group of people getting together and staying together united by a common ideology.
Australia has preferential voting, and we've in effect got two parties that matter, the ALP and the Liberal/National coalition. Small parties like the Greens aren't generally big enough to make a difference.Worgen said:
In some part, it's because people don't know about preferential voting and think that voting for a minor party is throwing your vote away like in the US. Don't know how many people that is, though.