Republicans - the HONEST Party

[Elixir]

I've decided that Republicans are more honest than Democrats.

Democrats give lip service to things like social safety nets, reducing wealth inequality, promoting gender equity etc., tolerance of differing belief systems, etc. But then they turn around and do the bidding of lobbyists.

Republicans outright declare war on the poor, support the right of Corporations to create and maintain slave-state feifdoms, assert the primacy of the rich to dictate to everyone else, and forthrightly promote the legal system as a mechaism for the enforcement of all of the above.

The results are the same in either case, but at least Republicans make no bones about it.

I'm de-coupling from party politics altogether.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

That's the type of false equivalency which only helps the Republicans and the reaction of people getting disgusted about the whole process and just walking away is exactly the result which the people you're complaining about are looking for.

While the Democratic Party is certainly compromised, it's not actively working against the issues you're talking about to the same extent that the GOP is. The only counterbalance to those compromised positions is an active and engaged base to hold their feet to the fire. The more that base gets disaffected and doesn't participate, the less of a counterbalance there is and the less reason there is for the Dems to become less compromised.

 

[Elixir]

That's the type of false equivalency which only helps the Republicans and the reaction of people getting disgusted about the whole process and just walking away is exactly the result which the people you're complaining about are looking for.

While the Democratic Party is certainly compromised, it's not actively working against the issues you're talking about to the same extent that the GOP is.

How can you tell?

The only counterbalance to those compromised positions is an active and engaged base to hold their feet to the fire.

I am more convinced than ever that such counterbalance has to occur outside the two major parties.

The more that base gets disaffected and doesn't participate, the less of a counterbalance there is and the less reason there is for the Dems to become less compromised.

I do not intend to decline to participate - I simply don't want my participation to be co-opted by either of the major parties. Come election time, I will cast my votes for whoever seems to be the least evil viable candidate - and yes, that will usually be a Democrat, even though their obeisance to the oligarchic state is despicably camouflaged.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Well, the counterbalance isn't going to happen outside the major parties. Your system is designed in such a way to make that a non-viable option.

Just holding your nose and voting for someone every two or four years isn't going to do anything because the compromises have already long been in place by that point and there's no difference between that and just staying home. If the Dems form a Tea Party equivalent and force the issue during the primaries, there's a chance for some positive development. Anything else would just end up with the people you're against winning while you're pretending that your staying out of the game means that you're not on the losing side.

If a left wing takeover of the Dem Party is successful and the GOP remains extreme, it does open up the possibility for a third party in the middle which is viable as it draws from both of them, but any third party attempt on one of the fringes only harms the members of that third party.

 

[Elixir]

If the Dems form a Tea Party equivalent ...

If that happens I'll be there to support it. But the first order of business would be to wrest control of congress away from the Repugs. Otherwise any change will be strictly symbolic and short-lived. And a Dem-dominated congress would be little better, unless those seats were filled by people with the courage to stand up to the lobbying interests.

 

[Opoponax]

I am more convinced than ever that such counterbalance has to occur outside the two major parties ...

I do not intend to decline to participate - I simply don't want my participation to be co-opted by either of the major parties. Come election time, I will cast my votes for whoever seems to be the least evil viable candidate - and yes, that will usually be a Democrat, even though their obeisance to the oligarchic state is despicably camouflaged.

The problem with that way of thinking is this: Trump is in the White House and now the Supreme Court is firmly back in conservative hands. Should Ruth Bader Ginsberg become unable to fulfill her duties, guess what: a 6-3 majority for conservatives on the Supreme Court. Even if Roberts sides with the minority, it's still 5-4 in favor of ass-backwardness.

This notion that voting third party in a Presidential election is somehow more noble or that it makes a statement louder than a silent fart in a hurricane is the same that allowed George W. Bush to win the White House (see Ralph Nader). I guess thousands of dead American soldiers, trillions of wasted dollars, and hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis wasn't enough.

The reality is that third parties do exactly dick. On my ballot this past November, in a city of 300,000+ people, there were exactly Zero third party candidates up for local office---and this is in California. But there was that fetid fuck from the Libertarians and Stein from the Green Party running for POTUS. It's a goddamn joke. These interfering turds show up every three and a half years and bamboozle people into thinking that they're part of a new movement. Here's the truth though: there is no new movement and the only practical function these useless motherfuckers serve is to get people like Trump and Dubbya into the White House.

We have a two party system. That's the reality, and it isn't going to change. And occasionally, when third parties do begin to popularize an idea, the two major parties simply take the popular idea, co-opt it when their constituents are ready, and only then does it become part of the national conversation.

In the meantime, I hope third party protest voters are enjoying the Orange Ape.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

If the Dems form a Tea Party equivalent ...

If that happens I'll be there to support it. But the first order of business would be to wrest control of congress away from the Repugs. Otherwise any change will be strictly symbolic and short-lived. And a Dem-dominated congress would be little better, unless those seats were filled by people with the courage to stand up to the lobbying interests.

That gets the order backwards. If the Dems win, they don't need the left wing. The left wing needs to start preparing to primary the current folks now and then have their candidates being a significant bloc running to regain that control. As the Tea Party recently showed in the health care debacle, it doesn't take much to completely derail any agenda which they feel is counter to their interests. If the Dems regain control of congress with a bloc like that in 2018, then things can start moving forward. If they don't have a bloc like that, whether or not they control congress won't matter much for the agenda items you mentioned in the OP.

 

[braces_for_impact]

Third party als doesn't work in the US system from the top down. It has to be from the bottom up. In reality, if we want actual change and governance by the people this has to happen regardless of whether you're Republican, Democrat, or other. There's too much money in the system. There's gerrymandering, there's misdirection and there's too much ignorance.

The problem is changing these things under the US system takes time. It takes time to undo all the bullshit that has been done, and it takes time because in order to conduct real, lasting change requires local political participation. The President has a lot of influence. So does congress in the federal system, but so do the states. Even with a left of center federal government, much of that is not felt in red states. There's a gulf that has only been widening between the south and the rest of the country. Between the Red and Blue states. change is glacial, and people do NOT deal well with glacial problems. Global warming is one excellent example of that. Take any problem that is difficult to see by the nature of being slow, or any solution to a problem that is slow and it's simply not on most people's list of priorities. We're just not good as a species of thinking that way.

That being said, I think it's dangerous to act as if the two sides are equal. They are not, and if the last two months doesn't prove that to the American asshats that vote, I don't know what will. Perhaps when a nuke goes off on the Korean peninsula.

What I was taught by this election, and what I think is really pretty dangerous, is how difficult it is to get any traction legally against a sitting President when his political party is in power. Watching the Republicans just sit idly by and watch the world burn just so they can say they are the guys in charge - that shit is just scary.

 

[funinspace]

I've decided that Republicans are more honest than Democrats.

Democrats give lip service to things like social safety nets, reducing wealth inequality, promoting gender equity etc., tolerance of differing belief systems, etc. But then they turn around and do the bidding of lobbyists.

Republicans outright declare war on the poor, support the right of Corporations to create and maintain slave-state feifdoms, assert the primacy of the rich to dictate to everyone else, and forthrightly promote the legal system as a mechaism for the enforcement of all of the above.

The results are the same in either case, but at least Republicans make no bones about it.

That is at generally least true on those topics for the Repugs. But the Repugs are big time liars about small government, deficit control, illegal aliens, crime and terrorism, and the incredible shrinking military-complex funding.

I'm de-coupling from party politics altogether.

I haven't been into party politics since the later 90's, and even before then I wasn't thrilled. But it also depends on what it means. Voting for a Dum can matter in some states at some times. Other times it is a quite reasonable form of saying none of the above.

 

[RavenSky]

That's the type of false equivalency which only helps the Republicans and the reaction of people getting disgusted about the whole process and just walking away is exactly the result which the people you're complaining about are looking for.

While the Democratic Party is certainly compromised, it's not actively working against the issues you're talking about to the same extent that the GOP is. The only counterbalance to those compromised positions is an active and engaged base to hold their feet to the fire. The more that base gets disaffected and doesn't participate, the less of a counterbalance there is and the less reason there is for the Dems to become less compromised.

^^^ all of that

 

[Elixir]

While the Democratic Party is certainly compromised, it's not actively working against the issues you're talking about ...

I think you mean "overtly".

 

[Tom Sawyer]

While the Democratic Party is certainly compromised, it's not actively working against the issues you're talking about ...

I think you mean "overtly".

Fair point. It doesn't change the equation, though. You can have a person who's overtly working against those issues and can only be replaced by someone who's working more overtly against them or you can have someone who's working covertly against those issues and can be replaced by someone who starts working towards implementing them.

The nature of your political system is that the Democratic Party is the only tool in your arsenal. You can be a part of it and help shift its pool of elected officials to less compromised ones or you can lose - and not participating is actively working towards your own losing.

 

[Horatio Parker]

It's a conservative meme. Liberals are too riddled with guilt to give into their inner selfishness.

And they have a point. Dems adopt neoliberalism with a few more crumbs for the masses and call themselves progressive.

 

[arkirk]

I've decided that Republicans are more honest than Democrats.

Democrats give lip service to things like social safety nets, reducing wealth inequality, promoting gender equity etc., tolerance of differing belief systems, etc. But then they turn around and do the bidding of lobbyists.

Republicans outright declare war on the poor, support the right of Corporations to create and maintain slave-state feifdoms, assert the primacy of the rich to dictate to everyone else, and forthrightly promote the legal system as a mechaism for the enforcement of all of the above.

The results are the same in either case, but at least Republicans make no bones about it.

I'm de-coupling from party politics altogether.

You are as bad as a Republican in your response to a bad situation. I think also you are deeply in error regarding the "honesty" of the Republicans. Their "honesty" is only in their expressions of feelings of contempt for poor people trying to stay alive. They have secretly behind the scenes been busy selling our government to corporate interests who have agendas never allowed to see the light of day. These agendas involve things like the destruction and pollution of natural habitats for profit, actions that lead to the early deaths of poor people due to insufficient medical care, nutrition, education, etc. In short, they are not mouthing the results they actually expect from their actions which in fact are the creation of ever greater wealth centers in an impoverished (hence enslaved) society. Their difference with Hitler is that they realized that public ignorance is every bit as effective at genocide as ovens. Just saying we have no choice but to participate in partisan politics and it is impossible to expect any decent social or economic results from the current duopoly of bought and sold corporate parties. There will need to be an uprising and an organizing of a powerful party with a progressive agenda in order to bring this travesty of government to an end. At current rates of environmental degradation, it needs to happen fairly quickly. The question is does your idea of merely opting out of participation have any value. I think it does not.

 

[Elixir]

I've decided that Republicans are more honest than Democrats.

Democrats give lip service to things like social safety nets, reducing wealth inequality, promoting gender equity etc., tolerance of differing belief systems, etc. But then they turn around and do the bidding of lobbyists.

Republicans outright declare war on the poor, support the right of Corporations to create and maintain slave-state feifdoms, assert the primacy of the rich to dictate to everyone else, and forthrightly promote the legal system as a mechaism for the enforcement of all of the above.

The results are the same in either case, but at least Republicans make no bones about it.

I'm de-coupling from party politics altogether.

You are as bad as a Republican in your response to a bad situation. I think also you are deeply in error regarding the "honesty" of the Republicans. Their "honesty" is only in their expressions of feelings of contempt for poor people trying to stay alive.

No, no, no! They are also quite overt about their racism, misogyny, contempt for hard working people and love of the gun industry.

They have secretly behind the scenes been busy selling our government to corporate interests who have agendas never allowed to see the light of day.

Hardly different from the Dems...

These agendas involve things like the destruction and pollution of natural habitats for profit, actions that lead to the early deaths of poor people due to insufficient medical care, nutrition, education, etc.

Exactly. We KNOW what they're about.

There will need to be an uprising and an organizing of a powerful party with a progressive agenda in order to bring this travesty of government to an end. At current rates of environmental degradation, it needs to happen fairly quickly.

I don't see where you are disagreeing with me.

The question is does your idea of merely opting out of participation have any value. I think it does not.

Opting out? No - de-coupling, as in following my own moral compass to determine which, among viable (meaning likely from a party, but hopefully not) candidates will be most likely to turn on the powers that be.

 

[arkirk]

You are as bad as a Republican in your response to a bad situation. I think also you are deeply in error regarding the "honesty" of the Republicans. Their "honesty" is only in their expressions of feelings of contempt for poor people trying to stay alive.

No, no, no! They are also quite overt about their racism, misogyny, contempt for hard working people and love of the gun industry.

They have secretly behind the scenes been busy selling our government to corporate interests who have agendas never allowed to see the light of day.

Hardly different from the Dems...

These agendas involve things like the destruction and pollution of natural habitats for profit, actions that lead to the early deaths of poor people due to insufficient medical care, nutrition, education, etc.

Exactly. We KNOW what they're about.

There will need to be an uprising and an organizing of a powerful party with a progressive agenda in order to bring this travesty of government to an end. At current rates of environmental degradation, it needs to happen fairly quickly.

I don't see where you are disagreeing with me.

The question is does your idea of merely opting out of participation have any value. I think it does not.

Opting out? No - de-coupling, as in following my own moral compass to determine which, among viable (meaning likely from a party, but hopefully not) candidates will be most likely to turn on the powers that be.

Eliner: You called them HONEST. That is my main disagreement with you.

 

[Elixir]

No, no, no! They are also quite overt about their racism, misogyny, contempt for hard working people and love of the gun industry.

They have secretly behind the scenes been busy selling our government to corporate interests who have agendas never allowed to see the light of day.

Hardly different from the Dems...

These agendas involve things like the destruction and pollution of natural habitats for profit, actions that lead to the early deaths of poor people due to insufficient medical care, nutrition, education, etc.

Exactly. We KNOW what they're about.

There will need to be an uprising and an organizing of a powerful party with a progressive agenda in order to bring this travesty of government to an end. At current rates of environmental degradation, it needs to happen fairly quickly.

I don't see where you are disagreeing with me.

The question is does your idea of merely opting out of participation have any value. I think it does not.

Opting out? No - de-coupling, as in following my own moral compass to determine which, among viable (meaning likely from a party, but hopefully not) candidates will be most likely to turn on the powers that be.

Eliner: You called them HONEST. That is my main disagreement with you.

Okay, I admit it - that was a bait word. Could have said "transparently stupid and un-American" or something like that...

 

[arkirk]

To be a little more specific here on Repug honesty.

Having done battle with these people on environmental issues for at least 25 years, I have come to see that most of the Republicans' lies are lies of omission.
However, not all their lies are that way. How quickly we forget Colin Power calling a milk truck a chemical warfare agent. Georgie and Condie yammering on endlessly about mushroom clouds and WMD's. And Dickhead Cheney connecting Saddam Hussein to 911. These were pure fabrications and committed lies. I also think that the idea that their contempt is directed at the poor people, far more than any other human difference. Black people, black balled gay people and non religious and people with communitarian beliefs and desires most often are poor people. On the other hand I remember the Repug congressman caught tapping his foot in the toilet stall in the Minneapolis bus station....hmmmm. They really don't hate gay people. A sellout can be a gay person...like Barney Frank.

 

[ronburgundy]

While the Democratic Party is certainly compromised, it's not actively working against the issues you're talking about to the same extent that the GOP is.

How can you tell?

Because the empirical facts clearly show it. Why do you think that Trump is attempting to undo so much that Obama did? It is because their goals are the exact opposite and the actions of Obama and the Dems are most often the opposite of what the Repugs want and do when in power.

The fact that the Dems don't act exactly as you want them to all the time doesn't mean they are beholden to lobbyists. It often means that are beholden to many values that are often at odds with each other. Unlike activists with the limited pet issues and short-sighted demands that their issue be fixed immediately, policy makers must deal with actual reality in which it is literally impossible to optimize every core value simultaneously because doing so for one undermines others. This is the case with gender equality and the value of respect for personal liberty. The Democrats value both, and all methods that would most quickly expedite gender equality via the force of law, greatly undermine the principle of personal liberty. The optimal action doesn't simply fix "a" problem as quickly and forcefully as possible. It pushes things in the direction of the solution without undermining other goals or creating new problems.

Of course there is some compromise to be made with lobbyists and corporate interests. But that also doesn't mean they are lying about their core goals and values, only that they are adults who understand the reality that their ability to move toward those goals at all requires alliances and therefore compromise with those who hold economic and therefore social sway. Money matters. No party or faction will have much power or influence in a democracy without forming allies with some segments of the more economically powerful interests. It isn't as simple as them buying politicians because of campaign financing. Unless you are in a totalitarian society without free speech and where pure physical might determines who rules, then the social sway that the rich can wield will be sizable and that sway means they will influence large numbers of voters.

Despite this compromise, the result is that policies when Dems have control over all 3 branches are extremely different than when Repubs do.

I do not intend to decline to participate - I simply don't want my participation to be co-opted by either of the major parties. Come election time, I will cast my votes for whoever seems to be the least evil viable candidate - and yes, that will usually be a Democrat, even though their obeisance to the oligarchic state is despicably camouflaged.

Glad you have the sense to understand that compromise with imperfect allies is better than losing to the worst enemy. However, that is a far more nuanced stance that your OP of "I'm de-coupling from party politics altogether."

If you just meant that you are not going to have "Democrat" as a part of your identity as though you and the party of one mind, then great. You shouldn't do that with any type of group. That is when "groups" become mindless dangerous things that harm the interests of most people who are in them. I never call myself a Democrat, despite voting Dem for every major office in every election. In fact, there are likely things the Dems have done that I hate and you support because we not of one mind and have different priorities and notions of how to achieve them. But we are both fools doomed to lose to a far greater evil if we don't back the same horse once it comes time to go up against theirs.

 

[untermensche]

Since both parties now service only the super rich they are equally despicable.

But with the Republicans you get all this Muslim insanity and the climate change denial and the slow destruction of social services.

So while both parties are equally despicable the Republicans are far more dangerous.