I've been thinking the same thing. Anew Party might take that role, but there are other scenarioes:
Perhaps a breakaway party will form for the demographic who supported Bernie Sanders, leading to the remaining Democratic party moving further towards the center? Or do you think the GoP might fill that void if the Tea Party supporters form their own party?
Yes, I too think that's more likely. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if both parties had picked less controversial candidates this year. What if the Democrates had chosen Joe Biden and the Republicans had chosen Jeb Bush or Chris Christie? Would the election had been like previous elections? Would the splits in both parties, between the parties and indeed in the country still have dominated the election?
Unfortunately this election has denigrated into chaos based on the negative issues both candidates have, the actual politics has been lost, in British politics Clinton would not have survived the email scandal and trump just wouldn't have any support at all. It's indicative of modern salacious media coverage.
I mentioned earlier that Donald Trump was the model for the bully Biff in"Back to the future". But has Hillary been the model of any fictional characters? Some have speculated that Santos in the last season of The West Wing was modeled on Obama.
Was Claire Underwood on "House of Cards" modeled on Hillary? Any other sugestions?
Yes, I too think that's more likely. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if both parties had picked less controversial candidates this year. What if the Democrates had chosen Joe Biden and the Republicans had chosen Jeb Bush or Chris Christie? Would the election had been like previous elections? Would the splits in both parties, between the parties and indeed in the country still have dominated the election?
I'm not sure you understand how this works. People choose the candidates they want to be president, not whom they think will be less controversial. Hardly anybody voted for Jeb Bush or Chris Christie against Trump. The powers of the Republican party would have loved for Jeb to be the nominee, but nobody voted for him. Joe Biden didn't even run to be the Democratic nominee.
I didn't say the Americans should vote for those candidates. I was speculating if the divisions within the two parties and in the country itself would have been less visible if they had been running for president, or if the problems are so acute that who the candidates makes little difference (in softening the divide).
And yes, I know how a well functioning demcracy works.
I was speculating if the divisions within the two parties and in the country itself would have been less visible if they had been running for president, or if the problems are so acute that who the candidates makes little difference (in softening the divide).
To me, it's the latter -- the increased polarization of the parties (at least in the US) has relatively little to do with the two current candidates and has in fact been going on for quite some time.
There are many different ways to depict the "incredible shrinking middle" -- one I have seen recently charts the voting records of members of Congress (House plus Senate) on a continuum from liberal to conservative. It defines the "middle" as the number of members between the most conservative Democrat and the most liberal Republican. That number, expressed as a percentage of total members, has trended as follows:
-- 1982: 75%
-- 1994: 53%
-- 2002: 27%
You can guess where this is heading. In 2015, the number was...zero. In other words, the most liberal Republican member of Congress is more conservative than the most conservative Democrat. As with all these types of analysis, I'm sure people could find flaws, but would anybody dispute that it passes the "eyeball test"?
So, why is this happening? There are as many theories as there are people to ask, but I would point to three factors: 1) Gerrymandering of districts into shapes that Dali or Escher could scarcely imagine, all to ensure demographics heavily in favor on one party or the other. 2) The rise of new media models that not only deliver information in bite-sized, real-time pieces but now include advocacy pretending to be journalism (Fox News, MSNBC). These models make money. 3) Campaign finance laws (and their interpretation by the Supreme Court) which consider massive organizations like Citizens United as "people" and thus exempt them from prohibition on certain activities and spending levels.
That the current candidates have thrown "polarization" into such sharp relief is quite ironic. Yeah, they (OK, mostly he) sling nasty arrows, but they're mostly about character flaws, not policies. I would argue that from a policy perspective, they are the closest we've had in an election since 1992. Despite all his bluster, Trump is hardly a stalwart conservative, and Hillary is certainly no uber-liberal. What they both are, are craven opportunists, which to me is the saddest part of all.
What all this portends, I have no idea. All I know is that this travesty of an election campaign can't end fast enough. After that, hopefully we can have more substantive and productive national discussions in this country, or least begin to calm down and maybe even heal. We'll see.
I don't know what you lot are going on about. At the last Illuminati meeting we were all
Told the plan was working perfectly ! ............ Of did you guys miss that one ?
"I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
My last post was aimed at sir Hillary Bray, but I am sure TPs brain is vert aktive.
I have to warn you all that my posts in the evenings arena posted on my Phone that changes words into Norwegian automatically.
I Hope you underskudd....
I didn't say the Americans should vote for those candidates. I was speculating if the divisions within the two parties and in the country itself would have been less visible if they had been running for president, or if the problems are so acute that who the candidates makes little difference (in softening the divide).
And yes, I know how a well functioning demcracy works.
Sorry. I know that in a lot of countries the parties choose who their candidates are, which is what I thought you were suggesting was done in America. But you are aware that Jeb Bush and Chris Christie ran for the presidential nomination and both lost miserably?
It's the voters' choices that have put us in our predicament. Education in many parts of America is very poor, which is one reason for the poor presidential choices. It's also a big problem is that few good and few smart people want run for president.
The. Parties do chose the candidates here . But again, my question was how other candidates would have influenced the tone of the election. I you have an opinion about that I would like to hear it.
As I see it, the two main parties have moved further away from the centre, surely there is a need for a third party to operate from the now vacant centre?
You mean like a party that's socially tolerant and fiscally responsible, respectful of privacy and skeptical of war?
Oh, what folly! I'll bet in your totally unrealistic scenario that party would nominate for President and Vice-President two former two-term state governors who took on the entrenched extremes of the Republicans and Democrats.
The. Parties do chose the candidates here . But again, my question was how other candidates would have influenced the tone of the election. I you have an opinion about that I would like to hear it.
If Jeb Bush or Chris Christie were chosen instead of Trump, Hillary would be ahead even further. If Biden wanted to run, he could easily defeat those guys, just as it was proven that almost anyone could defeat Bush and Christie in a national election. But if Biden had ran against Hillary and Bernie, Bernie would easily have gotten the Democratic nominee. There was nobody competing against Bernie who shared his views, whilst Hillary and Joe Biden would have a very similar platform, and people would trust Joe over Hillary.
Again, not really what I asked about. Still an interesting answer.
I'm sorry. I don't understand what you are asking. Things happened the way they happened for a reason. After being in the middle of it for the past year and a half, I can't imagine a different scenario since I know the kind of people who voted for whom they voted. For a different scenario to have occurred, the US would need to be a different place. What has happened started decades ago.
What I was asking is this: what would other candidates have done to the tone of the election. Not the outcome, but the tone. The reason I asked was the great divides in the parties andre the country. Not easy to reply to a "what if" question, I guess.
Speaking as an average bloke, who's been around a few years. I honestly think
it makes very little difference. Who wins, as they only really have minor differences
in their policies ( UK anyway) , So I'd guess after any election, when all the hype
has faded away and the everyday work of running the country begins, it's all much
the same. Poor people remain poor, The rich stay rich , big companies don't pay
any tax........... all busines as usual, I don't know if any American voters feel as jaded
and disillusioned as myself.
"I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
What I was asking is this: what would other candidates have done to the tone of the election. Not the outcome, but the tone. The reason I asked was the great divides in the parties andre the country. Not easy to reply to a "what if" question, I guess.
I think if most of the other candidates had gotten this far, the election would be about the issues of the country rather than about the candidates' character. This election is about the candidates more than it's about the issues of the United States. Nobody else can compare to Trump as a person. Nobody else who was running had held a political position as high as Clinton, so nobody else had the opportunity to face such big scandals. Just about all of the other candidates, except Drs Ben Carson and Jill Stein, are just normal politicians. With them we would have had a more tame election with more focus on the country rather than on the candidates.
A discussion about the issues, that would have byen nice. In Norway political debates arena nearly never about personalities, but about the issues or who did what when and what it led to. God night, I'm going to Bergen tomorrow to visit my sister.
Comments
Perhaps a breakaway party will form for the demographic who supported Bernie Sanders, leading to the remaining Democratic party moving further towards the center? Or do you think the GoP might fill that void if the Tea Party supporters form their own party?
Was Claire Underwood on "House of Cards" modeled on Hillary? Any other sugestions?
The character Susan Stanton, played by Emma Thomson, in this film was a thinly-veiled Hilary Clinton.
I'm not sure you understand how this works. People choose the candidates they want to be president, not whom they think will be less controversial. Hardly anybody voted for Jeb Bush or Chris Christie against Trump. The powers of the Republican party would have loved for Jeb to be the nominee, but nobody voted for him. Joe Biden didn't even run to be the Democratic nominee.
And yes, I know how a well functioning demcracy works.
There are many different ways to depict the "incredible shrinking middle" -- one I have seen recently charts the voting records of members of Congress (House plus Senate) on a continuum from liberal to conservative. It defines the "middle" as the number of members between the most conservative Democrat and the most liberal Republican. That number, expressed as a percentage of total members, has trended as follows:
-- 1982: 75%
-- 1994: 53%
-- 2002: 27%
You can guess where this is heading. In 2015, the number was...zero. In other words, the most liberal Republican member of Congress is more conservative than the most conservative Democrat. As with all these types of analysis, I'm sure people could find flaws, but would anybody dispute that it passes the "eyeball test"?
So, why is this happening? There are as many theories as there are people to ask, but I would point to three factors:
1) Gerrymandering of districts into shapes that Dali or Escher could scarcely imagine, all to ensure demographics heavily in favor on one party or the other.
2) The rise of new media models that not only deliver information in bite-sized, real-time pieces but now include advocacy pretending to be journalism (Fox News, MSNBC). These models make money.
3) Campaign finance laws (and their interpretation by the Supreme Court) which consider massive organizations like Citizens United as "people" and thus exempt them from prohibition on certain activities and spending levels.
That the current candidates have thrown "polarization" into such sharp relief is quite ironic. Yeah, they (OK, mostly he) sling nasty arrows, but they're mostly about character flaws, not policies. I would argue that from a policy perspective, they are the closest we've had in an election since 1992. Despite all his bluster, Trump is hardly a stalwart conservative, and Hillary is certainly no uber-liberal. What they both are, are craven opportunists, which to me is the saddest part of all.
What all this portends, I have no idea. All I know is that this travesty of an election campaign can't end fast enough. After that, hopefully we can have more substantive and productive national discussions in this country, or least begin to calm down and maybe even heal. We'll see.
Told the plan was working perfectly ! ............ Of did you guys miss that one ?
Exercised my organ more than most.
I have to warn you all that my posts in the evenings arena posted on my Phone that changes words into Norwegian automatically.
I Hope you underskudd....
Sorry. I know that in a lot of countries the parties choose who their candidates are, which is what I thought you were suggesting was done in America. But you are aware that Jeb Bush and Chris Christie ran for the presidential nomination and both lost miserably?
It's the voters' choices that have put us in our predicament. Education in many parts of America is very poor, which is one reason for the poor presidential choices. It's also a big problem is that few good and few smart people want run for president.
You mean like a party that's socially tolerant and fiscally responsible, respectful of privacy and skeptical of war?
Oh, what folly! I'll bet in your totally unrealistic scenario that party would nominate for President and Vice-President two former two-term state governors who took on the entrenched extremes of the Republicans and Democrats.
8-)
Establishment Republicans aren't conservative at all; they favor big government as much as do Democrats.
If Jeb Bush or Chris Christie were chosen instead of Trump, Hillary would be ahead even further. If Biden wanted to run, he could easily defeat those guys, just as it was proven that almost anyone could defeat Bush and Christie in a national election. But if Biden had ran against Hillary and Bernie, Bernie would easily have gotten the Democratic nominee. There was nobody competing against Bernie who shared his views, whilst Hillary and Joe Biden would have a very similar platform, and people would trust Joe over Hillary.
I'm sorry. I don't understand what you are asking. Things happened the way they happened for a reason. After being in the middle of it for the past year and a half, I can't imagine a different scenario since I know the kind of people who voted for whom they voted. For a different scenario to have occurred, the US would need to be a different place. What has happened started decades ago.
it makes very little difference. Who wins, as they only really have minor differences
in their policies ( UK anyway) , So I'd guess after any election, when all the hype
has faded away and the everyday work of running the country begins, it's all much
the same. Poor people remain poor, The rich stay rich , big companies don't pay
any tax........... all busines as usual, I don't know if any American voters feel as jaded
and disillusioned as myself.
In what post did my phone write that?
It means "becomes active" BMW.
I think if most of the other candidates had gotten this far, the election would be about the issues of the country rather than about the candidates' character. This election is about the candidates more than it's about the issues of the United States. Nobody else can compare to Trump as a person. Nobody else who was running had held a political position as high as Clinton, so nobody else had the opportunity to face such big scandals. Just about all of the other candidates, except Drs Ben Carson and Jill Stein, are just normal politicians. With them we would have had a more tame election with more focus on the country rather than on the candidates.