http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/how-american-politics-went-insane/485570/

A must-read article if you have interest in politics. It is pretty long.

"3 of the last 4 candidates standing for president were chaos candidates" - sums it up well.

I do agree that while party organization as he paints it led to corruption, it did create order which is necessary in a democratic government. And also, primaries while providing direct participation in the electoral process, are so underutilized by the general electorate that they should be abolished.

8/25/2016 8:33:44 AM

Author tries really hard, but fails, when he tries to draw parallels between the shitshow in the GOP to the democratic primary. Dems have a long history of progressive candidates making a go at the nomination, the only difference this go round was Bernie formerly had an I next to his name, as if that's some massive shakeup.

So I'm not sure Anerican politics has gone insane so much as the GOP has gone insane. He diagnoses the problem pretty well though.

8/25/2016 8:49:29 AM

Quote :

"On the other hand, overreacting to the threat of corruption by stamping out influence-peddling (as distinct from bribery and extortion) is just as harmful. Political contributions, for example, look unseemly, but they play a vital role as political bonding agents. When a party raised a soft-money donation from a millionaire and used it to support a candidate’s campaign (a common practice until the 2002 McCain-Feingold law banned it in federal elections), the exchange of favors tied a knot of mutual accountability that linked candidate, party, and donor together and forced each to think about the interests of the others. Such transactions may not have comported with the Platonic ideal of democracy, but in the real world they did much to stabilize the system and discourage selfish behavior."

To many people influence peddling is one of the biggest problems in American politics, and the author views it as a necessary evil.

8/25/2016 3:07:46 PM

in summary: the author feels that getting fucked in the ass is necessary because it keeps the shit where it belongs.

8/25/2016 4:45:13 PM

See, we need corruption to keep everyone in line.

8/25/2016 6:19:07 PM

We don't need corruption, what we need is compromise. The problem is, you can't have compromise when you have such divergence in position on major issues. Like, one side believes in the proven science of climate change, the other side thinks it's a hoax. One side believes we should regulate gun sales to limit their access to violent criminals, the other side thinks more guns make us safer. One still believes in supply side economics, the other side can read a chart. Where is the room for compromise there? The only way this gets fixed is if the modern GOP goes up in smoke (thanks Trump).

8/25/2016 7:06:26 PM

the left has compromised and compromised over and over again, hell Obama even put Social Security on the table during budget negotiations that wasn't good enough. one side has been willing to compromise, the other side has not

8/25/2016 7:10:12 PM

Yes, that's my point, compromise is currently impossible because the Republicans have taken illogical and laughably wrong positions on most major issues, I thought that was obvious. They have to go

8/25/2016 7:29:18 PM

And how can you hope to compromise when one side is convinced they are on the side of God?

“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.”

-Barry Goldwater

8/25/2016 8:05:26 PM

I agree the democrats are so good and the republicans are so bad. Just look at this graphic that says so!

8/26/2016 12:55:02 AM

I know you're impossible to speak to and maybe even a bit autistic but to most of us on here who aren't registered Republicans it's more like the Republicans are bad and the Democrats are less bad.

8/26/2016 8:18:32 AM

But Nym, couldn't you agree that if you were a registered Republican, and one that was fairly middle of the road (not JCE) it is frustrating to see every post in this thread past the third post blame your party for all the wrongs in politics today?

You're going to tell me that I shouldn't be frustrated with those posts and those that write them, I should be frustrated with my party - and I AM frustrated. I'm pissed that Trump is the person heading up my party's nomination. But what can I do? I voiced my opinion with my vote. Before my state's primary I tried my best to talk people out of voting for Trump. I even tried to tell people Cruz wasn't the right voice for our party either. Fell on deaf ears.

But you can't attempt to diagnose the political sickness we have in this country without putting your own party under the microscope as well.

8/26/2016 8:58:51 AM

are you expecting people to pretend like it's equal blame? its not equal.

8/26/2016 9:11:10 AM

^^You need to stop being frustrated with your party's people, and start being frustrated with their ideas. Climate change is not a hoax. We don't need less gun control to make us safer. Supply side economics doesn't work. Block grants can't replace social safety nets. Republicans aren't all bad, and Democrats certainly aren't all good, but as of today, 2016, only one side is talking about real solutions to real problems. That's what you should be frustrated with.

[Edited on August 26, 2016 at 9:17 AM. Reason : ^^]

8/26/2016 9:17:26 AM

Political parties also shouldn't be treated like sports teams. If your party sucks, stop cheering for them.

8/26/2016 9:27:28 AM

Except cheering for the Panthers when they're losing isn't going to affect my tax burden, my daughter's experience in school, or the environment.

Poor analogy.

8/26/2016 10:00:57 AM

since republicans are ideologically wrong on just about every topic, its hard to understand a reason other than brand loyalty for supporting republicans which makes the analogy good enough

8/26/2016 10:08:02 AM

You just said Republicans are wrong on nearly every topic. If everyone agreed with you, there would be no need for different parties, we'd all have the same ideology. In other words, we'd all play for the same team. There would be no need for the NFL.

8/26/2016 10:09:53 AM

most fans support teams because its their team (what you do) and not because of their performance (what you should do)

that's okay for football, not for politics

8/26/2016 10:15:55 AM

Honestly, I think a big part of how we've gone insane is because of the anonymity that the internet has granted to many people. Everybody can sit behind a screen and type whatever they want without much repercussion, and much of the things people write are crazy.

At some point though, people stopped caring about anonymity, and now their crazy is spilling on to FB and other social media outlets. But they're still not face to face with people, so they're inclined to be more radical than if they were sitting in front of someone talking.

I guarantee you that if we all got together and had a Soap Box lunch where we all sat at a bar somewhere and talked about things, we'd be a lot less hateful to each other.

8/26/2016 11:03:34 AM

Quote :

"Dems have a long history of progressive candidates making a go at the nomination."

In 2008, that was Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich. Sanders is closer ideologically to Kucinich than anyone else from the '08 primaries. How did they do?

Quote :

"...the only difference this go round was Bernie formerly had an I next to his name, as if that's some massive shakeup."

It is. Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat. Just as Donald Trump is not a Republican. They are both entryists.

8/26/2016 11:17:43 AM

Quote :

"You just said Republicans are wrong on nearly every topic. If everyone agreed with you, there would be no need for different parties, we'd all have the same ideology. In other words, we'd all play for the same team. There would be no need for the NFL."

They live in a liberal echo chamber. To them, conservatives are all redneck racists that think the earth is 2,000 years old. Having an understanding that there is a reasonable argument on each side of a disagreement is a concept that escapes them.

8/26/2016 11:29:13 AM

There may be reasonable arguments, they just aren't offering any. Throwing a snowball on the Senate floor is not reasonable. Telling us the solution to mass shootings in schools is to arm teachers is pure insanity. Pretending that we can tax cut and deregulate our way out of any economic problem isn't disagreement, it's dogma.

That's not to say that liberals don't have problems, namely that many of them are too preoccupied with being right than doing the right thing. But that's a minor gripe compared to the outright denial of scientific and economic facts from the other side.

8/26/2016 11:43:07 AM

Regarding grassroots politics and its ultimate decline, there are these positions that anyone can run for called precinct committee members. You win these elections, you become part of the county-level political party, which elects members to district-level, state-level, which elects national convention-level and in the end national committee level. These positions as their name implies are precinct-level, so very small electorates that anyone can do without money. The County Party Rules I read say there's nothing anyone can do about it if you act contrary to their interests in your 4-year term unless you publicly support a candidate from another party, which is grounds for dismissal.

I look at the primary election results in my county and the vast majority of precincts in a Republican-heavy county for the county Republican party were unfilled, with most of the rest uncontested. The Democrats were far worse.

338 total precincts

No one ran in 256 of them.
68 won uncontested.
14 were contested.

(Disclaimer: some of these precincts are very tiny and it's natural there's no one that'd want to run. But we're talking a small number in comparison to the 256.)

If you do this, your grand total of time you're required to give up at a minimum is one Saturday every 3 months, and you get to influence politics at the local level, either being as corrupt or as honest and principled as you want.

[Edited on August 26, 2016 at 11:55 AM. Reason : /]

8/26/2016 11:51:02 AM

Quote :

"There may be reasonable arguments, they just aren't offering any."

Who is they? Is they hacks on Fox News and the internet? Is they Ted Cruz? Is they Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan? Is they Donald Trump? Is they the voters themselves? Is they lobbyists? Is they backbenchers? Is they talking surrogates? Is they the city council? Is they the county political party? Be specific.

We live in a world where instead of reasoned arguments and compromise the people that get media coverage are the people that say the most scandalous thing that draws ratings from both supporters and people that find it abhorrent, and our media has thrown off its historical responsibility and increasingly put people in charge that are nominally neutral yet not intelligent enough or lack the balls to respond to partisan talking points from both sides, which is how a dumbshit like Donald Trump won this nomination to start with.

By the way, for anyone skeptical on the premise, go read up on Jeremy Corbyn and what he is doing to British Labour with the support of openly entryist groups. They're on the precipice of being irrelevant for important decision making in the UK for a decade, and it's people on the left themselves saying this. This crisis of politics going on at the moment is hardly a Republican-only thing or a U.S.-only thing.

[Edited on August 26, 2016 at 12:07 PM. Reason : /]

8/26/2016 12:05:13 PM

Quote :

"You just said Republicans are wrong on nearly every topic. If everyone agreed with you, there would be no need for different parties, we'd all have the same ideology."

Not true. For example, progressives have a different ideology from the neo-liberals but neither group is dumb enough to deny climate science.

8/26/2016 12:06:15 PM

And...

Quote :

"See, we need corruption to keep everyone in line."

...the Corruption Candidate is going to win the General Election in November.

8/26/2016 12:17:05 PM

Quote :

"Political parties also shouldn't be treated like sports teams. If your party sucks, stop cheering for them."

Ding ding ding.

What's weird to me, though, is that so many Democrats in this thread acknowledge that the Republicans have gone crazy. And that the Democrats have "compromised over and over again" with said crazy.

Well..............if you have one side that won't compromise, and is pulling the other side closer to "crazy," then it's time to stop cheering for the side that is marching closer and closer to "crazy."

8/27/2016 4:13:30 PM

Because there is literally no other option in 95% (probably more) of the races we'll see. Because there is a legitimate chance that crazy could win from the most local of races all the way up to senate seats. Because even a compromised solution is an improvement over the standard republican position, with the reminder that republicans currently control all levels of NC and Congress.

8/28/2016 9:00:23 AM

Quote :

"Political parties also shouldn't be treated like sports teams. If your party sucks, stop cheering for them."

This!

Quote :

"Except cheering for the Panthers when they're losing isn't going to affect my tax burden, my daughter's experience in school, or the environment. Poor analogy."

It isn't really a poor analogy. Politics is treated like sports teams these days and that isn't good. I've been hearing stories of how both candidates have ties to the KKK. With that being said, no one seems to care. The majority of black people are still going to vote liberal and the majority of hard core republicans are going to vote republican. At this point I'm pretty sure Clinton could support the rebel flag and Trump could shout "BLACK LIVES MATTER!" and no one would change their mind.

The even worse part in the politicians themselves are worse than the voters when it comes to supporting their side. Take the ACA for example, when it passed, 100% of democrats voted yes and 100% of republicans voted no. It's probably not a good bill if 100% of one party votes for it and 100% of the other party votes against it. I think most people in American want some form of healthcare reform, but any bill that passed needed to have mixed support from both parties. The same goes for any other issues the government may have to deal with in the future.

8/28/2016 12:52:04 PM

You've been hearing stories, huh?

8/28/2016 2:06:22 PM

^^ I agree with everything you said except the example. The ACA vote was almost a completely anti-Obama vote with little to do with the actual parts of the bill and mostly to do with let's show how anti-Obama we are. During the debating of the bill they had surveys where republican constituents were asked do they agree with X, Y, and Z. And most people agreed with X, Y, and Z but disagreed with "Obamacare" which it turns out X + Y + Z = Obamacare. So saying it needs to have some votes from both parties would have applied when we had an intermittently functioning congress in the 80s and 90s.

I think the insanity with the bill process probably was magnified by the elimination of the "pork". So you couldn't throw some pork (jobs, money, etc) for some district and get their representatives on board. If the ACA had a clause that said all call centers (hundreds of jobs) for ACA had to be built in [insert republican majority leader district] or something similar it might have gotten some republican votes.

[Edited on August 28, 2016 at 2:13 PM. Reason : .]

8/28/2016 2:12:52 PM

Quote :

"You've been hearing stories, huh?"

8th graders man

8/28/2016 2:22:27 PM

^^The worst part though is the fact that the Supreme Court seems to be becoming more political. Now it is all about trying to get more liberals, or more conservatives in there, so that the majority party can pass a law and have it stand.

8/28/2016 6:04:51 PM