The Republican party is the most mendacious and stupid political movement the United States has seen in many decades, if not its entire history. Yet, all indications are that the 2022 midterm elections will be neck and neck.
I am deeply disappointed that so many of the American people are so stupid and evil. This election, and indeed, any national election of the Trump era, shouldn't have even been remotely close. Democrats should have a supermajority against such obviously bad opponents. Yet, this is where we are now.
7 comments:
Huh, It's almost like it a structural issue. Like the general populous don't trust the Democrat party's platform and goals. I think the biggest issue is the rate of cultural change is just higher than a lot of folks can handle. They're saying "Stop! Let us catch our breath."
Hum... I'm disappointed the Democrat Party leadership doesn't say "Communists are the biggest mass murderers of history, we won't allow them in our party." That would be a good step.
Your party just celebrated the nomination of a woman to the highest court of the land who self-admittedly cannot determine if she is a woman.
Is it all possible that the Dems are the most mendacious and stupid political party of all time? If you won't concede that, perhaps both parties are garbage?
As it is currently, the Dems are making a mess of everything (Afghanistan, Ukraine, inflation, border, transgender sports, etc.), Does it not make sense that the American people want to give the other guys a chance to muck it up?
@Guy
First off, there are structural issues in terms of the electoral system not accurately transmitting general population preferences, via the U.S. Senate structure and electoral college and gerrymandering (and more generally inherent flaws in single member district plurality election systems, and lack of ranked choice voting or multi-round voting in Presidential elections), and in the lowest electoral turnout in the world (much of it due to intentional system design to reduce turnout insisted upon by conservatives).
Second, while "cultural change" is a factor, I think that more than anything this is a product of sustained economic malaise and sustained economic insecurity since the early 1970s for the American working class. This tends to make these voters more conservative and to make these people more religious. Finding a solution to that is a global issue. Europe uses transfer payments but has the same problem pre-transfer payments. Developed Asian countries have plateaued so recently that they are just starting to see this, most notably in the anti-feminist movement in young Korean men.
And, I'm certainly not hesitant to admit that the Democratic Party has serious flaws. This said, there is no equivalence between the two parties these days. Democrats haven't wholesale abandoned the rule of law. Democrats don't believe, on balance, nearly as much absurdly crazy misinformation about subjects from COVID to foreign policy as Republicans do. Democrats aren't behaving like demagogues. They aren't calling for invasions of Canada (as our GOP nutcase from CO-3 did). They aren't trying to overturn free and fair elections.
"Is it all possible that the Dems are the most mendacious and stupid political party of all time?"
No. It is about normal for a political party historically.
"If you won't concede that, perhaps both parties are garbage?"
Also no. There is no equivalence between the two. The magnitude of the crazy and evil on the GOP side is at a minimum on the scale of George Wallace. Probably worse.
"As it is currently, the Dems are making a mess of everything (Afghanistan, Ukraine, inflation, border, transgender sports, etc.), Does it not make sense that the American people want to give the other guys a chance to muck it up?"
Why are Republicans terrified by harmless transgender individual?
Afghanistan was a long lived bipartisan screw up.
The jury is out on Ukraine. The Democrats haven't done the worst job. Many conservatives, including Trump (who tried to blackmail Ukraine to lie about Biden) are siding with Putin which is definitely crazy.
The border is a non-issue. There hasn't been significant net undocumented immigration since before the Financial Crisis in 2008 and a border wall wouldn't help at all.
It would make sense for there to be a balance between the two major parties if the GOP were something like it was, for example, in the 1980s. It doesn't make sense now when the GOP has gone delusional and off the rails.
Huh, this part I'll agree to "...product of sustained economic malaise and sustained economic insecurity since the early 1970s for the American working class". To the extent that both parties' elites have generated the policy that "it's not fair to keep the rest of the world poor and in economic bondage to the US", and "we should try to raise all boats by promoting a fair global economic system" I think the effect on the US working class is clearly predictable. But for some reason they (the PMC) don't come out and say that, which means the the US working class sees the negative effects but are not given credit for the sacrifices that they have made. Even more unfairly, the PMC takes the credit for these policies and then berates and demonizes the working class for their bewildered response. Even you can be uncharitable at times. Cheers,
Guy
Always lots of good info, Andrew, but you do have that one, huge blind spot.
https://www.verywellmind.com/cognitive-biases-distort-thinking-2794763
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