In terms of agency the voter doesn’t really have that option, even if they persuade themselves into that self-delusion. They had one of two outcomes. The election ended. We have the outcome. As a result, we can see how those fantasies about alternate outcomes killing the dominant parties by the Greens/Libertarians/whoever worked out. The US political system is a stupid, broken thing, but it is what it is, and we’d have better outcomes if people were clear about what voting accomplishes. Fantasies about killing the current parties are as realistic as drum circles for world peace or “sending a message” with a vote.
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Wrong.
Indubitably.
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Indeed.
Earlier there wasn’t obstruction.
Suddenly you believe it exists. You’re moving the goalpost on us here.
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Quit busting my balls. I’m willing to concede that what Gingrich did was obstructionist but my point is that it was nothing as severe as what we’ve been living through in recent years. A mosquito bite compared to an amputation.
Mosquitoes have killed more humans than amputations have.*
*Look it up.
This thread is getting pretty tedious.
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I’m guessing you weren’t alive, or weren’t really politically aware in the early 90s? While McConnell/Ryan are generally worse, Gingrich’s obstructionism was no minor thing in comparison IMO (two government shutdowns, Ken Starr, impeachment, holdups/obstruction on every single major piece of legislation Clinton pushed). Gingrich invented a lot of the obstructionist technique that are now part of the GOP’s parliamentary abuse toolkit. After him Hastert came up with the Hastert Rule that’s been the key obstructionist tool for the house GOP when they’re in power. Feel free to disagree, I’m sure we won’t see eye to eye, and my main issue was you saying the GOP weren’t obstructionists until the Obama era, which is absurd.
I’ve had my say and am happy to be done.
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I know, right? Eff that. Let’s have some fun: The Two Party System is defunct. What to do?
Open it up to the fringes?
True republic?
Next?
I’ve been politically aware since Carter/Ford/Reagan, and IO wish Trump was just physically or geographically or politically unprepared, but we have a POTUS who is potentially completely unprepared for the mantle. Yeah, I’m worried.
And I call upon the conscience of the electorate: do your electoral job: reflect the will of the people: Hillary Clinton: 2.5 million eligible voters out of some 40% that showed up…
Always Like Garak.
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Subtext, SpaceGhost…
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It was tedious six months ago.
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I’m late to this mosh pit, but:
Bernie Sanders: Trump didn’t win the election, the Democrats lost it
Quoth the asshole who loves the Democratic Party so much he changed his affiliation as soon as it no longer had any utility to him.
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He wasn’t a democrat before this election either, but why does that matter? Are you mad he ran in a party that could win as opposed to going to someone nice-but-irrelevant like the Green Party?
Are you going to try and pull the ‘he never stopped savaging her’ card even though he never brought up the emails, conceded nicely, and spent the rest of the election trying to get out the vote for her?
Quite frankly the fact Clinton nearly lost to a ‘Party Outsider’ should be cause for some reconsidering of him and his ideas by the democrats, given that they clearly struck a deeper chord with people than what Clinton campaigned on.
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Behold! The Alt right.
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That is the scariest bit of the whole Trump saga, which really takes it into African despot territory. We? You mean America just elected a 6 headed President? Is this some sort of new collective?
Just imagine an ordinary voter bumping into Hillary Clinton or Michelle Obama after their husbands were elected into office and either one using a first person plural pronoun when describing the President’s actions…
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All I can see is a nation where so many people don’t vote. I would’ve thought maybe your government having the temerity to deny the right to vote to anyone it convicts of a felony might’ve spurred the rest to value it a bit more.
132.9M out of 146.3M registered, out of 219M eligible.
You’ve let 28% of eligible voters put a sleazy ignoramus huckster with a case of naricissistic personality disorder in the world’s top job.
WTF
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Which is among the more depressing result from this entire saga. 538 has a very interesting / insightful analysis on how Congressional gerrymandering has hollowed out the Democratic vote in the Deep South, in effect disenfranchising Black (=Democratic) voters in federal elections.
I also wonder whether America’s love affair with winners and bullies has created an atmosphere where the Democratic approach of playing by the rules, i.e. trying to build consensus have caused lasting damage to the Democratic brand.
If this is the case, than this would suggest a system failure (US political system rather than DNC), which urgently needs addressing. You can not effectively and democratically rule a vast country without consensus building.
Also this article seems to strongly support the argument that the Republicans are winning. Because. Racism. Which in turn would imply that reversing the trend is far more complicated than changing the candidate.
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