That guy’s going to be very busy inside all those voting booths come the 8th…
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“George H W Bush doesn’t know me but prefers Crooked Hillary! He’ll be dead soon anyway. Loser!”
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I don’t think it will be a split, but more of a rightward shift. The Republicans will keep going further and further right, and the Democrats will absorb what used to be called “moderate Republicans”, because moderate Republicans and establishment Democrats aren’t as far apart as people think they are. Meanwhile the Democratic party will abandon the more progressive members of the party, viewing them as “extreme”, only 5-10% of the country, and people who will get half of what they want anyway. These 10% of people will simply be disenfranchised, occasionally voting Democratic, occasionally third party, much of the time staying home, but without the organization or numbers necessary to form a viable third party. Meanwhile, people will continue to be pissed at Nader for Bush winning in 2000, and will probably be pissed at Johnson and Stein in this election regardless of what happens.
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This should seal the deal for all those boingers who look to a member of the Bush family for voting advice.
Here’s some more advice, from Hank Paulson, ex-Goldman Sachs, ex-SecTreas, architect of the bankster bailout:
Hank knows which side his bread is buttered on.
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Sounds like a planned leak by both Bush & Kennedy.
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Forty-firth, imbued with the power of forty Firths.
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The Firth of Forth compels you!
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Ah, George HW. I find it interesting that the least noxious Republican President, who held office during my lifetime, only enjoyed a single term. Much like the least noxious Democrat President.
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Funny, I was thinking how this wasnt the kind of endorsement I would place much value on. I guess thats one of the places me and Mr. Trump differ.
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Agree but what about working class whites? They seem to be Republicans now when once upon a time they were Democratic supporters. Looks a bit more complicated than a straight shift right.
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This would create a vacuum to the left. Is it possible that a new party could overcome the built in bias towards a two party system?
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Wow okay there goes my breakfast
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Could but won’t. Everybody’s still pissed at Nader for some reason, and they’re going to be even more pissed at Johnson and Stein regardless of how this election shapes out. I can’t see a third party forming when people are royally pissed off at it before it even forms. Moreover, the people to the left of the Democrats may not really be able to agree on much. There are left libertarians, Greens, Bernie-or-Busters, radical centrists, uncategorized leftists, people with pet issues, etc. So this will be less of a third party and more of a collective “I dunno”.
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By “working class whites” do you mean the Dixiecrats-turned-Republicans in the deep South, the pro-union Democrats in the upper Midwest, or the urban populists? That is really a mixed bag, especially when you throw the populists in there. Populists are always a volatile group.
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Well, in a sense they have, at least around here. The Republicans who can’t stomach their current candidate are defecting to the Libertarian party. Which is, curiously enough, full of former Republicans…
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Humility is a virtue.
or so I’ve been told.
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I can’t see a Third Party getting traction because none have that goal in mind. They want 5% of the vote so they can get federal funding next cycle.
Running a presidential campaign is expensive, difficult and long. Nothing is stopping Libertarian party or Green Party, to spend that money on Congressional seats. There is a lot of disdain among Conservative voters for Trump and the time is actually ripe for them to sweep at least some house seats. That’s how LibDems became the third party in the UK. That’s how it is everywhere.
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The US is not like everywhere. We are a two party system, period. We are only set up to handle two parties, and one of the major parties has to go the way of the Whigs before another steps in and fills the power vacuum.
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Not really. The two parties have manipulated the rules to favor them. A tiny bit electoral reform can change that.
But playing the game can change that as well
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Third parties need a large base to succeed, and need to be engaged across the entire system, otherwise they’re fruitless. The groups that make presidential runs, but haven’t got an organization with roots in local politics are just a continual electoral side-show/distraction that accomplish nothing towards effective policy change. There have been shake-ups in the parties in the US in the past, but those that lasted for more than a few years were built on groundswells.
A left-wing party could theoretically work if we scrapped the constitution and adopted a parliamentary representational democracy (they’d at least be less useless). We aren’t one of those though.
Alternately it could work if there was a self-identifying left that was at least ~45% of the US voting population. We’re nowhere near that, and may obvious candidates like blue collar labor who might logically be a constituency are so mislead by PR, the corporate media, and various echo chambers, that they vote aggressively against left-leaning parties and policy.
So I think the only realistic option is for the left to work steadfastly to take over the Dems from within, figure out how to form messages voters identify with that promote good policy, figure out how to form messages that alienate people from terrible policy, and play the game within the system. There have been cases of this working long past (hey the New Deal Dems. lasted from the 30s to the 60s) so while it’s not likely, it’s the least unlikely approach to have a chance of success. A third party’s among the least likely option for effecting change, given the tremendous level of power the system gives entrenched players.
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