Oh man I died a little reading this…

This guy is from Maine, and they do have ranked choice voting for federal elections, one of the steps on the way to breaking the two-party stranglehold.

Of course the Republicans fought it tooth and nail, because they will never win another race with a system like this, and exploited a loophole in the state constitution to keep ranked choice out of state races.

Back that up with a proportional representation system.

Any party with full control will become a tyrant.

If we organize we could seize control of the democratic party, and the Democratic establishment has been scared shitless of that since 2016, but they managed to play us off each other like chumps. And they still are. Because we have no organization. Turning us against each other.

Money In Politics

Two Party System

Gerrymandering

Electoral College

The four horsemen of a Democratic apocalypse.

If we could fix just one of those four issues, things would gradually start to get better. But the politicians in Washington don't have the political will or desire to do so, because removing any one of them naturally limits their power and authority.

America is a one-party state, of course. But in typical American extravagance they have two of them.

We only have a 2 party system on paper. Behind closed doors, they are working for the same goals. Make the rich people happy so they can be rich people with influence. The general population is just something that they have to manage on their way to their goals. Adding more parties will help, but it will eventually end up the same. As long as you need money to get elected, then money will control those who get elected.

Yeah i used to say this as a kid: why is the government spending any money at all on primaries, and then why do they only spend money on two parties. Any private party should just pay for their own primaries, the govt should only be concerned with the general elections.

To my prepubescent eyes, it was clearly the government rigging elections. But all the adults told me that I didn't understand.

Now 30 years later it's plain as day that it was always a problem, and now we have a chomo-in-chief blowing up fishermen halfway around the world and people still don't see the problem with the two party system.

the only way americans will be represented by their government is if they out the 2 party system.

Have you seen the other options? Libertarians are a NAMBLA fueled trainwreck. Greens are... not great for a lot of reasons. Third Way is just fascism in a three piece suit. Reform is six oil companies in a trench coat.

You can't multi-party your way out of this one.

There was a lot of money behind the tea party and then maga takeover. Its just not there the same way for the progressive since the billionaires are all on the other side or not getting heavily involved.

MAGA did it from the top down. Trump became president and was able to strong arm people below him. He was even able to switch the RNC chair to a family member.

because the republican party is relatively united in thought and desire and via who is paying them all off.

The democratic party is more akin to 35 parties in a trenchcoat all pretending to be one party, thanks entirely to the forced nature of the two party system our government has.

And a lot of those in seats of power in the DNC and Democratic Party have the same masters/paylords as the Republicans and want the Democratic party to be nothing more than controlled opposition.

Firebrands like AOC and Bernie tend to get elected by accident, instead of by purpose, in the grand scheme.

Thank you. I'm tired of people thinking the neo-liberals of the Democrats are their friends. They point toward the few pieces of legislation they pass that's positive when they ignore all the needed legislation they never even give lip service to. In all the time since its inception payments for disabilities and similar have not risen to meet inflation, the amount they can keep in a bank account hasn't changed since like the 1970s. There's SO much wrong that the Dems could platform on and spend so much time doing if they win but they don't want to.

Sometimes I wonder if they don't have a monthly secret meeting where they look at which issues appear to be up and coming and then flip a coin for which party takes which side of it. Kinda like debate club.

It often looks more like performance art. The dems pretend to take one side of an issue, and then rally their base about how the GOP want to stop the solution or tear down current protections. And of course the GOP takes the other side and rallys their base against what the "lunatic" dems want to do (which of course the dems would never do because then the issue would be gone), and they start proposing ways to tear down whatever law already favor the democrats side.

When the dems get in power, somehow very few of the things they proposed before actually happen. And the ones that do are so soft an executive order can undo them.

It's just a shell game. Perception manipulation.

If either party paid attention to their voters we would have had an election of Bernie Sanders vs Ron Paul years ago, but both of them have their chosen one, and the only time we've seen a massive pushback against that has been the time the alternative was actually worse.

Thank you! Like why are we acting like what's happening in the Middle East isn't chuck schumers lifelong wet dream in action??

I think you're wrong. Or rather, I think you're mostly wrong.

Like, in no way do I think they are extremely good at what they do, unless your argument is that they don't give a shit, which I also think is wrong. They definitely want to win. They definitely want to control things. They literally make more money (not the organization, mind you, the people who run the organization) when they are in control. It is silly to think otherwise. Heck, it is safer, too!

But, I think they are quite dumb, or maybe it's better to think of them as out of touch. They rely on political calculus, but they're using some pretty bad variables. Because otherwise, there wouldn't be any progressive Democrats at all. Like, that is inherently detrimental to their centrism. Giving crumbs isn't as useful to them as people say because it let's others know how hungry they are for more of that. Hope is contagious.

I think they work with what they got, and what they got is so rapidly changing that they freak out and pick what they think is the safest option over and over again. And their base hates it, but they'll deal with that part later, there's just too many fires for them!

Like, sure, there's a little bit of trying to control how progressive they can be, but they just... Suck at that, too. I dunno, man. A lot of people can skate by on incompetency, and that just feels more likely.

All of this is true, but by saying it you might somehow influence the outcome of an election in a manner that favors Republicans.

Therefore I hate you with every fiber of my being and denounce you as a Sockpuppet of an Enemy Nation.

I just haven't decided if you're a Russian Bot, a Chinese Wumao, or an Ayatollah Accomplice. Perhaps all three.

Im in trump country Maine and some of the trump houses have his sign up.

Ask AOC how that plays out