(02-22-2022, 04:04 PM)Jaguarmeister Wrote: [ -> ]For all the problems caused by the establishment 2 party system, I think a viable 3rd party might do more harm than good. Look at Europe as an example of political systems with more than two viable political parties and show me one country that isn't already further down the slippery slope of socialism than we are. At least on the Republican side, a candidate with views outside the party line still has a shot of winning the hearts and minds of the people and by extension the nomination. Not so on the Democrat side with Super Delegates in place to ensure the party's chosen candidate will always be the nominee. I mean how do you look at that primary system and then participate in it without feeling like the [BLEEP] that they're essentially calling you?
I'm all for replacing the establishment on both sides of the aisle, but good luck with that. The third party savior party will soon resemble the one it just destroyed/replaced in my opinion. Human nature is human nature and the amount of deal making that must be done to obtain financing for a campaign will always have a candidate beholden to someone or several people whose interests don't align with the American people at large. For all intents and purposes, Trump is/was a third party candidate, but we decided we didn't want that last time.
This is a good comment.
I think if we rigorously defined socialism, we would find a few wealthy countries that are less socialist than we are. For example, multiple presidents of Chile have belonged to the "socialist" party, even though in general the Chilean economy has lower taxes and lower benefits than the US. Ireland also has lower taxes than the US. Do you care about things like OECD reports when defining socialism, or some other measurement of private control, or is it something about society and morals?
The unique thing about the US is our parties can't die. Both of them are hydra with 50 unique heads, as they run their presidential primary process. In any other country, Trump would have started his own party and killed whichever party he pulled more supporters from. But in our country, there are primaries at the state level that come with gobs of free media exposure for the winners, and they are basically the only way to seem like a credible candidate. Trump had to take over one of the two organizations like a jewel wasp implanting eggs in a cockroach.
You're right that the DNC superdelegates give them some immunity against this type of attack, but, it's only good for a few percentage points. A candidate with enough popular support doesn't need superdelegates to win the nomination.
Both parties give their delegates more choices than they give us as voters. They let their delegates make deals and break their pledges. In the best world this resembles ranked-choice voting but in the real world it's just corruption at each level.
But it's not going away, unless a new federal law specifically targeting the two 50 headed hydra that we call the Presidential nomination process is enacted.
At the very least, the voters of both parties should demand a few things.
1) if there are more than two candidates, let us vote for more than one to be the nominee. Let us vote for all the candidates we like. Neither party does this.
2) no more winner takes all primaries. All primaries should give delegates proportionally. The Democrats do this, but both parties should do it from now on.
3) no more superdelegates. The Republicans get this one right, but both parties need to do it.