You know that queasy, wincy feeling you get about Trump now? I just went through 8 years of that with Obama. Another 4 years of that and I would've lost my mind, so to me, the GOP was the best option, no matter how shitty it was.
A rigid two party system is an emergent feature of any first-past-the-post voting system. It's unavoidable. If we want to make room for legitimate third parties, we have to move to some sort of parliamentary system or proportional representation voting. In our current system, a Republican or a Democrat will win, full stop. As for Bernie, I think he's oversold. Without the DNC I think Hillary still wins the primary, just having taken more lumps than she did. People love Bernie because his ideology hasn't had to come up against the harsh reality of tough decisions yet, and because the Republican campaign machine hasn't set his sites on him yet. I think he's a far weaker candidate than people believed. He'll be good for the party in terms of getting out the vote, pushing the platform in a certain direction, and similar things, but he won't win a presidential election.
Selfish? Thats literally what everyone does. You dont personally view the funding of planned parenthood with greater importance than tax code reform or LGBT issues than TPP? Its not that I think the protesting is inherently stupid, its that I think its stupid to do it after the election and historically has been less than impactful. And I have ready the speakers and issues, etc. The question remains: Why wasnt this done beforehand when it could have made an actual difference? The protesters essentially marched, yelled a snappy catch-phrase, caught a selfie, and got a plane to go home because they have work or school on Monday. None of these "movements" have leaders, which is what they desperately need and its why previous iterations of these McRevolutions like Occupy were unsuccessful. They need to turn ideas into a realistic set of demands, to challenge the basic root of the issue not "Republicans (or Democrats) are evil because of XYZ." All that does is replace one crony/ideologue with another. Also, your approach to this issue is a fallacy of composition. Not everyone holds BLM or government sponsored healthcare or gun rights or religious expression with the same reverence. What are congressmen supposed to do when they have as many people calling for the defunding of Planned Parenthood as they have calls to support it? I get that it sends a message to the world that not everyone is in lockstep with a dirtbag like Trump and that I can get behind, but its tiring to hear demands to support a cause when they are nebulously defined, rife with hypocrisy, and lack a coherent solution or proposal. As an aside, this is obviously biased, but interesting anyway:
No you didn't. At best Obama compares to Bush in terms of the whole "well I didn't like it when your guy was in office" thing. Trump is not comparable to either of them.
As much as most Americans hang on every word that the Founding Fathers have said, I find it interesting that they seem to ignore the warnings offered up on the "inevitable" two-party system: John Adams said: There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution. George Washington agreed, saying in his farewell presidential speech: The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight,) the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another. There is an opinion, that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the Government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of Liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in Governments of a Monarchical cast, Patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in Governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And, there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.
I am familiar with Washington's farewell address, and I agree with him in principle. However, the system the founders created makes the emergence of two great political parties a mortal certainty, and if they didn't like that they should have spent a few more drafts on that whole Constitution thing. It didn't take longer than literally the next election for Washington's warning to fall by the way side.
You probably felt the way I felt when Bush was reelected, which was a combination of annoyance, disappointment, mild anger, and smug self indulgence.
As I've said before, actually the entire defining ideology behind my politics is that I want things to do the most good for the most number of people. I've never needed Planned Parenthood and probably never will. I live in a city where I'm going to be mostly fine in terms of healthcare even if ACA is repealed, PP is defunded, and abortion rights are restricted. But I'm fighting for it regardless. I'm not black, but I'm fighting with them regardless. I'm not trans, but I'm fighting with them regardless. I'm not an immigrant, or a Muslim, or disabled, etc etc. I also care about things relating to the environment and the economy and foreign policy and, yeah, while I always take them into consideration in my vote, I'm not actively fighting for them as much or at all, but that's because I either a) just simply don't have the time to be actively fighting for like 30 different causes at once or b) don't think I know enough about them to feel as confident in getting involved in them, but it's definitely not because I don't think they're important or that they don't matter. "Identity politics" is nothing but the modern term for civil rights or equal rights, and you and so many other people are saying that they do not matter, are not important, and we should all stop paying attention and fighting for them. You think tax code reform or TPP is more important, or you care more about it personally? Great. You go concern yourself with that and that'll be your fight. It's not like people fighting for other causes are stopping you from doing that. There is enough room for everyone to be angry. I don't know man, if you honestly think there weren't marches and rallies and anger and grassroots organizing surrounding all of these issues before the election, I don't know what to tell you. I seem to remember being annoyed with people not shutting up about race and gender issues as one of the most popular reasons for why people voted for Trump. The efforts weren't so successful, and that rallied a lot more people than before. It's really as simple as that. Well, you could make these kinds of criticisms of any protest movement. The Civil Rights movement was fighting for desegregation and voting rights and the legality of interracial marriage and to be respected by the police and equal rights and protection in the workplace and hiring practices and and against housing discrimination and against ghettoization and against "separate but equal" in a hundred different iterations. Sometimes specific acts of protests were focused on specific pieces of legislation they wanted removed or enacted, but also a lot of it was "shit is fucked up for black people and we're not going to keep quiet in general until something changes." And there was huge infighting every step of the way - you think there was cohesion between, to put it most broadly and simply, followers of MLK and followers of Malcom X? The second-wave feminist movement was for reproductive rights and equality in the workplace and against harassment and rape and domestic violence and on and on, and there was a total lack of cohesion with how to go about those goals and what success even looked like. The LGBTQ rights movement was about gay marriage and workplace discrimination and discrimination in healthcare and safety against hate crimes and the government ignoring AIDS, and they did not have cohesion or clear leaders for every single sub-cause. The first-wave feminist movement fought for suffrage and breaking out of the domestic realm but also prohibition but also against prohibition and also some actively wished these new rights wouldn't apply to women of color and also some actively fought for civil rights. You can go all the way back to the first wave of protests that kickstarted the revolution, and good luck finding absolute cohesion and alignment with their goals for how to go about that and what they event wanted to happened if they got what they wanted. The narratives for protest movements form after the fact. And obviously all of these movements had parallel opposition movements working just as hard to make sure they didn't succeed. And even if you weren't actively fighting against them, the large majority of the regular ol' population just sitting back and doing nothing for either side was against these movements. We pat ourselves on the back as a country for these movements later, but you asked people at the time and they thought they were pointless, or whining, or doing more harm than good for their own cause, or were too violent, and should really just stop. Yet somehow, all these hugely disorganized, incohesive, far-flung, largely leaderless riddled-with-infighting unsupported protest movements made change. I get skepticism for the effectiveness of protests, especially when you're living through them. Sometimes it feels a lot more self-indulgent than something that actually has the power to affect change. But, that's ignoring the entire history and foundation of our country.
I really wonder why it is that so many are so set on having a two party system when it appears that it will not work out well for the country in the end.
I was talking to someone in pharmaceutical law about this the other day. Yeah, I had the same kneejerk reaction to Booker's vote too when I was, you know, taking it at headline and meme face-value, but was waiting to figure things out before condemning him for it. But, the thing about the law they were voting on is that it didn't offer any protections for safety standards when re-importing drugs from other places. The focus was on Canada, where that's not going to be as much of a risk. But part of the reason why drugs can be so much cheaper in other countries is because safety standards lapse, or there's not as much protection against counterfeit drugs or drugs that have been intentionally tampered with to reduce costs, and that was the big concern for a lot of the people who voted against it. Plus, with Booker in particular, he had the much less romantic incentive of the pharmaceutical industry in general being such a giant foundation for New Jersey's economy and one of his state's biggest jobs providers. So while it's a much less idealistic reason for voting against it, he was protecting his constituents from a likely massive job loss. That's also why he has so much financial support from ~big pharma~. And jobs are more important than ideology anyway.
I hope you're right. You're far more optimistic about this than I am, and perhaps I'm too cynical. We will just have to wait and see how this pans out, I just won't have my hopes up along the way. Identity politics and cronyism have muddied the waters so much I just don't know how rational thinking reemerges.
The main reason it's so much more expensive is the same reason behind licensing differences for Netflix content between Canada and the US... it's about negotiated foreign production costs and applicable laws around copyrights and generic brands. "Safety and counterfeits" is bullshit spin, in my opinion. My cousin, the ex Harvard cancer researher, is an analyst with RBC who is involved in this kind of stuff. We had some discussions around this, and he firmly believes that Booker and the others were bought out to ensure high profits for the pharmas.
Because there are no politicians who are willing to give up their temporary power for the long-term good of the country. In order to bring about a third party or eliminate parties altogether, the party in power will likely have to lose its position and work to re-gain it under a different structure in a later election cycle. With politicians' primary objective to be in power, nobody will do that. If the more rational factions of both current parties were willing to unite into a third libertarian-leaning party, they would be unstoppable in the next few years. Nobody is willing to defect and lose their current positions though, even if it meant a better system and better conditions for the entire country in the future. Most politicians look only to the next election cycle.
It's not that people are set on having it that way necessarily, it's just that that's how the math shakes out in a winner-take-all voting system. Anything that splits the vote increases the likelihood that all of the votes involved in the split will become meaningless. There's a great joke in Futurama where Richard Nixon beats Jack Johnson and John Jackson (two literally identical candidates) with only 33% of the vote.
I'm not fully sold either, but once I had the larger context it at least seemed like a more complex issue than how it was being sold (as almost always). To be fair, I asked her about branding's role in costs and she kind of skirted the issue, and I couldn't tell if that was just because she's the people working to keep drugs safe and unified under one set of standards so that's what she could talk about at length, or if it was because she didn't want to linger on that being as much a part of the issue as safety. But honestly? Even if it was all spin and his incentives were solely about keeping the profits high for such a big resource in his state, I'm not even sure how much I can blame him. That's where the idealist and realist within me really clash. (It also doesn't help that this is all very out of my wheelhouse and I couldn't even begin to tell you what I think the best solution and path towards that are.)
It's sad that the standards are this low now, but even with knowing that's obviously not him or a genuine statement it's actually at least somewhat comforting to see that when I was slightly expecting him to go full Kent State on the DC march and fully expecting to wake up today to a Twitter rant about "his enemies." It's like with Pence after the Hamilton thing. Hearing his reaction, I knew I still detested him and that every single word coming out of his mouth was bullshit, but it was like, okay, at least one of them is acting somewhat presidential about all this. Sometimes acting like a politician isn't a bad thing.
I agree with what you're saying, and am wondering why he's not positioning it like that. The cynic in me says it's because it's bullshit.