Mitt Romney not running again.

[Kishkumen]

Not popular enough to win a general presidential election. and in retrospect I suppose that was a blessing in disguise. Mitt would have folded on every issue and delivered upon absolutely nothing that he promised to conservative voters. Compromise and concession do not equal electability. Mitt never won a presidential election. Trump did.

We can now see that JFK would never win a Democratic nomination today? They wouldn't even let him run nor give him a voice on CNN. "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," just doesn't have the same ring with millenials, SJWs, and BLM activists.

The GOP is broken. The rest of us are sick of it. All you can say is, "Whaddabout the Democrats?!?!?!?!"

What about them? I want a functional GOP, which is entirely up to the GOP to provide. Until they can, I am forced to vote for other candidates in other parties. Trump is a wannabe dictator. Most of the GOP is enabling him. Biden is not a real imminent threat to the constitution and small d democracy. Conspiracy garbage and Hunter Biden accusations don't make him one.

So that is what I have, and you can't change those facts. Why any adult with a semblance of upright character, intelligence, and sanity would, after all we have witnessed, vote for the sick, creepy, incompetent mental defective known as Donald J. Trump is mysterious to me. I have seen that not a few likely will, and I have no explanation for it.

And, just so that we are all clear, saying that Trump beat one of the least talented politicians of our time whereas Mitt lost to one of the most talented political candidates of our time is not saying a lot in favor of Trump's political acumen. Trump's victory is almost purely a product of disillusionment with our federal government, which I think is largely deserved, but that victory says nothing of the talent, sobriety, or fitness of Trump. Anyway, Trump has been a pretty consistent loser thereafter.

[Jersey Girl]

Yes, the GOP has been taken over by MAGAtts, so Mitt doesn’t fit in at all. In his opposition to Trump, Mitt is popular with sane people of all political affiliations or no political affiliation.

Not popular enough to win a general presidential election. and in retrospect I suppose that was a blessing in disguise. Mitt would have folded on every issue and delivered upon absolutely nothing that he promised to conservative voters. Compromise and concession do not equal electability. Mitt never won a presidential election. Trump did.

We can now see that JFK would never win a Democratic nomination today? They wouldn't even let him run nor give him a voice on CNN. "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," just doesn't have the same ring with millenials, SJWs, and BLM activists.

“Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country,”

[ajax18]

Not popular enough to win a general presidential election. and in retrospect I suppose that was a blessing in disguise. Mitt would have folded on every issue and delivered upon absolutely nothing that he promised to conservative voters. Compromise and concession do not equal electability. Mitt never won a presidential election. Trump did.

We can now see that JFK would never win a Democratic nomination today? They wouldn't even let him run nor give him a voice on CNN. "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," just doesn't have the same ring with millenials, SJWs, and BLM activists.

The GOP is broken. The rest of us are sick of it. All you can say is, "Whaddabout the Democrats?!?!?!?!"

What about them? I want a functional GOP, which is entirely up to the GOP to provide. Until they can, I am forced to vote for other candidates in other parties. Trump is a wannabe dictator. Most of the GOP is enabling him. Biden is not a real imminent threat to the constitution and small d democracy. Conspiracy garbage and Hunter Biden accusations don't make him one.

So that is what I have, and you can't change those facts. Why any adult with a semblance of upright character, intelligence, and sanity would, after all we have witnessed, vote for the sick, creepy, incompetent mental defective known as Donald J. Trump is mysterious to me. I have seen that not a few likely will, and I have no explanation for it.

And, just so that we are all clear, saying that Trump beat one of the least talented politicians of our time whereas Mitt lost to one of the most talented political candidates of our time is not saying a lot in favor of Trump's political acumen. Trump's victory is almost purely a product of disillusionment with our federal government, which I think is largely deserved, but that victory says nothing of the talent, sobriety, or fitness of Trump. Anyway, Trump has been a pretty consistent loser thereafter.

Why should Democrats get to pick Republican candidates? If Mitt Romney were to run for president as a Republican, Democrat, or Independent, he'd lose, the same as RFK is going to lose.

[ajax18]

“Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country,”

Yeah, that line isn't going to win a Democratic primary in 2024.

[Kishkumen]

Why should Democrats get to pick Republican candidates?

Your mind is broken. You are incapable of acknowledging the millions of Americans like myself who have no party affiliation. We are tired of two bad choices for the presidency. If it were not for the fact that one of them is a clear and present danger to the future of our system, I would be inclined to vote for neither. I should make it my life’s work to blow up the two party system because it effing blows.

[Kishkumen]

Yeah, that line isn't going to win a Democratic primary in 2024.

Trump’s motto is “Only ask yourself what you are bold enough to take for yourself at the expense of everyone else.”

[ajax18]

Why should Democrats get to pick Republican candidates?

Your mind is broken. You are incapable of acknowledging the millions of Americans like myself who have no party affiliation. We are tired of two bad choices for the presidency. If it were not for the fact that one of them is a clear and present danger to the future of our system, I would be inclined to vote for neither. I should make it my life’s work to blow up the two party system because it effing blows.

I thought you were a Bernie Sanders man.

[Kishkumen]

I thought you were a Bernie Sanders man.

I would have voted for Bernie if he had been nominated. Both Bernie and Hillary were certainly more qualified and psychologically fit for the presidency than Trump. I assumed all fully grown adults could see that. How disillusioning it was to find that I was wrong!

I did not vote in the Democratic primary in my state because I am not a member of the Democratic Party. I hate the two-party system and think it should be replaced by a more diverse set of choices.

Your rhetoric and apparent mental processes re: politics are a great example of why I hate the two-party system.

[ajax18]

What do you think of Bill Mahr? You seem like maybe caught in a similar place as the Democrat party keeps moving leftward. I know you probably don't agree with DeSantis Democrats who pulled the lever for Ron's common sense handling of the scamdemic. But the scamdemic and transing the kids are big reasons DeSantis wiped the floor with Charli Crist.

Had Dems voted for the plutocrat, teenage bully, dog killer, tax cheat, we wouldn't be in a war with Russia right now.

[Physics Guy]

Few countries have as strict a two-party system as the American one, but in a lot of other countries there is a system of two major parties plus one or two smaller ones. Sometimes the smaller ones are irrelevant, because one of the two major parties has a majority in the legislature, but often the major parties are both shy of outright majority and the smaller parties can be monarchmakers. In exchange for coalition support, they may be able to sway one of the larger parties to their side on some issue. The smaller parties tend to care most about a few favorite issues, on which the larger parties can afford to be a bit flexible, so concessions are made.

It all seems clear enough until you think more about it, I find. In no countries is the N-party system written in law. It's just a matter of how many parties manage to get enough votes to be represented in the legislature. So it's not clear how to change from a 2-party system to a more-parties system, other than by changing the minds of a lot of voters.

And on the other hand the policies of the parties aren't written in law anywhere, either. Any party can change its own platform at any time, if it can get a consensus to do that. That seems to imply something that always puzzles me whenever I read complaints about the American 2-party system.

The complaints are usually along the lines that some good policy X would surely be endorsed by a majority of voters, if only one or the other of the two parties would propose policy X to the voters, instead of both parties conspiring to bury the good policy. My puzzle is that if policy X is so sure to command a majority among the entire voting population, then why hasn't it been able to command a majority among one half of the voting population, and get itself into the platform of one of the parties?

My suspicion is that the two-party system really just reflects the will of the electorate, which collectively chooses to sustain the two-party system. You don't need better parties: you need better voters. You can't get better parties without better voters, and with better voters the parties will work fine as they are.

I'm not political science guy, though. So I'm also prepared to believe that there's a lot I don't know about how parties work to select and shape their voting blocs, and don't simply reflect the will of the people. What I mostly think is just that the merits or flaws of the two-party system must be considerably subtler than a lot of discussion suggests, because a lot of discussion doesn't even seem to get into what exactly parties are and what exactly they do.