At some point in every elections cycle, America's elite political press starts feeling bored and horny and sorry for themselves that they only have two hands with which to jerk off. This is when they begin hinting wistfully (in print and one teevee) about how super cool it'd be if only they rub one out with, say, a brand new third hand:
2016 Needs a Third Party
[by] Jeff Greenfield...But there’s one traditional sign of the season that has yet to appear: the emergence of a movement for an independent or third party presidential run. At a time when discontent with politics as usual is peaking, and when the structural barriers to a third-party run have effectively disappeared, the silence is deafening and in sharp contrast to the previous cycles.Back in 2007, “Unity ’08,” led by former Democratic operatives Hamilton Jordan and Gerald Rafshoon, prominent Republican consultant Doug Bailey, and ex-Maine Governor (now Senator) Angus King tried to organize an online convention to slate a bipartisan national ticket.Four years later, it was the turn of “Americans Elect.” Former New Jersey Governor Christie Todd Whitman, pollster Doug Schoen, and Democrat-turned-Bush-backer Mark McKinnon tried to organize a “national on-line primary” to pick a nominee. Names like Condoleeza Rice, Warren Buffett and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg were offered up, but the effort crashed and burned.Those efforts were fueled by a conviction that Americans are highly discontent with the two-party system. This is something polls showed eight years ago, four years—and now. Last September, Gallup reported that 58 percent of Americans want an alternative to the two parties; about the same percentage did back in 2007 and 2011. Moreover, 67 percent of Americans now say they’re comfortable with voting for an independent presidential candidate. A record high percentage of Americans identify themselves as independent (there’s less here than meets the eye, as I’ll explain in a moment), and nearly two-thirds of Americans say they are dissatisfied with the way our government works.With paralysis in Washington on display on a daily basis, it’s remarkable that a third of the country doesn’t share that opinion.This sure feels like a fertile soil for the growth of an alternative to the two parties that have won every election for the last 155 years; especially when there’s a substantial—let’s not call it “healthy”—prospect of a general election campaign between Clinton II and Bush III whose common theme song might well be ”Don’t Stop Thinking About The Day Before Yesterday.”...
And if the Washington press corps is already getting drunk sniffing the cork from the Third Party jug, can the brogressive caucus be far behind with another round of Worse Than Boosh hand-wringing?
John Cusack Talks ‘Love & Mercy,’ Drug Trips, and the Ways Obama Is ‘Worse Than Bush’...I’m not sure if you heard the news today, but CNN conducted a poll concluding that George W. Bush’s approval rating is now higher than President Obama’s.Well, Obama has certainly extended and hardened the cement on a lot of Bush’s post-9/11 Terror Inc. policies, so he’s very similar to Bush in every way that way. His domestic policy is a bit different, but when you talk about drones, the American Empire, the NSA, civil liberties, attacks on journalism and whistleblowers...
That "bit" of difference between the domestic policies of America's two political parties which Mr. Cusak so casually dismisses is difference between hope and despair -- between life and death -- for millions of poor and working class Americans.
But hey, fuck those people, amirite?
9 comments:
I am sure Mr. Cusack believes that THOSE people are fine with the sacrifices he wants them to make so he can feel adequately pure.
We have a two party system because of winner-take-all elections. It's a structural thing--a result of how we run our elections. There can be no effective third party. If a third party ever arose, it would either die or it would take the place of the previous left or the right party; in either case we'd be right where we were before.
If we want to have more than two parties, we have to change our electoral system--we need a parlaimentary system, instant run-off voting. That won't happen because the very people who could change it are those elected to power by that very system.
It's funny for me to see Jeff Greenfield's name juxtaposed with masturbation. You see, the earliest political blogger I know of -- the late great Terry Coppage, better known as Bartcop -- at least once referred to Greenfield as "Oh! Mr. Greenfield!", which I'm told is a reference to the porno classic Debbie Does Dallas (my education on the matter is sadly lacking).
OK, maybe I finally get it.
Driftglass (and Zombie) still sincerely believe that the razor-thin difference between the Reptilian and Dinocratic wings of the Property Party really does constitute a life-and-death difference for millions of non-elite USAmericans.
I no longer believe that (though I did believe it as recently as last decade).
There lies the difference between us.
Also, John makes a good point.
Well my opinion of John Cusack just nosedived.
Also, as John says, the 2 party system is thoroughly baked into this mix, and changing that would be the sine qua non. Although I expect a multiparty system would favour upholding the existing power elites even more than is currently happening.
I would welcome a third party if it were, say, the Greens or a Labor party. But what these folks keep proposing is a party in the mythical "middle ground" between the far-right Republicans and the supposed "far-left" of the Democrats. Well, we already have a centrist party, and they're called Democrats, many of whom would have been considered conservative Republicans a generation ago. How many if them are to the right of Nixon, who gave us the clean air act and proposed universal health care?
We have a far-right party and a centrist party, we need a party on the right. Hopefully, people like Bernie Sanders and Elixabeth Warren can return the Democratic Party to that position.
Gee, white privileged shitsack Revanchist Bill from Under the Macy-Dixie repeats the BSDI lie because he doesn't believe that the differences between the two major parties matters... BECAUSE IT DOESN'T AFFECT HIM AS A WHITE MALE.
Leave, boy. Go join your own.
And DG, stop letting the human garbage that continues to prop up the rightist lie pollute your comment section. It's your choice and you chose to let them undermine you.
Die alte Aechzener touches on the unexplored dark side of the "but what if we had a third party, maaaaan" idea: What happens if the third party makes things worse for everyone but the rich and doesn't fix everything? Odd how none of these pot-haze fantasies ever seem to factor they possibility in.
Professor Chaos, I believe you mean "we need a party on the left".
Whoops, yes that's exactly what I meant. When I started typing. "Won't get Fooled Again" started going through my mind and the "party on the left is now a party on the right" bit got me mixed up.
Post a Comment