Tag: Political Parties

Enter The One Party System

Just like the days of old in the USSR where one party lead and everyone must endure…..the US is moving in that direction with gerrymandering and with the help of SCOTUS……the GOP has been working on this for decades and they are now close to realizing their desires.

They have gotten one step closer thanks in part for SCOTUS…..

The Supreme Court is set to hear Louisiana v. Callais for a second time in 2025, a case that could gut the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 and alter the balance of political power in America into a “one-party system.” At issue is whether Section 2 of the act — which prohibits racial discrimination in voting — violates the Constitution by allowing race to be considered in redistricting.

If the conservative supermajority strikes down Section 2 or weakens it significantly, experts warn it would devastate minority political power, especially among Black voters, and cement Republican control of Congress. “This is opening a whole new front from Republicans’ point of view, where they can dilute Black political power and achieve an unbelievable power grab,” said Lauren Groh-Wargo, CEO of Fair Fight Action, a liberal voting rights group. “Doing so would ‘clear the path for a one-party system where power serves the powerful and silences the people,” Black Voters Matter Fund co-founder LaTosha Brown said in a statement.

The case arose after Louisiana’s legislature was ordered by a lower court to draw a second Black-majority district to comply with the Voting Rights Act. A group of white residents sued, claiming the change discriminated against them. The Supreme Court’s reargument centers on whether Section 2 itself is unconstitutional under the 14th and 15th Amendments. Louisiana has since reversed its stance — once supporting the Black voters’ claim but now arguing that Section 2 should be struck down. In a surprising shift, the Department of Justice also joined the case, taking a position against the act for the first time in history.

https://knewz.com/supreme-court-ruling-clears-path-one-party-system/

The fruits of their labors are at hand.

Personally I have said for years that we already have a one party system just a couple of factions within that party…..we have a conservative party plain and simple.

Seems extreme right?

Well maybe so but I am not alone….

Christopher Hitchens was right.

Well, perhaps to some, that first statement by itself is too provocative. Allow me to specify: Christopher Hitchens was right as it relates to third parties. Namely that third parties are, by definition, bound to fail, for America is still awaiting the creation of a second party.

Over the last 20 to 30 years, if one removed the dates from most bills passed in Congress, I believe one would be unable to tell exactly which president signed said bill into law. The administrations were simply too similar.

Yet in the midst of a culture that privileges party politics and in a population that seems to be disagreeable, partisan, and divided, what exactly are we all against?

…

Of course, these parties publicly do not agree on the hot-topic issues. But on other important issues such as the regulation of Wall Street, U.S. interference in foreign countries, or in-depth debates on economic theory, there is no Republican Party and Democratic Party; there is only one party.

Take, for example, foreign policy. One must ask if the policies of President Obama were any different from the policies of President George W. Bush. Rationally, the engagements in the Middle East under the Bush administration and the engagements led by President Obama in Syria and Libya were virtually indistinguishable. There is simply one-party rule.

Read On

Opinion: The United States has only one party

Donny and the thugs will eliminate the factions and all bow down to the one.

I still say we do not need political parties….the country would be better off without them.

But Donny’s actions look suspiciously like socialism….(please read before you attack)

Recently, a handful of people—none of whom have ever invited me to their birthday party—accused President Donald Trump of being a socialist. Gavin Newsom, who many pundits credibly believe is the governor of California, said Trump is committing socialism by having the federal government buy stock in private companies.

At the time of writing, the government has taken shares in Intel, MP Materials, Lithium Americas, U.S. Steel, and even a Canadian mining company that mines cobalt or some other stupid mineral I hate. This raises the question:

Is Trump, as Newsom contends, a full-blown socialist? Or is he just an asymptomatic carrier of socialism, like I am with tuberculosis?

Let’s nail down what we’re talking about.

In socialism, the government owns the means of production. Instead of private companies making goods to satisfy customers and turn a profit, the state produces things to hit output quotas. That’s a lot easier to do if you cut quality. The Soviet Union literally made televisions so poorly that they sometimes exploded. Not a great incentive structure for generating stuff, even if an exploding television is still an improvement over The View.

https://reason.com/2025/11/07/is-trump-a-socialist/

WE know from his ramblings that he hates socialism….but does he?

“America will never be a socialist country!” says President Donald Trump.

I hope not.

Trump rightly declared socialism “the wrecker of nations and destroyer of societies.”

But I fear he’s confused about what socialism is.

“Trump says he’s against socialism, but he is having the government get involved in owning companies and directing companies,” complains economist Daniel Mitchell in my new video.

When Trump took 10 percent of Intel, his commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said, “It’s not socialism. This is capitalism!”

But when government takes partial ownership of companies, that is socialism.

I said to Mitchell, “It’s just 10 percent.”

“It doesn’t have to be 100 percent,” he replies. “If you’re Intel, there’s no way you’re going to antagonize the Trump administration or some future AOC administration by doing something that the government doesn’t like.”

Even Trump worries about that, saying, “I’m a little concerned whoever that president might be.”

“I don’t trust Donald Trump to control the share correctly,” says Mitchell, “but I definitely don’t trust some of the folks on the left. All of a sudden, you’ve created this precedent of government being a senior partner sitting in the boardroom.…It’s going to be a disaster for the U.S. economy.”

https://reason.com/2025/11/12/trump-says-he-hates-socialism-so-why-is-he-acting-like-a-socialist/

Just saying is all.

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scrbo”

The Evil We Embrace

Note:  This was draft I was saving for when the country gets into the meat of the next election but my blogging buddy, Judy Thompson, over at https://sayitnow.wordpress.com/ asked a question about political parties whether there should be a 3rd or maybe none at all….so I decide to answer her with this post (it will be back during the next election).

College of Political Knowledge

American Politics And The Process

Paper #1

“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

― George Washington

George was a sharp person and foresaw the problems these ‘parties’ will cause and yet the people flock to these unprincipled ‘people’ en masse.
“Evil’….yep the party system is evil look what it has done and continues to do this country.
I have been write against the whole two party system for decades….I feel that this country as long as it embraces this stupidity is doomed to failure.
Look what these monstrosities have done to the political system of this nation…they have made the divide deeper and more dangerous….they seldom deliver the needed programs and policies to keep this country moving forward….the candidates promise the world and deliver crumbs

Like many Americans, I have been increasingly disappointed by the candidates promoted by political parties because they tend to back candidates who are ultimately focused on personal gain and/or only advancing issues predetermined by party priorities while moving further away from responding to the needs of their constituents. According to The Guardian, in the 2024 election, the number of eligible voters who did not cast their ballot is more than the total of those who voted for either of the party candidates. So, maybe the real issue is that our political party system just isn’t working for most Americans anymore. Assuming this is even partially true, what if, instead of just complaining about the parties or holding our noses and voting for the “lesser evil” every November, we actually fired the parties—took away their grip on our democracy and built something better.

For decades, we’ve been told we only have two choices. But more and more Americans don’t feel truly represented by either major party. We’re exhausted by the noise, the blame games, the endless culture wars that solve nothing and only serve to increasingly marginalize portions of our citizenry. Americans want real solutions on housing, healthcare, education, wages, and the future we’re leaving for the next generation. And we’re not getting them. So, maybe it’s time to ask a radical but necessary question: What if the problem isn’t just the candidates but the political party system that keeps producing them?

The Case for Firing the Parties

A. They Were Never Supposed to Be Permanent

Political parties aren’t mentioned anywhere in the U.S. Constitution. The Founders didn’t design a system based on organized political factions. In fact, they explicitly warned against it. George Washington, in his 1796 farewell address, foretold that political parties would eventually “become potent engines” for individuals to seize and abuse power, dividing citizens and distracting the government from serving the public good. In a letter written by John Adams in 1780, he regarded the division of the republic into two great parties as “to be dreaded as the greatest political evil.” In a 1789 letter from Thomas Jefferson, he wrote: “If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.”

Yet political parties arose almost immediately after the Constitution was ratified. These early versions of political parties formed largely out of necessity to organize debates and mobilize voters. Political parties were tools for winning elections. But over time, the tool began to control the system itself. Today, parties aren’t just optional organizers of ideas, they have become gatekeepers of power, often more loyal to themselves than to the people they claim to serve.

https://thefulcrum.us/bipartisanship/dangers-of-two-party-system

Our political system without these beasts would be more open and would promote collaboration between the politicians without the restraints of some silly party mechanism.

Gerrymandering would not be an issue….

I say the sooner we get rid of these thugs the sooner this country will return to its place as the trend setter for democracy.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Dems And Their Pathetic Party

College of Political Knowledge

DNC/Democratic Party

Paper #2

I have been warning people since the 1990s about the direction the Democratic Party has taken….in essence they have become the left wing of the conservatives.

Then in the last election when the Dems were handed their asses on a platter the word came out that they would change course and become the true party of the people. (Doubtful in my mind)

Dems have given this country all the major social successes since FDR…..then why are they so impotent?

As opposition to Donald Trump’s autocratic regime has intensified — with a majority of Americans now seeing him as a dictator — it’s been widely noted that the most important difference between elected Democrats isn’t whether they’re “progressive” or “moderate,” but whether they’re willing to fight.

But behind these two distinctions there’s a more important one, the distinction between present-oriented and future-oriented behavior, which provides insight into the Democrats’ longstanding problems and how conservative Republicans have exploited them for decades — a dynamic that ultimately brought us Trump.

I’ve been perplexed for decades by this paradox: The Democratic Party has brought us every major policy advance since at least the New Deal, but is now the party most firmly wedded to status-quo, poll-tested politics. The Republican Party, while growing  increasingly radical and backward-looking, is far more focused on creating fundamental change, if only to return America to an imaginary past golden age.

https://www.salon.com/2025/05/10/why-the-democrats-are-still-stuck-in-the-past/

This is an open letter by Richard Falk to Dems and their direction….

Ever since Trump’s electoral victory in November 2024 I have been receiving multiple daily solicitations for funds to support the Democratic Party, individual Democratic candidates for Congress or State Offices, and notification of worthy campaigns on public issues such as the protection of Social Security, Medicare, and reproductive rights, as well as on voter protection in various forms. I am personally sympathetic with resistance to this perverse Republican effort to dismantle democracy and constitutional governance in the United States by taking giant steps toward legitimating autocratic rule with fascist features.

I expect many will be critical of what I write here as a diversion from attacking the main targets of concern: a White House dangerously out of control, a subjugated Republican Congressional presence, and a Supreme Court that subscribes to the subversive Trump ethos 90% of the time and is due to be further ‘packed’ in coming years. My response: failure calls for self-criticism, and criticism from an ally can be restorative, at least indirectly.

Against this background, I find myself increasingly alienated by procedural and substantive aspects of the chosen approach being taken by the Democratic Party leadership to oppose such an undesirable and dangerous set of developments in the governance of the country. On procedural issues, besides crudely reducing electoral politics to matters of raising money for electoral campaigns, giving the impression that democratic politics is little more than a continuous funding appeal. This is the overt posture of the Democratic Party establishment. I find this turn from ideas to money deeply distressing.

(Please read on very telling of Dem politics)

https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/05/06/a-perspective-of-discontent-an-open-letter-to-democrats/

After their epic failure in the last election a poll was taken of dem voters and their desire….

Democratic voters overwhelmingly prefer a populist program that takes on oligarchy and corporate power over the so-called “abundance agenda” that’s all the rage among many liberals as party leaders examine why they lost the White House and Congress in 2024 and strategize about how to win them back.

That’s according to a new Demand Progress poll of 1,200 registered voters “to test the resonance of the ‘abundance agenda’ being promoted as a potential policy and political refocus for the Democratic Party.”

The poll revealed that 55.6% of all surveyed voters said they were somewhat or much more likely “to vote for a candidate for Congress or president who made the populist argument,” compared with 43.5% who said they were likelier to cast their ballot for a candidate promoting the abundance agenda.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/abundance-agenda

Those results are not overwhelmingly in favor of what they think….plus there is a lot of time for this to swing in the other direction before the next election.

Their promise of changing their evil ways were just fodder for the media and those with half a brain….they are going nuts deep into the world of dark money mimicking the GOP….the return of ‘Blue Dog democrats’….that conservative, oh my bad…centrist…Democrats that love the status quo./…they were around with Clinton ….they are the big money Dems that are just as corruptible as any Repub….

The Blue Dog Coalition, a caucus of centrist House Democrats who have repeatedly blocked their party’s major legislation, will form a new super PAC to accept donations of unlimited size, as well as a new nonprofit group that will not be required to disclose its funders. The coalition’s plans were first reported by the New York Times in an article last week about their appearance at a centrist event, dubbed WelcomeFest.

The Times said that the Blue Dogs have never previously had an independent entity that could take unlimited donations, but the Blue Dogs have long been linked to a group called Center Forward that has a “dark money” advocacy group and a super PAC that has spent millions of dollars to help elect its members. Center Forward was founded in 2010 as the think tank Blue Dog Research Forum, run by a Blue Dog Coalition co-founder, former Rep. Bud Cramer of Alabama, who still chairs Center Forward’s board. The centrist group changed its name in 2012. The Blue Dog PAC has donated at least half a million dollars to Center Forward’s super PAC over the years, according to Federal Election Commission records.

The economically-conservative Blue Dogs, whose numbers have dwindled to 10 members out of 213 House Democrats, have been feeling feisty of late. At WelcomeFest, held in D.C. on June 4 and co-sponsored by the Blue Dog PAC, three Blue Dogs appeared, including co-chair Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, with Reps. Jared Golden of Maine, who was one of its prior co-chairs, and Adam Gray of California. WelcomeFest speakers argued that centrists should have even more control over the Democratic Party’s messaging and budgets, and made the case to sideline progressive groups like Indivisible.

https://readsludge.com/2025/06/11/corporate-funded-blue-dog-dems-plan-new-super-pac-and-dark-money-group/

The Dems have not changed from their evil ways that began with Clinton and his band of thugs.

The Progressives that are attempting to put the party back on their original intent are few and far between…..the one bright spot was when David Hogg became vice chair of the DNC and he made waves immediately calling for a change and for a challenge to the rich incumbents …..well the ‘Good Ol’ Boys Club’ within the party have successfully rid themselves of the only commonsense voice the DNC had for the coming fight.

David Hogg, the 25-year-old activist who stirred controversy within the Democratic National Committee over his plans to challenge party incumbents, has announced his resignation as vice chair after weeks of internal strife and a forced re-election vote. Hogg, a survivor of the 2018 Parkland school shooting, had been planning to use his outside group, Leaders We Deserve, to fund primary challenges against sitting Democratic lawmakers, reports the New York Times. He said he aimed to raise up to $20 million to push for “generational change” within the party, per the Times.

Hogg’s moves drew criticism from party officials, with the Hill reporting earlier this week that frustration with him had reached a “boiling point.” DNC chairman Ken Martin had tried to bar Hogg from engaging in primaries and pushed for new bylaws to prevent party leaders from such involvement. Hogg was the only officer who refused to sign a neutrality pledge regarding primaries. The situation was further complicated by a leaked audio recording from a DNC meeting, for which multiple officials blamed Hogg. A complaint about the February election that initially seated Hogg and another vice chair, Malcolm Kenyatta, led to the call for a new vote. Hogg, citing ongoing disagreements and a desire to avoid further distraction, chose not to run again.

“It’s clear that there is a fundamental disagreement about the role of a Vice Chair,” he wrote in his resignation letter, adding that the party should focus on more important matters. Party leaders, including Martin, expressed respect for Hogg’s decision. Kenyatta is now running unopposed for the male vice chair role, with new elections beginning Thursday, per Politico. Hogg’s outside group endorsed a candidate in a Virginia Democratic primary earlier this week but has not yet targeted any incumbents. The episode illustrates the internal divisions at the DNC as it tries to regroup ahead of the next election cycle.

A shame that a voice for progress has been silenced within the DNC….but that was expected since the status quo must remain….why?  Easy Dems are stuck in the past….

As opposition to Donald Trump’s autocratic regime has intensified — with a majority of Americans now seeing him as a dictator — it’s been widely noted that the most important difference between elected Democrats isn’t whether they’re “progressive” or “moderate,” but whether they’re willing to fight.

But behind these two distinctions there’s a more important one, the distinction between present-oriented and future-oriented behavior, which provides insight into the Democrats’ longstanding problems and how conservative Republicans have exploited them for decades — a dynamic that ultimately brought us Trump.

I’ve been perplexed for decades by this paradox: The Democratic Party has brought us every major policy advance since at least the New Deal, but is now the party most firmly wedded to status-quo, poll-tested politics. The Republican Party, while growing  increasingly radical and backward-looking, is far more focused on creating fundamental change, if only to return America to an imaginary past golden age.

…

The party as an organization is almost entirely focused on the first three levels, with no coherent focus on the future, and thus no experienced need to reconcile present- and future-orientations. I’m not saying Democrats don’t have ideas about the future; they do. But they are forever putting new wine in old bottles, and that’s the fundamental source of the Democrats’ recurring problems, from high-level failures of issue-framing and communication to nitty-gritty organizing failures typified by the feckless abandonment of the 50-state strategy. I’ll cite some examples of how this manifests.

https://www.salon.com/2025/05/10/why-the-democrats-are-still-stuck-in-the-past/

The Dems will continue their spineless approach to government and the people they claim to represent….the winners will be the bank accounts of the candidates and the losers will be their supporters….that would be you and me.

We have enough of spectators in our system….the only thing the Dems have accomplished is their wallets have grown and they have become fat and lazy.

It is definitely time for a new Progressive Party to actually go after the challenges of the nation….but will they ever come around and see the errors of their ways?

Doubtful in my lifetime.

Any thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

+++ Today I start more doctors and such so this will be all I have for today….after spending hours at the hospital I just want to relax and try to forget all the crap to come from these cancers.+++

Another Win For Big Money?

SCOTUS years ago gave a big win to corporate bribery by ruling on Citizen United….(if cannot remember that far back then try Google)….

SCOTUS is hearing arguments on another challenge but I think the outcome, to be announced next year, is already a sure thing.

The Supreme Court will take up a Republican-led drive, backed by President Trump’s administration, to wipe away limits on how much political parties can spend in coordination with candidates for Congress and president. The justices said Monday they will review an appellate ruling that upheld a provision of federal election law that is more than 50 years old, ignoring pleas from Democrats to leave the law in place, per the AP. The Supreme Court itself upheld it in 2001. But since Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court in 2005, a conservative majority has upended a variety of congressionally enacted limits on raising and spending money to influence elections. The court’s 2010 Citizens United decision opened the door to unlimited independent spending in federal elections.

Without the limits on party spending, large donors would be able to skirt caps on individual contributions to a candidate by directing unlimited sums to the party with the understanding that the money will be spent on behalf of the candidate, supporters of the law say. The case will be argued in the fall. Richard Hasen. an election law expert at the UCLA’s law school, has predicted the court will strike down the limits. “That may even make sense now in light of the prevalence of super PAC spending that has undermined political parties and done nothing to limit (and in fact increased) corruption and inequality,” Hasen wrote on the Election Law blog.

The Justice Department almost always defends federal laws when they are challenged in court. But the Trump administration notified the court that “this is the rare case that warrants an exception to that general approach” because it believes the law violates free-speech protections in the First Amendment. The Republican committees for House and Senate candidates filed the lawsuit in Ohio in 2022, joined by two Ohio Republicans in Congress, then-Sen. JD Vance, who’s now vice president, and then-Rep. Steve Chabot. In 2025, the coordinated party spending for Senate races ranges from $127,200 in several states with small populations to nearly $4 million in California. For House races, the limits are $127,200 in states with only one representative and $63,600 everywhere else.

Are you confused yet?

Maybe this will help out if understanding is what you are looking for….

The Supreme Court is taking up another Republican legal case seeking to erode campaign finance law and give more power to the wealthy donors seeking to influence elections.

On Monday, the court agreed to hear a challenge to campaign finance restrictions w limit the ability of party committees to directly coordinate spending with individual candidates. The anti-corruption group Public Citizen argues that this provision was put in place to “guard against the corrupting effect of large campaign contributions.”  (I would say that it failed in that aspect)

The challenge was brought by the National Republican Senatorial and Congressional Committees, as well as the 2022 campaigns of two Ohio Republican congressmen: former Sen. JD Vance, who has since become vice president, and former Rep. Steve Chabot, who lost his re-election bid in 2022.

The case seeks to overturn rules implemented in the Federal Election Campaign Act in 1971, which put strict limits on the ability of party committees to spend money in coordination with specific candidates. The Democratic National Committee will defend the rule before the court after filing a motion to intervene.

The rules were put in place, in part, to stop wealthy donors from using parties to get around rules about coordinating individual spending with candidates.

Read on….

https://www.commondreams.org/news/supreme-court-agrees-to-hear-gop-effort-to-further-gut-campaign-finance-law

Next year will will know what the Robert’s Court has to say about this…..personally I think believe it is a done deal and the bribery will be complete.

This Court will go down in history as the worse court ever and has done more to crap on the rights of the citizens and allowed bribery at the highest level….

Any thoughts on this POS?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

It’s Hip! It’s New! It’s A Con!

For decades I have been writing about the 2 major parties how both are worthless and do nothing to help the people that elected them or to move the nation forward.

There  are smaller parties on the fringe but they get little to no coverage so most voters do not know about them or they are too stupid to look beyond the two that the media covers incessantly.

The announcement has been made by Elmo now that he has left Donny’s side is now in a war of accusations between the two dullards….Elmo is starting a new political party, the America Party (clever name, huh?)

On June 5, Musk posted a poll asking netizens if it was “time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle.”

On June 6, he posted the results, saying, “The people have spoken. A new political party is needed in America to represent the 80% in the middle! And exactly 80% of people agree. This is fate.”

He then said that the name of the new party would be the America Party.

“I’m sorry but I just can’t stand it anymore,” wrote Musk, who was recently accused of using drug cocktails in a New York Times article.

“Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it,” he continued, arguing that the bill would “massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion and burden American citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt.”

(the mirror.com)

Seriously?

It’s not clear how serious Musk is about the idea of breaking with the Republican Party. Later Friday, the billionaire replied “Ok” to a person who argued “the best bang for your buck” is to get involved in GOP primaries. He also seemed to entertain a post that suggested reforming one of the main parties “from the inside out” instead of starting a third party, replying “Hmm.”

Still, Musk’s musings about starting a new political party could signal he plans to stay engaged in politics, and may try to challenge Mr. Trump’s influence.

The man that helped propel the idiot we have now as president and now he wants to help the very people that he and his butt buddy (past tense) began screwing on 20 January….and now he has seen the light and he will work tireless for the 80% of the American people?

Do you believe this?

Are you stoned?

Nothing about this d/bag illustrates he haws any knowledge or care for the peons he is pretending to represent with his new party.

Just what we need yet another conservative party to ‘help’ their fellow citizens.

If this becomes a reality it will be yet another massive con by Elmo and will benefit him and not the rest of us.

It’s a con!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Pathetic Party System

A mere few days and the nation will have it say on who is to be president…..the problems this country is having goes back to the pathetic party system that we hold dear.

We all are well aware of just how divided the country is and that division is along political party lines. This system has held this country back for generations and made hatred and suspicion the norm for politics.

I do not expect many to agree with me on this for most Americans get their identities from their politics….

First the advantage…..

Political parties are essential institutions of democracy. By competing in elections parties offer citizens a choice in governance, and while in opposition they can hold governments accountable. When citizens join political parties, volunteer their time, donate money and vote for their leaders, they are exercising their basic democratic rights. Participation of citizens in political parties offers unique benefits, including opportunities to influence policy choices, choose and engage political leaders, and run for office.

Before I go any further…..when was the last time you influenced policies….how can it be so democratic when the only choices you have are the ones the system gives you?

Americans dislike and distrust our political parties; a mere 11% of Americans express high confidence in them when compared to many other institutions, reflecting their well-deserved reputation as a vulnerability to American democratic stability. And yet, parties are essential organizing institutions in any modern democracy. The size and complexity of the multiple levels of government in the United States and the diverse and distributed nature of the electorate necessitate organizations that can serve as the connective tissue of our politics and promote a multiracial, pluralistic democracy. Accordingly, “modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of the parties.”

Yet, there is a natural impulse to view the parties as the problem and seek to further weaken or even try to eliminate them from our politics completely. Despite the understandable frustration with our political parties and a historical context that includes their intentional exclusion from the Constitution, a variety of reforms that weakened parties over time have served only to exacerbate the problems we have today.

For a healthy democracy to function effectively, it needs political parties.

While there are many ways in which political parties contribute to stabilizing and bolstering democracy, the following are vital to sustaining a system that is representative, responsive, and resistant to authoritarian takeover.

https://protectdemocracy.org/work/why-do-we-need-political-parties/

Resistant to authoritarian takeover?

Then explain the GOP and its Project 2025.

Then what are the disadvantages?

A two-party system is a structure where two major political parties rule and dominate the government. Political parties are significant as they represent specific social, economic, and political issues within a given space of interest. They establish a philosophical platform linked to voters, aiming to facilitate the election of a specific candidate to public office.

Candidates aiming at public office use their individual party’s platform to share their concerns with voters. They also propose different strategies they’ve set in place to tackle these problems in case they’re elected to office. There are many disadvantages of the two-party system, and we’ll address some of them in this article.

Read the disadvantages!!!!!

https://goodparty.org/blog/article/disadvantages-of-the-two-party-system

The biggest problem for me is the promotion of centrism.    There was a time when it was a good thing but these days it is the kiss of death to our way of life.

I tend to agree with Jesse Ventura….”I will not be a Democrat or a Republican. They are the problem, not the solution. We need to abolish political parties in this country.”

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Let’s Go To The Sinema

The elections are over and the GOP takes the House by a slim margin and the Senate is in the hands of the Dems….and now that slim margin is even slimmer….for Arizona junior Senator, Krysten Sinema has decided to leave the Dem Party…..

Days after Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock won the runoff election in Georgia, the 51-49 majority the party was expecting in Congress is looking shakier. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema tells CNN that she is leaving the Democratic Party and registering as an independent. The Arizona senator declined to say whether she would formally caucus with Democrats like the other two independent senators, Maine’s Sen. Angus King and Vermont’s Sen. Bernie Sanders. “I’m going to still come to work and hopefully serve on the same committees I’ve been serving on and continue to work well with my colleagues at both political parties,” she says. Nothing will change about her “values and behavior,” she says.

“I’ve never fit neatly into any party box. I’ve never really tried. I don’t want to,” Sinema says. “Removing myself from the partisan structure—not only is it true to who I am and how I operate, I also think it’ll provide a place of belonging for many folks across the state and the country, who also are tired of the partisanship.” In 2018, Sinema became the first woman—and the first Democrat in more than 20 years—to be elected to the Senate from Arizona. Like Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, Sinema was already known as a centrist, opposed to moves like weakening the filibuster. Politico reports the switch means Manchin, “a pivotal swing vote in the 50-50 chamber” will keep “some but not all of his outsized influence in the Democratic caucus.”

Sinema says she informed Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of her decision Thursday and she doesn’t “anticipate that anything will change about the Senate structure.” In an Arizona Republic op-ed, she writes that she has worked “proudly with senators in both parties who have similarly rejected political extremes and forged consensus, helping drain some of the poison from today’s politics.” “Like a lot of Arizonans, I have never fit perfectly in either national party,” she writes. The 46-year-old wouldn’t tell CNN whether she is going to seek reelection in 2024, but she said she’s not planning to run for president.

What a lame excuse….almost as lame as “I want to spend more time with my family”….come on let’s be real….she is worried about re-election mostly…..

The search for answers and future fallout from Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s decision to leave the Democratic Party has turned up plenty of possibilities. Democratic leaders in Washington refrained from bashing her decision, hoping to keep her voting with them. Democrats in Arizona, who invested in her 2018 campaign and helped put her in the Senate, see the decision as strategic, calculated to avoid a difficult primary battle in two years that she might well lose—and not so much about the systemic problems with the two-party system that she cited Friday. The reporting and analyses cover:

  • The Senate: Sinema sounds like she expects to stay on the committees Democratic leaders assigned her to, and caucus with the party—which affects the chamber’s organization—but she won’t quite say so. It’s not clear which side of the aisle her desk will sit on, per the Washington Post. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called her an effective senator and said her change won’t much affect “the new Democratic majority Senate.” Sinema rarely went to Democratic caucus meetings anyway, per the New York Times.
  • The timing: She told Democrats of her decision two days after Georgia reelected Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, cushioning the blow to Senate Democrats. She won’t get much Democratic support in 2024 anyway, Aaron Blake writes in a Post analysis, but the same decision would have fallen differently if Warnock had lost. “Imagine her trying to appeal to any of the Democrats who elected her in 2018 after having handed the Senate majority to the GOP,” Blake says. A Democratic House member from Arizona said his wife predicted the switch hours after Warnock won, per Politico. “I bet you she goes independent,” Mona Grijalva said. “In terms of her leverage in the Senate, the universe shifted with that victory,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva.
  • The ideology: Sinema has shown flexibility here. Progressive activists in Arizona are especially irked by the shifts in a politician they supported and now see her as a major opponent, per the Los Angeles Times. Sinema began in politics in the Green Party and as antiwar activist, a “Prada socialist” called too extreme by her state’s Democratic Party, per the AP. Sinema then went independent, then Democratic. She said Friday her values won’t change. She said that she wouldn’t become “distracted by political drama,” Elvia Diaz points out in a USA Today column, but created it with such attention-grabbers as giving a demonstrative thumbs-down to a minimum wage measure on the Senate floor and posting pictures on social media of a ring with the message “f–k off.”
  • The next race: Sinema had been headed toward a 2024 primary against Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, whose campaign sent a fundraising text after her announcement saying he’s “thinking of running,” per Axios. A poll in September showed Sinema with a favorable rating of 37% among Democrats back home; 57% had an unfavorable opinion of her, per the Post. The earliest polls show strength for Gallego. Had Arizona Republicans Kari Lake or Blake Masters won their statewide elections last month, Gallego might have challenged one of them next time, per Bloomberg. But with those paths closed, Sinema’s seat is a prime target; progressives already were thinking of challenging her from the left. Sinema’s unpopularity with Democrats means she would need Republicans and independents to back her next time, Diaz writes, but counting on Arizona’s GOP, especially, to support Sinema seems a tough bet. She made this move because it’s her best shot, Diaz says.

All the analysis comes down to two items…..money and power.

Sinema saw how much power Manchin wheeled in the last 2 years….she wants that power!

Plus she was also the center of media attention last Congress and she wants that to continue.

Plus she can sit on the fence and see which way the special interest money winds will blow.

The proud servant of the people is more about a self- serving agenda…..typical politician.

More reading on the Cinema decision…

https://www.rawstory.com/kyrsten-sinema-democrats/

https://www.salon.com/2022/12/09/dont-overthink-it-there-appears-to-be-a-simple-reason-kyrsten-sinema-left-the-democratic-party_partner/

Watch her!  She will become the darling of the MSM when Congress is in session…..and that is what she is shooting for all along.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

What Is Wrong With Our Country #2

WTF Happened?

This is my continuing series on my thoughts on the problems this countries is having which is scraping the very foundations of our government.

I started with a post about money in our government that has got its claws in the legislative process and grind our system to a virtual halt…….https://lobotero.com/2022/02/09/what-is-wrong-with-our-government/

I wish I could state that it was the only problem we are having….but sadly it is not and that is why I decided to continue the series.

This post is about the political parties and their role in grinding this country to a halt.

The current ruling two-party duopoly is so ubiquitous that we take it as a given. We teach the “two-party system” in government classes. Taxpayers pay for their primary elections, notwithstanding that legally, parties are private associations. We have allowed the two ruling parties to institutionalize themselves in our political and governing systems. They get preferential ballot access and legislative committee assignments and camaign finance laws are rigged in their favor . . . . just to name a few of the advantages they are afforded.
Given this dominance, one might conclude that the two-party system arises from our constitutional roots. But in fact, the opposite is the case. Virtually every one of the Founding Fathers eschewed the idea of political parties and fretted over what might happen to the country if political parties were to come to dominate the country.

It appears that their reservations were well founded.

Let’s start with everyone’s hero our first president, George Washington….

“[Political parties] serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual interests. . . .Let me now . . . warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party

. . . . It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeebles the public administration.  It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; foments occasionally riot and insurrection.  It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption . . . A fire not to quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into flame . . .”

Then there was John Adams’ thoughts on parties….

“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.” 

Now the ever popular Alexander Hamilton…..

“I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.  If I could not go to heaven but with a political party, I would decline to go.

Then to Thomas Paine the original Father of the United States….

“Party knows no impulse but spirit, no prize but victory.  It is blind to truth, and hardened against conviction.  It seeks to justify error by perseverance, and denies to its own mind the operation of its own judgment.  A man under the tyranny of party spirit is the greatest slave upon the earth, for none but himself can deprive him of the freedom of thought.” 

As you can see the Founders at least some of them could not see any redeeming qualities in the party system….and recent events are proving these people right.

And yet with Jefferson presidency run parties became the rule of the day…..an identity if you will…..

“Two political sects have arisen within the U. S. The one believing that the executive is the branch of our government which the most needs support; the other that like the analogous branch in the English Government, it is already too strong for the republican parts of the Constitution; and therefore in equivocal cases they incline to the legislative powers: the former of these are called federalists, sometimes aristocrats or monocrats, and sometimes tories, after the corresponding sect in the English Government of exactly the same definition: the latter are styled republicans, whigs, jacobins, anarchists, disorganizers, etc. these terms are in familiar use with most persons.”

Hamilton and the Federalists….

Federalists

  • Committed to a fiscally sound and nationalistic government
  • Favored a National Band, Tariffs, and Good Relations with Britain
  • Supported Implied Powers – those powers authorized by a legal document (from the Constitution) which, while not stated, seem to be implied by powers expressly stated.
  • More conservative views
  • Composed of the elite class

Jefferson and the ‘Republicans’……

(Jeffersonian) Republicans

  • Committed to the rights of states, the primacy of yeoman farmers, and the principles of republicanism (liberty and inalienable rights)
  • Opposed the Jay Treaty, wanted good relations with France, not Britain
  • Opposed the ideas of a National Bank or implied powers
  • Predominately “Anti-Administration”

As you can see in the early days of the republic in spite of the dire warnings political parties became the center of our political world….and now we have a system that is as useless as it can be…..because of the influence of political parties……which has brought this nation into the world of political tribalism.

As this country continues to travel this path the nation will splinter and fall apart……

Is that what we want?

Does this country have a future that the Founders intended?

I ask zand wait for an answer…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Founders And Political Parties

As yet another election approaches I thought since political parties are all the rage I would take a look at the beginning of the American experiment…..

In the beginning (all great sagas begin with that intro) our Founding Fathers while I may not agree with some of their thoughts did have the right idea about the possible rise of political parties, factions if you will…..

Today, it may seem impossible to imagine the U.S. government without its two leading political parties, Democrats and Republicans. But in 1787, when delegates to the Constitutional Convention gathered in Philadelphia to hash out the foundations of their new government, they entirely omitted political parties from the new nation’s founding document.

This was no accident. The framers of the new Constitution desperately wanted to avoid the divisions that had ripped England apart in the bloody civil wars of the 17th century. Many of them saw parties—or “factions,” as they called them—as corrupt relics of the monarchical British system that they wanted to discard in favor of a truly democratic government.

“It was not that they didn’t think of parties,” says Willard Sterne Randall, professor emeritus of history at Champlain College and biographer of six of the Founding Fathers. “Just the idea of a party brought back bitter memories to some of them.”

George Washington’s family had fled England precisely to avoid the civil wars there, while Alexander Hamilton once called political parties “the most fatal disease” of popular governments. James Madison, who worked with Hamilton to defend the new Constitution to the public in the Federalist Papers, wrote in Federalist 10 that one of the functions of a “well-constructed Union” should be “its tendency to break and control the violence of faction.”

https://www.history.com/news/founding-fathers-political-parties-opinion

Then there is Jefferson who liked the idea of factions….

Thomas Jefferson, who was serving a diplomatic post in France during the Constitutional Convention, believed it was a mistake not to provide for different political parties in the new government. “Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties,’’

With Jefferson as secretary of state and Hamilton as Treasury secretary, two competing visions for America developed into the nation’s first two political parties. Supporters of Hamilton’s vision of a strong central government—many of whom were Northern businessmen, bankers and merchants who leaned toward England when it came to foreign affairs—would become known as the Federalists. Jefferson, on the other hand, favored limited federal government and keeping power in state and local hands. His supporters tended to be small farmers, artisans and Southern planters who traded with the French, and were sympathetic to France.

And so it began!

Fast forward to the 21st century…..

This country has become the embattled nation the Founders feared….

America has now become that dreaded divided republic. The existential menace is as foretold, and it is breaking the system of government the Founders put in place with the Constitution.

Though America’s two-party system goes back centuries, the threat today is new and different because the two parties are now truly distinct, a development that I date to the 2010 midterms. Until then, the two parties contained enough overlapping multitudes within them that the sort of bargaining and coalition-building natural to multiparty democracy could work inside the two-party system. No more. America now has just two parties, and that’s it.

The theory that guided Washington and Adams was simple, and widespread at the time. If a consistent partisan majority ever united to take control of the government, it would use its power to oppress the minority. The fragile consent of the governed would break down, and violence and authoritarianism would follow. This was how previous republics had fallen into civil wars, and the Framers were intent on learning from history, not repeating its mistakes.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/two-party-system-broke-constitution/604213/

Sadly this nation is far from finding a solution to this chaos….if it ever will is still debatable….my thought is that it is doomed….parties will bring ruination to this country….that and the corruption that goes hand in hand with parties.

Any thoughts?

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Those Political Party Conventions

The US has made political history by holding their party conventions virtually.

That brings me to a thought I had……

Conventions–A necessity or a complete waste of time?

But first we need to look at why they had their beginnings and how they have changed over the years…..

George Washington didn’t have a nominating convention. As the commander of the colonial forces in the American Revolution, he was an easy candidate to select from among the eligible pool of any white man 35 and older, and he won his first two elections without any real competition. After that, there was no clear path for narrowing the pool, so political parties developed their own ways of choosing candidates.

Parties began holding conventions in the early 19th century and presidential primaries in the early 20th century. The convention remained the main way of selecting candidates until 1972, when new rules gave the primaries more power to determine the nominee. Since then, conventions have become a way to celebrate a predetermined candidate, rather than a means of choosing one.

https://www.history.com/news/political-conventions-change

Then we ask…why do we need these conventions?

The standard answer is that the conventions allow the parties — and their nominees — to define themselves on the national stage. In addition, conventions supposedly produce a “bounce” of popularity that catapults the better-performing candidate into the White House.

But in this era of non-stop news saturation, haven’t the candidates already had ample opportunity define themselves? It’s hard to see why they deserve four extra days of round-the-clock TV coverage, or why taxpayers should be shelling out $136 million to fund two big marathons of cocktail mixers, buffet lines, and canned speeches.

And the bounce-to-the presidency idea is mostly a myth. John McCain got a bigger post-convention bounce in 2008 than Barack Obama, but Obama trounced McCain in November. Barry Goldwater got a bigger bounce in 1964 than Lyndon Johnson, who went on to win the White House by the widest margin in U.S. history.

Why do we need political conventions?

I have been watching American politics for 60 years and still to this day see no necessity for these damn conventions.  To me it is a waste of time and money especially in the last 25 years or so….

In case you are not aware of the devolution of the conventions I can help…..

1976 Republicans: The last convention at which there was any doubt whatsoever of the identity of a major-party nominee.

1972 Democrats: George McGovern delivers his acceptance speech at 2:48 a.m. ET, which led to greatly tightened schedules and scripted proceedings in both parties.

1968: The last year before rules passed requiring primaries to choose most or all delegates. Also the last conventions featuring “spontaneous” demonstrations on behalf of candidates whose names were formally put into nomination.

1956 Democrats: Presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson let delegates name his running mate without making a recommendation. On the second ballot, Estes Kefauver edged John F. Kennedy (Albert Gore Sr., finished third on the first ballot).

1952 Democrats: Last multi-ballot presidential nomination contest; Stevenson drafted on the third ballot.

1940 Republicans: Stage-managed galleries stampede convention with chants of “We Want Willkie!”

1924 Democrats: Dark horse John W. Davis nominated on the 103nd ballot.

1920 Republicans: The original “smoke-filled room” chose Warren Harding, who was subsequently nominated on the tenth ballot.

1896 Democrats: Keynote speaker William Jennings Bryan electrifies the convention with his “Cross of Gold” speech and is himself nominated on the fifth ballot.

1880 Republicans: New York’s Roscoe Conkling delivers arguably the most famous nomination address ever, for Ulysses S. Grant, beginning:

The time has come to move past these fossils of our political system….the 21st century has arrived and we need politics to arrive as well……

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05/who-needs-political-party-conventions.html

The media is no better…..they trot out the fossils from the past old farts that have NO idea about the future and establishment lackeys that are only concerned with the status quo….and those know no racial bounds.

The conventions are the beginning of a political circus every four years….they serve NO purpose!  The average person learns nothing from the conventions for most have their minds already made up before the convention begins.

They are about as worthless as the US Senate these days.

I would like your thoughts on this topic….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”