Kinja reply list

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BobbySeriousHamilton Nolan
12/30/15 3:32pm
The Republican party is nothing but a lobbying firm for billionaires, period. They serve no other purpose, and make no secret about it these days. They have zero ideas and don’t care to create any. They are there to make it as easy as possible for the owner class to rape and pilliage at will, and nothing else.

If you want to know if a piece of legislation is bad for the average worker, just look to see if the Republicans are for it - it’s literally a 100% accurate litmus test.
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  FloodBobbySerious
  12/30/15 3:37pm
  You can replace “Republican” with Hillary Clinton and it would also be true.
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  Icecold DavisFlood
  12/30/15 3:39pm
  No, it would not actually still be true in that situation but thank you for trying to engage in Gawker’s newly politicized comment section.
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ThrumbolioHamilton Nolan
12/30/15 3:56pm
In my (relative) youth, having come from a working-class family of small business owners (residential construction), and having had the mantra of “the world doesn’t owe you anything” drummed into my head (a mantra I still largely agree with, but that’s a topic for another day), I identified more with the political right. Having gone through the worst of the pre-welfare-reform years, in a city that served to highlight just how ludicrously out of control social aid was (pre-reform), my initial political identity was very much reinforced by experience (and, to be fair, at least somewhat by conditioning - my parents are both Republicans, and I can’t see that ever changing - they’re dyed-in-the-wool team sporters).

I had, and have, a hard time identifying with the Democratic party, as the veneer (at least) of Liberalism focuses too much on embracing adversity for my tastes, as if being downtrodden is an incurable disease of the highest magnitude, and those so afflicted can only be helped by the benevolence of external forces.And I’m not saying that the deck isn’t stacked in favor of the more well off, or the less melanin-saturated, or those of us with dicks. I’m saying that the knee-jerk reaction in Liberal circles seems to focus on the malady and injustice rather than on the practical (short-term) solution.

All that said, the modern day GOP has absolutely nothing I can support. Their policies are bullshit. Their economic ideas are illogical and unfeasible on a surface level, let alone when you do an actual dive and crunch the numbers. Their pandering to the most proudly ignorant, crass, loud group of blowhard dumbfucks in our current society is goddamned awful. It is a fucking farce, plainly put.

I’m hoping that this Trump bullshit is what pushes the GOP toward sanity/functionality/efficacy. I’m similarly hoping that such a comeuppance will...well...come. Yeah, you can stack the deck, and run on a platform of doing exactly that, but for how long? How epically can you continue to fail and still maintain credibility? How utterly fucking ridiculous do you have to get before the vast majority of people stop taking you seriously?

I know this: the easiest way for the GOP to ensure that I vote Democrat, for the first time in my life, is to push Trump as the nominee.

Similarly, the easiest way for the GOP to ensure that I NEVER vote for them (and I haven’t voted GOP either as of yet) is for them to keep on doing what they’re doing.
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  Mjr. Elvis NewtonThrumbolio
  12/30/15 4:11pm
  I’d agree on a couple of points while completely disagreeing with your characterization of the left- but ill skip all that and simply ask: what do you think the point of society is?
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  ThrumbolioMjr. Elvis Newton
  12/30/15 4:15pm
  I’d imagine that anyone on the Left would disagree with my characterization of the Left.
  
  As for the point of society, I’d say that the point is to provide a stable environment in which any member of said society has direct control over the trajectory of their life and ultimate fate.
  
  And I’m not talking “American Dream” bullshit. I’m talking “Alright, we have a stable economy, I have reasonable access to health care, and I have stable employment - it’s on me to not fuck this up.”
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MizJenkinsHamilton Nolan
12/30/15 3:42pm
Correction: the two-party system itself is a trick. Bipartisanship has transformed this country into an oligarchy. If Hillary wins next year then by the end of 4 years when I’m 40 there will only have be TWO presidents in my lifetime that were not Clintons or Bushes. That’s not the way American Democracy was envisioned.

One huge barrier to third party candidate viability are the impossibly stringent requirements for participating in the Presidential Debates. There is currently a lawsuit pending against the Federal Election Commission in D.C. District Court to force a change in the rules for debate eligibility so that American voters can hear from more than just these two deeply entrenched, corporate-owned political conglomerates.

Read the complaint here.
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  hntergrenMizJenkins
  12/30/15 3:53pm
  Hah, love you Jenks, but that’s arguably exactly the way American Democracy was envisioned.
  
  I also won’t bother going off on my diatribe about how a multi-party system isn’t a panacea for anything...the result is the same. If you really study multi-party, parliamentary systems, it’s clear as day that they largely suffer from the same systemic issues that we do.
  
  It’s not the system that is the problem, it’s our electorate.
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  nopunin10didMizJenkins
  12/30/15 3:56pm
  Getting rid of the two-party system is going to take far more than a change to the Debates. That’s miniscule when compared to the mathematical problem created by our first-past-the-post voting system.
  
  When votes occur in the manner that they do currently, where the winner-takes-all for each given district/state/office/etc., it is mathematically foolish to support a tiny third party.
  
  The only time a third party does well in this country is when one of the two primary parties has a schism, and the third party fills that void. They in effect become the new first-or-second party, and we’re back to square one.
  
  We need constitutional reforms. Our silly debate rules might annoy the third party candidates, but the debates are primarily important for two things:
  
  In primary season, they provide a battleground for a wide field of candidates. Primary elections are not standard first-past-the-post for either party, so having many viable candidates at this stage is perfectly reasonable.
  In general election season, they come fairly late in the process. They can be influential on undecided voters. The percentage of the voting public that are undecided is significant enough for the two major parties to fight over them, but it’s nowhere near the percentage of loyal voters that each party carries.
  
  Neither of those things are of any good to third-party candidates.
  
  We need serious constitutional reform to tackle the two-party system. Until that becomes a real possibility, supporting a third party for any major election is throwing you vote away. It sucks, but it’s how the math works out.
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ReburnsABurningReturnsHamilton Nolan
12/30/15 3:39pm
I think you assign way too much agency in the maintanence of the Republican political machine to the entirety of the population of Republican political representatives. I have zero doubt in my mind that there are plenty of Republican congressmen who are true believers in the “Guns, God & Grits”, to steal from Mike Huckabee, formula the Republican party has adopted as a public face.

After all, once you build a machine with ulterior motives to the stated ones, you can let true believers run the front end so long as the end result is what you want.

That is what I think the Republican party has become, and I actually think they didn’t design the machine as well as they thought they did. Many monied interests of the Republican party are terrified of the frankenstein they have created in the Tea Party. They worry first and foremost because it might cost them political power, but secondly because plenty of them are socially moderate enough to recognize the danger zone of fascism that the Tea Party has wandered into.
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  AK7007ReburnsABurningReturns
  12/30/15 3:46pm
  Does it make a difference if they have managed to find some clueless idiots that actually believe the insanity as long as those same clueless idiots are willing to vote the way the party wants? I doubt the repub establishment is nearly as scared as you think - they know that they can trick the crazies to do what the rich want by phrasing things just so.
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  BobbySeriousReburnsABurningReturns
  12/30/15 3:48pm
  They designed the machine out of necessity. They knew they were done as a national party over a decade ago. Their game since has been to win at the local & state levels, control enough of the government to keep the status quo and prevent any legislation they don’t want....which they’ve done magnificently.
  
  The tea party was just a brilliant ruse to trick idiot right-wingers into voting Republican without actually thinking they were voting Republican. That worked for the last 7 years, but to your point, the monster they created has now grown out of control.
  
  Personally, I think this is the end of the Republican party as we know it. Trump either gets nominated at it’s Goldwater x 10, or the RNC doesn’t give him the nomination and the party implodes.
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stevethecurseHamilton Nolan
12/30/15 3:44pm
The electoral college and the Senate need a quick death. Everything should be decided by popular vote because fuck what the backward ass hicks in middle america want or think.
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  Soylent Green is Burnersstevethecurse
  12/30/15 4:38pm
  You realize that the Senate has been the only thing standing between us and the repeal of the ACA, right? And that during certain particularly dark years of the second Bush administration, it was the only thing holding the line because Republicans had swept both chambers and the White House?
  
  The Senate has its problems, but it has also been a significant force for good throughout our history, including pretty recent history. Disturbing to see so many people calling for its abolition when some simple reforms could do the job better.
  
  The electoral college, no real argument, though it hasn’t made that big a difference in most elections.
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  stevethecurseSoylent Green is Burners
  12/30/15 4:47pm
  I think the senate gives too much influence to less populated states. I agree with what Hamilton said in the article, “...and encumbered by a Senate that gives citizens of sparsely populated rural states far more per capita power than everyone else.”
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nopunin10didHamilton Nolan
12/30/15 3:41pm
poor Southern churchgoing whites

I’d drop the “Southern” part of this. Maybe instead say:

poor evangelical whites

The conservative evangelical movement has grown much bigger than the South. It has a significant presence in swing states like Colorado, and it swallows nearly all of the rural states with low populations (whose influence on government is disproportionately large due to the structure of the Senate and Electoral College).

I’m not trying to make this a #notallsoutherners post, since there are plenty of awful people here. It’s just important for people to realize just how far this movement has spread. The South is a problem, but it’s not the only problem.
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  moreuknownopunin10did
  12/30/15 3:49pm
  Instead of southern it should be rural. Its now rural v urban instead of north v south.
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  nopunin10didmoreuknow
  12/30/15 4:00pm
  That’s a better description in general, but even that isn’t clear-cut. The evangelical movement has a strong grip on a number of populations that aren’t traditionally rural, and some very rural populations are also democratic voters.
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GeorgeGeoffersonLivesHamilton Nolan
12/30/15 3:46pm
It looks like the jig may finally be up, though. No, the GOP is not going to disappear, but what started in 2010 with the tea party is far from done, and it’s going to eat the establishment whole. The party is nearly finishing lapping up the dregs of the white working class, and it has now started eating itself at the presidential level. They are coming very quickly upon the point where they may end up being a permanent opposition.
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  hntergrenGeorgeGeoffersonLives
  12/30/15 3:47pm
  Let’s just hope the snake continues to eat its own tail.
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  Paul DimitrovGeorgeGeoffersonLives
  12/30/15 4:23pm
  No, at some point there will be a reorganization of the platform purging most of what makes it toxic today.
  
  That’s maybe, ten (?) years away.
  
  The main issue if the fundies, since they drive social policy. They must be purged or silenced. Hopefully—from the GOP perspective—just silenced.
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ArkHamilton Nolan
12/30/15 4:51pm
All day, every day, it feels like I try in vain to explain this fact to the ignorant and lazy people America who shrug and recite the same old folksy platitude: “Both parties are the same.”

They are not the same. One party tries and fails to serve the needs of the common people. The other ruthlessly succeeds in it’s fundamental goal of conning the poor and ignorant and prejudiced into voting against their own interests and in favor of the billionaire class. The two could not be more different, and to declare “They’re both equally bad!” is to display to the world your complete lack of knowlege about the system that controls much of the outcome of your life.
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  MSNBCmoleArk
  12/30/15 5:17pm
  I think what people mean by that is the only thing that matters to most politicians is money. Yeah, you may find a rare (ineffective) exception but by in large it’s all about money and power.
  
  Ask yourself how many of these politicians, on both sides of the aisle, have spent a majority of their lives in public service but are filthy rich? Weird, huh?
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  ArkMSNBCmole
  12/30/15 5:29pm
  I don’t think that effect is so much “public service and opportunities for corruption make you rich” as it is “running for public office is prohibitively expensive, so only rich people can do it”.
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HoustonDude2014Hamilton Nolan
12/30/15 3:50pm
As a wacky liberal, I generally agree with your premise, but I think you are letting the Democrats off a bit too easily.

With only a few modifications:

“It works just fine at what it is constructed to do: draw in the votes of the poor Black people while working to serve the interests of middle class white people. This is not a flaw; the party is built this way. It is built to be a trick, perpetrated by white folks at the expense of everyone else. And it has been extremely successful.”

The Democrats stranglehold on the Black vote is not wildly different than the GOP’s stranglehold on the poor, evangelical, White vote. Certainly, the GOP is not doing significant favors to poor White folks, but we could make a pretty decent argument that Black folks are not wildly benefiting from the Democrats.
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  hntergrenHoustonDude2014
  12/30/15 4:04pm
  Party affiliation for most black people has largely been a choice between bad and worse—it’s a purely rational decision.
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  HoustonDude2014hntergren
  12/30/15 4:09pm
  That is true....poor, evangelical White folks probably would make the same claim about the GOP.
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JVBaseballSuperstarHamilton Nolan
12/30/15 4:06pm
I know people who actually believe, despite all evidence, that trickle down economics works. These people usually describe themselves to me as libertarians, but you can forget those people. Ones who can be convinced that trickle-down economics is in their best interest.
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  PeterFallowJVBaseballSuperstar
  12/30/15 4:13pm
  Isn’t Fed policy basically trickle down? They (and us) would probably be better off with helicopter payments.
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  JVBaseballSuperstarPeterFallow
  12/30/15 4:16pm
  That is true about the fed. I was mostly speaking of course of the idea that these tax cuts to the wealthy would create more jobs, ect...
  
  I’m not familiar with helicopter payments. Could you elaborate? You’ve got me interested now!
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