Fascinating quote in this article about ongoing power struggles between far-right republicans and more moderate party members in the MT state leg. The quote is from a far-right former House member, discussing the power held by more moderate members of the party:


https://montanafreepress.org/2020/12/11 ... the-house/

Anyone think we can get out of the two party system this century?

It always baffled me why someone would want to be put into such a structured political party system to begin with.

Just be independent and go yea or nay on policies based on the policies themselves through logic and reasoning and common sense, not because they adhere to a political party structure. It’s stupid.

THANK YOU

How the F do we make this happen?

Probably never will. Most prople vote either R or D down the ticket and don’t give a shit about the actual person or their policies.

What an intellectually lazy take. Political parties are ideological and policy indicators, not just identity.

Until they’re not anymore.

Someone tells you they are a Republican you would immediately drop them in the Trump/QAnon bucket. A person tells you they are a Democrat, and you think socialist or antifa lover. Parties have been stereotyped and it’s only going to get worse.

And people love to be part of these parties. It’s weird. I’d hate to be part of a party and have to support their policies, whether I agree with 30% or 90% of them.

Politics is about building coalitions in every functioning democracy. An anti-abortionist has very, very specific policy ambitions. A small government capitalist has their own, very different set of goals. A nationalist has yet another set of unique policy ambitions.

None of the above ambitions are individually popular enough to put them in a position to produce at the national level. But if they form a party that incorporates all three ambitions and develop, say, a party platform which shows each subgroup how they are to be included in the spoils of a victory....now you’re cooking with gas.

Even in countries with many parties, the parties tend to end up forming coalitions or striking deals with each other that look a heck of a lot like the way the Democrats deal with, say, the progressive left: the dominant party gets a boost of support from the partnership that helps it over the line, and the smaller party gets the promise of a little headway made towards those policy ambitions it can’t achieve on its own. When the situation changes....say one side feels ripped off or that the power balance has shifted....the coalition either undergoes a messy fight as different factions try to expand their place in the coalition, or it breaks.

You and Norris make good points. I totally get how that gets agendas moving and getting things done. I think at a personally level it just is silly to me. I don’t want to be forced into one lane because my thoughts and feelings can change on things as I get older, learn more about a topic, etc.

The extent of "forcing" depends on the election laws in your state. If you're allowed to vote across parties on a single ballot, then there's no problem. If you're not allowed to do that, then yes that sucks.

Here in MT, we have to stick with any party during a primary election, but are free to vote across parties during a general election. Not too bad.

What a bad take

These look a lot like the trust numbers from right after the ACA repeal attempt, which ended with a savage midterm for Republicans.

Spoiler: show

Here’s the thing: culture wars are good for riling up the base, and can still have a bit of an impact with moderate voters, but we’re clearly moving past the days when it was enough to win elections.

The other obvious problem is that “cancel culture” can’t be defeated with legislation. Dr Seuss’s books were pulled by his own estate. Gina Carano was fired by Disney. You can’t vote them out. And I know that conservatives generally believe that government isn’t the answer to your problems, but rallying around a grievance that is societal rather than political makes it hard to build a legislative platform that will carry you forward. Even Trump in 2016 had very clear “you need to elect me so I can do x” arguments built into his grievance list.

I’m sure some of the unified opposition to the stimulus comes down to Rs thinking that the 2009 playbook (oppose relief spending, amplify debt panic) will work again, but there’s just no sign of it...and voter attitudes have changed a lot in 12 years.

So my question (mostly for conservative and centrist board members) is this: Republicans have faced two historic electoral losses in a row. I think most people are expecting a popular vote regression to the mean post-Trump, but party attitudes and actions haven’t changed much as of yet and neither have voter responses. So what happens if they don’t?

How do we think the party will respond if the upcoming midterms produce a third lopsided result? And separate from that, how should they respond?

I'll bite on the second question:

They should respond by running moderate candidates who will buy into longterm climate change solutions (while still championing the limited lifespan of fossil fuels to their base);

Who seek to empower outdated workers against the existential threat of automation;

Who champion two-year trade degrees and can articulate legislation to make them more affordable;

Who can successfully (and rightly) demonize the effects the free market has on US housing prices, and offer a plan to combat that problem;

Who preach conservative globalism rather than hardline protectionism;

Who take a hardline approach to engaging in foreign conflicts;

and who take a conservative approach to immigration that doesn't result in national tragedies.

If only the US had anything approaching a free market in housing. If only. We would have much more housing available and it would be much more affordable. Housing shortages and high prices in the US are a result of political, not economic, forces.

i'd say it's both

I think if somebody snapped their fingers and removed the ability of politicians at all levels of government throughout the country to block housing construction that you would see a lot of new housing and that lots of it would be aimed at working class households and we'd see prices stabilize and likely even fall. Restrictions on housing are artificially keeping prices high by limiting the supply of housing and the byzantine multi-years long process of getting housing approval and the high expenses associated with simply getting approval also have the unfortunate side effect of pushing whatever housing does get approved and built towards expensive luxury housing because working/middle class housing isn't economically viable with those massive up front costs.

Do you think that politicians block construction, or that they incentivize one sort of construction over another? And if the incentives were changed -- to better encourage more affordable housing (with a mix of condo/townhome/singe family developments), and to curb the purchase of secondary vacation/rental homes by the affluent -- couldn't that address some of the problems?

Thank you, trag. I think that’s an interesting list, and a lot of those ideas (response to automation, championing trade degrees) seem like natural pivots that could lead to a larger tent without losing the populist wing.


I don’t wanna get into a housing market debate, but I’d be curious about your response to the stated question (if the Republican Party sees another poor election result in 2022, what platform and/or ideology changes could/should they adopt in order to pursue a national majority).

I think they're all in on Trumpism at least in the near-term. As badly as 2018 and to a lesser extent 2020 went for them, they still have a lot of state governments, they get to redraw a lot of congressional maps, the Senate still overrepresents states that are Republican strongholds, and Trump just nominated a ton of young very conservative judges. I know you know all of these things, but I think that it might be true that they can double and triple down and alienate more and more of the population and yet still have significant ways to influence policy and remain competitive even with a shrinking base. As long as Trump is alive I think it's going to be very difficult for any significant pivot away from Trumpism.

Your other question is what should they do. That's a lot tougher. I'll have to think about it and I'll do my best to respond today or tomorrow, but it's hard for me to imagine that any shift towards moderation would benefit them in the short term.

"Conservative globalism" is a recipe to lose for the next 4000 years. Never ask a democrat how republicans can win more elections.

The easy answer is just to wait. Republicans are leaderless at the moment. People in late democracy vote for personalities, not policies.

What do your last two points mean exactly?