[HoosierDaddy]

Only 1 civil war in 250 years (excluding Revolutionary War).... ain't tooooooo broke.

I was long a fan of a multi-party system, but if Trump is the best one party can put up in a 2 party system, I'm terrified of what would happen in a multi-party system where votes are more dispersed.

[Macros]

I think a multiparty system would have destroyed trump's chances. Imagine a third and fourth option over Clinton or trump.
Wouldn't that have been nice?

[HoosierDaddy]

I liked Clinton.

Multiparty system elect idiots too, Mac. Maybe not on this scale, but most certainly they do.

Our system was basically custom designed for 2 parties, the Federalists and anti-Federalists.

[QuickTidal]

Macros, on 23 August 2017 - 04:19 PM, said:

The quotes are picked from a lengthy speech, I'm not defending trump here, but even with that being held at the forefront of my mind, this man just sounds like a moron every time he speaks. He's like a 12 year old kid bragging to the schoolyard that his dad could beat up everyone else's dad because he has the best dad who's rich and buys him the best toys.

Like seriously.

America really needs to break their current political structure

The whole speech is like this though. It's not like they cherry picked to make him sound crazier...this is pretty much what his entire speech was.

If you can last 75 minutes...here is the whole shebang, and it's all pretty unhinged. I lasted about 35minutes before I could stomach no more.

[worry]

It should just be the transcripts of her speeches to Wall Street and an atlas of the states she didn't visit.

[Cause]

It's definitely further proof that he has no time for objective truth. He is either dangerously manipulative (and somehow bad at it), or for whatever reason actually unable to tell the truth from fantasy. Neither is a great character trait.

[amphibian]

Down South, on 23 August 2017 - 08:37 PM, said:

Any of y'all going to get HRC book? Brooke Baldwin today played a portion of her reading about the 2nd debate. I believe the title is called What Happened but I maybe wrong on it.

I don't think I value HRC's input enough to give her money to hear it. She and her husband are the biggest direct movers and beneficiaries of moving the Democratic party rightwards and thereby breaking the United States for 50+ years at least. And the crappiest thing about that direct move/beneficiary thing is that they can't move the voters of today. They lost their magic and their organization. Obama couldn't build a legacy coalition either.

None of the valuable insight into politics or what happened is going to come directly from HRC. None of it.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 24 August 2017 - 03:52 AM

[Chance]

HoosierDaddy, on 23 August 2017 - 04:49 PM, said:

Only 1 civil war in 250 years (excluding Revolutionary War).... ain't tooooooo broke.

I was long a fan of a multi-party system, but if Trump is the best one party can put up in a 2 party system, I'm terrified of what would happen in a multi-party system where votes are more dispersed.

The thing with multiparty systems that work is that generally no one get 51+% so there is always compromise in the system. Even if a idiot get the most votes they will rarely get sufficient to do whatever they want that is too radical. The brilliance of multiparty system (or just working democracy) is that it make dramatic change unlikely.

This post has been edited by Chance: 24 August 2017 - 07:44 AM

[Silencer]

Chance, on 24 August 2017 - 07:43 AM, said:

HoosierDaddy, on 23 August 2017 - 04:49 PM, said:

Only 1 civil war in 250 years (excluding Revolutionary War).... ain't tooooooo broke.

I was long a fan of a multi-party system, but if Trump is the best one party can put up in a 2 party system, I'm terrified of what would happen in a multi-party system where votes are more dispersed.

The thing with multiparty systems that work is that generally no one get 51+% so there is always compromise in the system. Even if a idiot get the most votes they will rarely get sufficient to do whatever they want that is too radical. The brilliance of multiparty system (or just working democracy) is that it make dramatic change unlikely.

The trouble, such as it is, is that dramatic change isn't the only problem - hell, even with the way the US system is set up, the change has been relatively gradual, over time, not jarring. What I've taken from living in two countries with multi-party systems, and observing two more from afar, is that they don't actually function any differently to a two party system over time. They're still better, in terms of reducing outright polarisation of voters, and making it considerably harder for things like gerrymandering to occur, but in terms of actual political outcomes they have the same problem.

NZ and Australia both have the same, though flipped, dynamics (and this is mirrored to an extent in the UK as well): one party that regularly gets close to having a total majority by themselves, opposed by a coalition of parties who individually cannot make up the numbers, but together manage to breach 51% roughly as often as the single party does. In NZ the large party is National - right leaning. In Aus, the large party is Labour - left leaning. Both large parties regularly rely on confidence + supply from one or two smaller parties to ensure their majority and get them the votes they need on big issues. In Aus, however, the coalition is almost entirely unified to the point where they are functionally one party with many faces. In NZ, the fragmented left actually represents a range of positions from centrist to left.

But in neither case, do the smaller parties actually matter. The lead party of the country is always one of two parties. In NZ, it's National or Labour. In Australia, it's the Australian Liberal Party or the Labour Party. They may form various coalitions or C+S agreements, but the amount of meaningful compromise the smaller parties manage to extract from them is negligible. In Australia this is exacerbated by the fact that the coalition with the ALP is basically just one giant party with few diverse policies between their dozen or so constituent parts, but even so. It is, effectively, a two-party system which has functionally constrained itself to prevent extremism on either side of the aisle by preventing outright majorities. This is good. But.

Despite this clear benefit, the endless creep to the right experienced by the world since the 70s/80s continues. In NZ, it means that the once-left Labour party is now center, verging on center-right. Same for Labour in Australia. Meanwhile, the ALP in Australia is being pulled towards far-right by elements of its party, because it has moved far enough rightwards over the years to no longer be center anything. NZ National haven't quite gone that far yet, but it's likely just a matter of time.

While I agree that the US moving to a proper multi-party system would be beneficial in reducing issues like gerrymandering, alleviating dichotomies like "Trump or Clinton" - a little - and preventing, rather than just avoiding, extremism, it doesn't fix one of the biggest issues in any political system: money. MMP and its variations does nothing, by itself, to prevent politicians being bought, either by campaign contributions, personal background allegiances, or promises of cushy board jobs after they retire. The system is still vulnerable to manipulation that actively prevents course-correction by well-meaning parties. Which, originally, was how MMP functioned in Australia and NZ. Labour pulled to the left. National pulled to the right. In the end both nations traveled mostly down the center path. But people still vote with low information. People still fail to vote. Voter engagement is low in both nations as it is the US (though not AS low, granted). Personality politics still trumps policy. The failure of the multi-party system is the same as the failure of the two-party system, it's just less obvious. And again, ultimately if it weren't for the security and flexibility provided by multi-party, we might as well be two-party down here as well, for all the times one of the smaller parties has been in power. And as long as those two larger parties have a majority within their own coalition, that's never going to change. Never mind the potentially nation-destroying lack of agreement that could happen were a true minority government ever to form - 4 parties with ~13% of the vote each could either be very interesting or a complete stalemate of in-fighting and debate.

So while I agree the US *should* change their system, for the stated benefits, I really don't think it would actually prevent Trump. Or reign him in. I don't think it would slow down their movement. Or eliminate the huge issue of money in politics. It wouldn't enhance their voter engagement. What's worse, with the incredibly, passionately partisan politics in the US, I'm not even sure switching systems would be as effective as it has been here and in the UK. There are already, after all, more than two parties in US politics. While a solid MMP type system might change that, I seriously doubt they'd suddenly be in positions to decide election outcomes.
Plus, there is the whole Congress/Senate/Executive/Judiciary thing they've got going on. Functionally the other countries on MMP don't have that makeup, we're all Parliament/Judiciary or Parliament/Judiciary/Senate at most. Executive is just the ruling party of the time, in practice. They'd have to fundamentally alter the way their President is elected (by switching to internal party decision + winning party = who your President is) or else there would be no functional change to how someone like Trump ends up in the Oval Office. It would be a gargantuan overhaul of their politics. (Not necessarily a bad thing, of course, just...difficult.)

[Macros]

is adam accurate in this one?

if so, how the fuck can a government knowingly let such a corrupt practice get so fucking bad?

[worry]

Capitalism.

[Macros]

but I mean this level of lobbying to deregulate and effectively put millions in Lether level of debt, surely there had to be some senators standing up and saying "fuck this!" and bringing it to the public eye??

[worry]

Senator Bernie Sanders did make this an issue during his campaign for president, and suggested removing the profit motive from public higher education by eliminating tuition entirely and making school loans a moot point. It's not unlike Medicare-for-all, in that it cuts out the profit-making middleman. Obviously the loan industry could survive -- if diminished to reasonable size -- with private colleges and universities (which are still ostensibly non-profits). As long as reputable technical and vocational schools would be included, for-profit colleges (which in the US are all scams like Trump U) could and should go the way of the dodo.

[worry]

There is some push for partial and even full student loan forgiveness from the left flank of Dems, but it was seen as unlikely under Obama w/ a GOP congress, and is pretty much impossible under Trump.

https://www.buzzfeed...ss-before-trump

His Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, literally profits from student debt collection. Her ideas for debt relief so far have been to attempt to monopolize consolidation under a single contractor (eliminating competiton), and potentially reneging on government promises to relieve debt for public servants after 10 years of service. People who have chosen these career paths counting on the relief are in a panic.

http://money.cnn.com...ness/index.html

[HoosierDaddy]

I used to feel bad about my $130,000+ student debt (8 years, 5 under 3 law school). Now, I just accept it and pay under the Obama backed Income Based Repayment plan which is fair enough, but I realize it'll most likely never be fully re-paid. It'll have to be dismissed.

It's even worse now.

To be fair, however, the community college then university is a much cheaper route and they are pushing technical schools/apprenticeships as alternatives to a bloated system (at least in Indiana).

[Gust Hubb]

HoosierDaddy, on 24 August 2017 - 11:01 PM, said:

I used to feel bad about my $130,000+ student debt (8 years, 5 under 3 law school). Now, I just accept it and pay under the Obama backed Income Based Repayment plan which is fair enough, but I realize it'll most likely never be fully re-paid. It'll have to be dismissed.

It's even worse now.

To be fair, however, the community college then university is a much cheaper route and they are pushing technical schools/apprenticeships as alternatives to a bloated system (at least in Indiana).

I am in the same boat, hoping that i can get loan forgiveness sometime 15 or so years in my future. Right now, i just try to ignore it, make the IBR payments and not despair at the thousands tacked on from interest.

[Mentalist]

Your system is insane, and I'll never complain about student loans in Canada again.

Unless you go into a super-specialized program (like dentistry, med school, architecture, etc), loans were (my info is like 6 years out of date for undergrad and 3 for professional school) decently reasonable- within 15-20k per year, with grants, bursaries, work study options, etc to help you repay it. Of my undergrad 2005-2009 I got about a quarter reduced in grants. I worked during law school, so I ended up with somewhere between 40 and 50 k of debt for 2 degrees- and 10 years to repay it. With my fairly modest salary (by my industry's standards), I was still able to significantly reduce my overall debt and I should be done repaying in a few years.

US education costs are insane. And iven the competition due to the amount of people, doubly so.

[HoosierDaddy]

I worked every year for university other than as a first year. For the university. First year law students are forbidden to work during school year, here. ABA (American Bar Association) requires that, worked the summer, though. I worked during 2L and 3L years.

So out of the 8 years I worked multiple jobs for 6/8.

It's an "investment." Lol.

[QuickTidal]

https://youtu.be/YibDgSd02Xk

[HoosierDaddy]

If the office had only Captain Kirk running amuk, that'd be easy. The entire engineering and security team support his asshattery. And, we care about our redshirts.