Final-Fan said:
sc94597 said:
1&2 Gary Johnson is polling at 11% currently. He probably won't get that much of the vote, but even if he gets something like 5% it is a huge change from the 1% that the Libertarian party usually gets. And that 5% can win or lose a candidate if he or she got those votes. Why wouldn't the loser adjust his/her views to appeal to these people next go around?
3. Yes you can have it both ways. Both parties are losing membership not to each-other, but rather to the population of non-voters/independents/third parties. Trump is kiling the GOP's future, but if he wins he kills the Democratic party's present power. That doesn't mean the Democratic party can't come to prominence if it changes drastically, but it also doesn't mean that the Democratic party is in any good position. A Trump win, also doesn't mean the GOP is in any good position either. It is still losing voters regardless.
4. You mean the Libertarian party? Like I said, Gary Johnson is polling at 11%.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/mar/24/libertarian-gary-johnson-double-digits-race-agains/
And since the polls it seems as if more people are looking toward Libertarians because many Cruz voters don't want to vote for Trump.
5. Sorry, the last five presidents have done the same thing. Increased the national debt, restricted rights, started wars. Was there much of a difference between Obama and Bush in policy? Not really. In rhetoric? A world. Hillary is going to be more of the same, and Trump isn't conservative enough to pick a good supreme court nominee anyway. This is the same guy who in 2000 supported the assault weapons ban and was as pro-choice as you can get. Every day of the week he flip flops. Literally this was the case with the minimum wage and transgendered rights last week. Obviously there is something greater that makes presidents act in the same way regardless of their ideology.
6. I am all for local activism, but the problem is that the way the GOP and Democratic parties are structured is very top-down. This has gotten a bit better on the GOP side of things with the tea party movement, but it still is mostly true. For that reason change needs to happen at all levels at the same time. There are still local and state successes of course, the free state project for example chose the easiest legislature and local parties to infiltrate (New Hampshire) and they are succeding slowly but surely, but they'd be squashed if people weren't protecting them from the national commitee's on the federal level.
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3. I really don't think it's plausible that BOTH major parties would implode at the same time in the way you're suggesting. More likely one would go, leaving the other temporarily strengthened by filling some of the power vacuum and one or more third parties growing to real national importance (or a new one springing up) to fill the rest. Possibly after that shook out the other one might also collapse but I don't see them both collapsing within a decade of each other.
4. How does that 11% number compare with similar polls done in the past? In other words, is this really such a remarkable number of people claiming support for Libertarians or is it "the Ron Paul effect" (vocal minority disproportionately represented by polling method or otherwise evaporating by election day)? This is an honest question because I don't know.
5. I do agree that there are such forces at work influencing the President's policymaking but saying they tend to lean that way once in office doesn't mean they all end up at the same place. In other words, where they started affects where they end up. I disagree that Obama and Bush acted in exactly or substantially the same way, while I agree that it was too close to being so.
6. I think that local RCV methods being implemented (which they have been in various places) produces public acceptance, and obviously proves its practicality, leading to increased ability to pressure for it at higher levels. I would love to implement it nationally without having to do a patient bottom-up campaign but I don't see it as a practical possibility. I would love to see myself proven wrong.
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3. I didn't say they both will implode at the same time. I was saying that both of them have a chance of imploding, as neither party is healthy.
4. In the last election polls were something like 3%. http://www.gallup.com/poll/155537/little-support-third-party-candidates-2012-election.aspx
The 11% result is quite big. It is mostly because Clinton and Trump are so undesirable.
5. Maybe not exactly, as they didn't exist in the same period with the same problems, but Obama didn't change anything about the U.S foreign policy, and that was something he -as president - as a ton of power over. Obama was an esablishment candidate in revolutionary clothing.
6. No disagreement here. I can't see the national parties letting this happen though unless they are to weak/limited to do anything about it.
