To The Center For Both Parties?

As I see it both parties will be needing to become more moderate. The republicans will need to become more moderate because they can no longer rely on conservative white southerners to get them elected because America's demographics are changing in favor of the democrats. Look for republicans to be more open to affirmative action. The democrats will have to become more moderate because the retiring tax-paying baby boomers will affect the taxes needed to fund much of the expansion of government that liberal democrats tend to want. So for these reasons I see both parties needing to move towards the center in the comming future.

 

So in effect you are proposing a one party state? Sounds very democratic to me.

 

I agree with this, but it's difficult for a 2 party state to pick moderate policies. Why? Because the opponent could come up with the very same moderate policies just as easy. That is why the 2 parties in the USA have grown to become very polarized opposites.

They need that "je ne sais quoi" appeal to public opinion that makes them memorable and not like the other team.

It's very, very difficult to do. And the thing is, the majority of Americans are right-wingers along the paradigm. So, any subtle shift towards the middle of the paradigm, or a middle ground between DEms and republicans is still very right-wing.

 

that's a sorry excuse for an analysis of american politics, based on ignorance.

our government does a pretty good job of tacking to the center of american political consciousness. What you fail to realize is that most americans are far to the right of their own government. A famous american historian referred to our legislative process as a "harmonious system of mutual frustration", and that is about right.

This is done in the US through a system of institutional checks and balances achieved through co-equal but separate branches of government. The legislative branch is further divided into a lower and upper house. Unlike Canada, our upper house, or senate, consists of 2 elected senators per state, who run every six years, but not all at the same time. The lower house, on the other hand, is elected every two years, and all at once. The number of members per state in the house is determined by population. The overall effect is that the senate is very deliberative, and generally insulated from the passions of the moment, while the house is a raucous affair, and in general a reflection of popular sentiment. In order to pass legislation the two houses have to negotiate not just internally, but from one chamber to another.

Please, read the US Constitution before you go blabbing on about subjects that are completely unknown to you.

 

Who are you addressing your comments to?

 

you. the reader.

and you, ari.

please, learn a bit about america before you go spouting off. you are supposed to be one of the smart ones.

 

This expands on what I said about both parties needing to move towards the center. For the dems it's about not alienating the traditional red states that Barack won and for the republicans it's about finding ways to make the party appeal to a growing diverse population(BLK-Americans,Latinos,pro-choice women etc).

 

... just as bush and DeLay introduced us to barack obama.

Really, it's not about political philosophy. it's about effective governance. the american people, as a whole, are this above all: pragmatic. When we see incompetence, we tend to get mad.

 

Yeah, right and you're supposed to be the troll?

Sorry, not into role play.

Maybe you should realize just how polarized both parties in the USA are. You claim to have been an advocate advertising people to vote Democrat in this past election, afterall.

 

do you have any information to back up your opinion?

the rest... yawn.

 

The American public has failed to get mad for a number of decades.

 

your lack of knowledge is only exceeded by your excess of opinion.

 

*yawns*

Care to prove me wrong or just lazy?

 

I think you would have to make some kind of point before I bother proving you wrong.

All you've done is repeat something you heard somewhere, only without the substance required to make it an opinion worth debating.

There are plenty of things you could say about american politics, but it would take a partisan to see the democrats and republicans as all that distinct in terms of ideology. Since Bill Clinton's terms, the entire scene has tacked to the right, one of the reasons I could not support Hillary Clinton, and...

WTF? Why am I explaining the basics to you? You don't even understand the first thing about american politics. Take a US history course, for fucksakes. Get your academic head out of its scholastic ass. Too much time "studying language", not enough time learning about the world. Seriously, there is a lot going on down here. It's not as boring as Canadian politics. You might yawn a bit less if you got informed. Why do you feel your idle bullshit is worthy of response?

Canadian arrogance, at its finest. And I thought WE were arrogant.

 

Motion

I’ve already posted on where I think the right will be going in the thread -

Neo-cons fall, who’ll rise on the right?
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=333692&f=36

And I don’t think it is about being moderate but about pitching a new ball, a libertarian ball.

That way they could drop the religious right and the neo-con agenda but gain in other areas.

But it has nothing to do with being more moderate.

*

As to the Democrats I’m not actually sure what you are saying –

“The democrats will have to become more moderate because the retiring tax-paying baby boomers will affect the taxes needed to fund much of the expansion of government that liberal democrats tend to want. So for these reasons I see both parties needing to move towards the center in the comming future”

Could you please clarify?

I think they have some financial problems but I hope they will be guided by more stable Keynesian ideas than the failed free market model to get them out of them.

**

 

An Aside

As to people making, what seems to others like, uninformed comment that happens all the time.

I’m often frustrated by those that make such comments and even more so by those that don’t seem inclined to correct their ignorance.

But getting annoyed or wining about it doesn’t work (although I’ve fallen into that trap myself).

Best to just try and explain calmly why you think them wrong and hope they can learn or to ask them why they have that opinion so you can work out where you think they are going wrong, because they may just have a reason for expressing that opinion that is logical and rational (although sometimes not).

As to ‘knowing’ US politics and the American system of government, I’ve been interested in it for 30 years and read numerous books and still I get surprised all the time.

But please remember that if you come here and you make some silly mistake, others are not always going to be kind in there corrections especially to repeat offenders.

So try and think before you post and do some rudimentary research or ask about things, before commenting on stuff that you might not be clear about, because it can be frustrating to others and you might not like the results.

 

balbus, it usually doesn't bother me, but coming from a canadian, who is obviously intelligent but tends to the arbitrary, I get embarrassed. I don't mind ignorance, and i don't mind blowhards. But when someone who clearly has the potential to be so much more than an ignorant blowhard comes on and blows hard, I get annoyed.

I do feel it is a generational issue in some ways. I remember being a Canadian student, and having impassioned and well informed debates on American imperialism. At some point, America bashing became a religion and national passtime, and the quality of the analysis has plummeted to the point that someone well-educated would actually tell us that the republicans and democrats represent two extremes of political thought, and that the american people don't get mad. That's ALL we've done for a good while now. We need less anger in this country. Which is what was so powerful this week: a single act, undertaken by millions of people, was able to wipe away so much pent up anger, not just at home, but all over the globe. Today, wearing an american flag on your backpack is no longer a sure way to get crappy service abroad.

Your point is well taken, and I realize I am whining.

Now about YOUR point, I think you hit the nail on the head. It's going to be back to the party of William F. Buckley, minus the social conservatism, or it's going to be the wilderness for a very long time.

Personally, I hope it is the libertarian wing of the party that triumphs, because this new Keynesian majority is going to need a check. Perhaps we can look forward to a national dialogue based more on issues than alliances?

 

Liberal democrats tend to be for the expansion of government programs which require tax funding. But the type of expansion of gov't they will want will be affected by our retiring boomers leaving the workforce. This will affect tax collection basically. Government's role in issues of poverty,healthcare and pensions will have to be very prioritized now and dealt with more in the market place. There just wont be enough tax dollars for anything. This is why I disagree with those(both on the left and right) who say that the democrats will try to turn America into a "welfare state" similar to some western European countries. The tax dollars won't be there for that.

This touches on this:

 

what you fail to realize is that this was intentional, and reversible.

The republicans, led by Grover Norquist on this issue, attempted to grow the size of government while simultaneously starving it of funds. This was called, by Norquist himself, "drowning the baby in the bathwater".

It was engineered, not a natural progression. It can be reversed. We need to reverse it.

The simple notion is that we can have economic liberty and prosperity, yet cushion the blows of failure. The false dilemma of freedom v. social security is not fooling too many people anymore, and the idea that the market is a loving god who can fix all our problems as long as we worship hard enough is dead.

Funny how just 3 months ago, your ideas were not out of date.

 

^
Online NewsHour: Solutions to the Social Security Problem -- January 6, 1997

Well the affects of changing demographics on programs such as social security,medicare and other gov't programs was being highlighted before Bush and Norquist came along.

I have no problem with a saftey net. But is the gov't always the best means for providing this considering that there can and will be funding problems for these saftey nets related to population shifts,deficts etc? Safety nets can be provided outside of gov't. Retirement approaches such as Roth IRA's and annuities need to be expanded. Healthcare in America could be reformed by borrowing ideas from the more market oriented Swiss approach.