The other issue is the country has gone in two different directions on how it should be governed.
A moderate from South Carolina is not a moderate from Vermont.
A moderate from South Carolina is not a moderate from Vermont.
OT: Thoughts on Proportional Representation
- Thread starter FLaw47
- Start date
Let’s move the goal posts back- we were talking about districts that are drawn in such a manner as to create non competitive races leading to extreme candidates that is exacerbated by the two party system.
Senators and governors are statewide races where the only bias is the two party primary system. As an expected result, both of our Senators are pretty conservative as is our governor, but moderate their rhetoric just enough to avoid giving the othe party an uncontested middle.
I think LG is trying to rechannel hair on fire rhetoric to appease the fringe groups that would challenge him. (I think it’s mostly an act of pandering by a career politician that many see through).
I believe McMaster is of the Kelley Bryant philosophy- he waited his turn, stayed out of trouble and it’s just his turn to be the man. Luckily for us, the only thing politically weaker than the governor’s office in SC is the Lt Gov’s office.
There are only 3 black senators. 1 republican and 2 Democrat. 3% of senators are black.
House of Representatives there are 46 black people. A percentage of 10%.
Gerrymandering is beneficial to both parties. It’s no different than how Harvard handles admissions.
House of Representatives there are 46 black people. A percentage of 10%.
Gerrymandering is beneficial to both parties. It’s no different than how Harvard handles admissions.
Black people make up 12% of the population. Not that far from House %.
This discussion really isn't about the authenticity of things Lindsey Graham is currently doing, but I think he was genuinely pissed off by the Democrats' behavior with the whole Kavanaugh thing. It's not like he's suddenly out their throwing bombs on random subjects.
It seems like your attitude is largely cynical when it comes to what exists and overly optimistic about how things might turn out with some other way of doing things.
What I meant is that they're moderate in tone and not given to going to extremes very often, either rhetorically or policy-wise. Graham is more conservative than people who just pay attention to rhetoric think he is, but he's not among the most conservative senators- his lifetime ACU rating is about 80.
I wouldn't even say that politics turns normally decent people into crooks, but the oppositional nature of it combined with too high expectations of what politics can deliver makes people think just about everybody involved in politics is a crook.
This would be true if politicians from either party were really interested in doing what their constituents want. Truth is,DC is utterly corrupt and completely bankrupt of any ideal of representing "We the people".
D.C. Operates on people making themselves rich, people exercising extraordinary power, people working towards their own political agenda or doing just enough to keep their cushy job and collect their comparatively outrageous benefits.
Sorry that's just the way it is. While I appreciate a good intellectual exercise of discussion it's really moot given the total corruption of our Governments -local, state and national. I have little hope things will change soon or ever.
Things will get better for a while but it takes something on the magnitude of revolution/civil war to get millions of government beaurocrats at all levels, who have no threat of losing their jobs, to work according to principles they seldom believe in or care about, or to get them out of the government. "Not gonna happen"
Who is 'We the People'? You make it sound like there is a common core of values that all Americans have. I used to believe this 20 years ago. But I no longer believe that is the case.
Half right. Cynical about what exists. I have to deal with our representatives at both state and federal level. As a whole, they are far from our best and brightest.
Only slightly less cynical about other options.
I think you are barking up the wrong tree.
No voting booth on Earth is going to overcome the worst enemy of a once free society, the overreaching, ever consuming bureaucracy that dictates our every move. The unelected officials who run this machine (and make our laws) have no oversight, no jurisdiction, yet engineer the very way of life we live on a whim that best suites their desires.
The debt (their income) continues to increase, production continues to decrease, entitlements continue to increase, standards of living continue to widen just to name a few. Voting booths can't fix what was never intended to be fixed. In modern time, a truly untouchable form of "government" has done more to marginalize our society than any monetary figure could ever do it justice.
I would be in favor of it. Part of the extreme partisan climate we have and the lack of moderate politicians in Washington is due to current gerrymandering of districts.
If you have that attitude, then of course you'll never think anything good can happen. Of course, even if you do have that attitude, being a more active citizen could provide closer oversight over what you think is happening.
In my experience, these days people talking about "we the people" just mean people who think the same thing as them.
I appreciate your dedication to this topic. Let's assume for a moment that you're totally correct on this. That still doesn't mean that Proportional Representation couldn't possibly improve things (or make it worse). So instead of talking about a different and mostly unrelated problem, why don't you share your thoughts on Proportional Representation specifically?
You're going overboard with these percentages. Plus, I'd say that we're getting the government we deserve.
Timely article by Carl Cannon of RCP published today on the rough percentages of each of the his "5 Tribes" of voters. Apparently I'm not the only one to see the electorate broken down into groups with a very small minority actually "happy" about the officeholder. While his article focuses on the presidency, I think it holds for other offices as well.
"Today, slightly more than one-fourth of registered voters in the United States have political views and social attitudes placing them in the camp of the “Resistance” -- to President Trump and the Trump-era Republican Party.
This is one of the five American “tribes” identified in a sweeping new public opinion survey conducted by RealClear Opinion Research, a new service offered by RealClearPolitics. The survey of 2,463 registered voters, conducted Sept. 18-28, was overseen by John Della Volpe, co-founder of SocialSphere Inc., a public opinion and analytics firm based in Cambridge, Mass.
On the other side of the spectrum are two “tribes” of Trump voters, roughly evenly divided, which together make up another quarter of the electorate. One of these groups (12 percent) is the Trump base -- the “Make America Great Again” crowd that attends his rallies and idolizes his brand of conservative populism. The other (14 percent) consists of traditional Republicans with less edgy views on issues ranging from trade to immigration to race relations.
A fourth group, which Della Volpe has dubbed “The Detached,” is even harder to peg. This segment is the youngest of the five, and the most male. They tend to be disillusioned, even disgusted, by party politics, and represent 24 percent of registered voters in the United States.
A fifth cohort, the “Independent Blues,” is the most pivotal group. In 2016 they cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton by a 12-percentage-point margin, and their skepticism toward Republicans has only grown in the ensuing two years. Just 16 percent of them say there is a strong likelihood they’ll vote for Donald Trump in 2020. By a margin of 47 percent to 28 percent they express a preference for a Democratic-controlled Congress."
Hey, can you give a link to the article itself? The survey results were pretty interesting in their own right, though. I imagine that question on capitalism would have looked very different 30 years ago.
