Senate The US Politics discussion

But they continue to do so, which makes their 2014 and 2016 chances look dimmer by the day.

 

True, but while part of my likes that, part of me wishes we just had two functional parties and a functional government again.

 

I wish we had ONE functional party honestly.

 

Oh for goodness' sake! I was rooting for a Jeb Bush/Condi Rice ticket because it would mean an important departure from the current nutjob Republican establishment and it would indicate the Republicans are serious about combating the demographic problem, the perception that they are a party for white men. The GOP just doesn't know how to pitch to minorities and it's really not that hard.

 

They can't relate to minorities in any mode that does not include either shameless pandering or paternalistic condescension.

 

Give me examples of what you mean by those two phrases because I want to clarify before I respond properly.

 

I mean that they either try to appeal to minorities by saying things like "get off the Democratic plantation" or by appointing conservative blacks as token leaders.

They don't seem to understand the very basic issue of comradeship and the mutual respect that Dems show to minorities (often because they are minorities.) Republicans seem to think they can feed off of white racial resentment while at the same time appealing to blacks and hispanics through "traditional values" (materialism and religious opposition to homosexuality)

They are as dumb as a bag of bricks, IOW.

 

Out of interest, are you an ethnic minority?

 

I know this is between you two, but I felt the need to interject that I really don't see how the answer to that question would have any bearing on the discussion one way or the other.

 

No.

 

Jeb Bush. I recall opinions and such concerning George and Jeb. That is should have been Jeb instead of George if the GOP was to be taken seriously. So we hear now that Jeb flips on immigration. He is against stem cell research. he doe snot have a kind history with gays and feminism. Likes tax cuts for rish folks. Global Warming "skeptic". Wants to make Social Security a corporate privitization.

He's just another far right wacko.

 

I don't think anybody's trying to convince you, it seems you're a pretty dyed-in-the-woll 'liberal' (as you Americans call them)

 

That must be it. It's not about right or wrong or faux views, it's about a label that may or may not apply to me.

 

As long as someone can be characterized as a liberal, you can dismiss them for having bias and pay no further attention to what they say. This is "Conservative Reasoning 101."

 

a) I'm not a conservative and b) I wasn't not paying attention to what he(?) was saying. I merely said that people who are staunchly against the Republican Party and who would never vote Republican aren't the kinds of people any future Republican 'direction' (in terms of amassing votes) would try to get on side.

I'm not making a judgement, just stating a fact: you have to get people enthusiastic enough about you to get them to go out and vote for you. Those kinds of 'swing', uncommitted voters are the types that either party want to poach. It's just simple logic.

And I only used the term 'liberal' because isn't that the term used for people who are sort of centre/left on economics and progressive on social issues? Don't people self-identify as liberals...? I'm not American but a lot of my American friends do.

 

Well, most conservatives here claim to be libertarians.

That assumes that there is enough of an uncommitted middle, which seems to be changing at the moment. The Republicans focus both on their "base" and the middle, while Democrats don't really have a base in the same way. Nevertheless, demographic swings are killing the GOP right now, and they can't get either Far Right or Centrist enough to solve their problems.

The phrase you are looking for is "Social Liberal" in contradistinction to "Market Liberal". But you are right, the term has a different connotation in the US than elsewhere.

 

Oh, I hate conservatives who claims to be libertarians. They make the rest of us look bad

In Australia, our right-wing party (it's called the Liberal Party... Look, I know, it's confusing...) does a lot better with minorities than the Republican Party does because they do a better job of making their policy appeal to the middle class. Since the majority of ethnic minorities in Australia are solidly middle class due to the skilled immigration that's made up our intake over the last few decades, there's a lot of room to appeal to them: you pitch policies about helping small business through deregulating/cutting red tape and business tax cuts, you appeal social conservative values relating to the importance of the family, since the Eastern cultures that make up most of our immigrant population share those beliefs. Not to mention, immigrants came here looking for better economic opportunities and a standard of living for their kids.

But all of that only works so long as you treat minorities like people instead of minorities and that doesn't always happen - you won't meet many members of ethnic minorities who want to vote for a party that sees them and their culture as inferior and makes them need to continually justify their presence/existence in this country. IMO this is the Republican Party's problem - they pretty much ignore minorities and all of their behaviour is tinged with xenophobia which is why so many minorities can't in good conscience vote for people like that even if their political interests are better served by voting Republican. Politicians who subvert this do rather well, like Rubio and Jeb Bush. Really, it's not hard, the Canadian Conservatives have done it to great success.

 

Even the relatively legitimate libertarians are still inordinately focused on government spending and welfare issues. They seem to consistently side with the authoritarian right wingers instead of the social liberal democrats. It is probably because of the insane Randism.

I am not saying you are wrong, just missing the point. Conservatism in America cannot really be separated from the racial resentment politics of the South.

 

Of course it bloody can. Republicans were more liberal than Democrats were up until around WWII. It happened once, why can't it happen again?

PS: Randism is about much of a libertarian strawman as Marxism is a left/progressive strawman.

 

Well, the South was solidly Democratic when the Democrats were the conservatives. Then the Democrats championed Civil Rights, and the South flipped to the Republicans.

I think many Southerners actually support welfare programs, and similar "big government"... they just don't like to have their money "taxed away" to pay for these programs for "those lazy [minorities]".

Most of the South will eventually become minority-majority states, just hope that happens sooner than later (and that they actually vote).

 

I recognize that this was not directed at me, but for general education I will answer anyway.

I am. I am not Hispanic. Hispanics are a plurality in my state.

 

You are from Australia? Tell me what you think about Julia Gillard.

 

Wait, so you're white?

 

I was kinda excited when she became PM because I thought a childless, unmarried, atheist, female PM was a better representative of me than anybody else. It makes no difference to politics, though. I couldn't care less about her, to be honest. I think they're both rubbish - though I'd probably end up voting Liberal, 2 party preferred.

 

That is a facepalm moment right there. The current political situation emerged precisely because the Democrats were seen by Southerners to flip on race relations due to JFK's advocacy of the Civil Rights Act.

Even in the early 1900s, the Democrats were the more anti-business, pro-working class party, but nowhere near to the extent they would become after Franklin Roosevelt.

I've had more than my fair share of debates with Objectivists. Just because you might not be one does not make it a strawman.