Which party's electoral/demographic coalition is more unstable?
       |           

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
March 29, 2024, 12:18:55 AM
News: Election Simulator 2.0 Released. Senate/Gubernatorial maps, proportional electoral votes, and more - Read more

  Talk Elections
  General Politics
  U.S. General Discussion (Moderators: The Dowager Mod, Chancellor Tanterterg)
  Which party's electoral/demographic coalition is more unstable?
« previous next »
Pages: 1 [2]
Poll
Question: Which party's electoral/demographic coalition is more unstable?
#1
Democrats'
 
#2
Republicans'
 
#3
Don't know
 
Show Pie Chart
Partisan results

Total Voters: 36

Author Topic: Which party's electoral/demographic coalition is more unstable?  (Read 1514 times)
Tetro Kornbluth
Gully Foyle
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 12,846
Ireland, Republic of


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #25 on: October 15, 2012, 09:15:30 AM »
« edited: October 15, 2012, 09:18:03 AM by Iatrogenesis »

Republicans. Soccons are not going to keep sharing the same party with libertarians. One or the other has to crack.
libertarians don't actually exist outside of the internet

And university economics departments. But apart from those places... yeah.

I'm not America o/c so this opinion can be taken with a grain of salt but I'm not sure that I totally agree with those saying the Republicans simply on the grounds that while the current Republican coalition is obviously unstable and potentially fissiparous, it obviously has not done so yet and it has not done so for a particularly obvious reason: The belief in the existence of a widespread left-wing 'threat' (which is o/c partly a hold-over from anti-communism, but not only that). This is why when you read contemporary republican discourse much of it is actually really about 'the left' (or liberals, the two terms are used interchangably but always imply a uniform, united 'enemy') and largely why political discourse is as shrill as it is. This is what managed after all to unite the Republican party so quickly after the decendance and ideological emptiness of the Bush years. The Republican party is currently an organization united to fight a threat which, at least in the political sphere, is mostly imaginary. But they have been very successful at this for 25 years now and the perception of this threat is only likely to increase (due to the changes aforementioned in American society) in the near future.

The Democratic Party on the other hand is essentially now a technocratic liberal conservative party that has to put on a progressive gloss for its voters and to differentiate it from the Republican Party. Its actual policies are if anything far more antagonistic to its voters than those of the Republicans once you exclude the goober social issues that are currently being used to create obvious divisions between the two parties which don't clearly exist on other, often much more important, issues (which doesn't mean I believe that the DEMs and the GOP are now identical apart from social issues. They're not but the believed differences and the actual differences on, say, economic policy have now long divorced each other).
Logged
opebo
Atlas Legend
*****
Posts: 47,010


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #26 on: October 15, 2012, 09:57:16 AM »

The Democratic Party ... Its actual policies are if anything far more antagonistic to its voters than those of the Republicans...

I have no problem with believing both parties to be controlled by capital and hostile to the interests of the working class, but could you elucidate how Democrats policies are 'far more antagonistic' than those of the Republicans? In what details?
Logged
Tetro Kornbluth
Gully Foyle
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 12,846
Ireland, Republic of


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #27 on: October 15, 2012, 11:58:57 AM »

The Democratic Party ... Its actual policies are if anything far more antagonistic to its voters than those of the Republicans...

I have no problem with believing both parties to be controlled by capital and hostile to the interests of the working class, but could you elucidate how Democrats policies are 'far more antagonistic' than those of the Republicans? In what details?

I said to their respective voting bases not to the working classes in general.
Logged
ag
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 12,828


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #28 on: October 15, 2012, 01:18:22 PM »

Republicans. Soccons are not going to keep sharing the same party with libertarians. One or the other has to crack.
libertarians don't actually exist outside of the internet

And university economics departments. But apart from those places... yeah.


Actually, they are almost extinct in university economics departments, actually. Sure, there is George Mason out there for libertarians - but, then, there is University of Utah for Marxists, isn't there?
Logged
Indy Texas
independentTX
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 12,258
United States


Political Matrix
E: 0.52, S: -3.48

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #29 on: October 15, 2012, 01:53:36 PM »

Republicans. Soccons are not going to keep sharing the same party with libertarians. One or the other has to crack.
libertarians don't actually exist outside of the internet

And university economics departments. But apart from those places... yeah.


Actually, they are almost extinct in university economics departments, actually. Sure, there is George Mason out there for libertarians - but, then, there is University of Utah for Marxists, isn't there?

The irony about hardcore libertarians is that most of them basically don't live in the "real" economy. They work in academia, journalism or think tanks. They will never be laid off. The competition for narrow profit margins of the "widget-producing" industries is something they have no direct contact with. Ayn Rand kept a small fortune in zero-interest checking accounts because she didn't trust the stock market.
Logged
All Along The Watchtower
Progressive Realist
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 15,426
United States


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #30 on: October 18, 2012, 06:52:50 PM »
« Edited: October 18, 2012, 06:56:13 PM by Progressive Realist »

Most of the people who bankroll the GOP have absolutely nothing in common (politically or culturally) with the typical Republican voter- and especially not the typical grassroots activist.      

I actually am not too sure about that. There are a good number of wealthy individuals who have bankrolled both the Christian Right and the Tea Party movement. Some of these people have quite right-wing views not just on economics (obviously)  but also on social policy. The Chick-Fil-A CEO is just one example-there are a number of others on the Forbes 400 who have bankrolled the Christian Right.

Also, re: the typical grassroots activist-those people, from what I understand, tend to be more affluent and educated than the typical Republican voter (who is already of higher socioeconomic status than the typical American).

I've noticed that almost all of the Tea Party politicians and candidates in the Republican Party (and there is a lot of overlap with the Christian Right there) are, if not quite wealthy themselves (usually, from ownership of one or more businesses), are at least solidly "middle-class" in both economic reality and political attitudes.

I'm just not totally convinced that there is this really big cultural/political/economic divide between the voters, the activists, and the big money donors, in general, on the Republican side. The bigger divide within the Republican Party, at this point, may be between the corporate establishment types and the self-employed/small business/middle-and-lower manager types-the latter being more prone to grass-roots political activism, I suspect.
Logged
Spanish Moss
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 395
United States


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #31 on: October 18, 2012, 10:52:49 PM »

Republicans. Soccons are not going to keep sharing the same party with libertarians. One or the other has to crack.
libertarians don't actually exist outside of the internet

Really? More than 1 million people voted for Libertarian Party in the congressional elections in 2010, to say nothing of members of the Republican Party with libertarian leanings. Libertarianism is a very real, and btw strengthening, force in American politics.

In the 20th century, the extremist solution to economic decline was fascism.  In the 21st, it's libertarianism (aka, "privatized fascism").  And if things don't truly get better, I see it rising like fascism.  But unlike fascism, it will make living standards worse - not better - and will probably not last but for more than a few years.
Logged
Pages: 1 [2]  
« previous next »
Jump to:  


Login with username, password and session length

Terms of Service - DMCA Agent and Policy - Privacy Policy and Cookies

Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines

Page created in 0.031 seconds with 14 queries.