Do you think it will make a significant difference if the president is democrat or republican?

[yoink 321]

Quade put me onto this guys videos a while back.

He explains voting methods in a simple way - easy for my tiny brain to understand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE - it's actually worth watching the previous video to this one to see the problems with First Past the Post voting as well.

[Stumpy 256]

base698

That's just the line of reasoning political marketing guys get independents to swing democrat or republican.

That doesn't make it invalid.

Never try to eat more than you can lift

[wmw999 2,121]

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when the parties are mainly defined by the extreme social positions that their constituents want to force on the rest of us

And the problem is that this definition is based on "most identifiable mark" views, rather than ones that actually ask for information.

Because Rush (or whoever) gives us our view of what liberals want, and Huffpost (or whoever) gives us our view of what conservatives want. As long as we see only what's different, we see the extremes.

It's kind of like trying to describe someone that you've seen, but aren't very familiar with. Like (for instance), white people trying to describe black or asian or hispanic people, or black people trying to describe white, hispanic, or asian, etc. -- when they don't live in a very multicultural community.

When everyone you deal with is white, it can be easy to focus on the darker skin, without noticing that there are many, many shades. It's the first most noticeable thing, and diminishes the importance of the others.

If you see a banana yellow car, you focus on its color, and unless you're a car guy, you don't notice what kind it is. If it's the same color and general shape as yours, you might notice what kind it is.

Same thing works for thoughts. Conservative Christians aren't all alike, just as Muslims and atheists aren't either.

Moonies, on the other hand

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[Rick 67]

thanks for the link very helpful

You can't be drunk all day if you don't start early!

[kallend 1,623]

Darius11

***>Mandate? About 18% of eligible voters voted for the party that "won".

And they will take that as an indication that THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN. Heck, it would be a slap in the face to voters to NOT ban gay marriage after that.

I wish there was a mechanism to vote no confidence when you feel they all suck as they often do. Not sure how the mechanism would work, you cant keep voting no confidence forever someone has to take charge.



In parliamentary democracies a no-confidence vote often leads to the fall of the government and new elections. Seems to work OK in most places, with the obvious exception of Italy where it causes chaos.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[CanuckInUSA 0]

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In parliamentary democracies a no-confidence vote often leads to the fall of the government and new elections. Seems to work OK in most places, with the obvious exception of Italy where it causes chaos.

I can't ever remember a scenario with a parliamentary system where a majority government voted itself out of power on a non-confidence vote which forced an election. It's only when a government governed with a minority mandate, that this sort of thing has happened. Of course here in the Province of Alberta, recently the governing party who had a majority mandate forced the sitting Premier to resign from office after a spending scandal broke out. So while I've never seen a sitting government vote itself out of office, I have seen a sitting government (very recently) force it's corrupt leader out of office.

Now in terms of the OP's question in this thread asking is there a difference what party the POTUS comes from? Fundamentally I would say no, it does not make much of a difference. My opinion is that the POTUS is nothing more than a puppet. But I don't ever remember Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton or GWB ever shitting down the throats of some of the USA's traditional allies. As flawed as all the past Presidents were, they knew not to insult their allies in the world.

The same can not be said about the current incumbent.

Try not to worry about the things you have no control over

[TheBachelor 4]

Yes, our president has just shown that regardless of what the people and congress want, he can do a lot with just the stroke of his pen (and a teleprompter for afterwards.)

Of course, when a party has control of both houses of congress and the white house, the damage can be much greater. Of course I like when that's the case for my party, but as Billvon said, I think it's better when there's a balance of power.

There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

[Stumpy 256]

TheBachelor

the people and congress want

Those two groups often want entirely different things.

Never try to eat more than you can lift

[Andy9o8 0]

TheBachelor

Yes, our president has just shown that regardless of what the people and congress want, he can do a lot with just the stroke of his pen (and a teleprompter for afterwards.)

Of course, when a party has control of both houses of congress and the white house, the damage can be much greater. Of course I like when that's the case for my party, but as Billvon said, I think it's better when there's a balance of power.

Yet some people who advocate that also advocate a parliamentary-style of government. But that's not logically consistent, because in most parliamentary systems the PM/premier is leader of the same party that's in (or controls) the majority in the legislature.

[GeorgiaDon 340]

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Yet some people who advocate that also advocate a parliamentary-style of government. But that's not logically consistent, because in most parliamentary systems the PM/premier is leader of the same party that's in (or controls) the majority in the legislature.

However, most parliamentary-style democracies are also multi-party systems, sometimes to a fault. Sometimes a single party wins an outright majority, but more often no one party holds a majority and they can rule only by forming a coalition with other parties. The price for such a coalition is that the smaller parties also get to bring some of their legislative priorities to the table. In Canada, universal health insurance and other social programs made it into law largely because the NDP (New Democratic Party) held the balance of power and so was able to leverage the Liberal Party to enact NDP policies. The combination of a parliamentary system with multiple political parties allows a diversity of political perspectives to be voiced. Of course, when a party holds an outright majority then they can enact legislation without considering other points of view, that is true.

I also like the idea of "question period", when the leader of the government has to take questions/criticism from the opposition, and must respond. I often wondered how Bush Jr. would have fared if he had to regularly appear for "question period", though I'm sure his father would have done well with it.

The US is about the only democracy I can think of that is rigidly locked into a two party system. One problem with that is that everybody mainly triangulates on winning, which means 50% plus one vote; everybody has a locked-in base they can depend on, and ends up fighting over the small fraction of voters in the middle. Neither party can risk bringing anything really new or different to the policy table.

Don

_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

[DrewEckhardt 0]

Darius11

Do you think it will make a significant difference if the president is democrat or republican?

Absolutely. Democratic presidents are more likely to sign and agitate for gun bans and more punitive taxes. Republicans are more likely to restrict abortion and oppose gay rights.

Otherwise they're about the same as you'd expect given first-past-the-post elections - for big government and the organized transfer of wealth to the corporatist interests paying to elect their parties.

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My answer is no i am one of those crazy conspiracy guys who thinks the not 1% but the .0001% who control money and industry control everything.

There's no conspiracy - it's just a natural side effect of the American political system.

Corporate executives have a fiduciary duty to their companies and share holders which they satisfy by maximizing profits, and the returns on politics are great.

The defense industry is the all time champion, sucking up more money than the rest of the world spends put together.

The drug companies also do especially well with their PhRMA ( (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America) which passed $1T per decade tax to industry transfers with both Republicans (Medicare Part D) and Democrats (ACA - that took $100 million in advertising) running the show.

I especially liked their soap-opera relationship with Representative Billy Tauzin - first he sold them memberships to pay for his hunting ranch, then they thank him for helping pass Medicare Part D with a seven figure job as their President and CEO (total compensation $11.6 million in 2010 when he closed the deal with Obama), and finally they turned on him for the drug discounts he gave in exchange for removing the re-import provision.

There's also the National Association of Realtors RPAC, ranked first in campaign contributions to candidates for every election since at least 1998 which is where the opensecrets.org detailed data stops.

[Andy9o8 0]

Agreed, for the most part.

The solution.

[SivaGanesha 2]

I believe it makes a very big difference--but mainly in terms of the new, unforeseen, challenges that the new president will face--which by definition we cannot foresee. When it comes to their approach to the existing status quo, it is unlikely a new president of either party will change much.

For example, Obama talked about closing Guantanamo, but it never happened. Republicans talk of repealing Obamacare but I don't see it happening even if Republicans control all three parts of the gov't.

But when it comes to new issues that will arise after 2016 and on which no one owes anyone any political debt yet, because no one has anticipated the problem--it makes a huge difference who the president is and how they approach it.

"It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014