Party loyalty

The Democrats are no different. If you have ever done anything political in America, you'd see that the Democrats are the cancer of the American left. They are the fairweather ruling class, and constantly throw most oppressed peoples under the bus.

We never listened to the wise and, as it turned out, prescient words of George Washington in his farewell address about the dangers of party:

In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.

Party loyalty is definitely an important part of how the Democratic party functions. It is second only to winning seats. Ruling in good faith might be something that individual activists or even, at times, a politician will pursue. But the purpose of the party is to ensure the electorate votes for it. Like a for-profit company is a profit-machine, the party is a vote-machine and all of its activities can be understood with this motive in mind. Part of that is in selling values (and, when forced, living up to them). But part of that is in tearing down your contender, organizing whisper/smear campaigns to ensure discipline, bombarding your message both through official advertisements and through relationships with media (both traditional and social), and co-opting as many leaders as possible that have the power to divert your electorate -- and getting the money so you can do all of that better than your opponent. The result is a rather grody stew of self-righteousness, favoritism, opportunism, narcissism, apathy, and the occasional genuine good which allows things to clug along. Even in such an unhealthy grouping you still have quite a few people who are genuine and doing good work, but there's no use in denying these tendencies are somehow local to one party or the other. These are the downsides you accept when you decide to go ahead and work within the party system.

I will note that you sometimes do get a crumb for such work for the people you represent so it can be easy to convince yourself that the trade is worth it. Also, I don't think it's just the party system that allows things to be like this. If you got rid of official parties then you'd see a lot of the same activity just organized along different lines -- like companies, churches, and so forth that are already functionaries of the official party system. I say this because if you look at the non-partisan elections in municipalities things aren't much different -- you just appeal to the various local chambers of commerce and clubs who actually turn the vote out within their groups, as well as the people who put money into those elections, rather than to an organized party. You become your own vote-garnering machine and are beholden to the organized interests if you want to win a seat, even if you don't declare a party.

In fact your phrase "governing the US in good fatih" becomes synonymous with winning seats. (who better than our team, our values) It's the prerequisite to governing well.


But, I have a knack for painting things in a negative light. So there's that to keep in mind.

How can country be more important than the party because the party is the best thing for the country? :D

I think many politicians, and people in general in fact, cannot see beyond the normal party politics or that the country would be going down the tubes and hit a devastating and society shattering crisis. The vast majority of politicians assume that politics will continue as it has before. If there hasn't been a devastating crisis before, there likely isn't one in the future. And that's why many times when some country is headed for the worst possible nightmare scenario, like a civil war, many politicians cannot fathom what is going to happen. Hence it is just as if suddenly the World around turns totally insane and they cannot understand where that madness came from.

Now I am surely not making such bleak forcasts about the US, but what is obvious that many politicians there simply cannot even think about the possibility that somehow in the future the two party system would change or one party could truly break apart.

For the debt crisis, well, I think they know it will come some time. Lot of people will loose their money (get a haircut) and politicians can blame the foreigners. Yet it isn't the end of the World. It wasn't when the last time the US basically defaulted on it's debt and the monetary system changed.

Quoting Benkei

Maybe it's because we have a lot more parties to chose from in the Netherlands that party loyalty isn't a big thing but I was rather flabbergasted at some comments from Republicans I read about whether they'd vote for Trump or not. The senators' comments in some cases boiled down to "at some point you're going to have to stop wondering what's best for the party and instead decide what's best for the country". (I'm paraphrasing)

I found that a surprising outlook as it suggests those senators think political power for their team is more important than governing the US in good fatih. The discussions we've had with the US possibly defaulting on their debt comes to mind where they seemed to do just that. What's the experience of US forum members in this respect? And are the Democrats any different?

The problem is one of changing a system run by the very people whose interests would be frustrated by its demise. So, if an organization is committed to keeping its position, there is no way that a third party, fourth party, or what not will make its way in.

Also note that in the U.S. it is really a state problem not a federal problem for the election design. Each state can make laws making it easier or harder for ballot access. If a state wanted to do a run-off election and not continue the current system of "first-past-the-post", it could do so. A run-off would make third candidates more viable.

Also realize that brand recognition is a huge psychological force. One does not go with anything new simply because it is untested or simply unfamiliar.

Also note that once people have been inducted into the work/family world of middle-age adulthood, fringe ideas and beliefs that one holds as a youth look scarier as it would possibly disrupt the current system that is keeping one afloat. Democratic and Republican decisions are basically in the middle ground of their respective ideologies (granted that Democrats seem to be more so than Republicans these days). Therefore, they can easily court voters who are not looking for disruption but maintenance and slight changes when needed.

Also realize that debates, the most marketable events for candidates, are run by committees that are essentially going to let as few people in as possible. The 15% mark has to be reached but who counts it, how it is counted, and all the forces keeping the third party from getting in that I mentioned prior (voter psychology, state election laws, etc.) would keep the third parties away from popular attention.

Quoting discoii

The Democrats are no different. If you have ever done anything political in America, you'd see that the Democrats are the cancer of the American left. They are the fairweather ruling class, and constantly throw most oppressed peoples under the bus.

I have often tossed Republicans and Democrats onto one manure pile, but there are differences. Democrats are almost always the party responsible for legislation that protects vulnerable and marginal groups, as opposed to Republicans. This difference manifests itself in various pieces of social legislation.

Where Democrats and Republics join in kicking the oppressed under the bus is in the area of trade and industrial/economic policy. Neither party is especially interested in the very large demographic block of working class people who have been rendered economically uncompetitive in a deliberately tilted world economy. Republican Trump and Democrat Clinton might both frequently and emotively reference this group, but for the most part both parties have have pursued policies that gang-bang this group. For Republicans, the Reagans and Bushes, screwing the working class was the least they could do.

(And a destabilized working class block of many millions of people ramifies negatively into other groups.)

Where Democrats and Republicans are not different (or are just slightly different) is in the area of defense spending, defense policy, financial regulation, and the like. Both parties are sensitive to military spending because this huge spending program showers funds on most congressional districts. Nobody wants to lose the local contracts. Both parties support a more or less aggressive policy overseas.

Historically, there were more nuanced variations. There used to be such a thing as liberal Republicans; there was also such a thing as Dixiecrats, southern Democrats who were pro-segregation, kind of KKKish, and such. All that started to fall apart in the 1960s in the fight between conservative Goldwater and Liberal Rockefeller Republicans. Ronald Reagan's two term presidency, followed by George the First, and after Clinton George the Second, were the result. The Republicans have continued their multi-decade trajectory toward the far, far right horizon.

The war in Vietnam and the Great Society Programs of Lyndon Johnson were the worst and best of times for the Democrats in the 1960s, and marked an end to the multi decade trajectory of the Democrats from Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson toward the left horizon.

The democrats and republicans are nice good cop/crude bad cop. Neither of them are on the side of the guy in the interrogation room. "Nice" is appearance rather than substance. As some homosexual pundit put it, "The democrats and republics are both going to screw you, it's just that the democrats will use vaseline."

I find that Republicans and Democrats are generally the same when it comes to self preservation. One isn't any more moral or selfless than the other in that regard.

Unlike BitterCrank, though, I do see the fundamental difference between the two parties is that the Democrats believe they can solve the country's problems by creating an underclass entirely dependent upon the producers. Democrats believe the most charitable act is to take an able bodied person and to jam his face into the biggest teat he can find so that person will no longer have to work.

Other than that, both parties are just about the same.

As a straight pundit put it, "The Democrats and Republicans are both going to screw you; it's just the Republicans will use condoms and the Democrats will use abortion." The funniest jokes always end with the word "abortion" I always say.

Quoting Hanover

Democrats believe the most charitable act is to take an able bodied person and to jam his face into the biggest teat he can find so that person will no longer have to work.

So you're a Democrat?

A Republican SCOTUS might overturn Roe v Wade. That would suck.

Reply to Mongrel I'm pretty sure that would require an Amendment.

It could be done with an amendment, but why would it require that?

Seems that the US is going through some sort of a transformation in the bi-party system. Not that the system itself will change, but the parties are changing.

What is party loyalty?

I may be a dying breed, but have voted the party that my mother voted, all my grandparents voted and all my great grandparents voted, some of the latter whom nearly were killed by the Reds during the War of Independence/Civil War. Now I do look at what parties promise, what the actually do when in power and I am many times critical of the party. Thankfully in the party that I vote in the end the more reasonable wing (in my view) has succeeded in being in power, although I do not know what the new generations will be like.

Only my hippie father likely votes for other parties (hasn't ever told), but when you rebel against your father in two generations, you'll be on the side of your grandfathers.

I don't think Trump is party motivated, or loyal to the Republican Party and many of the senior elite of the Republican Party understand this and they have come out against him in public. He has bears little allegiance to the Republican Party its ideas or its sacred cows.

His campaign is more a movement then a party campaign. He is capitalizing on the politicization of resentment especially aiming at the countries predominately white working class population the majority of whom feel left out, and worse off then they were in the 'good old days', when they were growing up. Trump is trying to exploit social cleavages, Muslims, immigrants, police versus minorities and he is accentuating the polarization of feeling of non-representation.

I think the basis of his movement is a form of populism that is not particularly party orientated, but rather pits what he frames as an establishment of elites (experts/media outlets) against common working people regardless of party. He channels himself as an outsider fighting for the common man as almost a mythic figure, one who beat 16 very professional politicians, by an amazing margin.

His mastery of a dialectical approach to politics is awesome. He proposes, denies and then proposes again and perhaps again denies. You can't make anything stick against him, because he simply retreats to his motte of ambiguity. He shoots straight from the hip and really doesn't care what anyone thinks about it, which only further endears him to his following.

Quoting Michael

I'm pretty sure that would require an Amendment.

It wouldn't require an Amendment. Just like the Court ruled that abortion was a Constitutional right, they could rule it's not.

You make an interesting point that only an outsider would make. You assume that there must have been some clear textual support for the right to abortion, else the Court could never have held as it did. With that assumption, you infer that if the Court were to over-rule Roe v. Wade it would need to first have the Constitution amended so as to remove the text that provides the right to abortion.

The problem (from the right at least) is that the Constitution is silent to the issue of abortion and it was the Justices who created that right through a tortured reading of various parts of the Constitution. They sort of found that right implicit in the Constitution. The truth is though that the right is not there in any textual sense, so to over-rule Roe would only require that this set of Justices fail to see what a prior set was somehow able to decipher.

Reply to Hanover I'm aware that, in principle, they could overrule it. But doesn't precedent play a very important role in the U.S. courts? And given that a number of subsequent decisions have since upheld Roe v. Wade and the right to abortion, wouldn't it be unlikely that any future court would overrule them (without a constitutional amendment)?

Although, to be fair, when I posted that I read Mongrel's comment as saying POTUS rather than SCOTUS.

Reply to Michael The question of how much authority a current Supreme Court gives to its prior rulings (stare decisis) depends upon the personal ideology of the Justice ruling. It's clear that there have been Justices that were willing to over-rule Roe v. Wade in the past, but I don't think it's something the current Justices want to wade (see what I did there) into now.

Reply to Hanover I don't see this to be the case with the Democratic party at all. Especially since they seem to be actively killing the teat as opposed to how you describe them.

Here's a fact though: both Republicans and Democrats have multiple juicy teats for corporations to suck from that they constantly deliver on time without delays to billionaires, that much I think we can agree on.

In over ten years of asking if anyone knows the simple distinction between a lynch mob and a democracy I have yet to hear the correct answer from even academics. Furthermore, I've discovered that over half the people online that I've spoken with are suspicious of the common dictionary and prefer to make up their own definitions for words despite being clueless the dictionary merely contains popular definitions. You simply can't have a democracy when nobody knows the meaning of the word and everyone is busy arguing their own definitions. Hence, the reason I suppose that these days its always the candidate who has more money for advertising that wins the election and we have people like Trump who is a long time huge professional wrestling fan and reality TV star running for office by spouting smack.

The idea that America is still a democracy is just more advertising as far as I'm concerned. Its empire baby, and this train ain't stopping until she derails. They've indefinitely suspended our constitutional rights, created the largest prison population in the history of world, and congress have given the military the right to round citizens up like cattle. The real thing to worry about is if the economy goes completely south because that's how Hitler came to power, when people were desperate.

Quoting wuliheron

In over ten years of asking if anyone knows the simple distinction between a lynch mob and a democracy I have yet to hear the correct answer from even academics.

Democracies tend to be bigger than lynch mobs, I suppose.

Reply to Bitter Crank

Since neither democrats nor republicans seem to be capable of making the distinction they are both part of the same lynch mob. The distinction, of course, between a democracy and a lynch mob being that a lynch mob can even hang their own majority and still be recognized as a lynch mob. In a democracy, that's what's call civil war when you no longer have a functional government.

Representative democracies are even bigger than lynch mobs.