No, DeSantis isn't "winning" against Walt Disney World

GoBucks89:

2016 and 2020 elections screamed third party candidate. If its Biden v Trump part duh, 2024 will as well.

Vater:
To me, having a clear conscience was more important than casting a vote for the swill offered by the Rs and Ds.

The false equivalence here between what the two parties are offering is staggering, depressing, and, most importantly, a necessary ingredient to our march toward Christo-fascist authoritarianism.

Yeah, I don't understand that either. Members of one party supported a violent, illegal attempt to overturn a fair election and the vast majority of the member of said party refuse to condemn it and call it what it was. The two parties are not equivalent.

That anyone thinks either party offers anything resembling small government and individual freedom is concerning. They have both attempted to march us directly away from centrism for decades...perhaps since Trump, only the Democrats have been better at their subtlety in doing so. Maybe.

Pfft. Third party candidates never win.

The Progressive Party of TR (The Bull Moose as colloquially known) almost got pretty close... and they beat the actual Republicans.

And on this platform.

The platform's main theme was reversing the domination of politics by business interests, which allegedly controlled the Republicans' and Democrats' parties alike. The platform asserted that the first task of the statesmanship of the day was to destroy the invisible Government, and to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics.[7]

To that end, the platform called for

strict limits and disclosure requirements on political campaign contributions,
registration of lobbyists, and
recording and publication of congressional committee proceedings.

In the social sphere the platform called for

a National Health Service to include all existing government medical agencies;
social insurance, to provide for the elderly, the unemployed, and the disabled;
limited injunctions in strikes;
a minimum wage law for women;
an eight-hour workday;
a federal securities commission;
farm relief;
workers' compensation for work-related injuries;
an inheritance tax, and
a constitutional amendment to allow a federal income tax.
The political reforms proposed included

women's suffrage,
direct election of senators, and
primary elections for state and federal nominations.
The platform also urged states to adopt measures for "direct democracy", including

the recall election (citizens may remove an elected official before the end of his term),
the referendum (citizens may decide on a law by popular vote),
the initiative (citizens may propose a law by petition and enact it by popular vote), and
judicial referendum (when a court declares a law unconstitutional the citizens may override that ruling by popular vote).

He got 4 million votes and roughly 27% to Wilson's 41%, and the Socialists even got 6%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...l_election

LaFollette who led the Progressives in '24 and is almost completely forgotten, got nearly 5 million votes or 16.6%

https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...l_election

In 1922 La Follette was elected to serve another term in the Senate in a larger progressive congressional wave from Western states. La Follette turned this new bloc in Congress into an opposition group, and later into a political party for which he ran for president. His goal, he said, was to deconstruct private monopolies that had amassed too much power in a country that ought to be run by the people. This new, non-Roosevelt Progressive Party would represent the country’s laborers and farmers, not big business.

This all sound familiar???

GoBucks89:

2016 and 2020 elections screamed third party candidate.

Serious question: what about Joe Biden “screams” third-party to you?

I’ll grant you age is a worry, but that’s not a scream to me; especially after two and a half years of a basically competent administration. Other than speaking slowly, I don’t see indications of mental decline.

You don’t have to agree with his policies, but he’s no wild-eyed leftist, his policies are basically in line with the mainstream left of the US (which is not very far left).

He’s as experienced as any presidential candidate of my lifetime.

And for that, he gives every impression of being a decent, compassionate, honest person, which I happen to think are important qualities in a leader.

Cater, I agree not one party is working towards small govt, one never has, the other lies about it. However, one party purposefully rallied around a centrist candidate and has placed its wing in a corner and limited their voice. The other party is scared of its wing, and has allowed them to become the voice of the entire party. It’s not the same at all.

I am conservative on fiscal policy and pretty libertarian on social issues. I cannot in good faith vote for any Republican at this time, I wrote in a person in 2016 because I couldn’t vote for either candidate. I voted straight blue since, one party supports to continuation of democracy, the other does not. When push comes to shove, policy doesn’t matter when our system of government is threatened.

Touchdown:

Cater,

GoBucks89:

Republicans don't lose when democrats win elections. And democrats don't lose when republicans win elections. They both only lose when neither of them win elections.

I understand the third sentence. I do not understand the first two. Living in a state that has seen all three branches of government transition from R to D in the past few cycles suggests to me that there is at least some material and non-trivial difference between the two.

Neither may be a perfect or even very good fit to one's personal preferences, but they are different in some dimensions that matter to many people.

Vater:
That anyone thinks either party offers anything resembling small government and individual freedom is concerning.

Some people aren't looking for that. I'm not looking for that. I guess if someone is looking for that, the question is which is least bad along those lines.

Vater:
They have both attempted to march us directly away from centrism for decades.

I don't equate "centrism" with "small government" or "individual freedom," but I may be insufficiently nuanced. It's also interesting to note that one can change the definition of "centrism" through rhetorical expansion of the Overton window, so one man's centrism is another man's extremism.

Vater:

That anyone thinks either party offers anything resembling small government and individual freedom is concerning. They have both attempted to march us directly away from centrism for decades...perhaps since Trump, only the Democrats have been better at their subtlety in doing so. Maybe.

Only one party has openly embraced fascism, and permitted a sitting President to incite an attack on the United States Congress with the goal of overturning an election, and then helped, and continues to help, him avoid accountability for that terrorist attack through flat out gaslighting?

As if that weren't enough - and it is astonishing and troubling that it's not for some people - that same party is now banning books, stripping away basic human rights, etc., and because voters aren't punishing them for it, they show no signs of slowing down. There are enough historical examples of this to know where this leads if permitted.

I fail to see how universal health care (or whatever) presents a remotely similar danger.

I guess it's not enough to vote for a candidate that aligns with my political beliefs better than either of the two clowns in the big parties. I have to choose a side: evil or (arguably) a smidgen less evil. Better than not voting at all, right? Rock the vote and all that.

Fine, I'm a registered Democrat now.

The_Orient_of_Express:

Both parties are crap. Neither party cares about the common people anymore.

Biden's efforts to reduce/eliminate student debt don't really jive with this sentiment.

What I see: one party sorta maybe cares about regular people, the other party's sole mission is to remain in power.

Vater:

...evil or (arguably) a smidgen less evil...

I don't care who you vote for, I'm just pushing back against your proclamation that the two parties are the same. To that end I'm curious what actions elected Democrats have taken that are equivalent (or "a smidgen less" equivalent) to inciting or abetting the incitement of a terrorist attack on the US government.

Vater:

I have to choose a side: evil or (arguably) a smidgen less evil.

You can do whatever you want. You don't have to do anything in particular in This Here Democracy. You can vote for anyone you like, or no one at all.

You can vote for a third-party candidate, or not vote at all, rather than vote for your not-quite-least-favorite among the two major nominees. And the practical impact of not voting for your not-quite-least-favorite candidate is that it increases the chances that your least-favorite candidate wins the job. If that doesn't matter, (or for some reason you genuinely see them as equally bad) then it doesn't have to influence your decision.

Brian Noble:

You can vote for...no one at all.

But then, how will I get my sticker?

While I'm not a fan of party politics, I generally sigh when anyone tries to make a moral equivalence argument. One side wants to destroy democracy, ban books, regulate vaginas, make it harder to vote, spend insane amounts of money the military isn't asking for... The other side is going to, what, destroy the country with healthcare and college? Even if they could get that sort of thing passed, you can't say with a straight face that it's the same thing.

Joe Biden is remarkably uninteresting, uninspiring, and a reasonably capable administrator. I don't agree with him all of the time, but I'm confident he's not going to try to cling to power and threaten people. Even if he were a crazy leftist, which he is not even remotely, he definitely is not an autocrat or fascist.

Raven-Phile:

But then, how will I get my sticker?

You can always submit a blank ballot. You're not required to vote in any particular race in the election.

You're welcome.

Jeff:

The other side is going to, what, destroy the country with healthcare and college?

I know this is loaded and set up to belittle and highlight extreme differences and that the idea that anyone would try to play this game is just an invitation for the CBuzz political train to come barreling down, but...

Yes.

I'm equally unexcited by, and unsupportive of, the the idea of fascist vaginal-regulated military spending as I am in covering the costs of college and healthcare for all.

Nothing to do with morals and everything to do with, what I think at least, people mean when they say, "Both sides are the same."

Huh. I literally can't wrap my head around that.

Which may explain exactly why both sides seem so far away from common ground.