The Two Party System Leading America Over the Edge

old man 1How did you like that French election? Did it teach you anything.  You know like did it remind you of the American election in any way that made you wonder if our system is a little out of whack?  

I thought of this after I read a column in the Washington Post the other day by James Downie talking about a finding in a recent poll that the vast majority of Americans now think that  “the Democratic Party is not “in touch with the concerns of most people in the United States.” The current number — only 28 percent think the party is in touch. . . .” (38% think Trump is in touch) The 28% figure is pretty shocking especially only 3 years ago 48% believed the Democratic Party was in touch.  

What ever could have happened that caused such drastic drop? I have a good guess. It was two bigly things. The author of the column agrees with me on the first that It was the candidacy of Hillary.  It was the way the Clintons act as if they own the party and were entitled to it. It was the way she was handed the party’s nomination on a silver platter.

There was a second thing not mentioned by the author that played as big of a role. It was the absurdity of having a declared Socialist running in the Democratic primary. You didn’t see any  members of the American Nazi Party running in the Republican primary. The disenchantment with the Democrats was brought about because the people figured if it had no problem with a socialist pretending to be a Democrat perhaps it had become a socialist party itself but was pretending otherwise. 

Which brings me back to the French election.  It had five major candidates. Emmanuel Macron 39 years-old. He formed his own party. He is a centrist seeking to stay in EAU and NATO. He received the most votes and will be in final. Marine LePen of the Front National (FN) who is supported by Russia will be in the final against Macron. She is a Trump-type candidate. She favors pulling out of NATO and EU and closing borders. Note, neither one is from the French equivalent of the Democratic or Republican parties that have ruled France for 60 years.

The third place finisher was François Fillon from the traditional center right party Les Républicains. He favored closer ties with Russia. The fourth candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon from the  La France Insoumise was a Bernie Sanders writ large who would get out of EU and NATO, reduce work week to 32 hours, and put a 100% tax on income over 400,000. The last candidate Benoît Hamon is from the other traditional party the Parti Socialiste. He advocates the 32 hours work week and a guaranteed annual income for all citizens.  

Here in America we had two choices: in France at least five. For a while it looked like the far right LePen would be in the final against Melenchon: a fascist in love with Russia against a Russian dupe. Seventy years of European peace and prosperity would be at risk. Fortunately the French people had a third choice.

Here in America we had only two to choose from. Neither one of them represented a centrist positions. For many there was no choice other than trying to decide who is the least of the worst.

Like one time with the Old Man of the Mountains I never worried about the future of America. Now for the first time I can see its downfall. Each party is moving to the far edge. There is no third or fourth party to hold the center.  It is time to seriously consider a third-party starting at grass roots before what happened to the Old Man happens to our country.    

9 Comments

  1. Sufism, Sartre, and LSD! That’s what we want, and, we want them, now. Down with the egg-heads! Up with the pointy skulls!

  2. Do you think that the Administration at San Jose State will accede to the demands of the Black Students: (1)that the Rosa Parks building be painted Red, Green and Black, (2) that a house be purchased for black-only student housing, and (3) that all incoming freshmen be forced to take a “diversity” course? Of course; the Administration will cave; as Berkeley caved to the threats of protesters.
    Someone suggested that All Faculty should be required to take a “diversity of thought” course.
    Someone else said there should be affirmative action in hiring at Universities to achieve diversity of thought, so that there is an equal number of conservative and liberal professors, an equal number of republican and democrat professors, an equal number of pro-life professors. Today, one survey showed that in American English and History Departments over 90% of the professors self-identified as liberals. No wonder the students are “offended” by opposing views: they hear only one side; liberalism is drilled and drummed into their cerebral cortexes; leftist drivel is rarely challenged; they’re rarely challenged to think. They’re spoon fed; babied! They don’t think. Why think, when you have all the answers. They’ve got the answers. And they wont listen! And they got demands.

  3. But we had four parties run for President in 2016: Repubs, Dems, the Green Party and the Libertarian Party.
    Plus in the Republican Party we had 17 candidates and the Dems had 3. Americans had many choices across the political spectrum from true conservative (Rand Paul) to socialist Bernie Sanders.
    But it seems to me that, whichever party is in power of late, America can’t help being imperialistic, war-like, interventionistic, a bloated government consuming over 45% of the GDP (fed, state, local), a red-tape nightmare, an abortion mill, an academically illiberal, free-speech suppressing, free-thought stifling monstrous state that’s forsaking all its traditional values, abandoning religious values, succumbing to special interests and big buck lobbyists, and exacerbating the gaping gulf in wealth between the very rich and the rest of us. Hopefully it will change. Hope springs eternal.

  4. “free everything for everyone” – that’s what was leading the US over the edge

    including idiot late night talk shows trying to lecture us on what government is or should look like – because they had a personal experience with something or other. Jimmy Kimmel, the guy who hoisted beers on the Man Show as he chanted “hoy, hoy, hoy” with scantily clad pussies parading around, is not my idea of any sort of authority. But to Killery Pandersuit and Jug Ears Obongo and assorted media idiots (midiots, for short) – he is. That’s what was leading America over the edge:

    http://www.wnd.com/2017/05/a-thinking-moms-message-for-jimmy-kimmel/

    On Monday, late-night TV comedian Jimmy Kimmel delivered an emotional monologue about his newborn son. His baby was born with a congenital heart defect that required emergency open-heart surgery.

    Millions of American parents, myself included, have walked in Kimmel’s shoes. We’ve experienced the terrifying roller coaster of emotions – panic, helplessness, anger, anxiety, relief, grief and unconditional love – that comes with raising chronically ill kids.

    But Kimmel didn’t use his high-profile platform to educate the public about coping with rare diseases. Or to champion the nation’s best and brightest pediatric specialists and medical innovators. The Tinseltown celebrity turned his personal plight into a political weapon, which his liberal friends were all too happy to wield. Top Democrats tweeted their praise for Kimmel’s advocacy of expanded government health-care regulations:

    “Well said, Jimmy,” Barack Obama gushed.

    “Thanks @jimmykimmel for sharing your story & reminding us what’s at stake w/health care,” Hillary Clinton effused.

    The Huffington Post piled on: “Jimmy Kimmel’s Humanity Underscores Heartlessness Of GOP’s Approach To The Poor.”

    I don’t need lectures from Huffington Post and Hollywood elites about having a heart. Neither do the rest of America’s parents, whatever their political affiliations, who know what it’s like to stay up night after endless night with suffering children, wondering whether they would ever be able to breathe normally again or see the light of the next day.

    Kimmel doesn’t need more maudlin Twitter suck-uppery. He needs a healthy fact-check.

  5. I remember one gentleman from Ukraine – he moved here not too many years ago – telling me that there is far more “democracy” in Ukraine because Ukraine has over 200 parties that are registered, and there are over 150 parties represented in a (formerly) 450 seat Parliament.

    Except – those parties are known as “projects,” and they conspire with each to maintain and support a hugely corrupt system of oligarch.

    True, beginning with the Orange Revolution in 2004, the election process has gotten far better than the fixed elections that used to occur. But corruption and oligarchy did not go away. And they have a “multi-party” system, complete with crooked prosecutors, courts and judges.

    It’s not the 2-party system that is leading the US over the edge – it is Democrats, who might as well call themselves what they are – commies and socialists.

    Complete with white trash Bill Clinton perverting Loretta Lynch, sitting Attorney General, on an airport tarmac in Arizona. But then again, maybe they were just talking about “grandchildren.”

    Bernie “free-everything-for-everyone” Sanders is a Commie. Killery Pandersuit was right there with him. Shmuck Schumer has never held a job in his life, being the very fine product of Harvard-the-Kremlin-on-the-Charles, class of ’73, and he, too, pushes for a totalitarian entitlement state. Al Frankenshteen, also class of ’73, is right there with him, with bad comedy peculiar to himself.

    Why are all the libtards screeching and screaming and shrieking about and at Trump? Because Trump stood up to them. Because he called their bluff. Because he destroyed their march toward a convenient totalitarian commie state, complete with illegal immigrants “voting” for their share of money and handouts from the Politburo DNC.

    All complete with a late night talk show host referring to a sitting president as a “c((k holster.” Too bad Colbert wasn’t wearing his pussy hat when he said that.

    That’s a reflection of just how degraded the Dummycrats and their culture warriors have become. Any bets on whether Colbert will be dropped from the Commie Broadcasting System?

    In the meantime, libtards express furious outrage leading to the proud wearing of “pussyhats” – for what?

    http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-dirty-red-secrets-of-may.html

  6. American voters had more choices than the French. The winnowing processes are different. The GOP had a multitude of candidates. The Donkeys missed their best shot with Biden but they did have a couple of others in the race. In France there were actually a half dozen others on the primary ballot.

    The disaffection is across the Western world. In Spain two new parties came out of nowhere and tied up government for over a year. Similar situations are arising throughout Europe.

    It has been over seventy years since WWII ended. The war propaganda BS has held the line against reality for too long. The Internet has opened up information to younger voters and they are not buying the postwar settlement. They do not care and they should not care about the rigidly enforced catechism about ideologies rooted in the divisions made in the early 1940s.

    After the war there was a conscious, government financed , effort to monopolize the history of the the massive bloodletting. The elite learned from the revulsion of the common man to WWI when records became public and the entire enterprise came under scrutiny. In the US the press was consolidated and the new technology, television was narrowly owned and operated. Dissent was not allowed.

    It was not until the 1990s that Operation Keelhaul was exposed. Massive murders with the acquiescence of the American government – fifty years of silence. The Manichean rubbish of Good versus Evil only was available. There were to be no Charles and Mary Beards this time. Harry Elmer Barnes need not apply. The publishing industry fell in line. Official versions were printed and promoted. Everything contrary was ignored. Consider the way WWII’s greatest historical thinker David Irving has been treated.

    Over two generations the whole contraption calcified. Then came the Internet. All the settlements – financial, ethnic, doctrinal, religious – have started to be rethought. It leaves many interest groups moored apart from their traditional party. Most Republican voters hate Ryan and McConnell. Non-government union voters are not welcomed by Pelosi and Schumer. The top is not aware of the bottom in either party.

    In politics no coalition can last forever. Two to three generations is actually a pretty good run. It took a lot of censorship and subventions to keep it in place. Without television it would never have held that long.

    Our Constitution encourages a binary party system. Most end up boxed into one party or the other. A new division will hatch. Its outlines are coming into view. Nothing has hardened yet. By the time it is set in concrete I’ll be boxed in again. Though a different sort of box this time.

  7. Trump is ten points ahead of the Democrats in a liberal Post poll. Happy days are not here for the Democrats. Is the Labor Party in Britain held in the same low esteem? Some in the UK say Blair ruined Labor with his close ties to the financial industry and the war in Iraq. He promised he would be with W on the war whatever happened. So they both relied on false intel to justify the war and the subsequent deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of American troops. Hillary voted for that war. Obama the Nobel Prize winner fought that war and the one in Afghanistan for eight years. He gave us additional wars in Libya, Syria and Yemen. There is no end in sight for these wars. The neo cons ruined the Republicans electorally with their wars. The neo libs are destroying the Dems. Today the Dems are more in bed with Wall St. and big money than their opponents. They are the defenders of the D C establishment. Combine that with foreign wars and you have a prescription for defeat.

  8. This is a tough sell, Matt. When a centrist party pursues policies popular with the people, one or both mainstream parties move in to claim the issues as their own.