jewelsmakerguy said:
What the Fuck is Wrong With the Left & Right?
Imagine you are trying to hold two intense chemical reactions in sealed jars, and you know they're getting hotter and hotter, vibrating and whistling out any crack in the jarware. That is the two political movements, the jars are the parties and the chemicals are the bases reacting within each other and by their environment. Its a little hard to explain why, but take it from me: the first and most important lesson in understanding American Politics is a lesson which everyone who has found themselves under a dictatorship knows which is that you should never trust the official narrative because power writes what it wants to hear others believe instead of the truth. Once you understand that you cannot wholly believe any organized take on the average American you begin to see the problem.
The media in every society is an army of a sort. The readers are the conscripts, the journalists are the officers, and the editors and owners are the political commissars and the Great Leaders respectively. Once you can see a point-of-view where the media of America is the furthest thing from America, and that the worst of their lies resembles the truth the closest, then you can begin to truly understand how occupied the non-readers and alternate readerships are under the rulership of The Powers That Be within America. Its an odd realization, but it explains why you cannot find a happy voter today but everyone lining up for their politics regardless.
Real power has only ever been the perception of who has power, apparent choices and control of what is morally the issues of the day are thereby everything to Washington and so they are captured up by the usefulness of the system I am describing. The media and Washington lifers are mutually beneficial to each other. The public offices legitimize journalists who play ball with access and exclusives, while journalists also legitimize political issues and the elites who offer solutions. Washington can make careers, and Journalists can make political capital for pet projects or prestige for politicians themselves. The internet has muddled this, and by this muddling the jars begin to shake and heat revealing how uncomfortable the average person is within the two party system.
In recent times, I have noticed that in the US, the Left and the Right have jumped far off the deep end then they should have. And more specifically, where they stand on certain matters. Me being Canadian, and thus an outsider looking in on this mess, I have to wonder just what in the mother of God happened to both sides of the US political system. Especially among the people who support the Dems and Republicans.
A party system is a concept in comparative political science concerning the system of government by political parties in a democratic country. The idea is that political parties have basic similarities: they control the government, have a stable base of mass popular support, and create internal mechanisms for controlling funding, information and nominations.
(1792–1824: 32 years) of the United States featured the "Federalist Party" and the "Anti-federalist Party" (which became known as the "Democratic-Republican Party" and was sometimes called "Jeffersonian Republican"). The beginnings of the American two-party system emerged from George Washington's immediate circle of advisers, which included Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. Hamilton and Madison, who wrote the aforementioned Federalist Papers against political factions, ended up being the core leaders in this emerging party system. It was the split camps of Federalists, given rise with Hamilton as a leader, and Democratic-Republicans, with Madison and Thomas Jefferson at the helm of this political faction, that created the environment in which partisanship, once distasteful, came to being.
- The Federalist Party grew from the national network of Washington's Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, who favored a strong united central government, close ties to Britain, a centralized banking system, and close links between the government and men of wealth.
- The Democratic-Republican Party was founded by Madison and Thomas Jefferson, who strongly opposed Hamilton's agenda. The Jeffersonians came to power in 1800 and the Federalists were too elitist to compete effectively. The Federalists survived in the Northeast, but their refusal to support the War of 1812 verged on secession and was a devastating blow when the war ended well. The Era of Good Feelings under President James Monroe (1816–1824) marked the end of the First Party System and a brief period in which partisanship was minimal.
The Second Party System (1828–1854: 26 years) followed the splintering of the Democratic-Republican Party. Two major parties dominated the political landscape: the Whig Party, led by Henry Clay, that grew from the National Republican Party; and the Democratic Party, led by Andrew Jackson. Both parties having a common ancestor, the Whigs and Democrats agreed on many basic principles—they were both strongly committed to the ideals of Republicanism in the United States. In most of the United States, the Whigs were more upscale, better educated, more urban, and more entrepreneurial; the Democrats were strongest on the frontier and in subsistence farming areas.
Catholic immigrants, especially Irish and German, were heavily and enthusiastically Democratic, while evangelical Protestants and English and Scots-Irish immigrants were typically Whigs. The Democrats supported the primacy of the Presidency over the other branches of government, and opposed both the Bank of the United States as well as modernizing programs that they felt would build up industry at the expense of the farmers. The Whigs, on the other hand, advocated the supremacy of Congress over the executive branch as well as policies of modernization and economic protectionism.
Central political battles of this era were the Bank War and the Spoils system of federal patronage. The early 1850s saw the collapse of the Whig party, largely as a result of decline in its leadership over the urban centers collapsing for the frontier and their protectionism (a boon to the urban maker but a bane to the rural settler) becoming increasingly unpopular and a major intra-party split over slavery as a result of the Kansas–Nebraska Act. In addition, the fading of old economic issues removed many of the unifying forces holding the party together. Think the modern Republicans and their dinosaur ways constantly fighting for purity and against the changing times. Its fundamental weakness was its inability to take a position on slavery. As a coalition of Northern National Republicans and Southern Nullifiers, Whigs in each of the two regions held opposing views on slavery. Therefore, the Whig party was only able to conduct successful campaigns as long as the slavery issue was ignored. Which of course caused a crisis when the political party of Not-Talking-About-Slavery fell apart and let Nullifers in the Northern Democrat and ex-Whig southern Nullifers merge.
The Third Party System (1854–1895: 41 years) was characterized by the emergence of the anti-slavery Republican Party, which adopted many of the economic policies of the Whigs, such as national banks, railroads, high tariffs, homesteads and aid to land grant colleges. The Democratic Party was in large part the opposition party during this period, although it often controlled the Senate or the House of Representatives, or both.
The Fourth Party System, (1896–1932: 36 years) consisted of the same interest groups as the Third Party System, but saw major shifts in the central issues of debate. It began after the Republicans blamed the Democrats for the Panic of 1893, which later resulted in William McKinley's victory over William Jennings Bryan in the 1896 presidential election. The central domestic issues changed to government regulation of railroads and large corporations ("trusts"), the protective tariff, the role of labor unions, child labor, the need for a new banking system, corruption in party politics, primary elections, direct election of senators, racial segregation, efficiency in government, women's suffrage, and control of immigration. Most voting blocs continued unchanged, but some realignment took place, giving Republicans dominance in the industrial Northeast and new strength in the border states. Historians debating why no Labor Party emerged in the United States, in contrast to Western Europe, can blame American Party System realignments dividing any such socialist base into either Democratic women's issues after New York Democrats came out for suffrage against Republican "Bull Moose" Trust Busting. Much like slavery was divided within the Whig Party, now both Democrat and Republican divided what would be single issue voters between them and suppressed reforms by causing support to fight amongst itself under the rubric of the Two Party System.
The Fifth Party System (1933–1968: 35 Years) saw Republicans begin to lose radical supporters after the Great Depression, giving rise to Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the activist New Deal. Democrats promoted American liberalism, anchored in a coalition of specific liberal groups, especially ethno-religious constituencies (Catholics, Jews, African Americans), white Southerners, well-organized labor unions, urban machines, progressive intellectuals, and populist farm groups. Democrats positioned themselves more towards liberalism while conservatives increasingly dominated the GOP until the party of Lincoln simply became American Conservatism.
The Sixth Party System (1968–2021: 53 Years) saw civil rights in the Democratic Party drive the last of the Democrat Conservatives out into the Republican Party and with them the South began to vote Republican fairly consistently and the last appeal to White Southerners by the Democratic Party being in the 1976 United States presidential election by Carter. This has been the longest and most falsely divisive Party System. These political parties ran in elections longer ago than modern democracy has been in place in Europe, and intra-party politics has in both parties prevented splits by rabble-rousing against the other party. In the Democratic Party, Bankers and Billionaires sit apparently in perfect happiness and agreement with Socialists and Far-Left organizers of both class and race. In the Republican Party the conservatives use hatred of freaks and ne'er-do-wells to drive their old wealth free-trade-and-dark-labor into agreement with rural deindustrialized working-poor. Both Microsoft National Broadcasting Corporation and Fox News pretend to be staffed with common men and women trying to bring values back to America while stagnation of political organizations ensures nothing of the sort will ever happen but "The Other Side" will be found blameworthy by their media.
Never has politics been so fake or so gay. However never too has it been so apparently so. People are in critical mass seeing that getting "their man elected" is just as mind-blowingly stupid as "voting third party and throwing away their vote" if once in elected office their politician walks back their campaign promises completely. The voter is thereby equally far from their issues being addressed in both cases. However this does not mean they should simply try the other useless tactic either, so there is confusion and anger among the political bases of both parties. Each party is trying to gain the other's dissatisfied voters rather than addressing their own, and its working in the short-term but I think both parties are going to see it backfire eventually. America, on the other hand, has had Republicans and Democrats divide and rule their bases for over a century so maybe it will work again?
More specifically, I've noticed that their beliefs are the polar opposite of what I'd expect from them. Like if the Right is all Patriotic and follows the Bible almost to the T. Then why are they the ones who believe in shit like 9/11 and Anti-vaccination while the Left, the people I would have suspected be far more fearful about the government or be into new age nonsense are the ones who (in theory, anyway; execution's a whole other matter) that follow the whole "Love thy neighbor" and "Jesus loves everyone" things the Bible preaches.
As the boomer passes, the liberal is seen more and more to be the patriot. The conservatives are becoming One-Sixth terrorists of "U.S. Capitol Violence" who made unlawful entry into the U.S. Capitol building and committed various other alleged criminal violations, such as destruction of property, assaulting law enforcement personnel, targeting members of the media for assault, and other unlawful conduct, on January 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C. There is a strange realignment there which hasn't finished but will be seen after its alignment like how in 1984 there was an "Always to have been true" thing after the change.
Once Democrats figure out how to make their average voter cry 'traitor' at the
White Supremacists of the Republican Party it will always have been true that Black and Brown fought with liberals for the soul of America against the evil White Republicans. America was always liberals, not conservatives who served their personal concerns at the cost of the nation. Reagan and Bush Jr. will be rewritten as moderate Republicans who were always liberal types deep down. The Left are always against a Free Speech of racial slurs and the chaos of Gun Rights in their need for order, and the Right were always rebels ready to storm the enemy's Capitol since the Civil War days. Its very odd if you remember the 9/11 days of debating horrifying PATRIOT ACT torture in the name of patriotism, and Jon Stewart opposing it.
The left see themselves today as the more responsible people who are, perhaps not parenting, but managing while it is the childish right who mess up not their plans but America's. America which has always been multicultural but is also terminally in the way of multiculturalism and so must be remade or destroyed so that America can be the multiculturalism that it already always was? Its odd listening to the Left sometimes, but they are craving power
and are fascinated with speaking to what is and is not "powerful" suddenly. I hope for a De-escalation, but not one of a false order in which one side has marched over the other in hysterical moral certainty.
The important insight I think here is that the Left and Right are not monoliths, are hugely shifting after 53 years of stagnant political alignment under their political parties of choice. To the point that Republicans are the least Right and Democrats are the least Left that they have even been since 1968. For good or for ill.
Now before you go bashing me about how I'm mostly focusing on the Right here, note that I don't find the Left any better.
That is important, I promise you that you will never understand the political parties or their base support groups (who can and do hate each other within their blocs only more so than "the other team's supporters". The political heretic is far worse than the political heathen!) if you take sides. Then you are lost, but only as much as the average American. In life, hope often clouds honest observation.
Last I checked, "Well-Meaning" doesn't mean "Burn down buildings because cops killed another black man". That's terrorism right there.
Only if Washington, Prosecutors (who have become mostly partisan), and Journalists all say so. The mess we're in is the same the Constitutional Democratic Party or Cadets of the Russian Empire, they allowed terrorism in the late Russian Empire under the assumption that they were largely in control of it and that it would lead to their goals. With the Bolshevik seizure of power on 25–26 October and subsequent transfer of political power to the soviets, their
Kadet newspaper and other anti-Bolshevik newspapers were closed down and the Constitutional Democratic Party was suppressed by the new regime.
Terrorism is never controllable after a point, but like printing money to solve deficits, it just seems such a good tactic by some of the rich against opponents within their class. And then the French Revolution and Soviet Revolution drown the state in blood. Humanity makes violent revolution inevitable when reform becomes no longer possible. I hope America begins to make sense again and soon.
