Basically, Democrats make up about 40% of registered voters, Republicans 29%, Independents 28%, and everyone else is 2%.
So you are pretty close in those numbers, but they don’t take into account independents who lean one way or another. For example, I happen to be an independent who leans very heavily Democrat. I’m sure there are examples of independents who also heavily lean Republican. So we don’t know for sure what those numbers would be based on how things split among independents.
Okay, I was limiting things to the very narrow scope of enforcing laws where partisan affiliation may come into play. As a whole, I’m not going to argue with expert political scientists that parties may be necessary.
Well, registered Democrats only have about 40%. Of course, the caveat is in how many independents lean Democratic vs. Republican.
Classic case of “Tyranny of the Majority is okay so long as I’m in the majority.”
That said, I have far more faith in Democrats preserving protections for a Republican minority than the opposite, and recent history demonstrates why.
But what happens when discussions of these viewpoints come down to irreconcilable differences?
The GOP support a number of measures that are diametrically opposed to the things I want to see happen. There’s no real room to compromise when views are that far apart - true useful compromise can really only happen when people disagree but still buy into the same ideas. You have to want the same outcomes but disagree about the methods.
The GOP want a fundamentally different world than I do. We haven’t bought into the same things. There is really no way to actually reconcile that without literally different major opinions and philosophies.
Our country was not built to handle disparity on this level. The system assumed that good-faith negotiation would continue, and it literally cannot address problems stemming from abandoning that idea.
So, while “tyranny of the majority” is bad in principle, the Democratic party by and large is interested in creating a world where everyone still has a say. That’s a tyranny I can support.
With all that said, though, some opinions really do not deserve any representation. Anti-vaxxers, for example, deserve no representation in a discussion of the science of transmissible disease. Flat-Earthers deserve no representation in textbooks or in rational discussion. Some ideas are too far gone to be of value, and I sincerely believe that a small proportion of GOP ideas are of this type - ones that are so absolutely anathema to the fundamental principles of America that they do not deserve representation.
In a hypothetical idea world, I would agree with you.
But we live in a world where the Democrats do not have absolute power, are not going to get absolute power anytime soon, and even if they did, aren’t assured to maintain that power forever.
As a result, I do not want to live in a world where Republicans are in power and can exercise straight up Majority Rule. As good as I think it would be if Democrats could do anything they wanted if they were in power, the opposite of that scares the shit out of me.
I feel the same way, which is why I’m not a fan of any sort of absolute majority rule. There is always the scary possibility that it could come back to bite us on the ass.
Heck, tossing the filibuster rule for non-Supreme Court judges kind of did bite the Democrats on the ass as McConnell used it as an excuse to justify tossing it for the Supreme Court (though I’m sure he probably would’ve tried to toss it anyway). It also means we can’t block any of Trump’s wackos from the lower courts as well.
Something tells me America as a state will continue to exist even after you leave due to Republican control. It may end up being a authoritarian shithole akin to Russia, but it will still exist.
No it didn’t. The Republican party will justify any action they need to to pack the courts. If you push them on even the slightest point, they’ll scream “Bork” as the reason.
Exactly. We can blame Mitch McConnell for not having hearings on Merrick Garland, but it was Harry Reid who started us down the slippery slope of majority-vote for judicial nominees.
I mean I don’t even disagree with you in the actual world in which we live.
But the thing is, regardless of how either of us would like it to work, it is abundantly clear that the GOP have no interest in anything other than “Tyranny of the Majority.” We live in a world where this exact thing is happening right now. Actually, it’s not even an actual majority - it’s an electoral majority but cultural minority. It’s a literal oligarchy.
And that’s it. It’s over. When an entire party line moves the conversation in that direction, you can’t negotiate with it. All the well-wishing in the world is moot because one of the parties has abandoned negotiations.
If this were 1800, we would literally be resolving this dispute with a duel.
In order for this to change, the GOP has to change how they do things. As much as I would love love love for Democrats and liberals in general to fight right back and play dirty, I know based on experience that it won’t happen, and so we will invariably cede leverage back to a bad-faith negotiator when attempting to compromise. That means that even the most “tryannical” of Democratic tyrants will be more equitable than a GOP tyranny.
I’m legitimately not sure there’s a way to solve this problem that doesn’t involve rebuilding the way the country works from the ground up.
Perhaps, but they seem to like some sort of pretense of legitimacy by saying, “see, you guys did it too.” See what they’re trying to do now with the so-called “Biden rule.”
I’m not quite that worried, at least not yet, but if they get rid of the filibuster entirely, which is the last semi-effective weapon the minority has left right now, then I’ll be even more scared.
Harry Reid done messed up with the precedent of ending the filibuster for non-SC judge nominations.
Would he or won’t he? It’s hard to get a read on him sometimes, other than generally being a piece of shit.
It seems like he nuked the SC rule because of the precedent of what Harry Reid did for the lower courts, but something has kept him from nuking the filibuster entirely up until now, despite Trump himself calling on him to do so.
Maybe I’m a naive optimist, but I’m hoping that a big enough election loss, either in 2018 or 2020, will force the GOP into a course correction.
If not in 2020, from a demographics standpoint, the GOP is becoming more and more marginalized. Women and minorities are turning away from Republicans like never before, and that will only increase over time. Again, being a naive optimist, I would like to think that at some point, demographics will… ahem… trump the GOP’s electoral advantage/cheating.
I think that’s impossible. The core party platform is anti-LGBT, anti-women, anti-immigrant. Giving up any one of those three planks would make them politically impotent.
Literally every aspect of the GOP platform is abhorrent to decent people. There is nothing of value from that party, and anything that could be of value is already part of the Democratic coalition.
I thought like that in 2016. I’m still heavily put off ever playing or caring about Overwatch because of one night in November 2016 simultaneously spectating my first Overwatch game play and watching the election coverage.
I think it’s because he’s a more aware political operative than Trump. He knows that all he has to do is make moves that look small, but have a disproportionate impact and it will net them victory without too much bad press.
We should have heard Merrick Garland’s name in 2016 as often as we hear Brett Kavanaugh’s today, but didn’t because they could throw together a half-baked excuse that they didn’t get roasted alive over because of decades of playing the refs.
True, but if enough voters turn away from that platform, I would like to imagine that the GOP would have to modify it. Granted, the electoral losses to cause such a self-examination would have to be HUGE, but it’s possible.
E.g., dropping the anti-abortion line would alienate most of their base. I struggle to come up with even one issue across their entire platform where they could put forth a reasonable alternative to the current Democratic platform.