Election Thread 2016

[Yoshi]

Theoretically over a long period of time a third party could replace one of the current two. I agree that I don't think you'll ever see three strong parties at once, but you could have one dominant one while the other two fight for scraps. Then one of the two smaller ones would eventually grow back to be the primary challenger.

[MarkRyan]

This guy needs to bow out before he takes even 2% from Romney. There is a time for a third party to try to get traction, but not when it's so critical that we get the incumbent the fuck out.

True story: Many Obama supporters are also afraid of Johnson ruining Obama's shot. Frankly, I think they're closer to right, though libertarianism definitely pulls from both sides.

Also, what will Romney do so different from Obama? Get us out of expensive wars? Nope. Repeal Affordable Care Act? At best, he'll try. End corporate welfare in form of bailouts and stimulus? Nope, he supported that. Make necessary cuts to Social Security and Medicare? He will not. Kill the Patriot Act? Never. Eliminate the TSA? Of course not.

Romney is more likely than Obama to extend current tax rates and sign some shit like SOPA, though Obama would probably do both anyway. But I am really curious what benefits you think we'd get from a Romney administration versus Obama, and how those benefits justify electing another fuckwit politician.

[MarkRyan]

Also, god save us if Republicans take the senate and win the presidency.

[Diff-chan]

I don't think a dominant one party could ever happen under our electoral system either.

A third party cannot gain strength over a long period of time simply because our system doesn't award that sort of long-term coalition building. In a proportional system, you can pick up more and more votes over the years and decades and gain power. In our system, the guy with 50%+1 of votes wins. That's it. Everyone else gets nothing.

In a parliamentary system, a third party that wins 10% of the votes in every election would have 10% of the seats. If the other parties split 45/45 that third party would have real power and could influence policy. This isn't even theoretical - it happens all the time. Here, a third party that wins 10% of all votes gets nothing.

What has happened in our country is that one party becomes irrelevant fast and is replaced by another one. Federalists were replaced by Whigs and Whigs were replaced by Republicans. The few third parties that gained some traction in the electorate eventually just had ideologies folded into the main ones (Bull Moose, whatever Ross Perot was part of). Obviously the Democrats and Republicans of today are nothing like the Ds and Rs of the 1870s or even the 1970s, but there are still only two.

[Nash]

True story: Many Obama supporters are also afraid of Johnson ruining Obama's shot. Frankly, I think they're closer to right, though libertarianism definitely pulls from both sides.

Also, what will Romney do so different from Obama? Get us out of expensive wars? Nope. Repeal Affordable Care Act? At best, he'll try. End corporate welfare in form of bailouts and stimulus? Nope, he supported that. Make necessary cuts to Social Security and Medicare? He will not. Kill the Patriot Act? Never. Eliminate the TSA? Of course not.

Romney is more likely than Obama to extend current tax rates and sign some shit like SOPA, though Obama would probably do both anyway. But I am really curious what benefits you think we'd get from a Romney administration versus Obama, and how those benefits justify electing another fuckwit politician.

Yoshi doesn't care about how good or bad a job Obama has done, and he doesn't care what Romney will do. He only cares that Obama is a Democrat and Romney is a Republican. You can theoretically have a Democrat who is the greatest president this country has ever seen and Yoshi would still want to replace him with a shitty Republican.

[Thief Silver]

Hm... I already know Yoshi's response.

[Finch]

I know it too, but it's different from what you think it is.

[Yoshi]

True story: Many Obama supporters are also afraid of Johnson ruining Obama's shot. Frankly, I think they're closer to right, though libertarianism definitely pulls from both sides.

Also, what will Romney do so different from Obama? Get us out of expensive wars? Nope. Repeal Affordable Care Act? At best, he'll try. End corporate welfare in form of bailouts and stimulus? Nope, he supported that. Make necessary cuts to Social Security and Medicare? He will not. Kill the Patriot Act? Never. Eliminate the TSA? Of course not.

Romney is more likely than Obama to extend current tax rates and sign some shit like SOPA, though Obama would probably do both anyway. But I am really curious what benefits you think we'd get from a Romney administration versus Obama, and how those benefits justify electing another fuckwit politician.

Without even getting into any specifics, he can't be worse. Obama has done absolutely nothing of benefit, except for giving the order to kill Bin Laden after having the intelligence from interrogations he claims not to support land in his lap.

If we want to get into specifics, I'd like to see some links where Romney would support corporate bailouts. I also firmly believe he will try to make some cuts to Medicare and Social Security. He wouldn't have picked Ryan otherwise. That is not an election pick but a strategic/governing one. Finally, taking everything you said at face value, I'll take the tax cut extension over nothing, especially since Obamacare, if not repealed, will continue to drive insurance costs to the moon. If you add a tax hike, which the expiration really is in net, to that, that's what the middle class can expect from Obama without anything positive unless they happen to have a pre-existing condition.

edit: I forgot the first part. The only way an Obama voter goes Libertarian is if they didn't understand what they voted for in 2008, don't understand what Libertarian is, or just don't want to vote for the other candidates, because an Obama vote was chic, but a Romney won't be. And the fact that an Obama vote is no longer historical or chic is huge, because he probably got 10+% just from that bullshit. Hopefully all those idiots stay home this time.

[Finch]

Well i'm disappointed.

[Bojack]

Also, god save us if Republicans take the senate and win the presidency.

Well, honestly, this depends on which brand of Republicans are in charge. If they're Huntsman, Charlie Crist types then I'm ok with that, maybe even Ron Pauls but Bachman's et al can stay the hell away.

especially since Obamacare, if not repealed, will continue to drive insurance costs to the moon.

They were going to the moon anyways. Obamacare at least forces them to stop at a gas station so you can take a leak and grab a pop.