Dichotomy. Ideology. Spectrum.

Listening to Democracy Now again this morning, I was struck with how "the liberal mindset" is as ossified and monolithic as "the conservative mindset." There is a set of core beliefs which every liberal is expected to subscribe to -- just as a set of unrelated (and even contradictory) beliefs makes up the conservative ideology:

• anti-abortion
  
• pro-death penalty
  
• pro-gun
  
• anti-tax
  
• pro-military
  
• anti-gay
  
• pro-individual freedom
  
• pro-free speech
  
• anti-apostasy
  
• etc.

Similarly, liberals are expected to believe in:

• pro-choice
  
• anti-capital punishment
  
• pro-gun control
  
• social services
  
• inclusiveness, equality, equal pay
  
• individual freedoms
  
• decriminalizing victimless crimes
  
• etc.

Because the two "sides" have set up this adversarial relationship over the years their respective positions have become institutionalized, and everyone is assumed (without much evidence) to subscribe to the full complement of core beliefs.

But I think most people don't.

I think there's a lot of us who are "socially liberal" but "economically conservative," or any number of other subdivisions. I think the definitions of "liberal" and "conservative" are much more grey, much more nuanced, and frankly much more fluid than generally they're given credit for.

Consequently....

Consequently, I think the next movement, starting in 2017 and culminating in 2018 or 2020, will be a coalition of beliefs outside the traditional dichotomy. The old partylines are outmoded, outdated, no longer reflect the thinking of the majority of Americans. Somebody will tap into this, possibly with a new party (The Greens?) and people will abandon the Democrats and Republicans in sufficient numbers to render this third party viable in national elections.

You have to get away from this two-party winner-take-all system. It is fundamentally undemocratic, even when it works as intended.

Money.

The two-party system will end when big money interests no longer support it. Right now I think the Republican Party is surviving on cash transfusions from arms manufacturers and deregulation advocates in the financial sector.

The Democratic Party used to exist because of organized labor. The Republicans have seen to it that that source has almost dried up. Frankly I'm not sure what replaces it.

richard09 wrote:

You have to get away from this two-party winner-take-all system. It is fundamentally undemocratic, even when it works as intended.

The government was designed to diminish the effects of democracy. That's why we have two Senators per state, among other things. Real democracy was never the intent of the old guys.

We have representative government, not true democracy. The US tried true democracy between 1776-1789. It didn't work.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Somebody will tap into this, possibly with a new party (The Greens?) and people will abandon the Democrats and Republicans in sufficient numbers to render this third party viable in national elections.

I guess Bernie Sanders is trying to do this with his Our Revolution effort, but I don't know if a crowd funded grass roots organization can truly compete with the massive financial (and political) clout of the two major parties.

As long as we have permanent political parties, we will have the problems with elections and governance that we see today. Many prominent early Americans, even George Washington, did not trust permanent political parties because they could become too powerful, leading to the types of problems we now have.

The big money people run both the major parties today and SCOTUS has validated this. There is a lot that will have to be changed before a third party has a snowball's chance.

In regards to the original post: The lists could have been much simpler. List what the liberal set wants, then for the right wing, just one entry: "not what the liberals want." I honestly believe that for the most part, the right just opposes the left, no matter what their personal opinions may be. The right doesn't seem to ever come up with an original idea; they just react to what the left and the center support.

Hell, they don't even care about winning elections. They just care about the left losing. And that's not really a subtle difference.

Meh.

Having an agenda is secondary. Mainly what the Right wants is A) unfettered weapons sales (public + government) and B) deregulation of Wall Street. That's what pays the bills.

You have to differentiate between the Republican Party leadership and minions, and the run of the mill right wing Joe on the street.

Joe knows nothing about Wall Street or the effect of 99.9% of legislation. Joe just wants the right to own guns - whether he actually owns any or not - and is opposed to anything that the Democrats espouse, which of course he doesn't understand anyway.