Yes, obvious. The recent influx over the past few years is clearly different. There's a strategic game at play that's capitalizing on the things you're explaining to support ranked-choice, but in short - the Democratic party has allowed this. That is how it is viewed.
Black and white, that's all it takes. Shut out people like you who see a grey area using the media machine.
In short I'll end by saying you have studied US elections more than I, but it comes down to my pessimism versus your optimism. You think it can be fixed, I'm stockpiling. Hard to build a bridge between the two.
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Only after adding that the influx is relevant in the election after this because they'll be legal by then.. think further ahead.
I appreciate that you actually read my post and responded in kind. Very rare in this forum, so thank you.
There still more yet I'd like to say, and I'll try like hell to keep it as brief as possible.
There have only been a handful of elections that actually were "historical." That actually did matter. And we really have t had one since 1948. (Arguably, the election of the JFK / LBJ ticket is up there.) Though, JFK and LBJ got too much credit for the civil rights acts. It actually really started with NIXON. Almost nobody knows that! Nixon is the one that worked like HELL behind the scenes to really push the first of the civil rights legislation not seen since Reconstruction. He's the one responsible for the Civil Rights Act of 1958, he had a lot more to do with the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 than the assassination of JFK and the following LBJ administration did. Nixon did all the dirty ground work, dealing with all the Congresscritters to get their signatures to pass them. The Democrats ran with Watergate and destroyed Nixon's legacy. He was not the crook history makes him out to be. He was a champion of the rights of minorities, and gets no credit for it.
Anyway, I started by explaining that we haven't had a truly "historical" election since the 1960s at the latest. All you hear on every single media outlet since the establishment of the 24 hour news cycle (Thanks, Rupert fuckin' Murdoch!) is the extreme embellishment that...:
"OmG tHiS iS tHe MosT iMpOrtAnT eLeCeCtiOn EvVvVvVEeEEerrrrRRRRR!!!!" And you WILL hear that later on this year as well. Starting in June, and ramping up by August. That's all bullshit-mongering.
WHats going to happen is this:
voter turnout: Somewhere below 60%. Might even be as low as 50%. We have two octogenarians facing off against one another. One is a fascist who can't form coherent sentences, and the other is a stroke victim with a speech impediment that everyone thinks can't form coherent sentences.
For the Senate, there are 20 Republikkkunt seats up for election vs. just 13 for Democrats.
Democrats currently have 48 seats to Republikkkunts with 49.
THis means that Ds will automatically retain 35 seats. And Rs automatically will only retain 29.
Mmathematical probabilities says that better than 90% chance Democrats WILL retake the Senate. That's without any sort of analysis beyond what I had just written above, without even looking up to see which states are up for election!
Out of the 33 seats up for election, Democrats will probably take 16 and Rs will probably take 17.
Which means....
Democrats: 52 seats.
Republikkkunts: 46 seats.
Indepentans always manage to somehow take and/or keep 2 seats. Indy politicians vote along with Democrats something like 82% of the time. So most legislation in the Senate will be 54 - 46.
If Trump is elected, none of his crap will pass the Senate. It'll be a waste of fucking time.
You can do the same with the house of Representatives. All 435 seats are up for election. Rs have 219 seats. DS have 213.
RS and Ds will be closely split down the middle. Mathematically, Democrats should pick up another seat or two. Repubplikkunts should lose a seat or two.
The only reason this happens:
Because when a senate seat held by a Republikkkunt is up for election, the only party to really challenge that seat is a Democrat. And vice-versa.
Now if we had a voting system that gives all the other parties a much better chance at winning seats, instead of the seat likely flipping to a Democrat, it'll be more of a toss-up between hopefully 3 or 4 other parties. And the local voters WILL get a candidate that ACTUALLY reflects on them!
This gives the added bonus that it's much harder for all the talking head "analysts" to influence voters by making sensationalized news stories about how "POPULAR!" the republikkkunts is vs the democrat! The pre-election polls will hopefully be far less accurate!
A less accurate ability to predict elections, makes all the candidates uncomfortable for getting and/or retaining their jobs. And they SHOULD be! No elected officials should be confident of winning an election to national government. The best way to be behden to us voters, is by being afraid that there are half a dozen other candidates vying for that position.
Just like with a sports team. A first baseman's job in the MLB is never secure. There are 4 or 5 other players all working their asses off to get the previous starter fired. This lights a fire under the previous starter's ass to keep working his ass off to retain his position.
This creates a NATURAL high turnover rate. All these people out here talking about trying to pass a restriction on the number of times a politician can keep getting elected. They doing it all backasswards! Like I said above in this thread:
Fuck that!
Pass a Ranked-choice voting system that gives a lot more candidates a better shot than just two main parties. It ensures a higher turnover rate, less job security, forces the politicians to ACTUALLY pay attention to who voted for them and why, and actually work for them!
A politician who consistently does a good job, WILL and SHOULD keep getting elected. Why the hell would we, as a country, want to restrict actual real talent? Not all politicians are bad or evil. There really is some talent and some real experience, and our government needs to retain that talent and experience.
More parties also means more politicians with real compromising skills will land their jobs. Because instead of relying on the brute force of all the other party candidates behind them, now they have to actually get together with other parties to form "coalitions" with other parties. That means they actually HAVE to compromise. In order to get the votes they need or want, they have to be able to negotiate for them among many different other ideas. They will prepare to sponsor a bill from another party, if that party sponsors their bill.
This has YET ANOTHER benefit that bills won't have all of these convoluted red herring "riders" that have jackshit to do with the bills.
Now. I havent even touched on explaining exactly WHY a ranked choice voting system would increase our options and a winner take all system results in two parties.
