A Better Democrat Party

[henry quirk]

put up a real candidate. The last two elections...were these really the best man and woman the Dems could find in the country? Really? The most accomplished? The most leader-like? The one with the most integrity? The most eloquent, intelligent and visionary? Really?

They were simply the best financed.

Even so...

FD036F1B-57D1-415F-B185-8F2C19CD4AB7.jpeg

[Immanuel Can]

They were simply the best financed.

1. Declare an open and frank agenda.
2. Run a real candidate.
3....?

Anything else?

[henry quirk]

1. Declare an open and frank agenda.

Yes.

2. Run a real candidate.

Yes, though your phrasing bothers me. I'll have to think on it.

3....?

No, there's no #3.

Everything else that needs doin' is on the citizens. And mostly what we have to do is: know where we, as individuals, stand on things (so as to choose wisely); insist, in the most blatant way possible, on open, fair, elections (and the minimal governance that should result from elections).

We have the blueprints (national and state constitutions), so we have our means, method, and measure to have a republic and to staff it. We just have to adhere to the blueprints and not let jackholes play hell with them.

[Immanuel Can]

1. Declare an open and frank agenda.

Yes.

2. Run a real candidate.

Yes, though your phrasing bothers me. I'll have to think on it.

3....?

No, there's no #3.

Everything else that needs doin' is on the citizens. And mostly what we have to do is: know where we, as individuals, stand on things (so as to choose wisely); insist, in the most blatant way possible, on open, fair, elections (and the minimal governance that should result from elections).

We have the blueprints (national and state constitutions), so we have our means, method, and measure to have a republic and to staff it. We just have to adhere to the blueprints and not let jackholes play hell with them.

I think there's more. For example, it occurs to me that a lot of the propaganda they've been running depends on fear, shame and division. Take climate change or COVID, for example: the Dems tried to use fear of those things to bring the electorate in line. Another thing they routinely did was to try to shame the electorate -- calling them "deplorables," or "Nazis," or "-phobes" of various kinds, and traducing them as racists if they disagreed on things like migration, or if they expressed interest in something offered by the opposition party.

I think such strategies have some short-term effectiveness,in that they bully some people, weaker people, into line; but in the long run, I think they just sour the electorate. Who wants to hear so much negativity, fear and hatred all the time? And it really doesn't work with the opposition, because people you've terrorized and insulted do not tend to quickly like you, once they've decided you're the party of negativity, the party that hates them, despises them, and thinks they're stupid or immoral. Yet that's the same "swing vote" the Dems most desperately need.

So I think they could start working some positive agenda, something that promises the betterment of the country and gives people a reason to feel good again about being Americans. They could, for example, renew their agenda relative to working-class and rural Americans. Or they could actually, for once, do some tangible good for blacks and hispanics. Usually, they just talk about that, but then do nothing useful. And they certainly need to trim down their alliance with big business and the military-industrial complex, which is moving the party into a position of elitism and war-mongering.

I think there's a lot they could do. Will they do any of it? Maybe not. But at least they can't say we didn't tell them, or that there was simply nothing they COULD do but recycle the old, failed strategies.

[Walker]

I'm really wondering what a "better Democrat Party" would look like. Go.

Why David Mamet went right
https://thespectator.com/topic/why-davi ... ent-right/

And so the conservatism he (Mamet) would grow into was self-taught. “I started reading. I came across The Road to Serfdom,” he says. After Friedrich Hayek came Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell. (Sowell, a prominent black conservative economist and, like Mamet, a man who started his political journey on the left, is the person cited more than any other during our conversation.) “My reading got broader and broader and I thought, I’ve got to take this down to the bare paint.” Next came Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Tom Paine and the Founding Fathers. Out of that came a realization of the “extraordinary brilliance of the American experience.”

Comment: Democrats would be better, for humanity, if like Mamet they could develop a better grasp of cause and effect that is most beneficial for the country rather than The Party. How to make that happen? Transform the Dept. of Education from a Democrat money-laundering operation and into a small agency that oversees necessary regulations in education, such as the safety of women-folk in public educational places ... and drop the crap about not being able to define a woman. Educate youngsters properly. The true radicals will naturally emerge, they don't need to be created by government education.

Bust up the teacher unions. The concept of Public Employee Unions is another topic, and a weird one.

[Walker]

"realization of the 'extraordinary brilliance of the American experience.'"

If the Democrat Party can truly cognize this, then it will be better for humanity.

But first, the ashes.

[Immanuel Can]

I'm really wondering what a "better Democrat Party" would look like. Go.

Why David Mamet went right
https://thespectator.com/topic/why-davi ... ent-right/

And so the conservatism he (Mamet) would grow into was self-taught. “I started reading. I came across The Road to Serfdom,” he says. After Friedrich Hayek came Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell. (Sowell, a prominent black conservative economist and, like Mamet, a man who started his political journey on the left, is the person cited more than any other during our conversation.) “My reading got broader and broader and I thought, I’ve got to take this down to the bare paint.” Next came Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Tom Paine and the Founding Fathers. Out of that came a realization of the “extraordinary brilliance of the American experience.”

Comment: Democrats would be better, for humanity, if like Mamet they could develop a better grasp of cause and effect that is most beneficial for the country rather than The Party.

I think that's an excellent point. The party needs a complete "revisioning," so to speak...some fresh insight on the nature of the American people and history from which to launch a different, more positive political project.

How to make that happen? Transform the Dept. of Education from a Democrat money-laundering operation and into a small agency that oversees necessary regulations in education, such as the safety of women-folk in public educational places ... and drop the crap about not being able to define a woman. Educate youngsters properly. The true radicals will naturally emerge, they don't need to be created by government education.

Well, that's a different proposal, really. Education is but one department. You might be right, but I don't think it's the kind of complete ideological overhaul the DP really needs. It needs not just a different attitude to education, but to economics, to policy, and to the electorate itself. They've forgotten who they're supposed to be serving, and why. They now serve the Neo-Marxist ideologues, the military-industrial complex, and the rich elites. And they are elitists themselves. They have lost their connection with the ordinary man or woman, and have come to have no use for minorities except as tools to their own political ends.

They really need a new ideal, I think.

[henry quirk]

the propaganda they've been running depends on fear, shame and division...Take climate change or COVID...shame the electorate

All that, and more, is simply a failure to declare an open and frank agenda. Obviously, they can't just declare they want to be the jackboot stepping on a face forever. That is the agenda. They can't be open and frank about it.

And let me be frank and open: I don't want *them reformed; I want them gone.

*all parties

[Immanuel Can]

the propaganda they've been running depends on fear, shame and division...Take climate change or COVID...shame the electorate

All that, and more, is simply a failure to declare an open and frank agenda. Obviously, they can't just declare they want to be the jackboot stepping on a face forever. That is the agenda. They can't be open and frank about it.

And let me be frank and open: I don't want *them reformed; I want them gone.

*all parties

Well, okay. But then we also end up with democracy gone. There's but one party to vote for, and it has uncontrolled power. There's no alternative. And for a Libertarian-inclined person like yourself, that's not a win. No party that is given unchecked power is likely to remain free of corruption by power-seekers, and as we have seen (from both parties) there are always power-hungry types lurking in the wings.

So while we might imagine a laissez-faire utopia of party-free civil life, we're not likely to get one. And absent one, a system with rigorous checks-and-balances on all who hold power is certainly preferable. So the US is going to need some kind of "other party" to buffer against renegate RINOs and other power-mad types.

So let's assume the DP tradition is just so awful as to be irredeemable. There still needs to be another party to offset the incumbents. What kind of party would that be?

[Walker]

Trump Reportedly Has a Radical Plan for Accountability …
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2024/11/19 ... s-n2182215

Losing an election is a bit like going through the five stages of grief, and Democrats have yet to reach the acceptance stage. That means they still think their opinions matter on what should and shouldn't happen in the incoming Trump administration. They also think their outrage means something.

Comment: Democrats are not likely to reach the acceptance stage, which is required for resurrection from the ashes to do better for the country and not just grab power by hook and especially crook for The Party, and to loot the country. Democrats cannot be humbled because they have no shame.

[henry quirk]

But then we also end up with democracy gone.

Why? Without formal parties folks will do what they do anyway: vote for (or against) a candidate. Ending formal parties simply removes a whole whack of behind-closed-doors crap the average citizen can't access or influence. Really, the only folks hurt by ending parties are power brokers.

There's but one party to vote for, and it has uncontrolled power.

Well, I said end them all, not just a select few.

a system with rigorous checks-and-balances on all who hold power is certainly preferable

Of course. We have the blueprints of those checks & balances in the federal and state constitutions. And, if I recall correctly, none of those sanction parties (or forbid them). The party system is a convention, it's not a requirement of a constitutional republic.

[Immanuel Can]

But then we also end up with democracy gone.

Why? Without formal parties folks will do what they do anyway: vote for (or against) a candidate. Ending formal parties simply removes a whole whack of behind-closed-doors crap the average citizen can't access or influence. Really, the only folks hurt by ending parties are power brokers.

Right now, yes. But we still need democracy.

As the great Kenneth Clark put it, "People sometimes tell me that they prefer barbarism to civilization. I doubt if they have given it a long enough trial." We do need a civilization, even if we make it more regional or civic and less national. And civilizations mean coordination, in some fashion. To have the "coordinators" elected, with choice by the electorate, is far preferable to barbarism, for all of us.

So call it a "necessary evil," and some form of governance is still "necessary."

a system with rigorous checks-and-balances on all who hold power is certainly preferable

Of course. We have the blueprints of those checks & balances in the federal and state constitutions.[/quote]
That's exactly the intention. The founders well understood the corruptiblility of human nature, and they tried to hedge us against it. They did so somewhat less than completely or perfectly, but they had a good crack at it. And running with that idea is a good strategy.

The party system is a convention, it's not a requirement of a constitutional republic.

No: but it is, at least in conception and in the ideal, a barrier against totalitarianism. And we certainly need that.

[henry quirk]

we still need democracy.

In our current constitutional republic we certainly need democratic process (not democracy). We don't, though, need formal parties.

To have the "coordinators" elected, with choice by the electorate, is far preferable to barbarism, for all of us.

Of course. Within our constitutional republic, democratic process allows citizens to select those reps and proxies, who then -- when it works right -- serve the citizens' constitutional interests. No formal parties need be involved in such a transaction.

at least in conception and in the ideal, a barrier against totalitarianism.

Formal parties are not a barrier against totalitarianism. In our system, an adherence to the Constitution, as written, is. And, as I say, there's nuthin' in the federal or state constitutions that sez diddly about a two party, multi party, or any party scheme.

[Immanuel Can]

we still need democracy.

In our current constitutional republic we certainly need democratic process (not democracy). We don't, though, need formal parties.

Perhaps not. But we do need, as you point out, clear representation of intentions and policies, without dishonest agendas. And traditionally, the goal of parties has been to make public what persons of common values intend by way of joint exercise.

If you wish to do it a different way, I'm open to suggestions. So long as the policies are clear to the electorate, any solution could be good.

One problem you'll note with multi-party systems, such as that in Canada presently, or that in Israel routinely, is that what can happen is that a party that holds only a fraction of the popular or provincial vote can become the ruling party by negotiating alliances with smaller parties. That seems okay until you see it in practice; for what it can mean is that some third or fourth party, one holding only a tiny fraction of the vote, can gain de facto control of the whole electoral system.

For example:

Party 1 has 45% of the vote.
Party 2, the major opposition, has 25% of the vote.
Party 3 has 20% of the vote,
And Party 4 has only 10%.

What happens? Party 2 forms an alliance with Parties 3 and 4. This gives it a total electoral majority of 55%. Doesn't seem obviously problematic, does it?

But watch out for this: if either Parties 3 or 4 then break the alliance, then Party 2 is removed from power, and Party 1 becomes the ruling party.

So who has control of what happens? Parties 3 and 4. They have only 30% of the total vote, though.

Moreover, smaller parties tend to be parties of radicals, as well. Not always, but often. It's the radical fringe that ends up in last place, often, and the centrist parties that tend to garner the most votes. So now, the small, radical factions have both major parties by the throat. They can advance their radical agendas, because both of the major parties can't rule without their support.

Nasty. Not the way to go. It's the way to have one's electoral system paralyzed by the radicals, or at least dominated by a party that holds less than the biggest number of seats. So there's something inherently undemocratic and dysfunctional to a multi-party system, unless such alliances are impermissible.

[henry quirk]

the goal of parties has been to make public what persons of common values intend by way of joint exercise.

Can't see why a lack of formal parties changes that. Joe Schmo, Stan Whatsis, Rosie Palm, and Leo Lion, all have to get their keisters out and campaign. They have to advertise themselves and their positions . They have to contrast themselves with their opponents. They may participate in debates with their opponents. And they have to do all this, and more, whether or not formal parties exist.

Without formal parties nuthin' really changes except, as I say, most of the behind-close-doors wheelin' & dealin' the average citizen is not privy to, can't participate in, and has no effect on, goes away. There are no political machines formally callin' the shots. There's no pre-made schtick for a candidate to shelter behind. Things become clean (well, cleaner) and clarified. The voters still vote, the candidates still sell themselves, power brokers still broker ('cept now they have to be open and public about it).

Ending formal parties means candidates have stand in the light naked and voters get to see them as the proxies they're supposed to be (and not as, with a few exceptions, the puppets of machines they are).

The only drawback for voters: we have to give up not payin' attention. With formal parties we rely on platforms (Joe is a Republican? Well, he's got my vote!), without them (Joe is runnin'? I'll have to listen to what he has to say, cuz the election is just around the corner!).