Oddbean

American politics is weird and broken. We have a system that, by design, is a duopoly. If a new party emerges, it either dies or replaces one of the existing ones. Because of that, we end up with these big tents containing lots of different constituencies and contradictory coalitions. Take, for example, how conservative black evangelicals are pro-family, pro-life, and pro-business, but most vote Democrat because they’re turned off by Republican racism. Or consider gay Republicans like Peter Thiel, who vote in their economic interests despite it being against their safety and the advancement of the gay community. There are many ways in which a two-party system doesn't make sense. I’ve lived in two countries with proportional representation, Uruguay and New Zealand. Both have much more stable politics and better systems of coalition-building and compromise. They’re smaller, too, but you can see the US system broken at a state level where the numbers can be similar to those in Uruguay and New Zealand. Forcing everyone to fit their values and political aspirations into a single party is a mess. What’s interesting is that as the US becomes more partisan, party members are more likely to adopt the party’s platform, even if it would otherwise not be in their personal or community interest. Only a small and shrinking number of true independents can focus on issues across parties. Nos Journalism Acclerator partner @TheConversationUS has a good piece about this based on research: nostr:note1dnqm9f7ljzrfcuu0gy8ghtxgnmtar8lvfxcjhryeka43r85h2zaqzvsqc5

How congress votes in the US across party lines over time https://image.nostr.build/3158bae07c09548ffda86d30189aea91ba4909cc76e44c853a07054099b31e7b.jpg nostr:nevent1qqszv7gy25axcafdk580vvls2s3ys4qw6zaqnx26ea2pgkxzvv6w7mcpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhsygrkcud2uwjfruweamz8ewshug5umfq38g9mkmn2u9mk6ajru2w2lgpsgqqqqqqsj2c4h4

I think the thing to worry about most is that the US economy is in a death spiral because of its debt. Both parties' recommended solutions to debt crisis amount to less than 2% of GDP. Meanwhile servicing the debt costs about 8% of GDP. Something is going to crash big.

The Republican Party also fought slavery! But, in the 1960s and 1970s there was a realignment in American politics where the GOP pursued white votes by opposing desegregation and civil rights legislation. This does not in any way mean that all Republicans are racists, or any particular Republican is racist. But most racists are Republicans

I understand what you’re saying and I think the problem really is the size and scope of the federal government. You can observe that a New York democrat is actually different than a Kentucky democrat, especially on the local level. I feel the problem is partially because we focus on a body of government to represent 320 million people in a single party ideology. State, county, and city politics are different even though you will have some overlap and some of the concession voting. I could be wrong in some aspects though I maintain that if you look more locally it’s a little less party line.

"Republican racism" "gay Republicans like Peter Thiel, who vote in their economic interests despite it being against their safety and the advancement of the gay community" Are some oddly hyper-partisan generalizations to make in a post against partisanism.

I have talked about who is behind this compromised occupation (that is highly unconstitutional) on Nostr before, and I'm not afraid to talk about it even now. Some of my popular posts talk about that, actually.