Washington is a broken clock right twice a day, tbh. That guy owned half the slaves in Mount Vernon. He didn't have any idea how to fix society, modern middle schoolers could debate him and win.
this post was submitted on 13 May 2024
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Many countries without the two party system have the same problems though
If somebody is to make a 3rd or 4th party, how much and how long will it take for them to be able to compete with the other 2?
I would say we recently saw this happen, it's just that the tea party overtook the republicans from within in about a decade.
It entirely depends on what you mean. We've had a functioning libertarian party for a while, they've gotten far enough to get on the ballots in a couple presidential races and libertarian candidates have won local elections. We've had fairly strong socialist parties before the red scare era.
Now the libertarians kind of sucks shit, so maybe they're a bad barometer to go off of? Maybe a super populist party would take off in a decade or two, maybe it would just flounder with the same success of the libertarian party. Part of the problem is that political opinions in the US are largely formed around binaries associated with either party, so while a new party might form, it would probably get chucked into a "left" or "right" bucket and flounder in obscurity like the green party.
We have to work together to reform voting. FPTP is bullshit and the two big parties have it locked down. Libertarians and Greens have to sue states every election to get them to follow the rules.
The Bull Moose party was closest we've had to an actual 3rd party. That was only because Teddy Roosevelt was running it and he was a previous president.
I assume it is possible with the modern day ability to communicate and organize. Getting a 3rd name on every state ballot will take some ground work. It might be easier, but we would need someone to get behind. Like a REAL leader and not a "pop culture icon." I vote to get that Shawn Fain guy. He is kicking ass in the auto union, so I think he would fight for the working class all around.
That was only because Teddy Roosevelt was running it and he was a previous president.
Not just a previous president, but TEDDY fuckin ROOSEVELT.
He had all the same (imagined) qualities that make people who like Trump like that idiot, but he used them for good.
A man's man who said it like it was and took no bullshit. Knew shit was fucked and that it needed cleaning out and said so to get elected.
Even had a bit of a cult of personality going, Teddy Bears yakno?
Not perfect or anything, but looking at Teddy I can understand to a degree why people can get swept away by big personalities.
Oh I 100% agree about the man. Teddy was a big push of progressive policies and he was a great president. We almost never had him as president because the robber barons (JP Morgan, Carnegie, and Rockafeller) used their money to put him as a VP to McKinley. McKinely was bought and paid for by them and the VP position was a place to put people to end their political career. Then the assassination happened and Teddy came in with all these trust busting ideas.
Also, Teddy first came into the political stage as a rich, fancy dressed guy. He did a PR campaign to change his image to this man's man. Then after those photos of him in furs and an expensive hunting knife, he joined the military and did the whole rough riders thing. He became the image he portrayed and came back to NY better from it. He became a popular Governor and that's when the robber barons got worried and wanted to stop his momentum.
T.R. was tough before he joined the war, when he came back a hero he proved it to everyone else. He's absolutely my favorite president and a fascinating man
There's a Pulitzer-winning biography of his I'd recommend
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Political parties in general. The problems specific to a two-party systems weren't understood yet. Being that the United States was figuring out how a modern democracy should work as it went, that's not surprising.
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To be fair, the two party system was a natural evolution within the government structure created by the Founding Fathers. Whether or not any individual president was a fan or not would never have prevented it.
Yeah, but they didn't have game theory then. Democracy was kind of new too. Basically all non-monarchists were allies, because they literally had to fight actual kings to rule themselves.
It's not the founders' fault that they didn't foresee all future problems. They included the ability to amend the Constitution. It's our fault for not doing that. Originalism makes no sense because the founders wanted us to change what they had done and improve it.
A lot also said every 20 years the Constitution needed rewritten, because expecting such a powerful document to remain relevant over such a long period of time was unthinkable to them...
It’s not the founders’ fault that they didn’t foresee all future problems. They included the ability to amend the Constitution. It’s our fault for not doing that. Originalism makes no sense because the founders wanted us to change what they had done and improve it.
The Founding Fathers: "We're not gods or kings. That's literally the opposite of what we fought for."
Originalists: "OMG God-King Founding Daddies pls rule me from beyond the grave"
Hmm isn’t this 40k as well?
The Emperor of Man: “Gods don’t exist, use logic and science!”
The Imperium of Man: “All hail the God-Emperor, where are the 1000 sacrifices?”
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Yes and no.
The Founding Fathers created the State in a manner that supported their interests, hence why it structurally supported wealthy Capitalists and slave owning white men most of all.
Over time, this has been amended, Black Americans were emancipated and every citizen can vote now, including women, but only via constant struggle against the system.
That doesn't relate to my comment or the original post. It's like you're trying to shoehorn in your own ideas about class war into the conversation.
In return, I would like to add add that George Washington did not have wooden teeth. In fact, he had weird Frankenstein dentures made up of a bunch of other different teeth. This supports my pro dental care ideas.
It absolutely relates. The two party system is a symptom of designing a system to bend but never break, and retain control of the people who made the system.
Believe it or not, human history is the history of class struggle. It isn't at all unrelated to how wealthy Capitalists designed a state to retain their power.
No, human history is the history of struggle against tooth decay. If you disagree, you are a tool of the anti-dentites.
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Maybe he should have accepted the offer to be king after all.
"Why... WHY did you succumb to this problem that we foresaw but did nothing to prevent!?"
Was about to say, this is the result of the voting system they adopted, we're just stuck with it for the moment
Washington was not a dictator, and decidedly so?
referring to FPTP voting not the act of voting at all.
Also, he was a slave owner and personally marched against dissatisfied working class americans when they balked at new liquor taxes. He might have been elected but he had some pretty authoritarian streaks in him.
Sorry, I'm not a Washington expert and made the assumption that Washington's feeling about a two party system was not shared by all.
To be fair, most of Washington's concerns about political parties were about tribalism more generally.
How? He looked at history, and every two-party system that came before.
Don’t you say that about my FOunDinG DaDdy!!
This was already seen well before he was even done being president. By 1800 it's obvious the 2 party dysfunction was well in motion.
I think that podcast American Elections: Wicked Game tells some of that story pretty well of the early political fighting and party divisions.
And both the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans were awful.
In such times, the lessons of history seemed less distant.