It reminds me of something that troubled me when I heard that petitions were being circulated to do recall elections in that state. Our election system in this country is not secure, and in all the years since 2004, nothing has been done to fix any of the deficiencies. The precincts are still using easily hackable computer systems. When it appeared that Bush had stolen (yet another) election in 2004, I was curious why the Democrats were not concerned. In the succeeding years, I’ve come to appreciate that they are essentailly the same party, and though there may be inter-party squabbling for seats now and then, when the leadership of each party is in cahoots with the other, then the ability to turn an election can be useful at times to “both” parties against outsiders.
The failure to address election fraud in 2000, 2002 and 2004 essentially set the precedent, and the system is now open to hackery whenever needed. Machines that cannot be audited or kept secure are deemed to be reliable, per se, because the “other” party refused to do anything. Our elections, never anything to brag about, are not secure. It would be nice when they do they recall elections in Wisconsin, if they would call in international observers from say, Haiti or Libya, to assure that we are up to their standards.
So when 2008 came up clean (and I was surprised how the exit polls showed it to be clean it was throughout the fifty states), I was not reassured that we were having clean elections again. It just told me (and this is wisdom after the fact), that Obama did not challenge the leadership of either party.
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Government Shutdown:And now they are going to shut down the government. It’s really hard to know what this is all about or what is in store for us. Some think that this is the beginning of a bipartisan assault on Medicare and Social Security, which will take place in the next two months. Some say that one or the other party will be “hurt” by a shutdown, but if there is only one party, that hardly matters.
This I know today, and not much else: It’s not about Planned Parenthood. Neither party gives a rat’s ass about the abortion issue. It’s pure wedge. Harry Reid has said that there is agreement on everything that will be cut, and that should be the focus of attention – that the Democrats have capitulated in this latest rollicking round of Kabuki Theater. But it’s not really capitulation if all they were looking for was a cover story for helping the Republicans cut or shut down a host of popular social programs.
It’s just business as usual here in our one-party state, and note well that there is no disagreement between them that the biggest discretionary spending program of all – the war budget, which is sacrosanct.
Glenn Greenwald wrote a bit on the “two-party” system, saying
I spoke yesterday at Harvard’s Kennedy School and was asked whether I’ve ever been told by MSNBC or any other television program on which I’ve appeared not to speak about a certain issue. I replied that the media’s narrowing of political debate doesn’t generally operate in such an explicit way (though sometimes it does); rather, by confining themselves only to those issues relating to the partisan conflicts between Democrats and Republicans, anything that exists outside of that sphere is simply ignored. Any positions that enjoy bipartisan consensus — or issues that the two parties jointly ignore — are rarely examined in establishment media venues.
So the media essentially freezes debate on issues to those issues raised by either party, and since so many crucial issues are not disputed between them, the media does not cover them either.
Ah, the wonders of our two-party system that is really one.
Piece of Mindful 
The ‘some sniveling reason’ Obama won’t get involved in purported statewide electoral fraud is rather straight foward – it’s not his job. While the Supreme Court has the responsibility of overseeing election fairness even in states, I don’t believe any other Federal branch has that authority.
Primarily, though, I’m interested in your two party system complaint. I’m not a huge fan, but have multiparty systems really fared any better? Portugal recently watched its government collapse largely because of the multiparty system, an impressive accomplishment by the socialists save for that it means the country now has to ask for money, probably from the IMF. Multiparty parliamentary politics have given religious hard liners far more power in Israel than they ought to have considering their share of the population; the success of the Lib Dems has ironically put a cut-happy Conservative party in power in Britain. And the constantly bickering parties in Italy have left it with staggering debt and no effective way to get out of it. So, are you sure that the two party system is to blame?
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I was not aware of this expanded role for the Supreme Court. They oversee elections now? So the troops dispatched in the South in the sixties were sent by the Supreme Court?
The executive branch is charged with the job of enforcing laws, among them the Voting Rights Act. You’re right that if things are done well at the local level, there’s no need for any interference. If Wisconsin has a recount, if the ballots are paper and have been kept under lock and key since the election, if when moved there is security, boxes are counted, initialed, sealed, opened under supervision – just like the votes for the Academy Awards, a much more important affair, then we’ve got something worthwhile. Otherwise, it’s a do-over with Federal supervision. And as I said, Obama ain’t got the numchucks for that.
Democratic governance is fraught with difficulty – on-the-ground pure democracy does not work, as the general population is not capable of making good decisions due to emotionalism and lack of education.
Our system is not “two” party by design – it worked out that way because of private financing of campaigns. When private money runs campaigns, one party will always have a huge advantage, as money tends to concentrate around a few issues of interest to the wealthy. A “second” party would threaten that hegemony, and so it too is infiltrated by the same moneyed interests to preserve one-party rule with the appearance of two.
I supposed it would work as well with three or more parties, all of the same ideology, but seems to stop at two. The rules are severely rigged to keep third parties at bay, and as Greenwald noted, the major media, also dominated by the two parties, only discusses controversial issues of interest to the two parties, thereby dismissing any other issue and focusing on fake controversy, always supplied in abundance.
If they two parties have the same financiers, then they are really one party, and we are a one-party state. That is the problem with your “two-party” rule.
In an imperfect world, the best systems devised to date is public financing of campaigns, which naturally leads to multi-party states where the parties really do represent differing philosophies. It may not work as you would like, as true factionalism is a real pain, but I do notice that in these other countries public opinion matters a whole lot more than it does here. Our “two” parties are far to the right of the general population, which is not represented.
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So Mark, where is your evidence 1) that the general public lies far to the left of our current policies on most issues and 2) in other countries, public opinion more closely equates to extant policies 3) that the result is actually better governance.
I’m not sure that there’ not real evidence of it, I just haven’t seen it.
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The majority of the public wants the wars to end, single payer health care, defense spending cuts, Social Security, Medicare and (to a lesser degree) Medicaid. I could go find polls on this, but you’re going to have to take my word for it, as I don’t feel like it. (Oh yeah – the majoirty supports the UN over US intervention in other countries when intervention is necessary). You should go look this stuff up.
Evidence of public opinion being closer to policy – most5 recent example, fall of Canadian government. Amazingly, in 2003 when huge majorities of their populations did not want to attack Iraq, Germany, France and Turkey abstained.
Better governance? Pretty vague. “Governance” is pretty lousy here as your “two” parties are putting on a show for you right now, a fake debate, the end result of which is debilitating attacks on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, all of which the public supports but the “two” parties don’t.
Our government is responsive to its constituency, which is wealthy families and corporations.
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Wouldn’t ya say that Trump is operating outside the sphere?
Tied for 2nd in the race for POTUS?
Poulos piece.
Trump is suddenly “winning” as a political figure because the political class has failed. The authority of our political institutions is weak and getting weaker; it’s not that Americans ‘lack trust’ in them, as blue ribbon pundits and sociologists often lament, so much as they lack respect for the people inside them.
There is a lot of crazy surrounding the Trump phenomenon — some excellent, some embarrassing. But the massive fact dominating it all is that never before has such a famous outsider jumped into national politics with such an aggressive critique of a sitting president and the direction of the country — and never before has the response been so immediate and positive.
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Please. This one is child’s play. Trump has enough money to get name recognition. But he’s not cut out fir the presidency because of his ego. He’s not dependable. (same goes for Bachmann and the Sarah. – wild cards).
How can you read this and think that presidents get to be presidents because of public opinion? Are you daft?
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Well, Mark, the majority of Americans supported both wars when they were started. You can’t just end a war when 51% of the people have changed their minds. And half of people also support the war in Libya.
As for Medicare and Medicaid, the ‘two parties’ only oppose those in your mind, Mark. Democrats will not get rid of them, though they may try to make them solvent.
And single payer – yeah, people support the idea if it doesn’t mean losing their choice in doctors or paying more taxes or having limited options. That is to say, if it doesn’t resemble any existing single payer system.
Finally, your example of the Iraq war is a weak one. The British, Poles, Italians and Spanish entered on our side. Was that because their people were more on board, or because we offered better incentives? Is Britain really more conservative now (that conservatives are in charge, and are doing things like cutting funding for knee-and-hip replacement surgeries), or is it in fact more liberal, but their three-party system means that the minority conservatives get power?
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I love it when people come along and say that 1) the two parties represent public opinion, and 2) public opinion is even reasonable. Get real. And learn the meaning of good-cop bad cop. The Democrats will support the programs you mention only for so long as they are immensely popular. Then they will fold. The only thing that props a Democrat up is not 51% support, but 75% support. Otherwise, their true colors show. There does indeed need to appear to be two parties, and at times this works to our advantage. But never imagine it is real.
Single payer – you’re right – if the polling question is sheepdipped, opinions change. Try your sheepdipping trick this way: Ask people if they would support single payer if they knew they still had a choice of doctors, if their care was top quality, and if the costs of care would be halved. Pollsters do indeed engage in deceptive practices. We agree on that point.
The Coalition of the Willing did indeed include some minor players, and you are right that the British system of rule by aristocrats, which we inherited, does indeed produce a system where the parties come together in support of … once in time the British aristocracu, but now the U.S. Again we are in agreement.
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