5 ms·

Until the US implements proportional representation, any third party is always going to have an inconsequential amount of votes.

jokethrowaway 6y ago
If governments spending keeps increasing, you'll probably reach a point in which it won't be that unrealistic. There are European states in which government overreach wrecked the economy so much that anti-establishment parties got elected. You can see trump as one meager step in that direction. I think the natural conclusion, after seeing that things are not changing by voting mainstream parties, is to actually vote someone else.
- pjc50 6y ago
  > There are European states in which government overreach wrecked the economy so much that anti-establishment parties got elected. [citation needed]
  - jokethrowaway 6y ago
    Eg. Italy and the v-day (f*k you day against politicians) which turned into the 5 star movement. It's not a success story, nothing really changed and the party turned into the establishment (they didn't really have a plan), but it shows where people's heart is. Right and left wing parties in Italy laughed at it at the beginning, nobody thought they would ever win.
  - rleigh 6y ago
    You don't need a "citation". Off the top of my head, Greece and Italy. Just read the news regularly. The Euro has devastated the economies of several countries, and the fallout has been slowly building for the last decade. You don't have youth unemployment over 50%, lack of opportunity, lack of investment, and lack of control over your future without it having far-reaching implications. The current state of things doesn't leave much (if any) opportunity for this to be corrected. They are permanently indebted. Exiting the Eurozone and reverting to national currencies is pretty much the only answer to fix their economies. Italy has a lot of very productive industries. But they can't compete with Germany and other northern European countries while the scales are tipped firmly against them due to their currencies being tied together via the Euro. A freely floating currency would correct that and make Italy a very promising place to invest in and export from. Greece is a different story, and it is not entirely blameless. It should never have been allowed to join the Euro. But the cause of its economic woes is the same: its currency is tied to stronger economies with which it can't hope to complete, and that economic imbalance has caused complete devastation of its economy.
    - pjc50 6y ago
      I wanted to know who was being considered an anti-establishment party. > Exiting the Eurozone and reverting to national currencies is pretty much the only answer to fix their economies. We had this argument in 2008ish and Syriza abandoned the plan, after (correctly) realising that crashing out of the Euro would be worse.
      - rleigh 6y ago
        2008 was 12 years ago. How well has the Italian economy fared in the interim? It's been stagnant ever since joining the Euro, and nothing material has changed which would improve matters, and I don't see the status quo being tenable. 2008 might not have been the tipping point, but doing something which isn't in the long term interest of people can't continue indefinitely.
    - KaiserPro 6y ago
      > Exiting the Eurozone and reverting to national currencies is pretty much the only answer to fix their economies. Apart from that would incur tariffs that would be far high than the trade winds exposed by the eurozone. Having your own currency only really helps when you have a boat load of debt, and you want to inflate your way out of the problem. However that's exceptionally damaging in the medium term, especially if you have unstable leadership. The fundamentals of italy are difficult to overcome by leaving, or blaming the eurozone. Italy has a rapidly ageing populace, and a drop in fertility. None of that is going to be fixed by leaving the euro.
garmaine 6y ago
Right now if there was just 1 independent / third-party senator, they would hold all the power.
- jen20 6y ago
  Good news! There are two: - Angus King (Maine), - Bernie Sanders (Vermont) Between them, Joe Manchin, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Mitt Romney, they definitely do hold all the power right now.
loceng 6y ago
Along with Andrew Yang's Democracy Dollars to wash out industrial complex lobbying $ with citizen $ by 8:1 ratio, along with Journalism Dollars to take away power from the duopoly and mainstream media to craft and perpetuate just the two main narratives they want, and ideally the Freedom Dividend/UBI to reduce the stress on people.

jokethrowaway 6y ago

If governments spending keeps increasing, you'll probably reach a point in which it won't be that unrealistic. There are European states in which government overreach wrecked the economy so much that anti-establishment parties got elected. You can see trump as one meager step in that direction. I think the natural conclusion, after seeing that things are not changing by voting mainstream parties, is to actually vote someone else.

pjc50 6y ago
> There are European states in which government overreach wrecked the economy so much that anti-establishment parties got elected. [citation needed]
- jokethrowaway 6y ago
  Eg. Italy and the v-day (f*k you day against politicians) which turned into the 5 star movement. It's not a success story, nothing really changed and the party turned into the establishment (they didn't really have a plan), but it shows where people's heart is. Right and left wing parties in Italy laughed at it at the beginning, nobody thought they would ever win.
- rleigh 6y ago
  You don't need a "citation". Off the top of my head, Greece and Italy. Just read the news regularly. The Euro has devastated the economies of several countries, and the fallout has been slowly building for the last decade. You don't have youth unemployment over 50%, lack of opportunity, lack of investment, and lack of control over your future without it having far-reaching implications. The current state of things doesn't leave much (if any) opportunity for this to be corrected. They are permanently indebted. Exiting the Eurozone and reverting to national currencies is pretty much the only answer to fix their economies. Italy has a lot of very productive industries. But they can't compete with Germany and other northern European countries while the scales are tipped firmly against them due to their currencies being tied together via the Euro. A freely floating currency would correct that and make Italy a very promising place to invest in and export from. Greece is a different story, and it is not entirely blameless. It should never have been allowed to join the Euro. But the cause of its economic woes is the same: its currency is tied to stronger economies with which it can't hope to complete, and that economic imbalance has caused complete devastation of its economy.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    I wanted to know who was being considered an anti-establishment party. > Exiting the Eurozone and reverting to national currencies is pretty much the only answer to fix their economies. We had this argument in 2008ish and Syriza abandoned the plan, after (correctly) realising that crashing out of the Euro would be worse.
    - rleigh 6y ago
      2008 was 12 years ago. How well has the Italian economy fared in the interim? It's been stagnant ever since joining the Euro, and nothing material has changed which would improve matters, and I don't see the status quo being tenable. 2008 might not have been the tipping point, but doing something which isn't in the long term interest of people can't continue indefinitely.
  - KaiserPro 6y ago
    > Exiting the Eurozone and reverting to national currencies is pretty much the only answer to fix their economies. Apart from that would incur tariffs that would be far high than the trade winds exposed by the eurozone. Having your own currency only really helps when you have a boat load of debt, and you want to inflate your way out of the problem. However that's exceptionally damaging in the medium term, especially if you have unstable leadership. The fundamentals of italy are difficult to overcome by leaving, or blaming the eurozone. Italy has a rapidly ageing populace, and a drop in fertility. None of that is going to be fixed by leaving the euro.

garmaine 6y ago

Right now if there was just 1 independent / third-party senator, they would hold all the power.

jen20 6y ago
Good news! There are two: - Angus King (Maine), - Bernie Sanders (Vermont) Between them, Joe Manchin, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Mitt Romney, they definitely do hold all the power right now.

loceng 6y ago

Along with Andrew Yang's Democracy Dollars to wash out industrial complex lobbying $ with citizen $ by 8:1 ratio, along with Journalism Dollars to take away power from the duopoly and mainstream media to craft and perpetuate just the two main narratives they want, and ideally the Freedom Dividend/UBI to reduce the stress on people.