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> The common interpretation is that it began to get sharply more divisive over time starting in the mid-1990s, not that the current level of division establishe

> The common interpretation is that it began to get sharply more divisive over time starting in the mid-1990s, not that the current level of division established itself then. I didn't say anything about the current level of division, or the quantum. I am not arguing against a step change either. Again, I said that people believe politics became more divisive in the mid-90s. I understand that people need to read things into the statements of others...there is nothing here (you are focusing on the least interesting part of the argument). And the "always" came after "Democrats seem to have settled on". I did not say anything about what happened in the past, and did not use that evidence. My point was that Democrats have said a system of gender and racial selection will be used in the future. I did not imply that some Democrats have the power to bind every other decision in the future, but that some wanted to use the system in the future. Simple points of comprehension here.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> I didn’t say anything about the current level of division, or the quantum. I am not arguing against a step change either. The examples you used from the 1990s make no sense at all as an argument against a change starting in the 1990s resulting in the current situation, though they make some sense as an argument against a rapid step change in the 1990s. “Misdirected but coherent” was, I thought, the most generous interpretation. > And the “always” came after “Democrats seem to have settled on”. I did not say anything about what happened in the past, and did not use that evidence. So what is your argument based on? Pure fantasy? > My point was that Democrats have said a system of gender and racial selection will be used in the future. (1) That’s not what you claimed, you said they seemed to have settled on a fixed 1 woman + 1 man ticket for the President and Vice President, not “a system of gender and racial selection will be used in the future”. (2) The Democrats have not, in fact, said that anything other than the votes of the delegates at the nominating convention, without gender or racial quotas, will be used in the future to select presidential and vice-presidential nominees, and, starting with the 2020 election cycle, changed the rules so that party insiders who might want to impose such a quota-based system would not be able to do so over the votes of the delegates whose votes are set by the primary and caucus system, because superdelegates were banned from first-round voting unless their votes could not effect the outcome. So, insofar as that claim which you did not state was what you intended, it is false.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> I didn’t say anything about the current level of division, or the quantum. I am not arguing against a step change either. The examples you used from the 1990s make no sense at all as an argument against a change starting in the 1990s resulting in the current situation, though they make some sense as an argument against a rapid step change in the 1990s. “Misdirected but coherent” was, I thought, the most generous interpretation. > And the “always” came after “Democrats seem to have settled on”. I did not say anything about what happened in the past, and did not use that evidence. So what is your argument based on? Pure fantasy? > My point was that Democrats have said a system of gender and racial selection will be used in the future. (1) That’s not what you claimed, you said they seemed to have settled on a fixed 1 woman + 1 man ticket for the President and Vice President, not “a system of gender and racial selection will be used in the future”. (2) The Democrats have not, in fact, said that anything other than the votes of the delegates at the nominating convention, without gender or racial quotas, will be used in the future to select presidential and vice-presidential nominees, and, starting with the 2020 election cycle, changed the rules so that party insiders who might want to impose such a quota-based system would not be able to do so over the votes of the delegates whose votes are set by the primary and caucus system, because superdelegates were banned from first-round voting unless their votes could not effect the outcome. So, insofar as that claim which you did not state was what you intended, it is false.