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The political thought, analysis, and discussion page

While driving back home this evening, after having spent a lovely week with family down in KY, I fueled up the car at one of the last stops heading north on I-94 out of Indiana, and the next podcast in my queue rolled around.

For those who have time in their lives to enjoy podcasts, I suggest this one specific episode of Freakonomics: America’s Hidden Duopoly

Essentially, a bunch of economists and business analysis explore the nature of the two-party political system in the US. In much the same was as the Cola Wars of the 1980s created controversy which was beneficial to both Coke and Pepsi, the Red vs. Blue political industry in the US is a finely-tuned machine. A few excerpts:

The business strategist Michael Porter and the C.E.O.-turned-political reformist Katherine Gehl argue, in a Harvard Business School report, that our political system has been turned into an industry with no real competition. The industry’s primary beneficiaries are itself and its many ancillary participants, including the media.

We have a chart in our report that just selects some, what we call landmark-type legislation over the last 50, 60 years. And if you go back even 20 or 30 years ago, the landmark legislation was consensus. Now, for the last decade or two, that’s been the opposite pattern. The only way landmark legislation gets passed is one party has enough votes to pass that by itself.

The core idea here is that Washington isn’t broken. In fact, it turns out that Washington is doing exactly what it’s designed to do. In other words, it's no coincidence that politics has become self-sustaining, self-dealing, and self-centered.

But they don't just complain about what's wrong, they propose a solution: the single-ballot primary. I won't spoil the fun; have a listen.

I will spoil the fun. tldr ranked choice system.

Is this supposed to be the real, serious political discussion page or just a reasonable facsimile?

Quote:

Originally Posted by bahurd (Post 1551872)

Is this supposed to be the real, serious political discussion page or just a reasonable facsimile?

My hope is for it to be a real, serious political discussion page, rather than the meme-dump that the other one has turned into.

Real, serious discussion on the internet... not sure that's gonna fly. I hope it does, but I've seen the internet before.

Unrelated to that thought, what's everybody's position on the democratic party throwing everything they have at this impeachment? Seems to me like they've given up trying to beat Trump with policies and have admitted impeachment is the only way they can get Trump out of office.

I say all of this as someone having spent my whole life living in America's hat, a moderate liberal not suffering from TDS (where a lot of this country is)

Quote:

Originally Posted by MetalMuffins (Post 1551902)

I wouldn't say they've given up on policies but under our government it takes 2 chambers of Congress to pass anything into law and there's nothing that forces one chamber to take up legislation from another.

Some of the bills passed by the house but not taken up by the senate: The House-passed bills that have ended up in the Senate 'graveyard' and another article: 100 BILLS AWAIT ACTION IN THE SENATE, and if you care to see a running log of legislative actions see here: Action on Legislation - Browse by Date

I don't think they believe impeachment is the only way short of the 2020 election but timing is everything in politics and it may have reached the point where public sentiment is on the Dem side... at least for the inquiry. It may be enough to slant the independent voters towards voting for the Dem nominee, whoever that may be.