But they aren't talking about a philosophy of government and system of laws, they're talking about a party.
I wonder how people like that function. Like, they chose a party, and automatically agree and favour everything that party says? That's weird. If not, like if you only believe in 2-3 of their core things, but disagree with the rest, why do you still talk about party affiliation?
What happens when you have a conflicting opinion with the party? Especially considering the party in question is blatantly anti-science. Take climate change for instance. There are young Republicans that aren't braindead or brainwashed enough to think it's a sham and want it taken seriously, but they're still stuck only with the Republican party as a choice because the the main things they believe in match only with them. And then have to support the party which proudly says that climate change means no more burgers, so it's obviously stupid and wrong and God wouldn't have wanted it!
The American two-party system is fundamentally broken and fucked up. Those people need more reforms and less religious bullshit.
> The only alternative is for two increasingly polarized parties to try and impose their preferences on the other half of the country. That rubs me as very weird and anti-freedom compared to just embracing federalism.
Or, hear me out... compromise? Otherwise you'd have half the country living in a backwards, religious law-based, science denying country with lots of guns, high teen pregnancies and child abandonment and mistreatment. I don't think anyone wins besides some politicians who are too stupid to function but will get automatically elected because they happen to have the right party affiliation.
Note: Not American, i don't have a horse in this race.
> But they aren't talking about a philosophy of government and system of laws, they're talking about a party.
Which reflects a philosophy of government and a desired system of laws.
> I wonder how people like that function. Like, they chose a party, and automatically agree and favour everything that party says? That's weird. If not, like if you only believe in 2-3 of their core things, but disagree with the rest, why do you still talk about party affiliation?
Usually it’s the other way around: parties, politicians, and activists specifically court and/or alienate people based on broad cultural affinities, and once they’ve established those affinities, maybe they can communicate their policy and ideological agendas. Both parties have actually substantially changed their policy agendas over the past few years to maintain those cultural affinities.
> What happens when you have a conflicting opinion with the party? Especially considering the party in question is blatantly anti-science. Take climate change for instance. There are young Republicans that aren't braindead or brainwashed enough to think it's a sham and want it taken seriously, but they're still stuck only with the Republican party as a choice because the the main things they believe in match only with them. And then have to support the party which proudly says that climate change means no more burgers, so it's obviously stupid and wrong and God wouldn't have wanted it!
This seems like a parody of what Republicans actually believe, but let me detach from the object level a little bit here: it sounds like you really would not, yourself, prefer to live in a state governed by Republicans. Well, you don’t have to!
> Or, hear me out... compromise?
Federalism is a compromise.
> Otherwise you'd have half the country living in a backwards, religious law-based, science denying country with lots of guns, high teen pregnancies and child abandonment and mistreatment.
Aside from the “lots of guns” thing, this sort of reads as a biased stereotype to me. But I’m trying to avoid the actual object-level political differences here.
It seems by “compromise” what you really mean is, “red states shouldn’t be allowed to decide their own laws”. I somehow doubt you’d be so sanguine about urban Democrat-dominated parts of the country having to “compromise” with those awful, awful Republicans.
Whereas what I mean by “compromise” is—you don’t have to like the other side, or agree with them, or try and come up with a compromise set of policies you can both live under. You can just leave them the hell alone and mind your own business, and in exchange, they will leave you the hell alone and mind their own business.
The US is roughly the size of the European Union, while individual US states are comparable in population to European countries, though a little smaller on average. I think the differences in law and policy between, say, California and Idaho are not as broad as some of the differences between EU member states.
I wonder how people like that function. Like, they chose a party, and automatically agree and favour everything that party says? That's weird. If not, like if you only believe in 2-3 of their core things, but disagree with the rest, why do you still talk about party affiliation?
What happens when you have a conflicting opinion with the party? Especially considering the party in question is blatantly anti-science. Take climate change for instance. There are young Republicans that aren't braindead or brainwashed enough to think it's a sham and want it taken seriously, but they're still stuck only with the Republican party as a choice because the the main things they believe in match only with them. And then have to support the party which proudly says that climate change means no more burgers, so it's obviously stupid and wrong and God wouldn't have wanted it!
The American two-party system is fundamentally broken and fucked up. Those people need more reforms and less religious bullshit.
> The only alternative is for two increasingly polarized parties to try and impose their preferences on the other half of the country. That rubs me as very weird and anti-freedom compared to just embracing federalism.
Or, hear me out... compromise? Otherwise you'd have half the country living in a backwards, religious law-based, science denying country with lots of guns, high teen pregnancies and child abandonment and mistreatment. I don't think anyone wins besides some politicians who are too stupid to function but will get automatically elected because they happen to have the right party affiliation.
Note: Not American, i don't have a horse in this race.