Could it happen?

[Athetotheist]

After Trump lost the election, some Republicans started to distance themselves from him. How did he bring them back in line? He threatened to start a third party.

Now think about the Democrats. They ran for office implying that they were going to carry their constituents' progressive policy wishes to victory. And yeah, we're back in the Paris agreement and immigrant families are being reunited, but the minimum wage hike has been left in the dust, a bunch of Senate Dems are still dragging their feet on ending the filibuster and they seem disturbingly noncommittal on stopping GOP efforts to keep people from voting.

Rank-and-file Republicans have been leaving the GOP in droves. It seems to me that the Democrats could be looking at a disaster of their own if disappointed progressive Dems decide to go in the same direction. Could it happen? I think so.

[Purple Knight]

Whether it will happen depends on how willing people are to punish their own party for disappointing them. With Democrats, that's not very. Democrats have a keen understanding that Republicans seem to lack about the lesser of two evils. Unfortunately, the meta of this understanding is that politicians no longer have to please their constituents; they simply have to be 1% less dislikable than their opponent.

I believe this vicious cycle of more and more horrid politicians will come to revolution sooner or later.

I had a heartfelt plea typed out to not blame those who take up arms against the government, but I deleted it because I remembered that I believe people are robots and don't have free will, and that this is particularly applicable to this situation. Revolution is not to be exalted nor disparaged, but a mere consequence of a corrupt system that despises the people who support it. It is merely a domino to fall because the necessary dominoes before it have fallen.

[Athetotheist]

Democrats have a keen understanding that Republicans seem to lack about the lesser of two evils.

Republicans have a keen understanding that Democrats obviously lack about having to actually get off one's backside and do something in order to get anything done. And honestly, I don't see how sitting back while GOP legislatures move to disenfranchise voters could be a "lesser" evil.

I believe this vicious cycle of more and more horrid politicians will come to revolution sooner or later.

I don't see that as inevitable. But voters should abandon the romantic notion that the major parties will act in their constituents' best interests, a notion which I believe is every bit as delusional as QAnon, and realize that the most powerful tool they have, which no one can take from them, is their political affiliation. They decide which party they join, if any, and that ultimately gives them the upper hand. Consider this hypothetical scene:

PARTY MEMBERS: You said that if we elected you, you would do certain things that we want done. If you don't do what you said you would, we're going to leave and form another party.

PARTY LEADERS: But that would fragment the party and end up splitting the vote!

MEMBERS: Does that scare you?

LEADERS: Yes!!!

MEMBERS: Good.

They can't be leaders if there's no one following.

[Tcg]

Republicans have a keen understanding that Democrats obviously lack about having to actually get off one's backside and do something in order to get anything done.

This is a fascinating claim. Now that you've made it, all you have to do is present evidence that it is true.


Tcg

[Athetotheist]

Republicans have a keen understanding that Democrats obviously lack about having to actually get off one's backside and do something in order to get anything done.

This is a fascinating claim. Now that you've made it, all you have to do is present evidence that it is true.

Say what you want about the Republicans, they're definitely proactive. Look at the sheer number of bills they're proposing in state legislatures to curtail the freedom to vote. What opposition are Democrats mounting? Yeah, the Dem-controlled House passed a bill against the effort, but with Republicans in the Senate sure to vote against it and their handful of collaborator Democrats refusing to get rid of the filibuster, who ends up getting what they want?

Really----I would love to be proven wrong here.

[Purple Knight]

PARTY MEMBERS: You said that if we elected you, you would do certain things that we want done. If you don't do what you said you would, we're going to leave and form another party.

PARTY LEADERS: But that would fragment the party and end up splitting the vote!

MEMBERS: Does that scare you?

LEADERS: Yes!!!

MEMBERS: Good.

They can't be leaders if there's no one following.

I agree.

The problem is that people are stopping at the wrong meta. The metagame is controlled by the players and their selections. If rock is good in the meta - if that's what wins - it's because people are selecting flying. The problem is that people are unwilling to pick up a fighting-type because they still see a lot of birds, so the meta reaches an undesirable equilibrium where rock just wins and no one does anything about that. If enough people cared, though, the meta could be moved away from rock.

It's not just laziness though; it's a sort of group-enforced laziness where the lone guy who uses a fighting-type really is wrong because he really will be pecked to death. When Teddy Roosevelt split the Republican party because he was unhappy with Taft, and when, with a bigger base, the Republicans lost because they were split, that stuck in peoples' heads. But we all know the meta being rock is undesirable. So we all have to change and just push past that meta.

[Athetotheist]

PARTY MEMBERS: You said that if we elected you, you would do certain things that we want done. If you don't do what you said you would, we're going to leave and form another party.

PARTY LEADERS: But that would fragment the party and end up splitting the vote!

MEMBERS: Does that scare you?

LEADERS: Yes!!!

MEMBERS: Good.

They can't be leaders if there's no one following.

I agree.

The problem is that people are stopping at the wrong meta. The metagame is controlled by the players and their selections. If rock is good in the meta - if that's what wins - it's because people are selecting flying. The problem is that people are unwilling to pick up a fighting-type because they still see a lot of birds, so the meta reaches an undesirable equilibrium where rock just wins and no one does anything about that. If enough people cared, though, the meta could be moved away from rock.

It's not just laziness though; it's a sort of group-enforced laziness where the lone guy who uses a fighting-type really is wrong because he really will be pecked to death. When Teddy Roosevelt split the Republican party because he was unhappy with Taft, and when, with a bigger base, the Republicans lost because they were split, that stuck in peoples' heads. But we all know the meta being rock is undesirable. So we all have to change and just push past that meta.

I'm sorry----I'm from an older generation, so I understand essentially none of the jargon you threw at me in that first paragraph.

I think you ended by saying that defeatism is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and that's my own point as well. The problem with Democrats is that they have a martyr complex, thinking it nobler to be victimized than to right themselves by abandoning the forms to which they are accustomed [to paraphrase the Declaration].

[Purple Knight]

I think you ended by saying that defeatism is a self-fulfilling prophecy,

That's definitely part of what I'm saying. Another example of what I'm saying is that third parties only can't win because of the meta.

It's true that if you vote for a third party, you're just throwing your vote away, but it's only true because that's what everyone thinks, so that's how everyone plays the game (the meta).

[nobspeople]

[Replying to Athetotheist in post #1]

Could it happen?

Absolutely.
Would it happen?
Unlikely. IMO, there are too many hurdles to jump, people to sway, etc for it to happen and stay a viable party.
Maybe a better question is SHOULD it happen(?).