Thoughts? What do you think should be done?
Block Fox News and channels/radio that push such radical and divisive rhetoric every hour, and this country instantly becomes a better place
Well first off, “thoughts?” is in the pantheon of “just asking questions” ways to get me to never read anything one posts.
Thoughts: This opening paragraph creates a laughably false premise upon which the author hangs the rest of his editorial upon:
Until that author is willing to study political polarization since, say, the Grant administration, I’m unwilling to read much more of what he’s got to say.
Dude, c’mon, get to the second graf already.
roughly nine out of 10 supporters of Joe Biden and of Donald Trump alike were convinced that a victory by their opponent would cause “lasting harm” to the United States.
Me, I’m just asking questions here.
Who should have the authority to block them and how will you establish that authority in a way that won’t be turned against you?
Well, there was the FCC fairness doctrine from 1949 to 1987 and it didn’t turn us into an Orwellian hellscape or anything. That said, I don’t know enough about it to know whether or to what extent it would prohibit the content Fox and OANN and Infowars et al. put out, nor whether it would even matter much in the internet age.
I’ve always suspected there should be some way that Fox isn’t bundled with basic cable, and that would probably drop most of the subscribers.
Very true.
But also, it didn’t make our country less polarized politically, either. And it was a doctrine struck down likely before it would’ve failed a SCOTUS challenge with Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas taking seats on the bench that had been occupied by Lewis Powell and Thurgood Marshall.
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You obviously have some if you felt the article was interesting and worth posting, so after you.
I’m not a US citizen, so not really my place to suggest anything, but as an EU citizen, who’s lived with different kind of politics: break up both big parties into AT LEAST 4 parties: Far Left, Far Right, Centre Left, Centre Right. But this is not something that someone can decide or agree upon, but that would have to just happen on its own, somehow.
Oh and of course, the old “Get corporate money out of politics”.
My thoughts? It’s more ‘both sides’ nonsense from the consistently awful Yascha Mounk, who basically makes a living repeating this crap no matter how many times it has been debunked before.
And there isn’t anything in it that isn’t covered by a bunch of existing threads already, and even if there is no limit on the number of threads, using one up for this article is a waste of the resource and an insult to the universe.
Unfortunately (?) these are two things that can’t really be done within the framework of our constitutional order.
There are no levers in our system for a minority third party to use to wield power, which is why there hasn’t ever been any extended period of history where there were 3 or more meaningful parties. When you do see a successful third party, it’s part of a transition where it supplants an existing party and that one fades away and then there are two again.
And money is speech, or at least so say the lords of the Court, so you can’t get it out of politics.
If only corporations weren’t people, a lot of this would improve. And of course, they aren’t, but try telling that to the court. Gotta wonder about strict textualists who can’t tell the difference between a person and a corporation.
I think the only way that could conceivably work in US politics is if ranked-choice voting got implemented nationwide, or at least in multiple states. And even then, you would probably just get a bunch of independents who end up caucusing with one of the two major parties.
Are we saying we have to fight the Spiral Zone?!?!
If there’s multiple mid-tier (10-30%) parties, none can govern alone, they need to form alliances, and they need to compromise on solutions, and not call the opposing party “evil”, because you might need to work with them in the future.
We’ve already seen that SCOTUS can reconsider it’s past decisions, so why not this one?
Unfortunately the first past the post voting allocation we use will, by default, generate the two party outcome we see. That plus single seat representation and a unitary executive mean that there is no stable balance that does not decay to a two party system within a few years.
Why has this never happened in the 240-year history of the country? I think it is because only one party can win control of the executive branch. It’s not like a parliamentary system where a minor coalition partner can be part of the government. Only the electoral college winner can be President, and the president’s party will decide the executive agenda.
Yes, that puts it better, thanks!
Because we have to wait for these people to retire or die, which is how SCOTUS changes their mind?