Rush Limbaugh STILL is a big, fat idiot

[Flint]

Originally Posted by Flint

In this thread, 10 years ago, I argued that the only way to bring meaningful change to American politics was to vote third party, and over time, to send a message of non-participation to the two-party system.
...
Since then, partisan politics have become even more polarized, record numbers of Americans are identifying as independent, and both major parties have been hijacked from within, by anti-establishment candidates.
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05-16-2016, 06:00 PM

Since then: the "populist message" Republican hijacker succeeded in winning the White House, but not much else, due to lack of experience. The "populist message" Democrat hijacker was squashed by the Democrats, who used brute force politics to prolong their positions of power.

Since then: both parties are still quite fractured between reasonable members (called "moderates" on the right, "progressives" on the left) who want to get elected/re-elected by actually serving the public, and ideologues who cater to consumers of opinion-based "news" sources (conservative-flavored on the right, identity-flavored on the left).

This is where we're at: the great enemy of the political change that people are literally taking to the streets to demand, is party loyalty driven by customized news feeds, driven by "big data" analytics.

The great enemy is that facts don't exist anymore. There's no common ground on which to debate, as everyone is in a different flavor of reality.

And if the oligarchs get control of the free internet, the fight is over.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I don't think the moderates stand a chance without campaign finance reform. Lock out the oligarchs and PACS, maybe even public financing. Big money has been working at the state level getting governors and state politicians elected, primarily knocking out moderates in the primaries where nobody bothers to vote.