Tuesday, January 16, 2024

The Three-Party System

 Functionally speaking, America has three political parties, not two.

One party believes that the systems that hold up our society are fundamentally broken and crumbling around us, and need to be drastically overhauled to ensure our continued survival.

One party believes the systems that hold up our society are fine, and just need small tweaks, and for us to all agree to follow and live up to them, to ensure our continued survival.

The third party believes that the systems that hold up our society are fundamentally broken and crumbling around us, and that they can use this to increase their own money and power, whether we collectively survive or not.

Two of these parties field candidates, have positions represented in the national media, and do everything in their power to keep one of them from having a voice, either out of misguided and entrenched devotion to their belief in the system, or because the first party is the biggest threat to their gravy train.

People in that first party are constantly forced to support the second in the hopes of staving off the third long enough for the second to realize maybe the first are right.

The best thing about this framing is that it’s very easy to quickly identify which party someone is in. You don’t have to play around with stupid labels like “moderate” or “maverick” or “resistance”. 

The worst thing about this framing is it reveals very quickly how outnumbered you are.


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