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[smjjames]

The FPTP system certainly doesn't help things since it forces any potential third partyers to wear the jersey of one of the two major teams if they want to get anywhere, which is exactly what Trump did.

[Frumple]

there is no real correlation between gay rights and gun rights, for example

Except for most extensively effecting minorities, anyway, and being to a fair extent either way about stopping people from dying. If gun rights weren't putting a lot of people in graves, and wasn't being abused in the specific ways they've came to be (SYG nonsense, stuff overlapping with police abuses, the general criminal use, etc.), it's pretty unlikely they'd be an issue at all for democrats. The correlation isn't the strongest, but it's not an outright anti-correlation like anti-poor sentiments and christianity by any means.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

While a lot about the electoral structure supports the two-party system, that's not the whole story. Plenty of nations now and even the US in the past have had other parties arise to greater importance with similar electoral systems. Not enough to truly topple the two-party system, but significant on the local, state, and occasionally federal level.

We even have that to some degree now with the Vermont Progressive Party, Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor, Working Families, the Libertarians, and the Alaskan Independence Party.

No, the real reason it goes all the way not just to two-party dominance but two-party exclusivity is because the Democrats and the Republicans hold all political ground in this country. They're both big tents, and those tents cover the whole of the political spectrum. Every moderate has a place in one or the other, and most extremists realize they do better by entryism into the better-fitting party than going their own way.

[Lord Shonus]

there is no real correlation between gay rights and gun rights, for example

Except for most extensively effecting minorities, anyway, and being to a fair extent either way about stopping people from dying. If gun rights weren't putting a lot of people in graves, and wasn't being abused in the specific ways they've came to be (SYG nonsense, stuff overlapping with police abuses, the general criminal use, etc.), it's pretty unlikely they'd be an issue at all for democrats. The correlation isn't the strongest, but it's not an outright anti-correlation like anti-poor sentiments and christianity by any means.

My point was that there is absolutely no conflict between "Gay marriage should never have been illegal, and there should never have been a reason people had to hide in the closet" and "a disarmed citizen is an enslaved citizen."

[Frumple]

Or the reverse, but as far as I'm aware there's not many people under the GOP tent (or anywhere else, for that matter) calling for the population to be disarmed to make it easier to purge the gays (... do they even exist?).

... though there is conflict between "minorities should not be abused" and "no gun control is best". At least with the U.S. situation as things are. Was point, that the stances the dems have actually are correlated on that point, it's just by way of something broader than either specific issue.

Gun control actually kinda' hits on a lot of the democrat planks like that. Most of the conditions it effects disproportionately (poor, minority, low education, unhealthy -- if primarily from the mental angle -- and so on) are also ones dem platform is specifically aimed at first (if not only) and foremost. Other conditions would be better with less or better controlled firearms, firearm issues would be reduced if the rest treated, and either happening faster if both addressed hand in hand. It's... not really disconnected or whathaveyou, is what I'm getting at. Nothing particularly incoherent about it.

[Reelya]

wtf did I just watch?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXA5JwoLOwU

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

While a lot about the electoral structure supports the two-party system, that's not the whole story. Plenty of nations now and even the US in the past have had other parties arise to greater importance with similar electoral systems. Not enough to truly topple the two-party system, but significant on the local, state, and occasionally federal level.

The big problem is that the major ones crop up entirely due to schisms in one of the two big ones, that then reconcile when they see their split allowed for their opponents to win.  If a double schism were to occur and they didn't reconcile in the aftermath, then we might get somewhere.

Really, the 'split the party means the opposition will win' is likely the largest thing keeping the two parties intact.

[Frumple]

Gods, yes. It's not the only but almost certainly the largest.

[EnigmaticHat]

The issue of "conflated issues" is a major problem with the somewhat abstract US notion of political parties, where the Blues have to be hard opposed to the Reds on every issue, because that is the best way to suck in single-issue voters. My go-to issue is gun control - if you divide people into three groups (Hard For, Hard Against, and Don't Care) you can see exactly why the Democrats have been pro-gun-control even when the polls don't support such a stance - the Republicans are going to get most of the Hard Against group, the Don't Care group isn't going to be repelled by moderate support, so the best thing they could do would be to try to get the Hard For group, who are going to flock to the people who are Doing Something in what they consider the right direction, even if those people don't necessarily go Far Enough.

Multiply this by every major issue, and you get two party blocs that don't have coherent platforms (in that most of their stances on issues are not really all that related to each other - there is no real correlation between gay rights and gun rights, for example), but nonetheless have extremely rabid core support because the most rabid supporters of each issue have flocked to one banner or the other.

This is a bad thing overall. Not only does it lead to nasty polarization as a whole, but makes it much harder to please the majority on any given issue. To continue the example, the vast majority of Americans would be perfectly happy with a better background check system (I personally think a shall-issue "clean check" ID would be a good way to go), but the Republicans fight against it because the Hard Against crowd fear it would lead to "may issue" laws and other "soft" bans, while the Democrats try to appease the Hard For crowd by only offering better background checks as part of a more comprehensive package that has much less broad support.

I agree.  For most issues one party really cares and the other party showed up to disagree.  Its become kind of trite to even say it but the real problem is the two party system.  If third parties were viable at all levels of government, right now, both parties would have to clean up.  When democrats sell gun control without really caring about it, the "hard for" crowd gets mad because they disagree with the democrats, but the "hard against" crowd also gets mad because they feel their own party is doing nothing.  They really should go make their own party, or at least find a smaller coalition party that isn't half the country, but.  To do so would hand the Republicans, the "hard-for" party, even more power.

A reverse example I would say is environmentalism.  Democrats have a preference for environmental protection; the Republicans, at the party level, really just want the Democrats to shut up about it and never bring it up again.  Or small government; the Republicans are the party of small government, the Democrats have no opinion on that.  If small government would get the dems what they want (for example, a small military for the dove crowd), they'll take it, if big government works they'll take that instead.

I do believe at this point in time the Democratic coalition happens to have factions that play nicer with each other than what the Republicans have.  I don't think there's anything inherent to the Democrats that makes them better there.  That's just how the dice landed this time.  I would say the biggest disconnects in the Democratic party right now are people who think the party isn't going far enough.  It used to be environmentalists but the Democrats are pushing harder on that; if anyone wants to go make their own third party now it will probably be the anti-1% Bernie/Occupy crowd.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Occupy crowd.

You know, I think it is a slight shame what happened to that movement.  If they had made their only concern splitting up the effectively monopolies and on tax reform, and had set some concrete objectives, they could have pulled something off.  But they targeted too much to handle at once with amorphous goals and everything fell apart.

[Lord Shonus]

Or the reverse, but as far as I'm aware there's not many people under the GOP tent (or anywhere else, for that matter) calling for the population to be disarmed to make it easier to purge the gays (... do they even exist?).

... though there is conflict between "minorities should not be abused" and "no gun control is best". At least with the U.S. situation as things are. Was point, that the stances the dems have actually are correlated on that point, it's just by way of something broader than either specific issue.

Gun control actually kinda' hits on a lot of the democrat planks like that. Most of the conditions it effects disproportionately (poor, minority, low education, unhealthy -- if primarily from the mental angle -- and so on) are also ones dem platform is specifically aimed at first (if not only) and foremost. Other conditions would be better with less or better controlled firearms, firearm issues would be reduced if the rest treated, and either happening faster if both addressed hand in hand. It's... not really disconnected or whathaveyou, is what I'm getting at. Nothing particularly incoherent about it.

That would explain all the KKK-backed gun control initiatives back in the day. Also, I'm lying.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

There were in fact plenty of attempts, legally and extralegally, to keep guns out of the hands of black people. One of the big things of the Black Panthers was exercising their Second Amendment rights. You've probably seen the famous photo of them standing on courthouse steps with shotguns - that's where that originates.

[Lord Shonus]

I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me or missed my point, but that is exactly what I was talking about.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'm not keeping up with your conversation, I just saw the line and decided to exposit, since the activism of the Black Panthers is often ignored or misrepresented.

[Frumple]

Was talking recently, sillies. More recently, anyway. Though there is some shit regard laws and enforcement that would count, now that I think a bit more. One of those vaguely something-like-amusing-but-not things where the anti-control group in the U.S. is also the largest proponent of taking guns away from people and punishing exercising 2nd amendment rights. Guess it is happening, it's just somewhat more concealed.