The post Southern Strategy GOP functions like a monarch -- If it's fashionable to curtail favor, i'm for it. And then when its not useful to me anymore, fuck you.
Like everything else, it's been trampled on and buried deep in the mud as everyone races to the "us versus them" false dichotomy. We won't get over this ridiculous pro-big-business wealth redistribution project until people can think beyond fighting for their favorite color.
I have to disagree, not because I want to though. One party has shown itself time and time again to put the interests of business far above those of the consumer and in many cases, act totally contrary to what opinion polling shows their constituents actually want on issues like gun control and net neutrality [1][2].
Given the fact that we only have 2 viable parties (yes it would be nice if that weren't the case but it is), what choice do we have but to dogpile on the party that responds at least somewhat to what constituents want and consistently supports pro-consumer policies? Sure both parties take money from wall street, but which one actually tries to protect the consumer from the excesses of wall street? People just keep saying "well they are all corrupt", don't look at who takes money and how much look at how their opinions and actions change after they take the money!
I'm against false dichotomy and false equivalencies. The only avenue I see is to make democratic reforms part of the democratic party platform where we prevent these problems in the long term. That will show if they can be a truly mature party, one that is willing to give up power to restore long term viability to our democracy.
I think the last election demonstrated very clearly that the blue team is not willing to give up power to make reforms anymore than the red team. I keep hearing people say this ("vote for the blue team because we can reform things from the inside!") but I'll believe it when I see it.
Was that part of the platform anywhere? I'm saying that the left has taken advantage of procedural stuff themselves (and therefore, haven't tried to fix the loopholes) and have for recent years suffered greatly because of it.
I honestly don't think that they've used as sleazy of tactics to get what they want (such as denying a president a supreme court appointment) but I don't have hard data to back that up other than a couple recent examples.
I'm saying they need to make it part of their platform. Someone has to be adult enough to realize that restoring our democracy to a more working order is essential. That means gerrymandering, campaign finance, filibusters etc.
