Uphill battle to get the democrats to stand and applaud. Division for ego or party serves Erisian fantasies at the expense of the us citizens. If the 2 party system makes government dysfunctional, perhaps there is need for change?
Yeah, nice speech. He's for free trade, except when he is not. He's on both sides of every issue. And of course he doesn't say how he will pay for all his spending. I'm guessing we will soon see the Republican Party split. If Trump wants to govern, he and his Republican following will need to form a coalition with Democrats. I don't know what that will do to the Republican entertainers who have supported him and demonized Democrats. At least he didn't boast about his electoral victory.
He didn't brag about his election victory but he did quip about "and I know something about getting ratings". So let's see, he's going to spend one trillion on infrastructure projects, increase the $600 billion military budget by another $50 billion while reducing corporate and individual taxes and build a big wall. The good news is that he will be brings back high paying jobs. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Nice speech. They got him to read it read it without ad-libs - at least up to when I dozed off. Wonder how many tranqs he took. Was there any point to it?
Get rid of the one that went spla into fascism and created the dysfunction; the other one already has a full range of sanity, and can provide opposition viewpoints and so forth - it will split and recreate political discussion the way adults do things. Is anyone really going to watch Trump make anything except a campaign speech? What for - Clues as to what's going to maybe happen?
No clues. Not even elementary arithmetic. Same old rhetoric; a little more coherently articulated than usual. I guess it is possible to wear new grooves in old brains. I should keep practicing those guitar chords; there's still hope.
No, see, it doesn't work that way. You're not a very good confidence swindler. People who support, as you do, dysfunction, do not get to complain about the dysfunction. It's what you wanted, therefore it is not, in your context, dysfunction. Sure, you appear dysfunctional to the rest of us, but like the delusional guy who can't stop wanking, we try to leave it alone until we have no other choice but to ask the police to pick him up from the streetcorner outside the school. And at least by that metaphor you aren't morally culpable for the wrong you commit. You remind me of the racists who suggest subsequent disagreement over their racism is somehow evidence that people of different colors can't live together in peace. Conservatives make government dysfunctional. Okay, what next? Seriously: Republicans make government dysfunctional; this is an act of will. By your logic, what needs to change? Should we abolish the Constitution, or Republicans? The problem isn't "government". The problem is people of bad faith who demand failure of collective endeavors.
A little more familiarity with the contents of, rather than random convenient half-sentences from, that constitution might help government function better. So might a less screwy electoral system. And if so much of it wasn't for sale.
Efficacy: Priority and Focus Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Brian Beutler↱, for the New Republic: Trump could have offered his congressional foot soldiers moral support and guidance. Instead he gave an address crafted almost entirely with his own immediate political fortunes in mind. In the most superficial sense, Trump met his objective. Trump peppered his remarks with a more balanced mix of banal platitudes, lies, and characteristically offensive agitation than marked his inaugural address and other speeches—aimed more squarely at lazy pundits primed to celebrate Trump's latest “pivot” than at insecure members of the Republican congressional conferences. With such a large, captive television audience, it wouldn't surprise me if the address fleetingly, but perhaps substantially, lifts his approval ratings. But against a backdrop of severe congressional dysfunction, when his members are deeply divided over the substance and ordering of their agenda, nothing he said made their marching orders clearer. With his agenda on the brink, and his party in need of direction, Trump sought to shore up his personal tracking poll numbers. Reviews are as reviews do, and it's true that bad reviews chafe President Trump's self-love. However, neither is he reading TNR's review. Still, though, something goes here about punditry and pivots. More directly, David L. Bahnsen↱ sets a low bar for National Review: "the president said nothing to suggest that markets' faith in him is misplaced". It's an interesting syntax, to be certain. President Trump's speech to Congress (the de facto State of the Union) is being rightly praised by critics for its politically effective pivot in both tone and demeanor. Even critics on the left are either conceding it was a well-executed speech or stretching awkwardly to find points of critique. Fox News's Chris Wallace spoke for many viewers when he said, “I feel like tonight Donald Trump became the president of the United States.” The positive response to the speech is well-deserved if one believes Trump needed to show empathy, demonstrate a presidential demeanor, and employ a new, more sober style of communication. Interestingly, the next few paragraphs of Bahnsen's review― • Reminds the wisdom of skepticism regardless of who is promising a trillion dollars worth of infrastructure, though also lays out the talking points around that, which essentially means taking the money out of the people through a middleman, i.e., the private sector. • Discusses a cabinet secretary talking up her boss by disagreeing with him. • Hangs on "glimmers of hope" that energy infrastructure will be deregulated so that the "risk/reward trade-off" is "in the hands of private actors where it belongs", or, more directly, finding hope in omission, which Bahnsen calls "an investible thesis". (That is to say, everybody else needs to build it for Mr. Trump.) • Asks, "Could he possibly mean ...?" and answers, "Let's hope so. Either way, the mixed message here ...." • Some sentences ought to speak for themselves: "Giving the corporate sector tax relief would be the easiest way for Trump to encourage economic growth, but his speech didn't offer much by way of clues as to how he will do it, even if it said little to suggest that he won't do it, one way or another." • Thus: In a nutshell, the economic implications of last night's very effective speech are quite simple: Markets continue to believe that Obamacare repeal and replacement and corporate-tax reform are coming, and that deficits are not going to balloon because of Trump's agenda. In front of Congress, Trump did nothing to discourage any of these beliefs, even if he didn't tie himself to a specific path forward. ―amount to the argument for describing Mr. Trump's speech before Congress as "effective". ____________________ Notes: Bahnsen, David L. "Trump’s Speech Was Effective – and It Gave the Markets Reason for Cautious Optimism". National Review. 1 March 2017. NationalReview.com. 1 March 2017. http://bit.ly/2meeKP2 Beutler, Brian. "Trump’s Speech to Congress Was Oblivious to Reality". New Republic. 28 February 2017. NewRepublic.com. 1 March 2017. http://bit.ly/2me86IC
The two party system isn't set down as a law. It's just what has developed through the years. How do you recommend changing the status quo?
I've read that our system of gov't is not conducive to a multi-party system. It takes a parliamentary form of gov't for multi-parties to work well. Maybe someone can elaborate on this . . . .
I've wondered how we wound up with what we have. (Reminds me of Douglas Adams analogy of the planet run by lizards - we assume that, since everyone has the vote, the government we have is the government we want.) I've tried voting third party several times. I might as well have not voted. http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7484962-ford-said-on-its-world-the-people-are-people
I would like to see it abolished. Then the two presidential candidates would have to campaign in all 50 states, or at least make an attempt.
Sanders's home State did ok via voting for a third Party candidate. So did Jesse Ventura's. Start local.
I suspect it would have the opposite effect. Candidates could concentrate on New York, LA and Chicago and pretty much wrap it up.
How you end up with a two-party system (and eventually, by logical progression, to a one-party system) is the same way that monopolies are formed. The parties of the richest and most powerful interests keep winning, and are always in a position to change the rules in their own favour. Thus they overwhelm, engulf, starve or outlaw the smaller parties. The voters realize that their region or faction can never have its independent representation, simply because they can't raise enough funds to match the wealthiest parties, nor organize events big enough to command press attention, nor recruit a large number of registrants to have any clout in the electoral college. So the party that represents a minority, or that wants environmental protection, or women's rights, or better public services or gun control, must throw in their lot with the party that's more progressive and inclusive, which is Labour, or something like. Thus, the conservative party remains internally united in its purpose: to consolidate wealth and power (unless they eat their young), while the liberal party is made up of diverse elements, sometimes contentious elements, and always has difficulty agreeing on a platform.
as/re; "I haven't seen Trump doing anything to help us or make government more functional." Have you seen nancy pelosi doing anything to help us or make government more functional?
