Mitch McConnell quitting as Minority Leader

[hollodero]

(03-05-2024, 12:39 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: It boils down to campaign finances.  Once an elected official gets in and makes a few connected happy by voting for their particular policy choices, the campaign donation start flowing in like a tsunami, leaving any potential primary challengers with the slimmest of chances of getting seen/heard/known, no matter how sound their character or potential solutions may be.

yep.

(03-05-2024, 12:39 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Some of this can be solved by defrocking the RNC and DNC, and relieving them of having the power of naming the nominees for General Elections.

Welp, I don't really know. I often feel RNC and DNC are the scapegoats for everything that's wrong in politics, but imho their existence as is rather is a symptom than the cause.
You have two parties resulting in effectively no alternatives for most people. McConnell could do what ever he wants and still would have gotten elected anyways in that solidly red state of his. Same goes for most senators red and blue really, aside from a very few contested areas. Imho, that is the root of the problem. But Americans don't see it that way and I have accepted that.

Sure, one could make the primaries more fair, but as long as brib... campaign donations are perfectly legal that will never happen. And that's the one solid bipartisan issue, that the donations ain't stopping. And most people are so engaged in being for one side and hating the other that they do not mind. Most people even celebrate when their candidate raised more money than the opponent. They actually celebrate that, my gosh. Hooray, we have the bigger sellout! Now what, the same person gets elected and then surprisingly turns out to be a sellout? Also, there's cars at the end of a car assembly line? Weird world.