The American Two Party system

[Dill]

(03-13-2023, 08:31 PM)hollodero Wrote: Dill Wrote:[url=http://thebengalsboard.com/Thread-The-American-Two-Party-system?pid=1338387#pid1338387][/url]The political history of authoritarianism can shed much light on what is going on here, but “Dems are biased too!” Doesn’t clarify much. Or worse, it enables water-muddying false equivalence.  Why don't Dems coup too? 
.....
So I decided to give you a somewhat more deserving answer. You tell me lots of things about what is a useful tool for analysis and what is not, and then your analysis boils down to this sort of conclusion. Why don't do Democrats do coups? And why saying "Dems are bad too!" is pointless and enabling. I mean, that is convenient, isn't it. Not to mention it's quite an accusation to make, especially given my posting history, but also in general. But mainly, real convenient. 

I have argued that at the current conjuncture, if we are looking for causes of division--especially PRIMARY CAUSES--"Dems are bad too" doesn't account for much as a hypothesis. This is a question relevance, not validity or accuracy per se. Instead of styling that an "accusation" motivated by "convenience" rather than a legitimate conclusion given my starting point and the evidence, you could respond by showing what I've missed, what it does explain, demonstrating its probative value, if such it has.  
 
In my previous post I explained why I was looking for what both sides don't do, because I am seeing a substantial difference between them "Why don't Democrats do coups?" is a question, a STARTING POINT for causal analysis, not the "conclusion" thereof.  And it recognizes scale: the coup attempt, and continuing defense of it, are pretty much off the charts as bad political behavior, Nothing like that since 1861.  Why is this recognition a bad starting point?  
 

(03-13-2023, 08:31 PM)hollodero Wrote: And it's also quite convenient to declare questions like your last one the righteous outcome of a valid analysis of history and the real relevant factors and then teach others lessons about that. And at the same time, in the same post even, you ask me why I feel the urge to bring something up that I believe to be true. As if this somehow were the invalid thing to do in an analysis. Now you personally might be convinced that everything I ever brought up except the juicy anti-Trump stuff is completely, 100% irrelevant, but I just don't believe it is. I don't believe the nature of the two-party system has nothing to with any of it, and I also don't think certain things that liberals do and attitudes liberals developed are completely irrelevant. This for me is part of the overall picture. Is it really a part, and if so how big a part, fine, that can be discussed, I usually don't even disagree with you on most of that. But just automatically declare it a non-factor and accuse me of enabling false equivalencies? That is a bit much.

I have no power to "declare" anything. My "valid analysis" and "real relevant factors" require the same support from me as I would ask of others analyses and factors, etc. And they are open to the same tests/challenges as anyone elses'.

I thought we were discussing whether lib attitudes are "really a part, and if so how big a part." I'm asking you to identify them and track their effect so I can at least see it.  But as I wrote that last line I suddenly wondered if our goals might just be too different here; we certainly aren't worried about the same things. You may be more concerned about posters' manners and their effects in this forum, whereas I am interested in how a party/news propaganda machine again and again produces politically paralyzing and actually dangerous counternarratives out there in the world.  The question of "what Dems do" I have rejected so far because, while I agree Dems do or say bad things (though not on the Trump/Hannity/Giuliani scale), I don't see that as driving the problem, even when my Fox friends claim they are only responding to Dem lies and hypocrisy.
 
So if I (we) agree there is bad dem behavior, why do I avoid its incorporation into causal analysis of degenerating democracy? 
 
Not only do I not see any important causal relation there, but one significant block to reasoned discussion and persuasion is that Trump's "sins" are so off the charts that with them has come a desperate effort by both his supporters and defenders* to minimize them with false equivalence. Trump lies? Well some news for you naive lib--ALL politicians lie, Biden too! Trump incited mobs for extra pressure as his henchmen sought to overturn a legitimate election with slates of false electors? Well back-atcha lib--Hillary questioned Trump's win after she conceded. Trump deliberately took thousands of classified documents from the WH, then refused to return them after lying about whether he had them and how much he had? LOL check Biden's garage, where he found a few stray documents and promptly turned them in. BOTH SIDES DO IT!
 
So sure, as I try to explain/persuade why these are not equivalences, the essential goal is to restore scale while the people I'm debating are usually working steadily to scrap it. However true, "Dems are bad too" just muddies these waters given the absence of scale. 
 
During the Nuremberg Trials, the U.S. wanted to charge Admiral Doenitz with war crimes because German submariners left ship crews to die on the sea (and maybe shot helpless people in lifeboats). Doenitz' lawyers successfully back-atcha'd the American lawyers though, revealing the U.S. did the same thing to Japanese. So D. got off on that charge, even though it was verfiable; he went to prison for the things both sides didn't do.  In such legal/political contests, when both sides REALLY do it, the leverage of legal and political legitimacy is gone.  Only force decides the issue. That's why current battles over whether "Dems do it too" are crucial to both sides. The logic of the situation impels one side to differentiate and scale, the other to conflate and assert equivalence. 

"Given your posting history," I quite agree you are not on that other side, trying to "conflate" etc. You recognize scale. But I suspect you read the contours of the debate field differently; NOT mentioning Dem badness too is, to you, inaccurate, distortive, and partisan "convenience."  

(03-13-2023, 08:31 PM)hollodero Wrote: You don't agree with me on stuff, fine, I'm as fine with you doing it as I was fine with SSF or anyone else doing it. You can even call me uninformed or clueless or whatever, survived it often, would survive it now. But imho, basically you actually come in and ask me why I dare make a thread about the two-party system and how I see it. For any meaningful discourse, my thread should have been called 'why don't Dems coup too?' and I should only have talked about the frivulous right and what an ass Trump is. Anything beyond that, I go on hunches and don't do proper analysis and am enabling false equivalencies and don't clarify my points and whatnot. And maybe, just maybe this attitude could serve as an example of liberal behaviour that isn't all that well suited to win hearts and minds; something you asked me about recently. Of course - just a hunch. I have no hard evidence.

Pretty sure you know I'm never going to call you "uniformed" or "clueless," with your permission or without, or ask "how dare you" make this or that thread. If you really think I just want you and everyone else to talk about what a "frivolous ass" Trump is, then I'm surprised. How's that causal analysis? 

I don't mind anyone going on "hunches"; they might lead to evidence. But they are not themselves evidence. Asking people to clarify points, their claimed pertinence to an issue, is not specifically "liberal" behavior (though it could be specifically associated to them in a time and place where they are the ones mostly doing it). 
 
But there's an "attitude" in all that questioning and looking for proof which becomes an "example" of the bad Dem behavior I asked about? I was thinking more along the lines of personal attack, jamming discussion with false accusation and red herrings when I asked. Genuinely sorry you're upset by my tack on this, though going over your objections really helps me clarify/advance my own thinking. (Not that that's worth the price of supremely angering you. I didn't want that (still don't). Isn't worth it. Just happened that way. ) 
 
*  i.e., those who claim to dislike Trump but feel a stronger need to defend him against "the left," which they dislike way more and which they know benefits from his behavior.
** Ok to call me "liberal," but I also differ substantially from most libs on some issues and on method, so I probably should not be taken as especially representative of Dem liberal views. I'm typical leftist-without-quotation-marks, regarding people's behavior more as effect of social background, historical context, and institutions than of "sins" or evil character (which has no explanatory power). Going over and over how "bad" some people have been without some ulterior goal, like preventing future bad behavior by understanding what caused it, is not interesting to me.