The American Two Party system

[Dill]

(03-13-2023, 04:33 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? 

Well, in this case you asked me a question a la 'why did you feel the urge to say that' and I answered it. And I still think it's true. Not everything you infer from that about me and my motivation is. I wanted to talk two party system here, not who's more severely biased or shares more blame.
I will leave the rest out, because it seems to be yet another dire injunction to solely focus on the republican sins. Stuff that was discussed a lot and that I don't disagree with anyways.

You opened this thread discussion with this line: "[The two-party system] is a system that creates division and tribalism. As evidenced, it allows extremism to become mainstream and get a guaranteed election win over time." 

I read that statement as a claim (hypothesis?) about a cause of division "as evidenced," which you attribute to a structure beyond and above individual parties--the two party system. In response, I assumed we both agreed there is a crippling division in U.S. politics, and  that understanding the cause(s) is required for managing it, but we differed over those causes. I didn't see anything "evidenced" for a two-party cause just because parties happened to be fighting in a two-party system. So I had questions.  

You've received no "severe injunction to discuss only Republican sins."  You've only been exposed to another, competing hypothesis, which tracks the anti-democracy threat to different causes, and on that basis raises questions about how and whether your two-party thesis really explains how (i.e., covers the facts) "extremism" went mainstream.  

A new question now: what do you mean when you say you want to "talk two party system here"? You could mean that you only want talk affirming your claim. I didn't assume that, but if you are truly testing it, then why close out other hypotheses, and the possibility that the two-party system is not the primary or even a major driver of that system?  

"Talk" could include logical and factual questions about your causal claim, couldn't it? If "both sides" in this division bought patent lies and broke the law to act on them, effectively mirroring each other, then I could myself be looking for the common structural feature which so positioned them vis a vis each other. It would be like examining why British-trained Indian soldiers in the Burma campaign began engaging in suicide charges and refusing to take prisoners like the Japanese. "Both sides" did it (though eventually one gets to "Japanese sins" as the primary cause). For historians, sociologists and political scientists writing about these events decades later, the primary goal is not to "blame Japanese," but to understand what happened, why one side did things differently, how the other side adjusted.  

But I don't see even that structural symmetry in the current division, with ONE SIDE so actively and continually and METHODICALLY  seeking to de-legitimate individuals, units of government democratic institutions like the free press, and ready to challenge democracy itself. These are considerable "sins."  Blame should come at some point to hold people accountable and to restore the system through legal and educational correction, but the point is to understand first. 

What would be fixed if Dems stop doing the bad stuff you find it important to note? Nothing much, I think.
What would change if Maga Repubs stopped doing their bad stuff? Crippling division and threat to our institutions ends the same day.
(Not saying division ends, just that it does not threaten democracy anymore, as both sides begin to agree on the same factual record.)
But I don't see any incentive to stop if the scale of difference is disputed. You may see no incentive to stop if Maga Repubs hear only "It's only and all your fault."  Perhaps we're both concerned with how "Dems bad too" affects the vector of our arguments. 

Last point: The only time I have discussed "bias" in this forum is to explain, e.g., why I don't find bias useful as a tool for social/historical analysis, and why most people using the term don't really have a consistent or coherent definition for it. At least once I have argued that it is impossible to have a political view of anything without some kind of bias; the notion of "bias free" views is just incoherent. So I'm hoping at some point you'll stop assuming that I'm all focused who is "more biased" and trying to impose that focus on others. I am focused on who is readier to break the republic. So, to repeat my previous post--I am not looking for which side is "more biased." 

PS our disagreement here is complicated because of course you are right that Trump's "sins" have been discussed (e.g., by you and quite specifically), and you aren't disputing they are sins, or claiming they didn't occur, or defending them at all.