Spot-On Election Post-Mortem

Ontologuy · Nov 13, 2012

Without question, the most accurate election post-mortem: Uniting American Citizens

In summary:

A whopping 42.5% of the electorate didn't show up because the liberal Dems and the conservative Repubs, and their satellite third parties, are so polarized and wingish that they don't represent the great majority of Americans.

Many who did vote simply held their nose and voted for the lesser of two evils who split most of the vote because, though they were still very distant from the center of the political spectrum where the great majority of people reside, they were still closer to the center than any of the "third" parties, Obama winning mostly because he was the sitting President, a huge "home court" advantage, and because of his race-baiting of Hispanic Latinos.

Roughly 10% of the population is really liberal and 10% is really conservative, with 5% being even more extreme. That leaves around 75% of the Amercan electorate who are centrist and unrepresented by a political party.

The natural political evolution is for a dominant political party that represents most people to eventually split into two factions, complete with satellite "third" parties, in time a great polarization occurs and the major parties lose touch with the people, and when they're all as out of touch with such a great majority of the people as they are today, a new centrist party emerges and dominates, pushing the previous parties into oblivion, and the cycle repeats.

The time is ripe for that new dominant party to emerge at the center of the political spectrum.

The present political parties are so busy trying to keep their power in The Global Economy that they are throwing American citizens under the bus in their power plays and, in effect, are killing America.

The new party will emphasize the natural entitlements of U.S. citizenship, making citizens meaningful, valuable and prominent, with an emphasis on liberty and justice for all U.S. citizens and getting our living-wage jobs back.

The new dominant centrist political party will resuscitate America, hopefully before the 2016 national election.

Anagram · Nov 13, 2012

Ontologuy said:
Without question, the most accurate election post-mortem: Uniting American Citizens

In summary:

A whopping 42.5% of the electorate didn't show up because the liberal Dems and the conservative Repubs, and their satellite third parties, are so polarized and wingish that they don't represent the great majority of Americans.

I seriously doubt that most of the people who didn't vote are centrists like the article suggests. It seems much more likely to me that the majority of them are simply apolitical.

Many who did vote simply held their nose and voted for the lesser of two evils who split most of the vote because, though they were still very distant from the center of the political spectrum where the great majority of people reside, they were still closer to the center than any of the "third" parties, Obama winning mostly because he was the sitting President, a huge "home court" advantage, and because of his race-baiting of Hispanic Latinos.

Roughly 10% of the population is really liberal and 10% is really conservative, with 5% being even more extreme. That leaves around 75% of the Amercan electorate who are centrist and unrepresented by a political party.

That seems wrong too, as only about 35% of people describe themselves as moderate or centrist.

The natural political evolution is for a dominant political party that represents most people to eventually split into two factions, complete with satellite "third" parties, in time a great polarization occurs and the major parties lose touch with the people, and when they're all as out of touch with such a great majority of the people as they are today, a new centrist party emerges and dominates, pushing the previous parties into oblivion, and the cycle repeats.

The time is ripe for that new dominant party to emerge at the center of the political spectrum.

The present political parties are so busy trying to keep their power in The Global Economy that they are throwing American citizens under the bus in their power plays and, in effect, are killing America.

The new party will emphasize the natural entitlements of U.S. citizenship, making citizens meaningful, valuable and prominent, with an emphasis on liberty and justice for all U.S. citizens and getting our living-wage jobs back.

The new dominant centrist political party will resuscitate America, hopefully before the 2016 national election.

That seems incredibly unlikely as well. I would say there is almost literally no chance of a centrist political party being politically relevant in the next 20 years and probably even longer than that.

AdamT · Nov 14, 2012

Again, the assumption seems to be that something was amiss because turnout was low ... but turnout was not low by historical standards. In fact it was at the high end of last 10 or so elections.

Ontologuy · Nov 14, 2012

Anagram said:
I seriously doubt that most of the people who didn't vote are centrists like the article suggests.

The OP link's statistical analysis is spot-on.

Your ideologically based denial .. not so much.

Anagram said:
IIt seems much more likely to me that the majority of them are simply apolitical.

This is the United States of America, not a dictatorship. From kindergarten through high school American kids are taught the value and importance of democracy and voting. That is never forgotten.

You clearly mistake "apolitical" for apathy, two completely different things.

Illness and weather and unforseen circumstances involving family and work and the like can keep a very small percentage of people who are non-apathetic from making it to the voting booth.

Roughly 10 million Americans are without an apartment, townhome, condo, house, are without a roof over their head and an address as required by law to vote, so these abject homeless, though they are indeed part of the electorate that didn't show up, they are not necessarily apathetic. They have bigger concerns of survival to think about, and their circumstances make voting for even the non-apathetic among them legally impossible.

Then there are the non-abject homeless, many millions of them as well, who migrate from relative to relative, friend to friend, not wearing out their welcome, migrants searching for work, and though they and the abject homeless aren't mostly counted in the BLS quick-rate calculation, they too don't stay in any one place long enough to establish an address required for voting, and, like their fellow abject homeless, are too busy .. or depressed .. to worry about the suffrage aspect of their deprived citizenship entitilements.

Some may argue that the normal distribution of the population IQ bell curve reflects a number of people below 70 who couldn't really grasp voting and what it's all about. But that overall percentage of the entire population, including those not yet old enough to vote, is just 2.275%, so, considering adults of voting age not incarcerated, these people comprise not even 1.5%, so fairly miniscule.

Some also say the elderly can't get out and vote or suffer Alzheimers and other debilitations. But voting by mail is easy for those not so ambulatory any more, and the rest, again a tiny percentage.

All in all, maybe 5% of eligible voters are too mentally/physically disabled to vote.

The rest of the 42.5% of Americans who didn't vote were either restricted by homelessness, other unforseen circumstances, and/or they were simply apathetic due to the lack of any candidate to represent them, which would make the overwhelming vast majority of them centrist.

Those who are either abject homeless or "squatter" homeless, those numbers include kids, so though maybe 10% are adults, they're too busy taking care of their kids .. and have no address required to vote.

Clearly those who are homeless are an epitomized symptom of the problem of the extreme nature of the present political offerings that do not represent so many of the people, political offerings that, thus, obviously, simply do not care about American citizens such as the homeless.

If the people had representation at the center, they'd vote, and those candidates would get elected and they'd solve the problem of homeless American citizens .. and apathy would disappear.

Voter turnout would skyrocket.

Anagram said:
That seems wrong too, as only about 35% of people describe themselves as moderate or centrist.

Most polls from which you might "glean" that erroneous percent ask only "are you liberal, moderate, or conservative".

Moderate is a meaningless term, and makes the erroneous assumption that the political spectrum is composed only of degrees of liberalism and conservatism, a ludicrous notion spread by liberals and conservatives who fear the great majority at the center of the political spectrum.

If the public was provided with a sample differentiation on prominent issues to discern liberal from centrist from conservative, as occurs in focus groups, and then asked to plot themselves on the political spectrum, the great majority simply choose centrist, and understandably so.

So when you say "or centrist" in your statement, you're merely editorializing, making it up, falsely pretending to equivocate centrist with moderate, to suit whatever agenda you have that centrists would thwart if they had power.

Anagram said:
That seems incredibly unlikely as well. I would say there is almost literally no chance of a centrist political party being politically relevant in the next 20 years and probably even longer than that.

Clearly you have no statistical relevance to back your claim, whereas history has shown the real existence of the very cycle of political party polarization to extremes that causes a new centrist offering to materialize.

There are over 23 million Americans out of work, 28 million Americans under-employed, 43% of America still greatly suffering from the unrelenting effects of The Great Recession, with over 47 million people on food stamps.

All this is caused, as the OP link accurately states, because obviously the currently existing political parties are extremely out of touch with American citizens, and have indeed thrown American citizens under the bus simply to keep their power structructures in place in The Global Economy.

How much worse does it have to get? At the current rate of non-recovery, America will long be a U.N. city-state in the 20 years you state.

No, you're simply out of touch with the great majority of Americans today.

This next year will see a major rise in centrist party-forming activity.

Too many Americans grasp the OP link's accurate presentation of the political party cycle and what happens to nations documented as far back as Rome when nothing is done about leaders not representing citizens.

Ontologuy · Nov 14, 2012

AdamT said:
Again, the assumption seems to be that something was amiss because turnout was low ... but turnout was not low by historical standards. In fact it was at the high end of last 10 or so elections.

Here you simply validate the OP link:

In recent decades, the liberal and conservative ideologies have increased the polemic distance between their dualistic perspectives, and thus they have become even less representative of the American electorate.

Today, conditions are really really bad, as caused by the present political parties being out of touch with the great majorty of voters:

The extreme wing positioning and polarization of the major political parties have made retaining power and control in America the singular priority of these parties, greatly more important to them than meeting the needs of the American people they so cynically promised to serve. Thus we now have 23 million Americans out of work, 28 million Americans under-employed, 43% of Americans still greatly suffering in the unrecovered effects of The Great Recession, with 47 million people barely surviving on food stamps

These figures present that something is most definitely amiss.

And when things get this bad in a nation, clearly the political powers are focused elsewhere than on the common defense and general welfare of citizens.

Consider this link: Voter turnout in the United States presidential elections - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It shows that voter turnout was relatively higher until around 1904 when the two main parties became more polarized and both migrated further from the center, and in 1920 voter turnout took another drop for the same polarizing reason.

The voter turnout as been slowly descending in a non-straight-line function ever since.

The last 10 years reflects a period of lowest voter turnout, with this year still very close to the average not a major deviation at all, and only a bit higher due to Obama's egregious pander to Hispanic Latinos and the GOP's aggressive get-out-the-vote effort to unseat him.

Voter turnout is still abysmally low, much lower than it was when there wasn't such a big divide between the two major parties.

And the statistics of misery I listed here is the impetus to get the centrist political party formed before the continuing polarization between the two major parties throws millions more American citizens under the bus in the name of kowtowing to The Global Economy.

Now, despite changing your political lean from liberal/progressive to "undisclosed" under your avatar, we all know you're a liberal and your candidate Obama won.

Thus anything that would threaten to take power from him, like the emergence of a new dominant centrist party, will be met with denial and denigration by you.

Thus your presentation is meaningless.

haymarket · Nov 14, 2012

Anagram said:
I seriously doubt that most of the people who didn't vote are centrists like the article suggests. It seems much more likely to me that the majority of them are simply apolitical.

You have a solid point there. You simply cannot force people to be interested in politics. It is probably better those folks DO NOT vote if they have such an antipathy towards the whole business.

Ontologuy · Nov 14, 2012

haymarket said:
You have a solid point there.

His "solid point" was soundly refuted. :lol:

haymarket said:
You simply cannot force people to be interested in politics.

That was meaningless. :roll:

It's not a matter of forcing the apathetic to be interested in "politics".

It's a matter of presenting them with a party and candidates that they can relate to, that truly resonates with the great majority of American citizens.

Yeah, no one can force people to like what is so unlikable: the current polarized extreme wingish political parties and politicians that are doing Americans in.

But just give the people a real choice that includes a party and candidates that truly care about American citizens, and watch the apathy disappear ..

.. Along with both the Dems and the Repubs, what most denialists really fear.

haymarket said:
It is probably better those folks DO NOT vote if they have such an antipathy towards the whole business.

Wow, was that not the most cynical statement I've ever read here at DP?!

That was a lot like Ebenezar Scrooge saying:

``I wish to be left alone,'' said Scrooge. ``Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.''

``Many can't go there; and many would rather die.''

``If they would rather die,'' said Scrooge, ``they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.

Seriously, such an attitude of cynical ignorance toward your fellow American citizens, who are apathetic because no party and candidates represent them, is truly disgusting.

haymarket · Nov 14, 2012

Ontologuy said:
His "solid point" was soundly refuted. :lol:

and where was that 'sound refutation'?

Fishstyx · Nov 14, 2012

Anagram said:
I seriously doubt that most of the people who didn't vote are centrists like the article suggests. It seems much more likely to me that the majority of them are simply apolitical.

I wouldn't even say "apolitical." I'd say that they're indifferent. Which to me, is so much worse.

head of joaquin · Nov 14, 2012

Ontologuy said:
The new dominant centrist political party will resuscitate America, hopefully before the 2016 national election.

So that's the end of the GOP and its freakish rightwing policies and rhetoric. Good.

Ontologuy · Nov 14, 2012

head of joaquin said:
So that's the end of the GOP and its freakish rightwing policies and rhetoric. Good.

Pterodactyls of a feather ... :shock: .. :lol:

Ontologuy · Nov 14, 2012

haymarket said:
and where was that 'sound refutation'?

Right where you denialistically failed to acknowledge it: out there in the open for everyone to see.

head of joaquin · Nov 14, 2012

Ontologuy said:
Pterodactyls of a feather ... :shock: .. :lol:

Oh dear, the old there isn't a dime's worth of difference meme. Funny to hear this from a conservative.

In any case, one difference is that the GOP is against raising tax rates on billionaires and the Democrats are for it.

I wonder where you stand on this. Like I need to ask.

Anagram · Nov 14, 2012

Ontologuy said:
The OP link's statistical analysis is spot-on.

Your ideologically based denial .. not so much.

What ideology based denial? I'd love a centrist party. There just doesn't seem to be a shot in hell of a significant one being formed in the near future.

This is the United States of America, not a dictatorship. From kindergarten through high school American kids are taught the value and importance of democracy and voting. That is never forgotten.

You clearly mistake "apolitical" for apathy, two completely different things.

I didn't. The dictionary definition of "apolitical" is "not involved or interested in politics." That is exactly what I meant when I used it.

The rest of the 42.5% of Americans who didn't vote were either restricted by homelessness, other unforseen circumstances, and/or they were simply apathetic due to the lack of any candidate to represent them, which would make the overwhelming vast majority of them centrist.

The lack of a candidate to represent someone, is not equal to centrist.

If the people had representation at the center, they'd vote, and those candidates would get elected and they'd solve the problem of homeless American citizens .. and apathy would disappear.

Voter turnout would skyrocket.

Both of those seem incredibly unlikely. Voter turnout might slightly increase. I seriously doubt that a centrist candidate could solve homelessness, and that even if they did political apathy would disappear.

Most polls from which you might "glean" that erroneous percent ask only "are you liberal, moderate, or conservative".

If the public was provided with a sample differentiation on prominent issues to discern liberal from centrist from conservative, as occurs in focus groups, and then asked to plot themselves on the political spectrum, the great majority simply choose centrist, and understandably so.

The show me a study or do one yourself. That goes against what I would guess most people would choose.

So when you say "or centrist" in your statement, you're merely editorializing, making it up, falsely pretending to equivocate centrist with moderate, to suit whatever agenda you have that centrists would thwart if they had power.

I wasn't. I actually added up the number of people who chose moderate to the number of people who chose centrist in a recent national survey.

Clearly you have no statistical relevance to back your claim, whereas history has shown the real existence of the very cycle of political party polarization to extremes that causes a new centrist offering to materialize.

Not really. History has shown that centrist parties are few and far between.

No, you're simply out of touch with the great majority of Americans today.

Ok.

This next year will see a major rise in centrist party-forming activity.

We'll see, but I doubt it.

Too many Americans grasp the OP link's accurate presentation of the political party cycle and what happens to nations documented as far back as Rome when nothing is done about leaders not representing citizens.

It does make that claim, but gives no examples. I'd welcome some.

Ontologuy · Nov 14, 2012

head of joaquin said:
Oh dear, the old there isn't a dime's worth of difference meme. Funny to hear this from a conservative.

In any case, one difference is that the GOP is against raising tax rates on billionaires and the Democrats are for it.

I wonder where you stand on this. Like I need to ask.

Your tendency to erroneously transfer and displace your extremely polarized adversaries, the conservatives, on everyone who isn't "you" is .. really sad.

Regardless, I'd be curious where you really are after taking this quiz: http://www.debatepolitics.com/general-political-discussion/142868-eye-opening-political-philosophy-test.html .

head of joaquin · Nov 15, 2012

Ontologuy said:
Your tendency to erroneously transfer and displace your extremely polarized adversaries, the conservatives, on everyone who isn't "you" is .. really sad.

Regardless, I'd be curious where you really are after taking this quiz: http://www.debatepolitics.com/general-political-discussion/142868-eye-opening-political-philosophy-test.html .

You didn't answer my question. I wonder why.

I bet you're for tax cuts for Paris Hilton, right? But . . . you're not really conservative.