No, it’s not possible that half the country is in his cult. I don’t quite understand what you mean by theatrics but I can tell you Trump is no pantomime villain!
We have a primary system that determines who each party will put forth as their Presidential candidate, and often for many, many other elected seats as well. That where the choice set emanates from — it just gets whittled down.
I’ve offered the view before that the incredible diversity of voices, occupations, and topography, vast size and the fact that nearly all here are descended from immigrants that came within the last 125 years would lend itself to ungovernable cacophony if we operated a 3 or more (and there would be a LOT more) party electoral process. A 2 party system forces centrism and compromise to get anything accomplished at the Federal level among legislators. Many many legislators even at the State Assembly level represent diverse constituencies with diverse views.
I’d lay Americas current problems at the feet of (1) unregulated/edited social media; (2) far too lenient campaign finance laws (and it isn’t in the best interest of most legislators to alter that); (3) gerrymandering; (4) a centrist economic narrative stolen from the GOP by Bill Clinton that has forced conservatives down an increased social-issue-extremist platform to ensure its base turns out; and, last but not least, (5) a bad actor Presidential candidate who has never once demonstrated care or responsibility for the sacredness of his former office and has leaned heavily on populism (and all the four points above) as a way to being selected as the nation’s leader.
Also wealth and opportunity inequality may also play a role (with social media dramatically amplifying it).
Thanks Foggy. I was hoping either yourself or Chicago would answer me, as I’m not being flippant here. I quite simply can’t get my head around the absurdity of what we see over here from the rallies.
And I’m in no way making out that Trump
IS a pantomime villain. What I’m saying is that the Dem rallies seem to play the same theatrics, certainly from Walz’s delivery, if not from the underlying message. I just don’t like that entertainment first approach that seems to becoming the norm.
Social media definitely is to blame for the direction coverage has gone.
I regard Trump as a very dangerous idiot. A puppet. Not a pantomime villain.
I get what you are saying from your third paragraph and it makes sense, although I still don’t profess to understand the whole primary process. How the whittling down is done. I understand the fundamental difference between caucuses and primaries, but they basically amount to the same thing. A way of picking a candidate to go forward for election.
I have watched videos on YouTube of Conservative voters saying that if their own personal choice candidate does not win the party nomination, that they would vote for Biden (at the time), or anyone else to keep Trump out.
These were Trump voters from 2016, so there are obviously conservatives out there that aren’t in the cult.
You make excellent points in your ‘Americas problem’ paragraph. Points 1& 2 in particular.
Point 3, I was not aware of although gerrymandering is something that we are familiar with and it strikes a painful historical chord in too recent Northern Irish politics.
Point 4 strikes me as endorsing slightly what I was saying about the choice of two being restrictive when they become two cheeks of the same arse. It encourages the lunacy of extremism to differentiate. no? Perhaps I’m wrong.
Perhaps you are right, you ought to know better than I would anyway, what works for America.
Point 5. No argument here. He is a bad actor alright, but one that I fear would have far reaching worldwide consequences, should he be successful this time around. Those pulling the strings would set about seeing to that, I suspect.
