Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

Surely you jest.

Both major parties have all sorts of factions and micro factions.

Not at all. Republicans are a very disciplined and solid bloc, especially in congress. There have only been a few cases otherwise, such as a vote on the government collecting intelligence data on Americans. A left and right coalition is opposed to that. But Republicans are mainly Reagan Republicans and Tea Party Republicans. These are both extreme right-wing factions.

In truth, our republic is itching for additional credible parties however the system makes it tough to pull it off. The alternative is to supplant one or both parties with new ones. In any case, it is not a stable condition and destined to crumble. Both sides of the aisle will be turned upside down.

That would be my guess.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

Surely you jest.

Both major parties have all sorts of factions and micro factions.

The Democrats are more of a coalition of ethnic, racial, religious, and sexual minorities who may have little in common in culture but much in common in distrust of the Right that has showed little use for diversity except as scapegoats. Persons associated with the Republican Party have cultivated xenophobia, religious bigotry, and homophobia; groups that may have little in common in culture (Japanese-Americans and [East] Indian-Americans) rightly figure that a rhetorical assault on ethnic groups with little similarity to them as a portent of danger to themselves. Democrats recognize cultural diversity as enriching strength in the face of great internal stress and international danger; Republicans distrust diversity in favor of a cronyism allegedly based on some imaginary white Christian brotherhood. It may be ironic that Jews and Arabs can vote similarly in America -- Muslim-baiting and Jew-baiting are opposite sides of the same counterfeit coin.

In truth, our republic is itching for additional credible parties however the system makes it tough to pull it off. The alternative is to supplant one or both parties with new ones. In any case, it is not a stable condition and destined to crumble. Both sides of the aisle will be turned upside down.

Such would require a parliamentary or at least semi-Presidential system of government. Had it not been for the disdain of the Founding Fathers toward the (then) corrupt Parliament of the Kingdom of England, maybe we would have a parliamentary system.

Some polls for incumbent Senators up in 2016:

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/m...approvals.html

...based on the latest 2014 polls related to other campaigns

Senator Net Approval

Chuck Grassley (Iowa) 59/28 (+31)

Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut) 54/32 (+22)

Mike Crapo (Idaho) 48/29 (+19)

Kelly Ayotte (New Hampshire) 49/32 (+17)

John Boozman (Arkansas) 40/27 (+13)

Jerry Moran (Kansas) 43/30 (+13)

Mark Kirk (Illinois) 38/28 (+10)

Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) 46/38 (+8)

Rand Paul (Kentucky) 43/36 (+7)

Johnny Isakson (Georgia) 39/33 (+6)

Richard Burr (North Carolina 33/28 (+5)

Marco Rubio (Florida) 40/41 (-1)

Michael Bennet (Colorado) 30/35 (-5)

Blue is for Democrats; red is for Republicans

This is not to say that in 14 months or so that these approvals and disapprovals will be where they are. But a reliable pattern holds: toward the start of campaign season an incumbent Governor or Senator generally gains an average of 6% from approval to vote share in binary races.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/...mbent-50-rule/

Campaign mode and either governing more or legislating mode are very different, and the usual winner of a popular election typically loses about 6% of his support after election as shown in an approval rating and typically gets 6% of it back by campaigning. That applies to Senators and State governors, and only to incumbents, the average incumbent against the average challenger. There have been times when an incumbent has a catastrophically-inept campaign against a strong challenger. In very few cases does an incumbent with anywhere near 51% approval lose a re-election bid. George Allen, Jr. (R-VA, 2006) was one of the most blatant exceptions, parlaying a 51% approval early in the year into a loss -- after his campaign melted down against a strong competitor.

From these polls from Public Policy Polling, I predict that Grassley, Blumenthal, Crapo, Ayotte, and Murkowski will win re-election if they run and do not get defeated in a primary. But Grassley will be 83 years old, and actuarial concerns about his ability to complete another term in office will be very much in doubt; Murkowski could lose a primary challenge from someone further to the right. In either case there would be no reason to expect any clue to what happens in the general election. Moran and Paul, despite being Senators from very R states have nearly a 50% chance of being re-elected. The others are in trouble. That's five Republicans and one Democrat. Colorado may have swung very D in recent years and be swinging back.

Of course the study by Nate Silver is all from before Citizens United, and in view of the ability of front groups to spend unlimited funds on smear campaigns typically against Democrats, maybe Republicans get an added edge of 5% or so, and we might not have a fair election in 2016.

Others -- Republicans first

Richard Shelby Alabama
John McCain Arizona
Dan Coats Indiana
David Vitter Louisiana
Ray Blount Missouri
John Hoeven North Dakota
Rob Portman Ohio
James Lankford Oklahoma
Pat Toomey Pennsylvania
Tim Scott South Carolina
John Thune South Dakota
Mike Lee Utah
Ron Johnson Wisconsin

Incumbent Democrats

Barbara Boxer California
Brian Schatz Hawaii
Barbara Mikulski Maryland
Harry Reid Nevada
Chuck Schumer New York
Ron Wyden Oregon
Patrick Leahy Vermont
Patty Murray Washington

Among incumbent Democrats, seats of Michael Bennett (weak winner in 2010) and Harry Reid (age) are potentially vulnerable in 2016. When a Party loses about every Senate seat that it could imaginably lose in one year, it has few vulnerable seats six years later. No way do Republicans lose Senate seats in states that are now solid R (Alabama, Arkansas, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah).

Basically any Republican who won with less than 55% of the vote in 2010 will be seen as vulnerable. Needless to say, the Koch syndicate and its allies will do everything possible to defend any of those who might be in trouble. That means "The Democrat drowns kittens" ads late in the campaign to decide things in favor of its political stooges.

The Senate seat from Louisiana is likely to be vacated as David Vitter runs for Governor, probably wins, and appoints a filler. Appointed Senators rarely get elected on their own. As I said with Grassley, Arizona has an octogenarian Senator who might decide to retire rather than take the risk that a Democratic governor might appoint a Democrat to a Senate seat that McCain vacates due to death or enfeeblement. That is a long shot for an R-to-D turnover. It did not work for Republicans in Michigan.

Rob Portman (Ohio) has taken some liberal stances on same-sex marriage -- which could make him vulnerable to a primary challenge. Ohio gives about an even chance for R and D -- and if the winner of the primary says something outrageous, then he makes an R-to-D turnover possible.

Most vulnerable R seats are likely, and I am only guessing their vulnerability:

IL -- very D state
WI -- Ron Johnson is awful
PA -- Toomey barely won in a close election
NC -- Burr is a lightweight, and the Democratic incumbent almost won re-election in a Republican wave
GA -- Isakson is a Senatorial lightweight and he could face a seasoned challenger
LA -- welcome back, Mary Landrieu running against an appointed Senator
FL -- Rubio is a lightweight with some questionable family members
KS -- Could Kansas be drifting D?
KY -- nothing like a Presidential campaign (Paul) to show how crazy an incumbent is

Others, based upon contingencies:

AK -- primary challenge, and welcome back Begich
OH -- primary challenge and an open seat
IA -- Grassley retires leaving an open seat
AZ -- McCain retires leaving an open seat

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

The Democrats are more of a coalition of ethnic, racial, religious, and sexual minorities who may have little in common in culture but much in common in distrust of the Right that has showed little use for diversity except as scapegoats. Persons associated with the Republican Party have cultivated xenophobia, religious bigotry, and homophobia; groups that may have little in common in culture (Japanese-Americans and [East] Indian-Americans) rightly figure that a rhetorical assault on ethnic groups with little similarity to them as a portent of danger to themselves. Democrats recognize cultural diversity as enriching strength in the face of great internal stress and international danger; Republicans distrust diversity in favor of a cronyism allegedly based on some imaginary white Christian brotherhood. It may be ironic that Jews and Arabs can vote similarly in America -- Muslim-baiting and Jew-baiting are opposite sides of the same counterfeit coin.

At their most open/expansive the Republicans embrace a narrow tribalism. This prevents their outreach program from working.

I've been waiting to vote Toomey out since 2011 or so. I continue to look forward to doing so.

Originally Posted by Chas'88

I've been waiting to vote Toomey out since 2011 or so. I continue to look forward to doing so.

I forget --was he the head of Americans for Prosperity or of Club for Growth? It's hard to distinguish those two.

I doubt that his constituent service is good (unless you count the Koch family).

Originally Posted by Chas'88

I've been waiting to vote Toomey out since 2011 or so. I continue to look forward to doing so.

Between him and Santorum Pennsylvania has sent some awful high-profile politicians to the Senate.

Originally Posted by TimWalker

At their most open/expansive the Republicans embrace a narrow tribalism. This prevents their outreach program from working.

The game is up when Southern working-class white people recognize that the GOP is $crewing them badly. But until then they will be close to dominance of the American political system.

Beginning in January 2015 we are going to see how ugly the GOP is with appeals to enrich economic elites at the expense of everyone else. The classic exploiter elites -- big landowners, tycoons and financiers, the executive elite, and perhaps even organized crime are on the side of the GOP. Wealth and power are on the side of the GOP, so what can go wrong for them in the Citizens United era?

Failure and overreach. Quite frankly I hope that the Republican majorities advocate the extremist agendas of the Koch family and the Religious Right. May they say that they want to bring back the 70-hour workweek with plenty of unpaid overtime, ban abortion, mandate the teaching of young-earth creationism at the expense of evolution, praise Henry Clay Frick as a model of 'enlightened' management, abolish the federal minimum wage, ridicule 'non-Christian' religion, turn K-12 education into a matter of class privilege, and abolish not only abortion but also contraception. If people are stupid enough to want some "Christian and Corporate State", then they deserve the freedom of Russia and the prosperity of India.

The GOP is basically two Parties -- one part the most materialistic people who ever lived who care only about the enrichment and indulgence of themselves and their loved ones, and the other part the suckers for Pascal's wager that a miserable life in this world of poverty and brutal management in This World is worth taking if a promise of eternal bliss awaits them in Heaven. I am tempted to call such neurotic, as one cannot ordinarily reconcile opposites... but such ascribes some human traits to an organization.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

The game is up when Southern working-class white people recognize that the GOP is $crewing them badly. But until then they will be close to dominance of the American political system.

Bingo. This article I just read this morning describes it very well.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...being-had.html
Dear Evangelicals: You’re Being Had

Why are you trying to solve a cultural problem with a political solution? Because the Republican Party is using you.

Originally Posted by Bronco80

Bingo. This article I just read this morning describes it very well.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...being-had.html
Dear Evangelicals: You’re Being Had

Why are you trying to solve a cultural problem with a political solution? Because the Republican Party is using you.

But if the ''abuse'' has been going on for over 3 decades and the partner chooses to stay in the relationship.....it may not be a matter of reasoning with them.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Originally Posted by Bronco80

Bingo. This article I just read this morning describes it very well.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...being-had.html
Dear Evangelicals: You’re Being Had

Why are you trying to solve a cultural problem with a political solution? Because the Republican Party is using you.

But if the ''abuse'' has been going on for over 3 decades and the partner chooses to stay in the relationship.....it may not be a matter of reasoning with them.

That's part of the appeal of Jim Webb. He's saying these things, being blunt about it, and challenging the GOP to prove otherwise. There are others, but the media ignore them. Webb refuses to be ignored. This could change the narrative the Democrats have leaned on for decades, and none too soon. Now, it's up to the media to stop being GOP lapdogs. The jury's out on that.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

That's part of the appeal of Jim Webb. He's saying these things, being blunt about it, and challenging the GOP to prove otherwise. There are others, but the media ignore them. Webb refuses to be ignored. This could change the narrative the Democrats have leaned on for decades, and none too soon. Now, it's up to the media to stop being GOP lapdogs. The jury's out on that.

I canvassed and called for Jim Webb when he ran for the Senate. I guess it's time to do a little research and remember why I did that.

Originally Posted by Bronco80

Bingo. This article I just read this morning describes it very well.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...being-had.html
Dear Evangelicals: You’re Being Had

Why are you trying to solve a cultural problem with a political solution? Because the Republican Party is using you.

Dear Conservative Evangelicals,

I drive a Prius, enjoy Vanilla lattes, and am married to a man. I know it’s unlikely for me to be writing you this letter, and even more unlikely for you to read it.

But unlike most of my Obama-loving, liberal friends, I am no longer afraid of you. It’s clear to me that “your side” is losing the battle for public opinion, and I know that many of you agree with that assessment.

So why am I writing you this letter? Because, also unlike my liberal friends, I’m actually on your side, in some ways. I’m an ordained rabbi, and someone deeply concerned with the vulgarization and sexualization of our society. You and I disagree about the solution to this problem, of course, but we agree that there is a problem.

The trouble is, you’re trying to solve cultural problems with political solutions—because politicians have convinced you to do so. I am referring here to establishment Republicans, which for 150 years have consistently been the party of the rich and ungenerous.

In the first half of the twentieth century, most Christians distrusted this party, controlled as it was by “urban bankers” and others opposed to the Jeffersonian values of rural America. But in the wake of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the switch began—and by Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, it was complete. Republicans catered to conservative social attitudes on racial integration, and eventually moved rightward on issues like abortion and feminism, too, although you know as well as I do that they never really believed in them. They just realized that they could gain power by uniting two very different groups: the same moneyed elites as always, and you.

However I may disagree with conservative evangelical Christians (I am almost certainly closer in my philosophy, culture, and politics to the rabbi) I share a disgust with the vulgarization and sexualization of American life. I hate drugs and personal violence. The solution, I believe, is education for its own sake -- education that teaches that more exists to life than sex, material gain and indulgence, bureaucratic power, intoxication, and tawdry entertainment. I'd prefer that our MBA types put more value in marital stability and a solid family life than to ditch a 40-year-old wife for someone who looks like the Playboy Playmate of the Month as she did twenty years earlier, that they could find a principle for not treating subordinates and customers badly, that they do not need a McMansion and multiple high-priced marques of vehicle, and that they could decline the dubious opportunity to take a client or customer to a strip club. The alternative is not to become world-renouncing mystics; it is instead to seek knowledge and culture for their own sake.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

However I may disagree with conservative evangelical Christians (I am almost certainly closer in my philosophy, culture, and politics to the rabbi) I share a disgust with the vulgarization and sexualization of American life. I hate drugs and personal violence. The solution, I believe, is education for its own sake -- education that teaches that more exists to life than sex, material gain and indulgence, bureaucratic power, intoxication, and tawdry entertainment. I'd prefer that our MBA types put more value in marital stability and a solid family life than to ditch a 40-year-old wife for someone who looks like the Playboy Playmate of the Month as she did twenty years earlier, that they could find a principle for not treating subordinates and customers badly, that they do not need a McMansion and multiple high-priced marques of vehicle, and that they could decline the dubious opportunity to take a client or customer to a strip club. The alternative is not to become world-renouncing mystics; it is instead to seek knowledge and culture for their own sake.

I like the role models of Rabbinical Scholarship and Talmudic Intellectualism.

Notions to live by.

Originally Posted by cbailey

I canvassed and called for Jim Webb when he ran for the Senate. I guess it's time to do a little research and remember why I did that.

You probably campaigned on behalf of Webb because his opponent, in 2006, Senator George Allen, is a doofus.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/04/c...sm-and-nazism/

With the caveat that this is a Marxist site...

Nobody says that the plutocrats of America want the persecution, let alone extermination of any ethnic or religious group or the consummate risk of the most horrific war possible. But an extremely high rate of return on capital (between 10 and 15%) as existed in Germany from 1936 to 1940 that results from cheap labor, monopolized markets, and sweetheart privatization of public assets would be very attractive to American plutocrats. Even if one ignores the sadistic brutality and the destruction of individual freedom of the Third Reich, Nazi Germany was a worker's nightmare.

Some backing here:

http://coreyrobin.files.wordpress.co...tizations1.pdf

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/04/c...sm-and-nazism/

With the caveat that this is a Marxist site...

As if that were a bad thing.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

However I may disagree with conservative evangelical Christians (I am almost certainly closer in my philosophy, culture, and politics to the rabbi) I share a disgust with the vulgarization and sexualization of American life. .

Perhaps this is another 3T aspect that will be reversed at the 4T/1T cusp? The vulgarity seems to be related to the cycle.

Originally Posted by TimWalker

Perhaps this is another 3T aspect that will be reversed at the 4T/1T cusp? The vulgarity seems to be related to the cycle.

I expect people will be nicer to each other in the next 1T, which I think may be very austere. If nothing else, everyone will be less afraid that those with less are trying to steal form them, for they will have little to guard from being stolen.

Originally Posted by Odin

As if that were a bad thing.

15% rate of return on investment in an advanced industrial country? How is that possible?

1. No unions. Workers (by then serfs) could not even change jobs without the consent of their employers.
2. Competition wiped out. Much of the competitive small business in Germany before 1933 was owned by Jews, and they had to live with the realities of the markets. Cartels and trusts control the market.
3. Sweetheart deals between the government and Big Business. The Nazis sold off socialized enterprises cheaply to financial backers.
4. Militarization -- heavy spending on rearmament, a lucrative activity.

...Marxism is irrelevant in a wholesome social order. But in a pathological one, it is valid to the extreme.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

I expect people will be nicer to each other in the next 1T, which I think may be very austere. If nothing else, everyone will be less afraid that those with less are trying to steal form them, for they will have little to guard from being stolen.

If the 4T ends well, then such will be so. Elite indulgence is especially vulnerable in a 4T even without the devastation of Crisis wars (and one must admit -- America was particularly fortunate to evade the devastation that much of Europe and Asia experienced in WWII.

The technology appearing in recent years suggests that we will have a smaller share of our wealth (other than perhaps real property) in physical assets -- especially as consumer goods. Just think of how much of the value in life is information (music, text, and images)... figure the small space in which one can store 500 books. How many books can anyone read in a lifetime?

I predict that the household of the 2030s will look much like that of the 1950s in its furnishings. Status symbols will be largely irrelevant again -- the real ones will be priced into the stratosphere, if not the ionosphere. The vulgarity of contemporary America will likely be reversed because America will have neither the time nor tolerance for destructive, wasteful nonsense.

The American mind is likely to have much less junk. It's hard to believe that in a time of such sophisticated technology, more than 40% of Americans can believe in young-earth creationism. Figure that in 15 or so years, reason will prevail as it does not prevail now.

But even if America undergoes the sort of devastation that Europe endured from Coventry to Stalingrad, much the same holds. The wood-frame houses and most things in them will be burned to crisps (did we learn nothing from the damage to Japanese cities before building Suburbia?) We will have to rebuild upon the cinders of what now looks and what will no longer look like the world of Leave It to Beaver or Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood -- and will never look like that again. It will be different -- no nonsense. If America really f--ks up this time with a fascism that barely fits America (plurality once, after which all politics is frozen) and poses an extreme menace to the rest of the world, then there might be nothing to fight for in a very short time. Who wants to defend the cinders of a once-prosperous Suburbia to the death?

We won't make the same mistakes. Figure that if ethnic, racial, or religious minorities have gotten the worst end of American politics, the victors will give them the first chance to recover. Also figure that we will not be so dependent upon the automobile as we were in the 1950s. Small business will be favored over vertically-integrated trusts and cartels.

People will have to be nice to each other just to get and keep customers. Politics will again put service to constituents over the choosing of winners and shutting out losers indefinitely. Our political system was made for a nation of small business, and not for a few plutocrats capable of buying the political process as the arrow of American history now seems to point.

Originally Posted by TimWalker

Perhaps this is another 3T aspect that will be reversed at the 4T/1T cusp? The vulgarity seems to be related to the cycle.

But hasn't much of this been reversed beginning with the AIDS scare in the mid-1980s?

Originally Posted by herbal tee

I expect people will be nicer to each other in the next 1T, which I think may be very austere. If nothing else, everyone will be less afraid that those with less are trying to steal form them, for they will have little to guard from being stolen.

I am guessing here that you are not expecting the next 1T to be another Golden Age like so many still refer to the last one as.

Originally Posted by Brian Beecher

But hasn't much of this been reversed beginning with the AIDS scare in the mid-1980s?

Our culture has remained quite vulgar, as is evidenced for example in gansta rap and other rock/pop fields. And see the movie quote thread for other examples.