Elections Would getting rid of primaries hurt or help the U.S.?

[grimballer]

what you want? party to choose whos running like in canada that way youll always get establishment candidates

we just witnessed an outsider become a president 4 years ago

 

[Lead]

Parties are fine. I think it would be nice to allow more opportunities for additional parties or candidates without being a spoiler. Run off or RCV would do that.

 

[AWilder]

im not sure they need to be gotten rid of, just reel in the crazy. There's no reason the potus election needs to take what seems like 2 years. Do like a lot of other nations and make it a manageable 2-4 months of debates and campaigning. This would also reduce the spending on campaigns which is just astronomical at this point.

 

[Plissken]

I'm sure there's a better alternative, especially given how primaries are now, but it won't change any time soon.

 

[koquerelle]

Another brilliant thread.

The boy got dropped on his head as a child.
Be nice!

 

[skysolo]

It's a sham anyway. The dems conspired against Bernie two primaries in a row. They even argued in court that they can rig their own primaries.

 

[Mark Hunts FIST]

No. that sounds absolutely horrible.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Parties are fine. I think it would be nice to allow more opportunities for additional parties or candidates without being a spoiler. Run off or RCV would do that.

I think RCV would be good, if just to better align results with popular preferences, but it's weird how often people want to argue for ways to get unpopular parties into gov't. Seems to me that if people want some unknown policy to be enacted, they're better off making the case broadly or to one of the parties that they think would be more open to it.

 

[Hatorade]

Not sure how you could get rid of them, but yes, we would have better candidates without the primaries because the extremists wouldn't be picking our candidates.

In order to win a primary on either side of the aisle, you sorta got to be or at least act like a partisan hack to please the crazies.

It wasn't always like that, but there's just no way in hell someone like Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan could win a primary these days.

Reagan would be seen as a total RINO and Bill would be viewed as the alt right or "literally Hitler."

 

[Topguntrophey]

It gave us great choices like Trump and Biden so no.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Not sure how you could get rid of them, but yes, we would have better candidates without the primaries because the extremists wouldn't be picking our candidates.

In order to win a primary on either side of the aisle, you sorta got to be or at least act like a partisan hack to please the crazies.

It wasn't always like that, but there's just no way in hell someone like Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan could win a primary these days.

Reagan would be seen as a total RINO and Bill would be viewed as the alt right or "literally Hitler."

The main reason you can't get rid of them is that it would require a totalitarian society. Say a bunch of people want to start a party. They decide that rather than just the inner circle picking who the representative will be, they want to involve all the party's supporters by having an election. The TS wants to make that illegal. How does he propose to stop it? You basically have to tear up the Constitution (no more right to free speech or free assembly, for example).

You're wrong about Clinton and Reagan, BTW. Salient issues change over time, and there's some drift, but both would be highly electable in primaries today. Clinton is still alive, and no one regards him that way. Reagan was a lunatic would would have changed with the times.

 

[jrams]

Didn't need a primary to unofficially make the California run-off an election between Newsome and Elder. If primaries didn't exist, I'm sure candidates will be propped up the same way, just with less opportunity to fuck up. Primaries are probably bad for the defacto party leader and good, however marginally, for everyone else.

 

[Lead]

I think RCV would be good, if just to better align results with popular preferences, but it's weird how often people want to argue for ways to get unpopular parties into gov't. Seems to me that if people want some unknown policy to be enacted, they're better off making the case broadly or to one of the parties that they think would be more open to it.

At the moment, that is the practical way to approach it if the system didn’t change.

One reason I think it’s important is the two party model anchors everything nationally. Sure, RCV helps avoid spoilers but it also allows a deep red or deep blue state to have more popular options in the general election. Once you get a party that essentially has an overwhelming majority and the other minority party ceasing to budge because of nationalized politics, you get a system where political leaders are all decided though that private group. For example, recall aside, does it seem practical the two main candidates should be Newsom and Elder? A better system would allow Elders party to fall out of relevance if they continued to choose to not appeal to the interests of Californian voters rather than consistently getting a top two spot come election time.

It isn’t to say the majority party isn’t doing well for its citizens but it is limiting general election voters. I suppose it becomes an argument of how much does a minority state candidate/ party shift from national platform to win elections. It does happen but I think it’s becoming less frequent and this would help.

 

[Jack V Savage]

At the moment, that is the practical way to approach it if the system didn’t change.

One reason I think it’s important is the two party model anchors everything nationally. Sure, RCV helps avoid spoilers but it also allows a deep red or deep blue state to have more popular options in the general election. Once you get a party that essentially has an overwhelming majority and the other minority party ceasing to budge because of nationalized politics, you get a system where political leaders are all decided though that private group. For example, recall aside, does it seem practical the two main candidates should be Newsom and Elder? A better system would allow Elders party to fall out of relevance if they continued to choose to not appeal to the interests of Californian voters rather than consistently getting a top two spot come election time.

It isn’t to say the majority party isn’t doing well for its citizens but it is limiting general election voters. I suppose it becomes an argument of how much does a minority state candidate/ party shift from national platform to win elections. It does happen but I think it’s becoming less frequent and this would help.

Well, in the actual gubernatorial race, the CA GOP nominated Cox (and he was on the ballot in the recall). The anchoring of national politics definitely plays into it, but I think the issue is the media environment and educational polarization more than the election system. You also do have conservative Democrats in red states and (to a lesser extent) liberal Republicans in blue states. RCV could also go the other way, were you get crazies running without fear of being spoilers (especially crazies on the side of the already dominant party), and maybe winning (again, see Elder topping Faulconer, who was a reasonableish moderate, and Cox, who was a more old-school Republican).

I do agree that it's bad for any system to have one dominant party, but I don't see RCV helping that.

 

[Hatorade]

The main reason you can't get rid of them is that it would require a totalitarian society. Say a bunch of people want to start a party. They decide that rather than just the inner circle picking who the representative will be, they want to involve all the party's supporters by having an election. The TS wants to make that illegal. How does he propose to stop it? You basically have to tear up the Constitution (no more right to free speech or free assembly, for example).

You're wrong about Clinton and Reagan, BTW. Salient issues change over time, and there's some drift, but both would be highly electable in primaries today. Clinton is still alive, and no one regards him that way. Reagan was a lunatic would would have changed with the times.

I agree that you couldn't really get rid of primaries in a free society. Our legal sytem would allow it.

I disagree on the Reagan and Clinton stuff. Things change over time, but both were very centrist in a lot of areas, particularly law enforcement and border stuff. Clinton is still alive, but he's not in the spotlight anymore.

Their views would just not fly these days within their own political parties IMO.

Bill was a hard ass on crime. He's one of the reasons violent crime dramatically dropped in the 90's. His policies would be seen as discriminatory within the far left today. BLM would lose their shit with the level of black men he put behind bars in just Arkansas when he was Governor, much less some of the things that were passed when he was POTUS.

Reagan would get roasted on his gun stance and his border stance. Wingnuts that praise him today, don't really know what he was about on some of these hot topics.

 

[Jack V Savage]

I agree that you couldn't really get rid of primaries in a free society. Our legal sytem would allow it.

I disagree on the Reagan and Clinton stuff. Things change over time, but both were very centrist in a lot of areas, particularly law enforcement and border stuff. Clinton is still alive, but he's not in the spotlight anymore.

Their views would just not fly these days within their own political parties IMO.

Bill was a hard ass on crime. He's one of the reasons violent crime dramatically dropped in the 90's. His policies would be seen as discriminatory within the far left today. BLM would lose their shit with the level of black men he put behind bars in just Arkansas when he was Governor, much less some of the things that were passed when he was POTUS.

Reagan would get roasted on his gun stance and his border stance. Wingnuts that praise him today, don't really know what he was about on some of these hot topics.

Not going to go in circles on stuff already stated, but note that Biden is also very centrist in a lot of areas and isn't considered alt-right because of it. And no, Clinton had nothing to do with the decline in violent crime in the '90s. He was the president. Presidents have almost no impact on violent crime levels.

 

[ultramanhyata]

Primaries that aren't rigged would help the country...

Yes. Dominion and Smartmatic worked out the bugs of their vote flipping technology during the dem primary to give Biden the win over Bernie (Bernie won in a landslide, by the way). They wanted the process perfected when they used it to rob Trump of his big win in the general.

Facts.

 

[Hatorade]

Not going to go in circles on stuff already stated, but note that Biden is also very centrist in a lot of areas and isn't considered alt-right because of it. And no, Clinton had nothing to do with the decline in violent crime in the '90s. He was the president. Presidents have almost no impact on violent crime levels.

Biden stays in his lane and does what he's told. I actually don't mind that, but when it comes to shit that like some of the huge woke movements today, Biden has no balls. BLM owns his ass, and it's pathetic because he probably has actual views very similar to Bill who would have told BLM to go fuck themselves in the 90's.


And yes, Bill Clinton passed the Crime bill in 94 that literally put tens of thousands of violent criminals behind bars for decades. It was the catalyst for the major violent crime reduction of the 90's along with DNA evidence becoming the norm.

The 94 crime bill was also a huge issue for Hillary both times she ran. It would have barried her had she ran this last election post George floyd, and she didn't even pass the shit, nor did she support it.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Biden stays in his lane and does what he's told. I actually don't mind that, but when it comes to shit that like some of the huge woke movements today, Biden has no balls. BLM owns his ass, and it's pathetic because he probably has actual views very similar to Bill who would have told BLM to go fuck themselves in the 90's.

Wait, what? Biden is incredibly ballsy. Look at the Afghanistan thing. Went against pretty much the entire FP establishment and the MSM. Also been consistently pushing back against far-left nuttery. I think because of his experience, he's not the least bit intimidated by anyone.

And yes, Bill Clinton passed the Crime bill in 94 that literally put tens of thousands of violent criminals behind bars for decades. It was the catalyst for the major violent crime reduction of the 90's along with DNA evidence becoming the norm.

The 94 crime bill was also a huge issue for Hillary both times she ran. It would have barried her had she ran this last election post George floyd, and she didn't even pass the shit, nor did she support it.

The '94 crime bill had no impact on any trends, though. And Bernie voted for it. Doesn't seem to have hurt him with the left.

 

[HomeCheese]

The way elections currently work is that there is a preliminary election for both the Democratic and Republican party where a candidate is chosen to represent the party's interests. Do you think getting rid of this would be a net positive or negative benefit on the country? Right now it seems like this is largely used for each party's establishment to exert an undue amount of influence over who gets to be president.

Don't think it would make a huge difference but it would save time and money. Still though, it would be like putting whipped cream on shit. Our elections would still suck.

We need to get the private money out of the equation and limit what representatives can earn outside of their official roles while in office IMHO.