At the same time, we can't have this, "the world ends", at the end of every GOP administration either. So we really do need to fix this.
The alternative is we get some different parties, and I've seen little to no indication of that happening. The other parties have neither shown an ability to evoke a response large enough to get elected. Nor have they shown an ability to govern even in the extremely unlikely event that they were elected.
For the foreseeable future, we are stuck with the dem-rep dichotomy. Which can work. We just need for the reps to stop running the nation into the ground when it's their turn. Other nations have shown us that reasonable and effective responses to the pandemic were possible. Why are we here? What is the set of missteps or issues that got us here? We have to identify those issues, and fix them.
I just moved to California so I don't have too much of a personal opinion yet but that sounds like a bold claim. From what I've seen, people over the age of 30 seem split on whether or not it's an improvement. You look at mismanaged cities like SF where there's insane homeless budgets but very little action and results and wonder if the monopoly on political power has made politicians here complacent.
Then there's the whole NIMBY thing. There's a whole lot of Democrats (arguably DINO's) that are very anti-building. They run under the Democrat banner so they'll probably keep getting re-elected. Obviously a solution here is people getting involved in local party politics to primary these candidates out, but that sounds like a miracle that'll happen as soon as we get nuclear fusion power plants.
The whole thing makes me wish 3rd party candidates were more viable in the US. This flip-flopping really sucks and creates a lot of chaos but political monopolies, from what I've seen, are able to hide mismanagement and bad policies really well. (Texas is probably a similar example from the other spectrum.)
Homelessness is an infinite money sink coupled with very problematic civil rights issues. It takes a unified effort at the federal level when states are willing to just ship their problems to other states. It also requires a unified effort at healthcare--both physical and mental. Nobody has come up with a good solution to homelessness yet--anywhere. If you have one, put it out there as lots of governments are desperate for a fix.
While NIMBY is bad irrespective of party, the YIMBY movement only started gaining traction once the Republicans were purged as the NIMBY movement could COUNT on them as a unified bloc of obstruction. And, as for NIMBY, renters outnumber property owners, yet don't show up to vote. Well, then what results do you think you're going to get?
As for Texas, it isn't as uniformly Republican as you think. The major cities are gaining significant Democratic representation (the Republicans just banned straight ticket voting because it destroyed them in Houston last cycle). You can also see this in the Covid-19 response--the mayors for big Texas cities almost uniformly shut down--Austin declared very early in order to avoid the disaster that would have been SXSW.
Yes, the gerrymandering in Texas is horrific, and the areas outside the cities are as stupid red as it gets. However, Texas isn't as unified as you think--in spite of the human-shaped Senator known as Ted Cruz.
To a first order approximation, the majority of homeless are simply residents who lose a job or can't earn enough money, can't afford their rent, and end up on the street. Making a lot more housing available so it's not so impossible to afford is clearly an important part of the solution, which we seemingly can't do as long as progressive democrats are in charge.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/06/us/homeless-population.ht...
Some chunk are from out of state. Some chunk are mentally ill. Some chunk are addicted to drugs. Some chunk have physical ailments. Some chunk are fleeing abuse.
This is what makes homelessness so intractable. Even if you fix a chunk, that's probably less that 20% of the problem. Now, you've spent a lot of money, made no visible progress on the problem, and have a bunch of people clamoring about how you wasted money.
This is because of Democrat-voting people leaving Democrat-led states and cities that are no longer functioning well. If their policies worked, why would they leave (for example) CA in record numbers to move to TX?
Rent control, nimbyism, etc all backed by the current government have made the housing market a hellscape. Nothing has been done to address the education system and huge pension liabilities either.
The issue with Democrats in charge without any meaningful opposition is that none of the Democratic radioactive stuff gets touched (excessive regulation, entitlements, etc).
> Rent control, nimbyism, etc all backed by the current government have made the housing market a hellscape. Nothing has been done to address the education system and huge pension liabilities either.
Rent control and Nimbyism is not new in the last 10 years in CA. In fact, rent control in the state is less strong than it was in the past.
So you can't directly blame those for changes in the last 10 years.
What's changed in the last 10 years? A lot of incoming migration into high-paying jobs. And it largely sucks for everyone but those new residents who are making more than the existing residents. People who make less are increasingly starting to leave, but not enough to make a dent compared to the influx of newcomers with money. If you have money, you're still more likely to move to CA than away from it.
You think if all those people were wealthy Republicans instead of Democrats they'd be less-NIMBY? Right-wing suburbs in the rest of the country are NIMBY-central.
The question is if California is soooo bad. Why are smart, intelligent people coming here? Why does capital still invest here?
Part of the answer is other places in the US are slowly failing. So many of the problems have to due with California serving as a refuge from failed economic and social policy in other states and countries.
California is being propped up by the tech industry because historically the biggest tech companies are headquartered here, which caused all the talent to be clustered here, and then new tech companies were forced to be here to attract that talent. Obviously, smart, intelligent people move here because jobs are here, and capital invests here because talent is here -- but things are changing quickly and other cities are becoming tech hubs.
If these other states have such "failed economic and social policies", why are so many people moving there?
The worst will be when Californians move to other states and then vote for policies that ruined the place they just fled.
[1] https://www.ocregister.com/2019/10/31/190122-more-people-lef...
The state is bankrupt. It funds healthcare for illegal immigrants while being the only state that forces a fee for lack of health insurance for US citizens. It has the highest homeless population and wealth inequality with declining economic mobility, ballooning cost of living, and generally worse overall quality of life compared to other major metros.
If you think that is what the Republicans are doing each time it's their turn, not sure there is much hope in changing that pattern.
After all, they clearly think they are not running the nation into the ground when it's their turn.
Or another party will rise to power, and one of the current powerhouses will fade away.
Just as our legal system is adversarial, where two "teams" enter a court to at least attempt justice, it seems crucial to a successful political system that there be a dialectic between opposing views, hoping compromise benefits the whole.
Comments such as this, dismissing a huge portion of fellow citizens out of hand, without so much as recognizing that "they" might be trying to do what's best in their eyes is so far from a democratic ideal...
Explain to me what I'm supposed to do with people who wear "Better Russian than Democrat" t-shirts or my father-in-law who literally said "Her views are everything I want, but I can't vote for her because she's with the Democrats."
That kind of stuff is not anti-Democratic party--it is anti-Democracy.
> Just wow. Hope your dictators benevolent.
Sorry, I'm pretty comfortable burying a party that is anti-Democracy.
However, it turns out that the California jungle primary gives the opposing party more power because it often gets to be the king-maker between the two Democratic candidates rather than simply getting ignored because one candidate won the primary and now can roll over the general election.
So, that actually approximates your dialectic as opposed to mouthing it and never compromising. Unlike the Republicans, Democrats don't seek to silence the opposing party. But, yeah, the jungle primary is going to do a good job of removing the wing nuts from both parties from the conversation.
I consider that a feature and not a bug.
I suggest some further research.
> 99% of all humans are plain old every day decent individuals
Sorry. When you can build an entire political movement out of "But he's not hurting the right people", your statement is prima facie false.
What has become clear is that a very significant chunk of the US citizenry are very much not "decent".
GOP knows they're gonna lose the election. They want to hand the dems the worst economy possible.
Then, 4 years down the road, they can start campaigning against "do-nothing-dems" and point to the horrible economy they had to start fixing.