Wouldn't a centrist win every election?

I agree with you on some of these. I lean further right than you, but there are some things I could be convinced to change, for example:

1. I could get on board with free college, like we have free high school. Public universities, only.

2. I could get on board with universal healthcare if it could guarantee low taxes to cover it, and no long wait lines for care.

3. I think the social security tax should be changed. right now, only the first $125K (my estimate, it may have risen) is taxed for this. I could agree with raising it to the first $1M or even higher if it would make it solvent.

4. I don't really care about gay marriage, since the government is in the business of regulating them. If it were merely a religious thing, then I would not agree. However, the laws and policies that are in place favor married folks, which could be perceived as discriminatory.

I am sure there are others, but this is a good start.

I should follow this up by saying that our country has enough smart people that we can figure out how to do all of those without going the ways of Greece and others who bankrupted their countries with socialism. Surely, we could, right?

As a guy who votes for republicans, I think you have made the rich on the left seem better than they really are. They are not wonderful people any more than Trump is.

That said, I think you got the coalition on the right mostly correct, too. However, I disagree on the "downwardly mobile" part.

political guy wrote:

crush it wrote:

Trump was a centrist and he won.

Biden is an extreme leftists and won by fraud.

I actually agree that Trump was a "centrist" in some sense. Had he not been so loud on twitter, among some other things, I would have really like him.

I agree. Trump was a centrist, but also a blowhard with a huge ego that would not let him control how he spoke/tweeted. If he had a soul, he would have been reelected.

Biden may be a centrist, but those pulling his strings now are not even close to such.

+1

Flagpole wrote:

OozmaKappa wrote:

Your bogus designation of mainstream conservative positions as "far right" and general bias aside, you actually get to the point of why being a centrist isnt inherently advantageous.

You have a problem with reading comprehension. I didn't say those things I listed were far right-wing nutbar things. I said a moderate would lose to a far right-wing nutbar in those areas.

Nice backpedal. Maybe next time work on writing more clearly.

toggafasiebmarah wrote:

Flagpole wrote:

Nope.

This is what I think everytime you post. Will he post something intelligent? Nope.

+1

runn wrote:

The answer is yes and that's the problem.

We have to get rid of the electoral college.

It's "telling" that since 1992 a Republican has actually won only one presidential election.

Without the EC Bernie could have won in 2016 (if he had gotten the nomination and he may have because we wouldn't have needed a centrist.

He would have been reelected in 2020.

The 2 senators per state situation is also, very sadly, outdated.

Republicans have 50 but are far outnumbered in support numerically.

^^^Someone failed American Government in high school. Or American History. Probably failed both.

Republicans won’t let any of that stuff happen. Other than gay marriage of course which we already have no thanks to them.

guess which ones wrote:

MelRnr wrote:

Imagine if we did not have the Senate to check the power of the extremists and populists on both sides in the House of Representatives. Senators are accountable to their entire state constituents, whereas Representatives just to their local district. It makes the Senate a more moderate and balancing force. The Senate is NOT the problem.

When you challenge the structure of the senate or EC, the response is always to explain how it works. We know how it works. That's why we think it should change. Should 20% of the population have as much representation as the other 80%? Should a person voting in one state have less voting power than a person voting in another state? We are really running our democracy off of arbitrary geography?

It was a great compromise made to unify the nation. What you are proposing will divide this nation quicker than a car thief can speed out of town.

political guy wrote:

But if you make voting day a holiday don't republicans run the risk of losing every single election?

No, because then they would not be at work on election day.

I think you are mistaken. I believe we will see most of this enacted in just a few years with bipartisan support.

55YO wrote:

political guy wrote:

But if you make voting day a holiday don't republicans run the risk of losing every single election?

No, because then they would not be at work on election day.

This is in bad faith. You really think the Republican Party is in favor of higher voter turnout overall? I now question the majority of what you've posted.

A reminder of how radical the modern left is:

You got guys in here who dont understand what a democratic republic is and why the senate exists who are seriously suggesting we should essentially abolish the senate and become a pure democracy.

These are likely the same clowns who want to do away with the Supreme Court as well.

I'm sensing a common theme here. It seems that any time an institution is not completely controlled by or biased towards democrats then that institution needs to be torn down and rebuilt so that it can favor democrats. This even extends to social media.

If the opposite were true, Republicans would be trying to abolish the senate. This fact seems obvious to me.

But the opposite is not true and the reality is radical leftists want to abolish the senate.

55YO wrote:

are you sure you are a republican wrote:

Republicans won’t let any of that stuff happen. Other than gay marriage of course which we already have no thanks to them.

I think you are mistaken. I believe we will see most of this enacted in just a few years with bipartisan support.

To be clear, you think the republicans are going to support universal healthcare and free public universities? Even though they have historically been very opposed to those things? Hmmmmm

Supralapsarian wrote:

political guy wrote:

You've got the group of people who will vote republican no matter what, and the group who will vote democrat no matter what. The swing voters will choose the one that seems sane and reasonable.

THe problem is lack of principles.

Leftists will vote for their candidate, even if they hate every one of her or his policies.

See 2008 when the ‘Peace’ candidates voted for warmongering Obama, who never met a 3rd world person he didn’t enjoy drone striking.

Hey you have to vote for the lessor of two evils. Did Obama's and McCains positions on the bush war differ? Seriously I doubt all those family values voters loved voting for a guy who had cheated on all 3 of his wives and was raw dogging a porn star, but he at least he was a man....

Someone needs to make a list of all the positions of the left and right and the moderate ones. Something like

Gun control.

Machine guns for everyone

People need to pass background checks and nobody needs a semiautomatic

No guns

Abortions

None. If you get pregnant from incest that's God will.

Abortions up to 16 weeks

Abortions up til 10 year

You will find the in general most Americans are right in the middle with a slight conservative bent.

OozmaKappa wrote:

A reminder of how radical the modern left is:

You got guys in here who dont understand what a democratic republic is and why the senate exists who are seriously suggesting we should essentially abolish the senate and become a pure democracy.

These are likely the same clowns who want to do away with the Supreme Court as well.

I'm sensing a common theme here. It seems that any time an institution is not completely controlled by or biased towards democrats then that institution needs to be torn down and rebuilt so that it can favor democrats. This even extends to social media.

I understand what a democratic republic is. My understanding of it informs my thoughts about it. I think a system which favors certain voters over others is ridiculous. The minority rules over the majority because of arbitrarily drawn lines around states. The system acts as an obstruction to the will of the people which is not very democratic in my opinion. I don't know exactly what changes I would make to the senate, but I would abolish the electoral college tomorrow. I don't think you should be able to lose the popular vote and be the president. That makes no sense.