Incompetence is as incompetence does ...

It's difficult to get rid of an incumbent after they become "the guy to vote for" over and over. Makes voters lazy and disincentives other good candidates from even trying to run. Competition is a good thing. We'd have more choices of candidates clamoring for a seat if Congressional terms had some dead stop.

Incumbency builds apathy, and see where we are today?

 

I can see you're not one of those so-called pro-lifers.

 

We do choose to invite about 1 million immigrants per year to study and hopefully stay here after they graduate. We select for math and science skills and others who will contribute more to society than they take. Interestingly, we also have about 1 million new housing starts per year...since we native-borns have stopped excelling in "real skills" and quit having babies to replace ourselves. Immigrants are the only thing keeping the U.S. competitive in innovation, technology, and medicine while Americans pursue degrees in Gender Studies and Art & Dance Choreography.

I agree we have the right to pick and choose. It's only one party who thinks we should just open the borders to additional millions of uneducated and illiterate because "humanity", and otherwise "racist".

Anyway, it is a good thing we don't live in a true democracy. The founders knew the pitfalls of a mob rule majority of the uneducated. Leads to a dictatorship sooner or later.

 

I didn't write anything about lobbying (not sure why my name is attached), so whoever you quoted on that may want to respond.

 

I already mentioned that poor people who excel in high school are given college scholarships. Colleges seek out, and fight over, the best and the brightest.

Some of the dumbest college colleagues I knew were the rich kids whose parents could afford any price for them to drift through college without learning much. Their tuition provides the scholarship funding for the brilliant poor kids who have an earnest desire to learn and succeed.

 

Apathy has been and continues to be from the constituency. That is indeed a serious concern, but term limits doesn't really solve voter apathy.

The only limitation I see for new candidates is the same one we have been grappling with for years, the exorbitant costs of political campaigns. If you really want to see new faces running for office, then we need to be talking about publicly funding political races rather than having these politicians run around like whores getting big sponsors to fill their campaign coffers.

 

Yep. I agree. Yet we do have multiple parties in the country. Media always paints the nominees as total flakes (and some of them are...lol). That is if the media gives them one minute of legitimate attention as a serious contender, which does not happen.

Yes, two-party politics is "I win, you lose" for the candidates. The entire country has been losing for decades. Politics is a chess game rich people play for power and money. Voting is the only power the citizens have, and the two parties, with the help of the media, makes our "choice" a false illusion that we're the ones in control. As long as we think we can't vote 3rd party, the established political class will continue to rule.

 

If you really want to see new candidates, vet the 3rd party candidates, and vote for one of them. If a 3rd party candidate ever wins more than 10% of the vote (without running under the 2-pary banner like Sanders and Trump did), it might scare the two parties into some reforms.

Maybe it already has scared them with Trump and now Sanders' support among populists in the country. They aren't giving up the power and riches they worked so long to achieve easily though. They're fighting mad and appear ready to cling to power at any cost.

 

Like Trumps kid said ............ My Dad only cares about Green.......... No other color.

However even as Dumb as Trump is . I'm sure he realizes there is nothing he can do about his business.

The only thing Trump Cares about is Losing the Election.

The only reason to vote Trump was the economy. That's gone and will not be back until a vaccine is safe and tested

Which is why he pushes the citizens to " Liberate " !

His mishandling of the Virus is another reason he'll Lose the Election.

USA did poorly in fighting the Virus which really showed how weak a Trump is.

 

Moved what "quicker"? You are patently wrong. He did nothing at first, and I maintain it was because his First Thought was, "Oh, oh, this is gonna hurt a lotta my hotel business".

Trump's international hotel licensing and management business makes up $220 million of his estimated $3.5 billion fortune.

 

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

If nothing else, voting for third party candidates could at least make the two Main Parties perhaps think about how they select and propose candidates?

Voter turnout history in America:


Sixty-percent voter turnout in presidential elections and 40/50% in the midterms is nothing to crow about. The last time Uncle Sam had a respectable voter turnout in the presidential elections (80%) was more than a century ago ...

 

Were you of voting age when Ralph Nader was running?

 

Too young for his first run. He still runs every single election doesn't he?

I was rather impressed by H. Ross Perot.

 

Looks like Nader stopped perpetually running in 2008.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader

 

For undecided voters, the best reason to vote Trump is Joe Biden.

 

Sure it is. Biden, as imperfect as he is, towers as a good human being over Trump.

 

Biden's brain is steadily turning into dementia mush, but I'm sure that 10's of millions will still vote for the guy who has locked himself in the basement.

 

As was I. In fact, I was a supervisor at one of Perot's call centers.

My experience with that election followed by Nader's Green Party run in 2000 is what made me change my thoughts about the viability of a third party ever winning a presidential election. Is it possible? Yes, but highly unlikely. It's just not part of our American DNA for one reason or the other. We've sort of have a 2 party system way of thinking since 1852, and there's just no public appetite for a multi-party system like the UK. The stars would have to align in a very particular way for a 3rd party candidate to win the presidency.

Now if we had publicly funded campaigns that would definitely change the dynamics to allow a 3rd or 4th party, if all the parties operated with the same financial resources, but this too has it's hurdle to overcome in getting politicians to change the system. It can be done, but there's no will there either.

 

It's your guy who is loony not Biden.

 

Trump said hold me beer.....

 

as is Trump, I do wish the left would of picked Bernie... but these are our choices.. dumb and dumber

Biden will say as much dumb stuff as Trump, but at least he will surround himself with competent people unlike Trump

 

HE'S SICK, SICK, SICK

I like Bernie, he's a thinker. I suspect, however, that he's not a presidential "doer".

Intellectually driven people make marvelous teachers. Which is what he has succeeded in doing for us at great personal physical cost.

What we need now is a "doer". And who better than a very experienced Washingtonian than Biden? Not to worry - Obama will come out for Biden and push him over the top by actively campaigning for him. The situation is that desperate because the next PotUS is diving right into an immense economic pile of you-know-what!

Trump is mentally ill, and you (plural) don't seem to realize that that fact alone in America disables him from the presidency. After all, he's a BILLIONAIRE so how can he be "sick" in the head? Besides, you-plural have a Senate that is totally devoid of any sense of fair-justice given the mountain of evidence against Trump. (Politics is as politicians do.)

So see here from Psychology Today: Why Is the Trump Presidency of Extreme Psychological Interest? - excerpt:

Had enough? No? Then read the rest of the article linked above ...

 

~ I believe the left did pick Bernie. The DNC kicked him under the bus - again. I wonder why ... ?

 

Ron Paul was a popular candidate here in Austin in 2008. Yard signs were everywhere. The Texas GOP kept him off the ballot, but many wrote him in. His popularity gave rise to the Tea Party which had success winning Congressional seats.

Plus, a 3rd party candidate did win in 2016, much to the chagrin of the GOP. The DNC has actively prevented the 3rd party Socialist Democrat from winning 2016 and this year. The Socialists have infiltrated Congress by running as Democrats, and winning. So it appears the strategy for 3rd parties is to attack from inside the 2 parties.

Having 3rd party outsiders rise and oust the establishment D and the R candidates does show an appetite for change in the country.

I'd hate to see the D & R go extinct and still be left with a two-party-only system, just with two radically different philosophies from the old guard.

 

TWO KEY COMPONENTS

You're right. Change has got to start somewhere, and that "somewhere" is in each of us.

Thinking that somehow the mess in DC is going to "work itself out" is mind-boggling simplistic. We are fully in the midst of Age Change and Replicants want more of the same. That is, low high-income taxation!

The country must get back to a decent sharing of expenditures. Today, more than 50% of the National Discretionary Budget is wasted upon the DoD! Where's the Great War justifying that awesome fact?

America must learn once again that Government Expenditure is on behalf of the people and what is best for them. And I never tire of stating this fact:
National Health Care and Post-secondary Education are the TWO KEY-COMPONENTS towards keeping-up with a world that is literally changing under our feet ...

PS: It took 500 years for Rome to be born, live and die. It took around 12 years and a great deal of bloodshed to rid the world of Nazism. Changing America is political work-in-progress. Be patient, but let's demand, militate and vote only the best-possible political structure in LaLaLand on the Potomac! Or - as history teaches us - it wont last half as long as did Rome's predominance.