Comment Re:big tents suck (Score 2, Interesting) 7
Big tents
There's only two ways to get your views into policy, generally. One is to be in the majority. The other is to form coalitions with other minorities.
Of course, since we disagree so much, we form coalitions regardless: the only question is whether they are internal or external to the party.
Frankly, I prefer it when they are internal to the party, for many reasons, which are beside the point here. I say this stuff just to point out that wanting a "big tent" party, as I do, doesn't mean you let just anyone represent you.
I think that most Americans believe in the standard Republican principles, and even if we disagree on specifics, and even if we believe in those principles to varying degrees, we can still agree far more than not against the Democrats. The problem here is not that the GOP is a big tent, it's that the GOP nominated someone who is outside of that big tent.
The big tent mentality is only to lock in the two entrenched parties and lock out all others, and denies people choices.
Not at all. I believe in the big tent, I work with the Republican Party and want to strengthen it; at the same time, I fight for allowing equal access to third-party and independent candidates, and I was glad to see the Republican Party get kicked in the teeth in NY.
I know those two sides probably don't make sense to you in your framework, but blame the framework.
What choice do I have if there's only Democrat and Democrat-lite parties?
The same choice the Republican voters chose in NY: voting for someone else.
the GOP needs to decide if they're going to be a party of the new center(-Left), or of the Right
It's never decided that before. It's been a coalition of the center and the right for more than 100 years, back when Taft and Roosevelt were duking it out. (And while the country is moving left in its policies, the electorate is still right of center, which is a huge reason why we see tea parties, and massive unrest toward Congress, and -- most telling -- why every major politician who isn't in a completely safe Democrat district promises to not increase taxes on any but "the super rich.")
Same thing with the Democrats.
If the moderates want to start their own party, fine. It's a free country (for now), and I support their right to do it 100 percent. It'd be interesting to watch the coalitions form. But I think you'd be even more dissatisfied in the long run with the results, as the moderates would still be screwing things up, but this time, they would have more power to do it than before.
And let's face it, as you said, as the nation's policies move left, the moderates go along with it, as they revere the center, wherever it happens to be. So a moderate party would more often align with the Dems than the GOP, probably, on the most heated issues of the day.
