So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[LizzieMaine]

The illusion of choice is no choice at all.

 

[Fading Fast]

I think it is a matter of where you put the microscope lens. Pepsi and Coke taste different at a nuanced level, but are pretty similar to each other compared to orange juice.

Dems and Reps offer many different tax, spend, regulatory, foreign, etc. policies that do make a difference for many people. That said, (using our Coke and Pepsi analogy above), if you are looking for arrant libertarianism or traditional government-ownership-of-the-means-of-production socialism from Dems or Reps, you'll be disappointed (i.e., it's Coke or Pepsi, they ain't offering orange juice).

(Carefully reread what I wrote here, and while on the topic of politics, I don't think it offers a bias view - pro one side or the other - but an analysis [albeit a feeble one] of the state of our two-party system - as always, though, moderators, please feel free to delete if I've unintentionally crossed a line.)

 

[LizzieMaine]

Picture a world where you can have Coke or you can have Pepsi. Orange juice and milk theoretically exist, but the system's been arranged so that you can't actually have them. The entity that controls the vending machines only allows Coke and Pepsi to have slots. The illusion of choice is preserved, without actually allowing a choice, while the vending machine operator is the one really controlling the entire beverage racket.

 

[HudsonHawk]

That said, (using our Coke and Pepsi analogy above), if you are looking for arrant libertarianism or traditional government-ownership-of-the-means-of-production socialism from Dems or Reps, you'll be disappointed (i.e., it's Coke or Pepsi, they ain't offering orange juice).)

I think that's the point. People will stake their identities on the subtle nuance of the same flavors being peddled, yet claim to have made a conscious choice after careful consideration. They simply don't recognize that they're being played, be it the political offerings, soft drinks or their particular brand of bleach.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Based on the results of the last several US Presidential elections, since they've all seem very close (both in the Electoral College count and the percentage of the population divide), just about 50% of the country felt that way for the prior eight years and now 50% will feel that way again - only it's now a different 50%.

I don't think the above is political (our elections have all been close and the winning side switched this year - those are facts), but if it is, please just delete.

Well, speaking just as to the last US election: roughly half of eligible voters either cast their ballot for someone other than one of the 2 major candidates, or stayed home. Thus the current President elect is the choice of roughly 25% of eligible voters, and even less of a percentage of the population as a whole.

 

[LizzieMaine]

By comparison here's a breakdown of the popular vote for the 1936 election -- one of the most significant landslides of the 20th Century. FDR won 46 of the 48 states for 523 electoral votes.

Roosevelt/Garner -- Democratic Party -- 27,652, 648 votes -- 60.80 percent.
Landon/Knox -- Republican Party -- 16,681, 862 votes -- 35.54 percent.
Lemke/O'Brien -- Union Party (Coughlin/Smith/Townsend coalition) -- 892,378 votes -- 1.95 percent
Thomas/Nelson -- Socialist Party -- 187,910 votes -- 0.41 percent
Browder/Ford -- Communist Party -- 79,315 votes -- 0.17 percent
Colvin/Watson -- Prohibitionist Party -- 37,464 votes -- 0.08 percent
Aiken/Teichert -- Socialist Labor Party (DeLeonites) -- 12,799 votes -- 0.03 percent
Other (local parties, write in votes, etc.) 3,141 votes -- 0.00 percent.

Total Votes Cast -- 44,655,139
Total Voting-Age Population -- 80,174,000
Voter Turnout -- 61 percent.

Even accounting for the mass suppression of the African-American vote in the South, that's still an impressive number of people who didn't vote in what was widely considered to be the most crucial election up to that time.

Some more interesting figures:

Breaking down the vote ideologically, you get this --

Left-Leaning Voters: 27,932,672
Right-Leaning Voters: 17,611,704
Unclassifiable: 3,141
No Preference Expressed (didn't vote): 35,518,861

You've got to exclude from the "Didn't Vote" line most of the voting age African Americans who lived in the South, but 71 percent of African Americans who did vote voted for FDR.

Even with those suppressed votes factored in, "Don't Care" would have won in 1936 if non-votes were counted as a vote. And if that's the case in one of the biggest landslides in history, how much more so in a closer election.

 

[GHT]

Well, speaking just as to the last US election: roughly half of eligible voters either cast their ballot for someone other than one of the 2 major candidates, or stayed home. Thus the current President elect is the choice of roughly 25% of eligible voters, and even less of a percentage of the population as a whole.

Fascinating insight into American politics, so interesting, I'm particularly pleased that the thread hasn't been pulled nor the comments biased.
The UK's referendum on continuing EU membership in 2016, caused much gnashing of teeth, but the one political bleat that did make me smile was that of former Prime Minister, John Major, who campaigned to remain. Major argues that the result should be void because only 72.2% of the electorate voted. Major won the 1992 general election on a turnout of 77.7% The word now by politicians for something that they don't like is: "Populism."

 

[2jakes]

"What you farmers need to do is raise less corn and more Hell!"
(Mary Elizabeth Lease (1890) Populist Organizer)

A Populist President?

"Ran as Populist President in 1896 on platform
of Free Silver."

 

[LizzieMaine]

There were a lot of different styles of "Populists" in that period -- some were aggressive "nativists," opposed to "foreign devils" coming in to ruin the country, others were money cranks of the "free silver" style, and others were basically proto-New Dealers, in favor of trust-busting and using Federal power to redistribute wealth. When a word can have so many different meanings, it basically has no meaning.

"Populism" today has even less of a defined meaning, unless you use it to refer to a general anti-Establishment attitude. Most of the people who go around calling themselves "populists" today are sometimes similar to the nativist Populists of the 19th Century, but otherwise they have very little in common with what Bryan-type populists believed and taught -- the money-cranks among today's "populists" go so far as to take a position very much the opposite of Bryan's.

 

[2jakes]

My favorite polysemous hat!

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

My favorite conundrum for people who identify fanatically as Reps or Dems and vilify the other is: Imagine yourself trying to describe to any European the difference between our two major parties. Mind you, European countries have everything from 50 different blends of communist/socialist to moderate to religious parties to outright fascists. These are true political differences. To them our Republicans and Democrats are even more similar than Coke and Pepsi.

 

[Trenchfriend]

To them our Republicans and Democrats are even more similar than Coke and Pepsi.

Right.

 

[2jakes]

Let's not forget the one & only.... Dr. Pepper!

 

[Harp]

Let's not forget the one & only.... Dr. Pepper!

Diet-Dr Pepper!

 

[2jakes]

"Diet-Dr. Pepper!"

 

[basbol13]

What I can't understand about the Brits is that the Royal Family are German? This defies reason. Add the Romanov's well.. I guess the Holy Roman Empire never died.

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ My vague memory of the history is that they were all marrying into each other's families for both political reason - to secure a peace, advance a treaty, etc., - and royalty likes marrying royalty, so looking at other countries' royal offspring increases your pool of candidates.

Hence, English, German and Russian royalty had a lot of overlap. The last Czar's wife - Alexandra - was the granddaughter of the Queen Victoria. Clearly, she'd have been better off not marrying into the Russian Royal family.

 

[HudsonHawk]

⇧ My vague memory of the history is that they were all marrying into each other's families for both political reason - to secure a peace, advance a treaty, etc., - and royalty likes marrying royalty, so looking at other countries' royal offspring increases your pool of candidates.

Hence, English, German and Russian royalty had a lot of overlap. The last Czar's wife - Alexandra - was the granddaughter of the Queen Victoria. Clearly, she'd have been better off not marrying into the Russian Royal family.

The last czar himself, Nicholas II, wasn't even ethnically Russian. His father was mostly German and his mother was Danish, the daughter of Christian IX, King of Denmark. His uncle was King of Greece. European royalty is just one big incestuous family.

 

[EngProf]

From History.com:
On this day in 1917 (June 17), during the third year of World War I, Britain’s King George V orders the British royal family to dispense with the use of German titles and surnames, changing the surname of his own family, the decidedly Germanic Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, to Windsor.

I remember reading elsewhere that Kaiser Wilhelm II (grandson of Queen Victoria) and Bismarck conducted their political discussions in English so that their driver would not understand what they were saying.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Elbphilharmony Hamburg, 789 million Euro (official).