> American parties always seem to maintain party discipline over their members, forcing those with other views to either remain silent, or leave.
I mean, why wouldn't they? If you ran a party, and one individual seem (from your perspective) to hold opinions that goes against what you and others believe the party is for, wouldn't you also want them to leave your party?
Shouldn't be that hard of a problem really, if we could accept that people change beliefs and opinions as life goes on, and if you have more than 2 political parties as real options, people could be a bit more diverse and nuanced with their spoken opinions.
If you ran a party, and one individual seem (from your perspective) to hold opinions that goes against what you and others believe the party is for, wouldn't you also want them to leave your party?
I have run and worked for businesses in which dissenting views were important to our success. I don't personally find your argument persuasive.
But I do know people who find that kind of thing very persuasive: I think it would most appeal to the type of person who believes that groups of people should be managed in a strict hierarchal manner, with the people on top managing things for their own benefit.
And—confirmation bias alert—IMO that's absolutely what both of America's parties do, and why it is difficult for their voters to get even of a fraction of the benefits that the donors (who may donate to both parties) enjoy.
Recently the democratic party intentionally granted just enough votes to let a budget pass. That was, as far as I can tell, identical to the same thing they wouldn't vote for weeks prior.
I think they can handle ideological differences. You just need to be able to radically change your vote by fiat of the party leadership.
That's a weird way to describe "enough democratic senators dissented from the party line to let a CR pass".
Unlike the republicans, the democrats have never been able to maintain that kind of tight control over members. The CR didn't pass because "democrats" chose to let it. It passed because the republicans were able to individually influence 5 additional democrats to change their votes, in addition to the 2 who had always voted for it.
The kind of tight control that the republican party has had recently is very new and hasn't really happened before in the US.
The ones that voted for it were all magically the ones that were either not seeking re-election or ones that are not up for election the next term.
This is a hell of a coincidence.
I don't mean to call out the Democrats as the only one who do this (on HN you simultaneously can't point out a party for something because then somehow you're being partisan, but you're also damned if you don't give an example, so it puts you in a tough spot). Just a most recent thing I've noticed.
Up until recently even on HN Schumer was nearly universally damned for letting it happen or being behind it in his capacity as a minority leader. Perhaps without evidence, and perhaps baselessly. But it's telling that as soon as I point it out in a slightly different context, then suddenly it's an opinion worthy of greying out.
>Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, continued to face criticism from members of his own party after he reversed course and allowed the stopgap spending bill to come to a vote.
It's obviously not a coincidence. I don't see how it is any kind of evidence for taking orders from above. People who don't have to face their voters any time soon (or ever) obviously have more leeway on making deals they might not like.
Passing a CR has required 60 votes in the senate since 1974. Despite this, and 60-vote majorities being very rare, shutdowns remained rare and typically very short for a very long time. This was not because the parties got together and made a deal; it was because it was common for senators in both parties to make side deals across the aisle to support their own pet projects. Having the discipline to force the senators of a party to not make such deals is something that only the republicans have managed, and only very recently.
People are angry at the democrats for being weak and a mess, but that is the normal state of affairs in US party politics.
Where "constituents" means "money-weighted interpolation of opinions from constituents, corporations, and politically active non-constituent HNWs alike."
So the workers at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory should have locked all the factory exits themselves? Keeping the employees from taking breaks was definitely the thing that made the owner happy.
Who exactly would you say is maintaining party discipline?
In 2012, Mitt Romney was at least nominally the leader of the Republican party as their Presidential nominee.
Nowadays, Donald Trump is clearly attempting to maintain party discipline, but I don't think anyone has ever been able to maintain discipline over Donald Trump, not even before he was their President or Presidential nominee.
Your comment reminded me of James Traficant, the former congressman of Ohio. He went to jail for bribery, and then came out of jail suddenly caring about prison inmates. I've seen this in a few other, former elected officials, who have gone to jail.
Some people are incapable of having empathy about an issue or a group of people unless they have a personal connection to that group or issue. You see it in politicians who are anti-gay rights until they have a child who comes out as gay (e.g. Rob Portman).
"As the father of a daughter, I understand the need for feminism that I ignored as a son, brother, playmate, classmate, friend, neighbour, landlord, tenant, lover, teammate, colleague, report, supervisor, and fellow citizen."
That's a particularly icky formulation of personal connection, because it has overtones of paternity as property rights.
But the real issue here is his party. It's gone from 'economically conservative with preference for free markets, austerity, and military solutions' all the way over to 'Populist with slavish devotion to a fascist leader and a reactionary cause'. Romney now looks like a liberal compared to his party. We haven't had a party this bad since the know-nothings, federalists and the whigs, all of which self-destructed, and we haven't had a leader this bad since Andrew Johnson. It would be fun to think about what would have happened differently if we weren't on the brink of losing our democracy and/or being regressed back to 1890.
