,
12 tweets,
5 min read
Read on Twitter
1 - Progressive friends, as well as many who became disillusioned when @HillaryClinton defeated @SenSanders in the primaries leading up to the 2016 election - so disillusioned they would not vote for EITHER Top Two candidates - can cite this evidence of politics/media corruption.
2 - Whether they try to argue that a @HillaryClinton presidency would or could have harmed us as much as the @realDonaldTrump presidency is actually doing, the "duopoly" argument is indeed rooted in some sobering observations about media and political manipulation.
3 - Just how & why is it that consensus for truly progressive candidates, whether inside or outside of the Top Two parties, has become so difficult? How and why is it that they seem to have to fight a mainstream media tendency to favor moderates, corporate mainstream candidates?
4 - It can be argued - curiously, I believe, but not wholly inaccurately - that part of the manufactured appeal of @realDonaldTrump built on his being atypical: not a mainstream politician. That she was one, was very much one, was part of the downfall of @HillaryClinton.
6 - @prorev's Sam Smith has been a proponent of alternate methods of voting - Ranked Choice Voting among them - for a long time, as a way to get more parties involved, to build the kind of consensus to break the Top Two parties' exclusive hold on government.
7 - I disagree with certain progressive friends when they assert any kind of equal level & nature of corruption in those Top Two parties: @GOP seems more extensively - even irreparably - corrupt. But my politics are liberal rather than conservative; I might not be the one to ask.
8 - But when I do see that a de facto front-runner seems to have some manipulative reinforcing oomph given to him by powerful, wealthy media organizations through their publications, it gives me pause, reminds me money can and does corrupt without regard to ideology.
9 - And if you're the kind of person who wants power to be concentrated, it could be argued that liberal and conservative front-runner parties, ones that are more or less impossible to dislodge from their catbird seats, might be the way to go.
10 - Disclaimer: I plan to vote for a Democratic candidate in the 2020 Presidential Primary. I will vote to elect the Democrat who wins that primary, even the de facto front-runner. That this might be corporately predetermined disturbs me not so much as 4 more years of Trump.
11 - Frankly, though other methods of building consensus need to be in our political system - as does a whole bunch of other election and campaign finance reform - this is what we have now, and @realDonaldTrump's presidency is a harsh source of lessons for all of us to learn.
@realDonaldTrump @threadreaderapp unroll
