Breaking News #4: From Ross Perot to RFK Jr – The Evolving Narratives of Political Entrepreneurs
September 14, 2023·18 comments·In Brief
In this episode, we take a deep dive into the tactics and tools used by upstart political entrepreneurs. Our political system is setup to heavily favor incumbents and candidates that are part of the political establishment. This presents an exceptionally difficult challenge for candidates who come from outside of that system. But social media and technology have given upstart candidates more tools at their disposal than they have ever had in history. And they are using them to both gain our votes and influence our opinions. We discuss how they do that and how all of us can maintain Clear Eyes and Full Hearts in the midst of their influence.
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Comments
I am totally a sucker for this sort of signal, too. I want to believe!
Sorry for the slow reply (15 days wtf??), it is a good question and I didn’t come to an easy answer. I think the question is me assuming that, if a ‘good’ political entrepreneur were to come along I am likely to view this signal as important. So part of it is related to trying to figure out how to maintain hope. As I thought it through, however, likely a related answer is that I’m simply looking to justify being a sucker for this type of signal!
Good grief man, and to think those were from relatively recent times.
I threw up in my mouth after reading each party’s platform.
‘Nuff said
I thought this was an interesting read:
August 26, 1996 Democratic Party Platform:
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/1996-democratic-party-platform
Today I believe many of these positions would be considered extreme by the very same party.
A couple of examples:
Today’s Democratic Party also believes we must remain a nation of laws. We cannot tolerate illegal immigration and we must stop it. For years before Bill Clinton became President, Washington talked tough but failed to act. In 1992, our borders might as well not have existed. The border was under-patrolled, and what patrols there were, were under-equipped. Drugs flowed freely. Illegal immigration was rampant. Criminal immigrants, deported after committing crimes in America, returned the very next day to commit crimes again.
President Clinton is making our border a place where the law is respected and drugs and illegal immigrants are turned away. We have increased the Border Patrol by over 40 percent; in El Paso, our Border Patrol agents are so close together they can see each other. Last year alone, the Clinton Administration removed thousands of illegal workers from jobs across the country. Just since January of 1995, we have arrested more than 1,700 criminal aliens and prosecuted them on federal felony charges because they returned to America after having been deported.
and
Welfare reform. Today’s Democratic Party knows there is no greater gap between mainstream American values and modern American government than our failed welfare system. When Bill Clinton became President, the welfare system undermined the very values – work, family, and personal responsibility – that it should promote. The welfare system should reflect those values: we want to help people who want to help themselves and their children.
and
Reinventing government. The American people have a right to demand that responsibility is the order of the day in Washington. The mission of today’s Democratic Party is to expand opportunity, not bureaucracy. We have worked hard over the last four years to rein in big government, slash burdensome regulations, eliminate wasteful programs, and shift problem-solving out of Washington and back to people and communities who understand their situations best.
and
Fighting crime. Today’s Democratic Party believes the first responsibility of government is law and order. Four years ago, crime in America seemed intractable. The violent crime rate and the murder rate had climbed for seven straight years. Drugs seemed to flow freely across our borders and into our neighborhoods. Convicted felons could walk into any gun shop and buy a handgun. Military-style assault weapons were sold freely. Our people didn’t feel safe in their homes, walking their streets, or even sending their children to school. Under the thumb of special interests like the gun lobby, Republicans talked tough about crime but did nothing to fight it.
Bill Clinton promised to turn things around, and that is exactly what he did. After a long hard fight, President Clinton beat back fierce Republican opposition, led by Senator Dole and Speaker Gingrich, to answer the call of America’s police officers and pass the toughest Crime Bill in history. The Democratic Party under President Clinton is putting more police on the streets and tougher penalties on the books; we are taking guns off the streets and working to steer young people away from crime and gangs and drugs in the first place. And it is making a difference. In city after city and town after town, crime rates are finally coming down.
In the interest of fairness:
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/republican-party-platform-1996
Yes, that’s it exactly. The amorphous blob in the center is ‘unaffiliated’ so it’s like they don’t exist in a system like the US that prevents a third party from forming.
Ha - you caught it (I totally bungled that one), great work!
I have a question about the bimodal distribution. As of the last survey I saw the two parties are split about 25% each with the remaining 49% identifying as ‘independent’. If that is accurate—and I have no reason to believe it isn’t to at least some degree—that should leave an opening for a more center left/right candidate to capture a general election audience. But the problem then is winning a primary, correct? That’s the impossibility caused by the growing spike of the two humps?
Man did that ever crack me up! Upon second glance I gotta ask if maybe you meant “a flower is just a weed with a marketing budget?”
What am I missing?
That’s depressing. Not saying it’s wrong, just……depressing if true. It removes an element of hope
I get it— A “centrist” R and a “centrist” D don’t resemble each other anymore so there is no point in appealing to a group that no longer exists.
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