[linuxftw]

> The Republican party is powerful in this country, most of all because it is a single beast where every member from the highest to the lowest office tows the party line.

I know of another party that operates in a similar fashion.

> Fiscally, every R in DC is a neoconservative

No argument here. But we were talking about 'conservatives' rather than a particular political party. Parties have done a great job at branding themselves towards different viewpoints, even if their actions don't match the branding.

I'm a one issue voter. I will never vote or support someone that voted for the Iraq war, I will never vote for someone that supports any ongoing foreign military intervention of any kind. My options, as you might imagine, are quite limited.

Strangely, killing people overseas is not the #1 issue in the US when it comes to politics. People are selfish, immoral idiots that don't actually care about others.

Here's a political platform I could get behind: States decide what's best for themselves when it comes to social and economic issues, end all wars, remove military from all foreign outposts, keep all warships within our international waters.

[asdff]

I'm with you on the military. I think its the biggest waste of budget we have, personally. Vietnam should have been the death knell of an overinflated military seeing as we failed to subdue farmers with rusty weapons, and continue to fail against farmers with 50 year old weaponry today. At least with the democrats there is a lot more heterogeneity in political opinion, although I'm jaded by the lack of imagination from the national office.

California is a great example of the heterogeneity of the democratic party. Most state and local politicians are democrats in name only. Sure, they support democratic social platforms like not being discriminatory to marginalized groups, who wouldn't? But looking at policy positions regarding land use and the role of public government, many hold very conservative positions. This is still the land of Reagan, and his politics never really went away even if the Rs seemed to disappear from ballots.

I think it's interesting to look at the different types of democratic voters in CA. Nationally, Bloomberg was sort of a DINO candidate. Take a look at the vote breakdown (1). I know LA so I'll give an overview for that city. Sanders held working class areas including neighborhoods with the highest population density in all of LA county, the region along Vermont Ave. from the 10 freeway to the hollywood hills. Biden was a mixed bag, drawing a lot of support from predominantly Black areas due to the association with Obama, but also from upper class white areas in the south bay such as manhattan beach, hermosa beach, and redondo beach. Support for Bloomberg only was found in some of the wealthiest zip codes like Brentwood and Beverly Hills, as you might expect given his positions.

1. https://www.latimes.com/projects/2020-california-primaries-p...

[linuxftw]

While spending is an important part of being against war, it's not really the leading reason. Vietnam did change a lot. No more graphic reporting, no more hard hitting journalism after that. The Pentagon approves which reporters get to embed and how the story is going to go. The only real reporting now is from leaked footage of war crimes that we through someone in prison for.

> Nationally, Bloomberg was sort of a DINO candidate.

I don't agree. I think he's the prototypical national Democrat. Rich, well connected, wants to expand state powers. Supports well fare and broad taxation, supports war.