Ask Pardes 8: Era of Multiparty Coalitions
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): PardesSeleh.com
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/02
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Why are we in the era of multiparty coalitions in the US?
Pardes Seleh: We are in the era of multiparty coalitions because our two party system is a label and nothing more than that.
There is nothing holding the Democratic Party together more than their love of government. There is nothing holding the Republican party together more than the distrust of government. I think those values are important, but they are not everything. Which is why on so many issues, there are so many crossovers, where the Republican and Democratic parties will agree with one another – factions of them.
There are so many things going on. Basically, everything is just a label. They don’t reflect actual ideologies. Conservatives, for example—there are so many things that can make someone a small government conservative.
Now, you are a Right-wing nationalist who likes government putting in regulations for certain things that are nationalist or protectionist or whatever. You can be labeled a conservative if you despise Planned Parenthood, which is a small government conservative thing and a social conservative thing.
You can call yourself completely liberal, but you just don’t like socialism. There’s basically a bunch of things that can make you conservative. It is all labels and relative to how you think. Everyone to the right is conservative and everyone to the left of you is liberal, but none of those words have any intrinsic meaning.
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