Plenty of Americans have a middle. What happened to our political middle?
Why only extremes pulling us apart?
Why is there no politician with the courage to take a stand in the best interest of all Americans?
Why are Americans embracing the extremes?
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
Because the whole system is set up to favor the extremes. Gerrymandering means that most general elections are not competitive, so the primary becomes the only real contest and appeals to the most radical of each party. Closed primaries prevent most citizens from participating. The Electoral College means that candidates can hack the system and win despite losing the popular vote by tens of millions. The Senate setup gives disproportionate power to small rural states. The filibuster rule prevents significant change even when one party has a majority. And sadly, so many of these rules are based on accommodating slavery when our country was founded. Proportional representation, eliminating gerrymandering and ranked choice voting, abolishing the filibuster. and open primaries are the solution, but neither party is going to voluntarily disarm and offer their throat to the other party.
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Obama’s former Attorney General headed up a commission a few years ago to deal with gerrymandered states–when folks found out he was only going after red states it bluntted whatever good will there was.
Closed primaries should be the rule–why would members of either party want interlopers from the opposition voting–selecting a Pope is a Catholic thing not an Episcopal event.
Electoral College prevents a few states from having so much power in presidential elections–seems to me CA–FLA–TEXAS and a few others would be making the choice—if it ain’t broke leave it alone unless you don’t favor the result–you know like packing the Supreme Court unless it is 6-3 in your favor.
Filibuster can be and has been abused like when Democrats fought for decades against civil rights legislation–Republicans had to bail them out.
None of these had anything to do with slavery–Eldridge Gerry from MA wasn’t thinking about slavery–
smaller states like RI–Iowa–the Dakotas could have cared less about slaves but wanted the power of the Senate which represented the interests of the states while the House represented the interest of the people.
Filibuster goes back to ancient times if I am correct–I believe it was introduced in our first Senate 240 some years ago.
Now as time progressed black Americans were impacted by the filibuster and maybe closed primaries and definitely gerrymandering–but slavery is a whole different ball game.
The usual folks are proposing this to gather as much power as possible–the left wants to add 2 more states to really tip the balance in the Senate–of course court packing is # 1 on their list as 6-3 only works if it is in their favor–they hate gerrymandered states unless it is NY/CA or MD–if it favors them it is good–favors the opposition rip it up and do something that favors the left.
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you, no doubt, think you know what the best interest of Americans are–how would you determine what is in our best interest? would energy independence be in our best interest–would fewer government regulations be in our best interest–would getting behind either Biden or Trump after the election be in our best interest–should the loser not contest the election in the interest of the country?
is in our best interest to have the folks who talk about democracy threatening a sitting president, and the one with all the delegates, to step aside because he could well lose and lose down ballot also–how democratic is that? I guess it is inconvenient for those democracy folks so let’s throw it out in this case.
was it in our best interest to coddle those who threatened and assaulted Jews on our college campuses–fascism on the rise and not coming from where mainstream media tells us it is.
was it in our best interest to have almost all the media, with the exception of one or two outlets, never tell us that our leader has major cognitive issues–and why was this withheld and for years?–interesting Wash. Post op-ed today by someone who admits to the cover up.
there were folks who did take stands that were for our (mine for sure) best interest in my opinion–think about the Florida governor who realized that old folks needed protection from Covid but young people should be in school and that the state should not be locked down–or those governors who decided to show other states how migrants effected the lives of folks in Texas and Florida.
you see it depends on whose eyes and ears are looking out for our best interests –do I want you looking out for my interests? you want me looking out for your interests? Maybe we need to come to a decision on what our interests are and I suspect they might be different.
that’s the American way my friend–maybe those telling us extremism is rampant in the country are the ones who lied about Russian collusion–Hunter’s laptop–Charlottesville –and Biden’s health.
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I’m surprised Mr. Quinn did not censor your comment! CNN or NBC or NPR or ABC or CBS or other Democratic mouthpieces would have.
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no–different opinions are allowed here which is why the forum is popular–we can agree to disagree without being disagreeable–if we get out of line brother Quinn will most likely remind us of good manners as he should.
of course your reference to the news outlets is right on Phil–no diversity by the folks who holler DIVERSITY !!!
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Because the politicians only care about the extremes. They don’t concern themselves with the middle.
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Because only highly motivated, ideological, specific issue-oriented people vote in primaries. And that’s where the power is in both parties.
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