You wrote: “[I]t strikes me that the real political news of the last six months is the fact that the US now has a standard two-party system, arguably for the first time in its history.”

I didn’t realize this had happened, nor was I aware that there was such a thing as a “standard two-party system.” Live and learn.

What are the defining characteristics of standard two-party systems? When, how, and by what institution(s) were these criteria originally arrived at? How are they maintained (if they are)?

All the best,

Tom Doyle

The degree of partisanship in the US, until recently far less than in other democracies, is now greater than in many.

In context, it seems it refers to voting in the legislature. Is there evidence that cross-party voting is becoming more common in the legislatures of other older democracies at the same time it is becoming less common in the US House (and even Senate).

Disraeli was descended from Italian Sephardic Jews on both sides of his family, although he claimed Spanish ancestry.

Norman Gash, reviewing Blake’s work, argued that Benjamin’s claim to Spanish ancestry could not be entirely dismissed. Norman Gash, review of Disraeli, by Robert Blake. The English Historical Review, Vol. 83, No. 327. (Apr., 1968), 360-364

I don’t think the US case adds up, but in general it’d be nice to see some fierce cross-Atlantic competition on who is most socially progressive.

And there are some unexpected interactions and tradeoffs. For example, I believe it is more common in the U.S. than the E.U. to find stay-at-home fathers. Why? Because the U.S. does not provide generous guarantees to mothers for long maternity leaves, part-time employment, or subsidized day-care. As a result, in families where the wife is the main wage-earner (no longer a rarity), it’s not uncommon (or at least, not bizarre) for the father to stay home with the young children. Is necessity the ‘mother’ of sexual egalitarianism?

And then there’s the question of whether or not fostering entrepreneurship—allowing people to start and operate businesses without having to jump through many bureaucratic hoops—is a progressive value. Is economic freedom generally a progressive value (I say yes, but I’m guessing many CT’ers wouldn’t agree).

Well, that or Pew’s analysis is wrong.

Disraeli may have been a baptised Christian, but he regarded himself as ethnically Jewish – and was apparently rather proud of it. The Irish politician Daniel O’Connell once made a disparaging reference to Disraeli’s Jewishness in a parliamentary debate, and Disraeli replied “Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honourable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon.”

I don’t see that there’s any politics but identity politics. But if you’re going to think that way it’s vitally important to pay attention to the identities the participants actually adopt for themselves, and not identities you want to impose on them.

So when people define their political identities by their economic class then you need to pay attention to that. But when they define it by something else—when they’re importantly anti-black or zionist or anti-abortion etc then you need to pay attention to that too.

People who’re interested in a Black block vote need to pay attention to who exactly identifies as Black to the point it has a strong influence on how they vote. On the other hand people who’re interested in a white-racist block vote might do very well thinking of Blacks as an undifferentiated threatening mass—they need to pay careful attention to who exactly is voting to suppress the dangerous Black masses.

I think it makes sense even if you don’t. Thank you for leading me to it.

I don’t think the US case adds up, but in general it’d be nice to see some fierce cross-Atlantic competition on who is most socially progressive. For one thing, it would confound a lot of people, on both sides. Which a lot of people, on both sides, could use.

Right-wing Freudian projection from abb1, who’s usually the first to barge in an throw stones.

I’m still waiting for you to back up a single statement you’ve made on this threa.

Actually, on any CT thread.

Abb1, I am not at all clear why you’re repeating this approach.

Sure, the GOP as a party is not racist. They simply switched from ineffectively supporting blacks to ineffectively supporting white racists because they could, when it got them more votes.

In the post-Jim-Crow era I don’t believe there’s much of an “African American vote”. Skin pigmentation doesn’t determine the vote; it’s mostly the ‘urban poor vote’.

That’s an interesting concept. There’s a black urban poor culture that’s some ways different from white urban poor culture—different communication channels etc. I wouldn’t expect them to vote exactly the same when their access to news and politicians etc is so different. But you could easily be right, I don’t have data on that.

I’d expect higher-class blacks to locally vote with their peers—if you’re a small business owner you’ll contribute to the local candidate you think will do more for your business—but how does that translate nationally?

So anyway, where do you want to take this? My own thought just now is that the GOP has become so corrupt that I’d rather they become a third party, so I’ll support Democrats for awhile just because they aren’t republicans, knowing they’re getting pretty corrupt too. I want to campaign for changes in election laws that encourage third parties and independents, particularly IRV.

Since I’m against the GOP, I’m interested in how their opponents might win more effectively. And it sounds like you’re saying that it’s better to focus on the needs of the urban poor than focus on the black community? I can imagine that. As the white urban poor increases in numbers they potentially become a larger voting block, if they get over feeling ashamed of being poor and actually start to look for their share of government assistance.

On the other hand it also makes sense to make sure urban poor blacks know who their enemies are—why give up that advantage?

And there’s no reason to give up middle-class votes to the GOP either, white or black. And we needn’t completely write off the rich black vote.

Does it make sense for the Democratic party to tell blacks that since there’s no more racism they aren’t anybody in particular? I don’t see it. They have their own communities with their own communication channels and that makes them a community to court. Not all blacks are hooked into that but the ones that are need to be approached as a group because they are a group.

And yet thinking in abstractions about blacks like they’re a homogeneous group—like you’d get by quoting statistics about black voting patterns—is not good thinking, it’s something that racists do. They think of The Blacks as somehow a unified threat. It doesn’t make sense for people who want to win elections to think in those terms, they need to think in terms of who talks to whom and who influences whom and things like that.

Is this where you’re headed or are you repeating your divisive talk for some other reason?

“I think Wikipedia was using it in the new way, i.e. as a way of avoiding saying “Eurasian”.”

What leads you to think so?