I would love to see the moderate Republicans and the Democrats working out reasonable deals, while the Tea Party courts the religious right and the anti-science fringe and masturbates furiously.

The one in Europe? Are we getting a king?

All the hype will settle down in a few months. The reality is come next November the vast majority of congress will be re-elected. Even in the big switch years of 1994 and 2006 90% plus members of congress held onto their seats.

No, our political system will never resemble the one they have "in Europe" (which has dozens of political systems, but I assume you are referring to a parliament, with no president or a ceremonial one).

We will never have a functional third party, either. If one party, like the Republicans, splits, it will die, because it will instantly become useless in elections. Whichever party sticks together, even if they can only achieve ~40-45%, will have a permanent advantage (see Clinton's presidential vote totals, for instance). The Republicans will find a way to fold these tea party idiots back into their system, the way they did before with the Ross-Peronistas, or they will disappear entirely.

One correction: In the name of fiscal conservatism and in the spirit of eliminating pork barrel spending, Mitch McConnell did get a $2 billion earmark for a pet project in Kentucky. So it was really all worth it in the end.

I admire your optimism Charles. If that's what that is? I can't tell.

I'm not sure if fractured dysfunctional parties of total incompetents is the same thing as a European parliamentarian style system though.

As long as we use the "winner-take-all" voting method, we'll always have only two viable parties.

That's a fact.

Sorry Charles -- I'm normally pretty sympathetic to you politically, but this is just nuts. You cannot tape paper wings to a pig and expect it to fly, and no amount of throat-clearing about third parties will turn the American legislative system into a Parliament.

There will always be that 20% or so who will keep funnelling whack jobs into the game. What changes is the level to which they are largely ignored. From 2010 until now, they had the spotlight. Now that will probably change.

We need like a 5-party system, so there can be coalitions. Like in Israel, maybe. Then the religious lunatics can have their own party.

Oh Chuck, you reveal how little you understand of the American political system with this post. Pity.

Good Morning Charles,
I agree with most of the posts here. I don't believe your prediction will pan out. America's two party sytem has lasted 150+ years and will continue to do so.

I believe the Tea Party needs to chill. Fringe elements affect/damage the moderates not the "other" side. Recall Ralph Nadar in 2000'?

I grant the Dems this round.

Here's where I feel SLOG is being hypocritical though.

For one month, at least, Cruz did something that I have longed for -- transformed the Republican debate from one about hating on gays and women into a purely economic, you could even say philosophical argument, about budgets, finances, the role of Congress, the Constitution.

Isn't that a better debate to be had than in the past?

Whether pro- or con- big government, aren't these the real discussions we should be having, not whether to slut shame some 17 year old unwed in Nebraska?

The gemisch at the top is the post; the things underneath are comments.

I think people who consider this a blow to the Republicans are underestimating the power of their media machine. Sure their numbers are down now, but after a year of saturation in their message the same pool of voters are going to rally to put them all back into office or push for a candidate further to the right.

I can't imagine any feasible situation where our political structure will actually change in any significant manner, much less within the span of 3-ish years. It's working fine for all of the people and companies holding all the cash and/or influence, so where's the impetus going to come from? Occupying shit and yelling? That always works great...

Sorry Charlie, you still can't get anything right. Ever. I bet you thank Nada for loafers and Velcro band shoes every day.

I mean, coming from a nation where government theft and 'redistribution' of land resulted in a 90% reduction of agricultural output one would think you'd have a dim view of socialism. But nope. Chucky 'never had a coherent thought' Mudede , ladies and gentlemen!

As to the Republican party, I agree with about 70% of their platform. But if it's them or the gang of immoral crooks out to steal my hard earned money and, of vastly more importance, my basic economic liberty, the choice is easy.

Absent major electoral victories, the coalition cobbled together by Nixon (bigots) and Reagan (bible-thumpers) can't stand being aligned with the traditional GOP base, business. Those two regressive elements were a counter to the Dems' alignment with minorities and labor. Demographics have changed to the point that the 3 pole GOP tent (Biz, Bigots & Bible) isn't big enough, and it was always a circus inside.
The Tea Party is those two regressive groups splintering away from the big business base. It will become a 3rd party in a sense, but as others here have noted, our system is rigged to be bipolar - a correction won't take long.

@17 you are quite the one-trick pony dense dipshit. Nowhere in this post is there anything about Africa or solicialism. Fuck man, try to fucking read instead of mindlessly reacting in your predictable drivel.
The simple fact is the extremist side of the GOP lost. The extremist won't claim responsiblity and are now even calling Grover a RINO. Chances are you'll see a third party for a cycle or two. That's what this post is about. Stay on topic or shut the fuck up.
Now that that's out of the way. I do think it'll spawn a tea-party that'll get maybe a seat in the house and then the movement will fade as hardcore conservatives realize that they're in the minority despite how it feels on FreeRepublic.

@10 - 5 parties? Hell, France has 7 political parties and their population is around 60 million. A minimum of 5 would be a good start, but perhaps shoot for 9. As long as it's an odd number.

@17 - Still deluded into thinking that US politics is about the Dems vs the Reps, are you? And not in fact the wealthy class versus everyone else. What do you know of actual economic democracy anyway? You've never experienced life outside of a state/banker-controlled positive-interest currency. You're like a fish in a bowl thinking he is free because he can swim in and out of a little plastic castle whenever he wants, when it is the bowl that oppresses his true freedom.

@18

I'm tempted to accept your judgment about bigots, since you clearly are experienced in bigotry.

Nah. Reagan is so deeply hated by your vile whining anti faith, family and America ilk because he was a believer in all those things. Nixon was a deeply flawed man who deserved impeachment and removal from office, but still managed to be more effective in policy at home and abroad than the lecherous undisciplined Kennedy. (Who almost certainly, had he not been assassinated would be estimated as a very poor president.). Obama is a joke with no ability to lead and abundant reserves of chutzpah in blaming others for his lacks. Clinton was a centrist of sorts, but still a serial victimizer of women over whom he felt he had control and, more importantly, a perjurer and criminal.

So Americans have accomplished and sometimes great conservative presidents and a collection of democrats who embarrassed the office by their presence.

@20

What I know is that, as the men who wrote our Constitution understood it, governments had to do some few basic things to be valid. They had to protect basic liberties like expression and build and preserve a fair judicial system. But they also have to protect my property and person.

Democrats, people like you, don't believe that property should be protected. As long as that's true I'll never vote for muggers posing as legislators, or in simpler terms the Democrats.

@seattleblues. You're still off topic dipshit. Just try to show some thinking.

@SB - Your laughable opinions are irrelevant.

Reagan is so deeply hated by your vile whining anti faith, family and America ilk because he was a believer in all those things.

I'm a married Nichiren Buddhist who votes regularly and pays his taxes; my opposition to faith, family, and America has not been established, and I'm inclined to say it's a speculative fiction at best. To whatever degree I didn't care for Reagan and/or don't currently care for his legacy, it's a matter of his beliefs (or those of his followers) as to the role of faith in governance, the capacity of the state to define "family" by subsidizing certain household configurations and not others, and hierarchy of tenets when determining what makes "America", well, America.

What I know is that, as the men who wrote our Constitution understood it, governments had to do some few basic things to be valid. They had to protect basic liberties like expression and build and preserve a fair judicial system. But they also have to protect my property and person.

Don't forget the "general welfare." And they are specifically empowered to lay and collect taxes under Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1. Which is to say that the right to property, and to have that property at least nominally protected, is not antithetical to "constitutional" values, in the broad sense.

Not that I think indenturing us to the understandings of 18th Century theists and/or deists is entirely wise, but they left enough room for deviation that one imagines they didn't even trust themselves unequivocally.

Democrats, people like you, don't believe that property should be protected.

Property, like democracy, is one of those frequently onerous constructs that enjoys support simply by being better than the alternatives; both attempt to solve what I imagine are essentially insoluble existential dilemmas for a social species (the preservation of the social contract and the use at convenience of the fruits of one's labor).

Now are you interested in conversing or not? Or are you going to disappear from this thread, as from others, because someone had the gall to call you on your grandstanding and ask you to do something radical like participate in a reasoned exchange of ideas? Or simply reserve your responses for those who haven't actually offered you any ideas to comment upon or rebut?

@10: No no no no no. Not like in Israel. Likud and Israel Beitenu are assholes and they're running things. WHY THE FUCK ISN'T KADIMA IN POWER, THEY'RE THE ONES WHO AREN'T ULTRANATIONALIST FUCKWITS.

@22: The government protects your property and person. PROTIP: paying your debts isn't theft. If you live in this country, you pay taxes. I paid $71 in taxes last year, I stand to pay a hell of a lot more this year, and I consider it my patriotic duty to "pay it forward". Uncle Sam invests in every one of us here; the least we can do is pay some annual dividends.

I'd say Big Biz won big here. By running this good cop / bad cop freak show, they now have the sequestration budget as the starting point (!) of negotiations and everyone's attention is diverted from the quiet Juggernaut of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement.

Meanwhile, the Koch brothers and the rest of the energy industry boys* are still facing less interference than ever before with their activities that affect climate change. Even a reader of the Seattle Times now knows that the impact of climate change is real and will dramatically transform the way we live, transformations that are visible right now.

And President Obama is STILL talking about getting a Grand Bargain to chip away at Social Security and Medicare in exchange for any fig leaf the GOP will give him, completely ignoring that the supposed benefits of cutting the food money for a bunch of elderly poor people will be rendered wildly irrelevant in 20 years by the impact of climate change.

*These energy guys are so far out of our league that they view their interference and manipulation of the political and economic landscape not as serious fights, but rather view it the way a gentleman sheep farmer views experiments with changes in pasture, feed, and shearing time. The battle lines are being drawn at obviously crazy undemocratic shit like these open coal trains they that the Feds want to force down our throat. And is there anything more obviously and laughably corrupt than the way they have the Feds approving shale oil pipelines in tiny increments to avoid triggering environmental review thresholds?