[jota]

Is it just my impression or the majority of people treat their political parties as if they were football clubs?

You support your football club whether they´re playing well or not. We even support the team and go to matches when we know the president is a crook. I sometimes get the feeling a large number of people do the same thing with political parties. They kinda chose one in a young age and then by default they keep voting for them regardless of what their different leaders say or do.

The parties themselves cultivate this kind of tribalism (if you can call it that) by saying to their members "don´t listen to that guy, he´s from another party", and people just accept it as gospel and they don´t actually hear new and different ideas. Because of this, and as time goes by, they convince themselves more and more that their party is absolutely correct, since it´s all they know.

A more "agressive" analogy would be comparing parties to churches, where this division and blind acceptance of the parties ideas without questioning are actually something you are praised for.

In this sense, are political parties harmful to democracy? Is there an alternative?

[Dr House]

Normal people don't care about the issues, and aren't aware of them. Political parties thus represent identity politics, and indeed are like football parties. This is simply symptomatic of the wider problems caused by letting idiots vote.

[QatzelOk]

This is simply symptomatic of the wider problems caused by letting idiots vote.

As long as idiots are allowed to rule over others, I favor letting other idiots vote.

[Stormsmith]

(\__/)
(O.o )
(> < )


This is Bunny. Fuck bunny up the ass to make him feel better about his failure to dominate the world.


Finally! A context that make Bunny's weird, cock-eyes and puckered mouth make sense. Now, about those ears that belong on an owl....

[QatzelOk]

^^^ This post is very football club, and not very political.

This reinforces Jota's point.

[jota]

Normal people don't care about the issues, and aren't aware of them. Political parties thus represent identity politics, and indeed are like football parties. This is simply symptomatic of the wider problems caused by letting idiots vote.

But who would decide who the idiots are? And what would be the criteria to decide this?


Stormsmith, i don´t think i understood your post. In fact, i´m sure i didn´t.

[Cartertonian]

I've used the football club analogy before, and I have yet to be dissuaded that it doesn't hold a grain of truth.

My father was a lifelong Conservative voter, but if you asked him to talk about any Conservative policies, he didn't have a clue and openly admitted it. As far as he was concerned the Tories were the 'natural party of government', because they represented the bosses. Voting Labour, in his view, was putting the lunatics in charge of the asylum.

In my experience, the core vote of the mainstream parties will support their party come-what-may, much as jota suggests a football supporter might support his or her club.

[Dr House]

But who would decide who the idiots are?

An electoral commission, presumably.

And what would be the criteria to decide this?

Intelligence, political knowledge, and personal responsibility. I've posted a list of franchise restrictions designed to screen for these traits as well as financial conflicts of interest, several times before. Most recently, here.

[Verv]

Good analysis.

The best way to see this:

Republican opposition to Clinton's bombing of the Serbs who were essentially trying to commit genocide against the Albanians. Few of the Republicans took profound stances on the sense that they were trying to make some profound, historical stance that they are siding with Serbia against the Albanians but rather they accused the Pres of using this as a distraction tactic from his indulgences or they suddenly were 'isolationists.'

And the Dems supported this interventionism. But later, the Dems are suddenly against interventionism.

Both parties commit this flagrant foul of logic. And they don't even blink.

[QatzelOk]

Clinton's bombing of the Serbs who were essentially trying to commit genocide against the Albanians.

That was never proven.

All we know for sure is that they were accused of this in our wonderful commercial media. Otherwise, "Why would NATO be bombing a perfectly innocent country with a perfectly innocent McDonalds?" It makes no sense. They must have been "like Hitler" (or like the American pioneers).

[Zyx]

jota, the problem is in the grander delusion of the political parties being in opposition or different.

I find it more foolish to follow the parties than to not. They are the same thing and no one but the leaders ever win.

[Verv]

I semi-agree with Qatz on this. Semi.

It was just an example.

Normally, it does not take much to convince Republicans to bomb someone.

[Gletkin]

The only Football Clubs I can think of that actually had political connotations (ascribed to them by their fans, not necessarily declared by the FCs themselves) were the Hearts ("Heart of Midlothian")and Hibernians in Edinburgh and the Rangers and Celtics in Glasgow.
Similar history: the Hearts in Edinburgh and the Rangers in Glasgow originally refused to allow members of their local Catholic Irish communities join. So said communities formed their own FCs: the Hibernians in Edinburgh and the Celtics in Glasgow.
Unsurprisingly, the "Irish Troubles" soon found expression in the matches between these FCs. "Football hooligans" would spout either Loyalist or Republican slogans and songs depending on which team they supported (which in turn often depended on their ethnicity and religion of origin)

Although FCs founded by Communist, Islamist, etc. regimes past and present are somewhat political too I suppose.

[Nandi]

Political parties rarely experience rapid change along ideological lines, making it easy for the uninformed to continuosly vote for the same party they have aligned themselves along. So for people who don't follow politics it is quite an effective way of voting and somewhat comparable to football clubs.

This way the political equilibrum reflects the ideological make-up of society and lets the informed politicians get to work on issues while keeping the malignant effects of the masses at bay.

[Dr House]

Because of the way representative government works, the only way to get into a position of power is by spending a tremendous amount of time and energy wheeling and dealing with the entire ruling class, most of whom are greedy, power-hungry sons of bitches who went to a lot of trouble to get to where they are. So democracy weeds out all but the most power-hungry, self serving scum of society, who then gain power by pandering to society's lowest common denominator.

Democracy is nothing more than institutionalized corruption.

[Lensky1917]

Is it just my impression or the majority of people treat their political parties as if they were football clubs?

I disagree.

Hockey is far more accurate, since there are so many white people.

Maybe golf, since people get applauded for doing nothing.

[William_H_Dougherty]

Is it just my impression or the majority of people treat their political parties as if they were football clubs?

To a certain degree, yes. But if you are talking about the membership of those political parties, I'm not sure this is a bad thing. They have, afterall, chosen a side and our political systems are built on partisanship (in Canada, much more so than the United States).

Is that a bad thing? Partisanship has benefits as well as costs. Without partisanship, it is most likely that the Republicans would have kicked Lincon out as President during the first year of the Civil War. There was definately TALK of that, but the importance of party loyalty caused Republicans to rally behind him.

- WHD

[kingbee]

The only difference is that when I join in singing "We're the greatest team in football the world has ever seen", we know we're taking the piss.
In politics you're sure your party is the greatest.

[Cartertonian]

The only difference is that when I join in singing "We're the greatest team in football the world has ever seen", we know we're taking the piss.
In politics you're sure your party is the greatest.

That's essentially the problem, although actually I think a lot of party activists also know they're taking the piss, but such is the blinding nature of their loyalty that they can still delude themselves that they are doing the right thing by supporting their party - even if they think their party are wrong.