Sixty-three percent of Americans say a third U.S. political party is needed, up from 56% a year ago and by one percentage point the highest in Gallup's 20-year trend.
Story Highlights
Third time support has exceeded 60%, along with 2017 and 2021
Republicans primarily behind the increase, with 58% now in favor
Political independents remain group most likely to favor third party
Does the GOP still count as a political party? What is their platform, anyways? I don’t think “install a dictator and oppress minorities” counts as a platform. Point is, maybe we should look at getting a second political party first. One that can actually represent conservatives.
The Republican Party is representing conservatives better than it ever has. Installing a dictator and oppressing minorities is what conservatives genuinely want, and always have wanted.
If you see what set off someone like James M. Buchanan, as well as people like Falwell: it was about maintaining segregation. This is what motivates so very many of them. Their claims of “conservative values” are so much noise.
Yep, and the thing the founders of conservative ideology – Thomas Hobbes, Edmund Burke, Joseph de Maistre, etc. – had in common was that they were defending monarchy. Conservatism is an unbroken line directly from Royalists, to Confederates, to Nazis, to the alt-right of today.
To the extent that the Republican Party of a few decades ago was not Royalist or Confederate or Nazi, it was only because the conservative influence was tempered by having to form a coalition with other factions and constrained by having to work within a liberal democratic system. But now those other factions have essentially been ejected from the party and it is working with 100% laser focus on breaking the liberal democratic system, so here we are. And the conservatives are loving it.
Let me tell you about the cult I belonged to once that explicitly preached the US was made by their god, but also wanted to install the head of their cult as king of the US (because the united states didn’t fight two wars to get rid of those) and eventually world.
If by conservatives you mean Americans who describe themselves as conservatives… that’s a ridiculous claim. I don’t think I’ve ever met a Republican who openly wanted a dictator. I’m sure they exist, but it’s not the majority view within Republican voters.
If you mean something else, please define what you mean by conservative.
In supporting trump, they support someone who would gladly take that role if he could. I agree.
But the contradiction is deep within themselves not just held for outsiders to see. They aren’t lying when they say they support democracy and say they support trump at the same time. They’re contradicting themselves, but they aren’t lying. I don’t know why that happens, but I guess they have been deceived.
But it’s important to have that distinction, otherwise we dehumanize millions of people, and destroy hope of showing them the truth.
Is the key word, almost none of them will admit it, often even to themselves. They’re so deep in brainwashing and doublethink that most of them are convinced they’re standing for democracy and freedom even though their actual beliefs and policies clearly show that what they actually want and are actively working towards is an oppressive authoritarian dictatorship.
Absolutely! But to accuse them wanting a dictatorship will only drive them further into the deception, because they aren’t lying when they say they don’t want it, despite them supporting a path towards it.
Accusing a person of lying when they are not willing always get a strong reaction against you because they believe they are morally right and you are lying to them.
You’ve touched on a major issue which is that many Republicans do NOT think that they are openly supporting a dictator, they don’t realize the danger.
I’m guessing they’re caught off guard by the fact that these acts (which resemble an attempt to establish a dictatorship) ARE being done fully in the open.
How else can you succinctly describe the brazen, persistent, and unprecedented attempts to overthrow the results of a democratic election? What about their published plan to fire employees of the federal government (who are not political appointees) and replace them with loyal sycophants?
It seems like a move towards some kind of dictatorship to me. If you’re working to hold on to power despite the votes of millions of people we have a word for that: dictator.
I can only hope that this turns out to be some kind of clever plot by the Republican party and they don’t actually still support Trump. Maybe the people who still say they support Trump despite his naked attempts to become a dictator are just trying to “own the libs” some more and don’t actually want him as dictator? Maybe the party leadership knows that Trump is done and they just need him to throw his support behind someone else before he gets thrown in jail and they too recognize the danger?
At a certain point, it becomes hard to separate the fascists from the moderates, and it ceases to become a misrepresentation to call Republicans fascists.
It’s the same as with the police… a few bad apples spoil the bunch. If these organizations don’t start strongly denouncing the bad apples, then it’s perfectly valid to regard the entire group as spoiled.
Let’s see more moderate Republicans denounce Trump, and louder. Let’s see some moderate Republicans willing to compromise with Democrats to get legislation passed instead of being held hostage by the extremists in their own party. Let’s see more people like Romney and Liz Cheney calling it like it is.
When that starts happening on a larger scale, then maybe it will be a misrepresentation to refer to Republicans as fascists or supporting a dictator.
I think it’s a good idea to separate the politicians and party leaders from the rank-and-file members.
The organization knows what it is they are doing. But the members… I think of lot of them are just completely deceived in various ways about various things.
So when someone says “republicans want a dictatorship” it can be true in one sense, and nonsense in another.
The funny thing is that they did. They copied their 2016 platform - including language that denounced the current administration. (At the time it was originally drafted, Obama, but on reuse it targeted Trump.) They can’t even copy paste properly.
Does the GOP still count as a political party? What is their platform, anyways? I don’t think “install a dictator and oppress minorities” counts as a platform. Point is, maybe we should look at getting a second political party first. One that can actually represent conservatives.
The Republican Party is representing conservatives better than it ever has. Installing a dictator and oppressing minorities is what conservatives genuinely want, and always have wanted.
If you see what set off someone like James M. Buchanan, as well as people like Falwell: it was about maintaining segregation. This is what motivates so very many of them. Their claims of “conservative values” are so much noise.
Yep, and the thing the founders of conservative ideology – Thomas Hobbes, Edmund Burke, Joseph de Maistre, etc. – had in common was that they were defending monarchy. Conservatism is an unbroken line directly from Royalists, to Confederates, to Nazis, to the alt-right of today.
To the extent that the Republican Party of a few decades ago was not Royalist or Confederate or Nazi, it was only because the conservative influence was tempered by having to form a coalition with other factions and constrained by having to work within a liberal democratic system. But now those other factions have essentially been ejected from the party and it is working with 100% laser focus on breaking the liberal democratic system, so here we are. And the conservatives are loving it.
Let me tell you about the cult I belonged to once that explicitly preached the US was made by their god, but also wanted to install the head of their cult as king of the US (because the united states didn’t fight two wars to get rid of those) and eventually world.
If by conservatives you mean Americans who describe themselves as conservatives… that’s a ridiculous claim. I don’t think I’ve ever met a Republican who openly wanted a dictator. I’m sure they exist, but it’s not the majority view within Republican voters.
If you mean something else, please define what you mean by conservative.
The key weasel-word there is “openly.” Even in your rebuttal, you tacitly admit I’m right.
In supporting trump, they support someone who would gladly take that role if he could. I agree.
But the contradiction is deep within themselves not just held for outsiders to see. They aren’t lying when they say they support democracy and say they support trump at the same time. They’re contradicting themselves, but they aren’t lying. I don’t know why that happens, but I guess they have been deceived.
But it’s important to have that distinction, otherwise we dehumanize millions of people, and destroy hope of showing them the truth.
Is the key word, almost none of them will admit it, often even to themselves. They’re so deep in brainwashing and doublethink that most of them are convinced they’re standing for democracy and freedom even though their actual beliefs and policies clearly show that what they actually want and are actively working towards is an oppressive authoritarian dictatorship.
Absolutely! But to accuse them wanting a dictatorship will only drive them further into the deception, because they aren’t lying when they say they don’t want it, despite them supporting a path towards it.
Accusing a person of lying when they are not willing always get a strong reaction against you because they believe they are morally right and you are lying to them.
You’ve touched on a major issue which is that many Republicans do NOT think that they are openly supporting a dictator, they don’t realize the danger.
I’m guessing they’re caught off guard by the fact that these acts (which resemble an attempt to establish a dictatorship) ARE being done fully in the open.
How else can you succinctly describe the brazen, persistent, and unprecedented attempts to overthrow the results of a democratic election? What about their published plan to fire employees of the federal government (who are not political appointees) and replace them with loyal sycophants?
It seems like a move towards some kind of dictatorship to me. If you’re working to hold on to power despite the votes of millions of people we have a word for that: dictator.
I can only hope that this turns out to be some kind of clever plot by the Republican party and they don’t actually still support Trump. Maybe the people who still say they support Trump despite his naked attempts to become a dictator are just trying to “own the libs” some more and don’t actually want him as dictator? Maybe the party leadership knows that Trump is done and they just need him to throw his support behind someone else before he gets thrown in jail and they too recognize the danger?
I can agree that Trump and those like him are moving towards that kind of power structure.
And yes that means that those who support trump and deny that want a dictatorship and at some level contradicting themselves.
But that is a different thing tham actually wanting a dictatorship.
Misrepresenting people will get us no where. It will dehumanize those we disagree with and will create enemies from those who could be allies.
At a certain point, it becomes hard to separate the fascists from the moderates, and it ceases to become a misrepresentation to call Republicans fascists.
It’s the same as with the police… a few bad apples spoil the bunch. If these organizations don’t start strongly denouncing the bad apples, then it’s perfectly valid to regard the entire group as spoiled.
Let’s see more moderate Republicans denounce Trump, and louder. Let’s see some moderate Republicans willing to compromise with Democrats to get legislation passed instead of being held hostage by the extremists in their own party. Let’s see more people like Romney and Liz Cheney calling it like it is.
When that starts happening on a larger scale, then maybe it will be a misrepresentation to refer to Republicans as fascists or supporting a dictator.
I think it’s a good idea to separate the politicians and party leaders from the rank-and-file members.
The organization knows what it is they are doing. But the members… I think of lot of them are just completely deceived in various ways about various things.
So when someone says “republicans want a dictatorship” it can be true in one sense, and nonsense in another.
They have no platform, they didn’t even bother to make one during the last party convention
They had that one banner that said something like “we are domestic terrorists.” I think that’s basically their platform.
The funny thing is that they did. They copied their 2016 platform - including language that denounced the current administration. (At the time it was originally drafted, Obama, but on reuse it targeted Trump.) They can’t even copy paste properly.