A new American political order?

[Joe Shlabotnik]

Recently, pollsters found out, via ‘We Need Smith,’ which is a self-declared “movement of Americans who believe we need new leaders because our country is badly headed in the wrong direction” and not relying on the “usual politics,” what they called the “battlelines of a new political order.” I’m not sure how I feel about this whole ‘We Need Smith’ movement, and as a result I will continue to be critical. This article will not only debut my new chart, the ‘People Policy Counter,’ but it will include charts and data on overarching views of the American public presented by the said pollsters, and other polls. And if you have any suggestions, please share them below.

The People Policy Counter

Basically, the People Policy Counter is a list of 100 issues that a majority of the American people believe[1], which is then compared to the positions of politicians (hopefully) and political parties. From my tabulations, I found that (numbers ordered by amount of agreement with the American people):

1.The Green Party agrees with the American people 79% of the time
2.The Justice Party agrees with the American people 61% of the time
3.President Obama agrees with the American people 28% of the time
4.The Democratic Party agrees with the American people 25% of the time
5.The Libertarian Party agrees with the American people 24% of the time
6.The Constitution Party agrees with the American people 21% of the time
7.The Republican Party agrees with the American people 6% of the time

These results are not trying to advocate for any of the said parties, or President Obama. I tried to take my bias toward certain issues out of the equation, and I mostly just searched on the Gallup website, snatching up poll results as I went. Rather, taken from a number of polls (probably over 50)[2], it is meant to show how in line these political parties are with the opinions of the American people. As it turns out, only the centre-left Justice Party and the Green Party agree with the American public most of the time, more often than most. There were also a number of issues that I did not know the opinions of the said parties, so I did not fill them out, meaning that the percentages came out of the total of 100 issues. Hopefully, I can expand this to other politicians in the future. Here are some interesting positions that NONE of the parties took (to my knowledge) but the American people believe:

*national referendum on key issues if voters request it
*shorten primary season to five months
*have a nationwide primary election, not individual state primaries
*term limits for politicians in US Senate and US House
*Super PACs should be illegal and there would be less corruption in the political system if there were limits on how much could be given to Super PACs
*attack social problems as a way to lower the crime rate

More at: http://zcomm.org/zblogs/a-new-american-political-order/

[mike_c]

1. this is the main reason I'm a GP voter these days....

They represent my interests-- or, to put it another way, supporting GP candidates is less likely to require that I vote against my own best interests. Any party that disagrees with the interests of its constituents more frequently than it agrees with them is demanding that voters vote against their best interests. We've long criticized GOP voters for doing this. Dems are only a little better, IMO.

[Demeter]

2. This is a VERY Valuable Post. Thanks!

I wonder how Occupy would rate, if it were treated as a party...

[cprise]

5. This is why I think write-in campaigns in non-swing areas

...should become commonplace. It would de-legitimize a badly broken system without sending the political sphere over a cliff.

[ellenrr]

3. but how to reconcile that with the fact that in the last presidential election

the greens got something like .000001 percent of vote?

(I don't know the percent, but it was very small).

[TBF]

4. The link didn't work for me but

I do think Americans are catching on. The question is what we do about it - and I'm not sure simply limiting terms/campaign contributions is going to be enough. It's something though.