Primary Political Elections Should Be Eliminated

[bobevenson]

There is absolutely no reason the government should expend taxpayer money running primary political elections. Primary elections are for meaningless political affiliations like the so-called Democrat and Republican parties. The AEP would select the candidates for all political offices from party headquarters.

[Arising_uk]

Come live here as we don't.

[Greta]

I agree.

It seems to be a waste of money. The circus - the Trump show has been especially vacuous - is a distraction from the serious business of governance.

Australia doesn't have primaries either (we have other problems). I'd rather let the party have an internal vote as to their preferred candidates and people can vote from there.

[Science Fan]

The primaries are what often leads to extremist candidates being nominated by a party. This is easily explained by game-theory, and explains the nomination of Trump, despite the fact that he remains, and has always been, very unpopular with most American voters. The GOP primary consisted of one extremist candidate, Trump, in a large field of candidates, the rest being very similar to one another. This resulted in the more extremist members of the GOP all voting for Trump, while the majority of the party had their votes spread among a large list of candidates. The result? Trump would have a greater percentage share of the primary votes. We often see similar results among state party primaries where there is a single extremist candidate running among a large list of more moderate candidates -- the extremist often wins in such cases, despite being disliked by most of the party's membership.

Game-theory, therefore, tells us that we would have better primaries if we changed the voting system for primaries, and allowed people to vote for a first and a second candidate, or if we had some sort of primary run-off. In other words, the math tells us we would be better off with more primaries, as opposed to what we have now.

[bobevenson]

Game-theory explains the nomination of Trump, despite the fact that he remains, and has always been, very unpopular with most American voters. Game-theory, therefore, tells us that we would have better primaries if we changed the voting system for primaries, and allowed people to vote for a first and a second candidate, or if we had some sort of primary run-off. In other words, the math tells us we would be better off with more primaries, as opposed to what we have now.

A) Trump did very well against a single opponent in the general election, disproving your first point.

B) Please explain how game theory would improve primary elections.

[Philosophy Explorer]

I'd rather see Bob condense all his threads into one and be done about it rather than waste the space.

PhilX

[bobevenson]

I'd rather see Bob condense all his threads into one and be done about it rather than waste the space.

PhilX

I'd be happy to do so, but that thread would be so incredibly long that nobody, especially you, would be able to wade through it, so I'm forced to feed it to you piecemeal!

[Science Fan]

No, Trump doing "well" in the general election did not disprove my first point at all. The facts are that both Clinton and Trump were the two most hated candidates for president that we have had in recent memory. The fact it was a neck and neck election with voters breaking in Trump's favor during the last two weeks, against an incredibly weak political opponent, doesn't help you in the slightest. He has in fact set a record low rating, and did so within the first month of taking office --- no modern-day president has ever had approval ratings lower than 50% that quickly.

If you can have more than one primary, where, let's say, instead of having a large field, there is a field of the top two or three candidates, then the extremist candidate that is largely unpopular cannot win under those circumstances. This would result in a primary outcome that better reflects the opinions of the party membership than what we ended up with. Recall at the GOP convention, many GOP elite refused to show and there were chants for someone else to be nominated in Trump's place.

Had the Democrats not been so foolish as to rig their primary in favor of Clinton, Trump most likely would have lost the general election by double digits. The Democrats just so happened to put up a deeply flawed candidate, for some bizarre reason. In fact, the Democrats may even be foolish enough to nominate Hillary Clinton for 2020. It wouldn't surprise me. But, no matter how foolish the Democrats are and have been, that still does not get around the fact that Trump won for the reasons I stated, while being extremely disliked.

[bobevenson]

Sorry, primary elections are for weak political affiliations. Neither the Republican nor Democrat parties are actually parties whose members walk in lockstep with each other based on marching orders from party headquarters like the AEP.

[Philosophy Explorer]

I'd rather see Bob condense all his threads into one and be done about it rather than waste the space.

PhilX

I'd be happy to do so, but that thread would be so incredibly long that nobody, especially you, would be able to wade through it, so I'm forced to feed it to you piecemeal!

So you intend to torture us with your piecemeal raving posts.

PhilX

[bobevenson]

Yeah, torture you with divinely inspired prophecy!

[Philosophy Explorer]

Yeah, torture you with divinely inspired prophecy!

Yawn.

PhilX

[bobevenson]

Yeah, that's what I mean, you wouldn't recognize prophecy if it bit you in the ass.

[Philosophy Explorer]

Yeah, that's what I mean, you wouldn't recognize prophecy if it bit you in the ass.

I know that's your wet dream (but not mine, thank heavens).

PhilX

[bobevenson]

I think you might be able to handle a wet dream, but I have my doubts.