So Donald Trump said today that he could literally start shooting people in the street and his poll numbers wouldn't dip. That's what we call a "career-ending day" in a sane political environment, but for Donald Trump, it's Saturday.
Obviously, a great many people are pretty concerned and alarmed by Donald Trump's rise, as well as that of the similarly odious Ted Cruz. The fact that either of these two could be a national party's nominee for president, they say, is a sign that our political system is hopelessly broken. And in most of the ways that matter, that's definitely true. But there is a silver lining to the sorry state we're in, one that, with my somewhat limited knowledge of US history, is unprecedented: the choice between the arbitrary two parties is the easiest it's ever been.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it's ever been this clear-cut before. Like, ever. I love Hamilton, but Lin Manuel-Miranda does (understandably) simplify a few things about the ideologies and struggle between the first two US political parties. While he accurately portrays the northern-based Federalist party as the party of centralized government control, finance, and abolitionists, he ignores their hawkish policies towards France, discrimination of immigrants, and infamous quashing of civil liberties with the Alien and Sedition Acts. Similarly, the southern Democratic-Republicans, while ardent supporters of slavery, also supported making immigration easier and fought to protect the (admittedly pro Democratic-Republican) newspapers the government was shutting down during the 1790s. If you were trying to decide between the two parties at that point, it would have been tough, because each party had issues it was correct on and others that it was hopelessly wrong about.
The 19th century struggles between the Whigs--and later, Republicans--and Jacksonian Democrats were similarly complicated. The Republicans tended to lean more towards racial equality and progressive policies with regard to the environment and economics (especially towards the turn of the century under Teddy Roosevelt), but also towards imperialism and adventures abroad (again, especially under Teddy Roosevelt.) The Democrats were still regressive socially and economically, but also strongly opposed imperialism and foreign adventures (at least, until Woodrow Wilson.) Even the FDR era, when the slow re-alignment of policies and parties that precedes the present predicament (yay p's), was complicated. The Democrats stood up for economic equality and human rights, but supporting them also meant supporting the Southern wing's staunch racism.
But now, things are weird. As far as I can tell, there is literally no issue on which the Republican party is even remotely correct. Voters these days have a choice between a party that supports torturing, warmongering, an unrestricted oligarchy, guns flowing like water, severely restricted--or outlawed--abortion and contraception, rolling back civil rights and gay rights, codifying religion, ignoring an unprecedented ecological catastrophe, and leaving millions of people without health insurance for no reason other than pride...or, a party that's broadly against these things, except some people in the party are a little wobbly about the oligarchy thing. There aren't any "bad on ___, but good on ____" caveats anymore; you're either somebody who could be trusted to not light America on fire or a fucking lunatic, at least going by the national party platforms.
So, in most of the senses that matter, our system is in a really, really bad place. In fact, one of the only two nationally-viable parties being completely bug-fuck insane kind of seems like the worst case scenario for a two-party system. But it also makes your choices on Election Day clearer than they've ever been before, and there's some value in that. At the very least, we're hearing fewer cries of "both sides do it" these days. It's hard to compare Hilary Clinton being nakedly ambitious and having ties with bankers to Republicans proudly declaring that they'd carpet bomb children.
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