07-18-2016, 09:16 AM
He can't change his mind?
And could it be that American politics is about to take on a resemblance to the politics of Northern Ireland on the immediate eve of the 1998 Good Friday accord? From "left" to "right," that system featured a "radical" nationalist or "republican" (small "r") party (Sinn Fein) a more moderate nationalist party (the Social Democratic and Labor Party), a moderate unionist party (the Ulster Unionist Party) and a far-right "loyalist" party (the Democratic Unionists, headed by the fiery Rev. Ian Paisley). In the middle stood the Alliance Party, which defiantly rejected any identification with either Protestants or Catholics, and sought to transcend that paradigm.
America already has four of these corresponding spots covered - the far left by Jill Stein, the center-left by Hillary, the center-right by Donald Trump (who is actually reminiscent of the small Progressive Unionist Party in Ulster) and the far right by Gary Johnson. All that is needed is for us to have an Alliance Party clone - and then we would have our first realistic five-way battle for the White House in history (1860 and 1948 were four-way affairs).
And could it be that American politics is about to take on a resemblance to the politics of Northern Ireland on the immediate eve of the 1998 Good Friday accord? From "left" to "right," that system featured a "radical" nationalist or "republican" (small "r") party (Sinn Fein) a more moderate nationalist party (the Social Democratic and Labor Party), a moderate unionist party (the Ulster Unionist Party) and a far-right "loyalist" party (the Democratic Unionists, headed by the fiery Rev. Ian Paisley). In the middle stood the Alliance Party, which defiantly rejected any identification with either Protestants or Catholics, and sought to transcend that paradigm.
America already has four of these corresponding spots covered - the far left by Jill Stein, the center-left by Hillary, the center-right by Donald Trump (who is actually reminiscent of the small Progressive Unionist Party in Ulster) and the far right by Gary Johnson. All that is needed is for us to have an Alliance Party clone - and then we would have our first realistic five-way battle for the White House in history (1860 and 1948 were four-way affairs).
"These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation" - Justice David Brewer, Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 1892