Why are American elections so long?

[aclausen]

Agree it’s pretty much continual anymore. The current President didn’t even get a 1 night honeymoon with the opposition. The first night of the current President’s first inauguration, Paul Ryan and other Republicans were already holed up in DC plotting to oppose the newly elected President. And they’ve been at it ever since.

pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/the-republicans-plan-for-the-new-president/

And look what becoming “the Party of No” has done for the Republicans. They’re more divided now than they’ve been in decades, their two leading candidates are so far off the map as far as the average voter that at this point it’s all about whether they can crash land the GOP airplane without blowing it to pieces.

I’m not saying the Democrats are that much better, and certainly the Clinton-Sanders fight has exposed the divide between the centrists and the more doctrinaire leftists in that party, but nobody contemplates a complete implosion no matter which one wins.

The Republicans have literally locked themselves in a building, chained the doors, thrown away the keys and are now in the process of lighting it on fire. From what I gather, no one in the GOP leadership is even thinking about winning the White House, it’s not even a consideration now. Now it’s about trying to preserve the party from a schism; a schism, mind you, that, as you point out, began during the 2008 election.

 

[Peter_J]

This year has been crazy, but the coverage of the New York primaries especially so.

I mean come on, it’s just one state.