Calling For the End of Partisanship
ProggyPop
Let’s just say that I never thought I’d be the one to write this sort of article. I was one of the most partisan people in this game. I’m one of several people that Emerick would finger as the USWP wrecking crew; we polarized elections and really started the trend of hardcore campaign staffs. This was back in the September-October mayoral elections (we had mayors!) and Mcgivey, Peregrine and I (as well as some other old-time USWPers) got together and really distributed resources, campaign teams, and candidates. While we didn’t vote-bomb (a tactic that I’ve never really felt comfortable with), we did start PMbanking and we mopped up those elections.
I was a partisan fighter for a long time. I was a two month USWP Party President, a staunch USWP advocate, and a rabid partisan. I helped take down the Uncle Sam administration, I attacked the Libertarians. I even pushed the USWP to develop ideology. Yes, I’m on the top 5 list of being “guilty” of partisanship.
But then something happened. Somewhere between April to now I’ve stumbled upon a variety of relevations. Through these new understandings, I now realize that partisanship is by far the dumbest thing to ever happen to the eUS. Furthermore, fighting over Congress is also par for dumb activities. The fact is that eUSA needlessly fights amongst itself for a sliver of power that is fairly worthless. The reason why we are not a completely dominant world power is because of our lack of solidarity and our meaningless internal squat.
Everything is better in list form, so here’s a list of my revelations.
1) There is no ideology in Erepublik- There simply can’t be. Ideology in the real world is a set of beliefs that a person holds. Those beliefs reflect that individual’s world view. But “beliefs” are not such a broad concept; ideology is more about how we process political and social factors and how we interpret them. Ideology is what makes a conservative look at health care and say “individuals need more of a role!” and liberals say “we need a government run public plan!” There’s a fundamental disagreement about how to view the world.
So while it’s true that people view the e-world differently, there’s no way they can form ideology. Why not? Because the main essential world truths are absent in Erepublik. There is no death. There is no real poverty. No illiteracy. No genocide. No accumulation of wealth. No racism. No bigotry. All of these world factors are completely absent in this game. All we have are XP, rank, gold, and skill. These tangible statistics don’t need to be interpreted through a worldview. Therefore, people don’t need to have ideology in order to make sense of the world.
2) Parties are social organizations with few legitimate differences- In real life America, one major criticism of the two-party system is that the parties have few differences. On the global political scale, that’s probably true. In America, there’s certainly enough of an ideological gap that the parties take up “distinct” ideological space. But the same can’t be said in this game. There just aren’t enough issues for the parties to differ on to create real ideological space.
The vast majority of people agree that the US should run bare-boned social welfare programs like MoW. So do they agree with our military spending. Free trade is an issue that cuts across party lines. Relations with foreign countries differ from one to the next. In the end, there are no defining issues that create tangible differences between the parties. No hot button issues like guns, gays, or God (which, by the way, is why Ajay Bruno is such a horrible joke). So if there’s no legitimate ideological differences, we can see that the parties are really just social clubs. Nothing more.
3) Because the parties are social clubs, it makes zero sense for the parties to fight- I mean really, what more is there to say here? Why on earth do parties fight? It’s really just personality clashes. Emerick vs. ProggyPop was a pissing match of two stubborn dudes. Claire vs. HarrisonRichardson is basically the same thing (except Claire’s not a dude…I think). Our fights are personal, not political.
4) Congress is powerless- Here’s the big revelation from my end. I was in Congress for months. I was the first Speaker. How can I say that Congress is powerless? Well, it is. The reason is that Congress can basically press a few buttons and that’s about it. If you think about what the US actually does, the vast majority of substantial activities relate to foreign affairs, military, and social welfare. Congress gets to do the following to relation to those tasks; approve of the expenditures, approve MPPs, approve war declarations. Oh, and they have some general impeachment and tax powers.
My point is this; big deal. The powers of Congress are basically meaningless compared to the power of the Executive Branch. We give the Executive Branch complete control over the military, foreign relations, and general social welfare. The President determines ALL of these positions. This has nothing to do with game mechanics…this is entirely about the power relations we’ve set up in this country.
The fact is that the game mechanics create weak governments to begin with. The most important things we can do are out of game functions and out of mechanics powers. In this country, we’ve given all of that to the President. So Congress can sit around and debate whether the VAT tax should be 3% or 5% or if we should sign an MPP with the Czeck, but it’s all irrelevant. Every day they have these discussions, the Executive Branch is coordinating military campaigns, foreign relations, and running the day to day operations of our country. Congress is basically a bunch of bystandards.
5) Partisan fighting over Congress is a waste of manpower- This is where we come full circle. I’ve explained why partisanship is stupid and Congress is worthless. So when we get fights over Congressional representation on the basis of partisanship, well that’s just plan dumb. Why on earth would we spend the time having fights between politically similar parties over politically worthless powers? Seriously.
The worst part is that we spend so much time and effort moving votes around, coordinating among our clubs, attacking each other, that we don’t really look at the world at large. While we fight for control over a worthless Congress, PEACE took over Croatia. What does more for our security and power; a stronger Conservative congressional delegation, or a free Croatia?
Here's My Challenge
I challenge all of you to give up your traditional notions of partisanship. Forget who runs Congress. It doesn’t matter. Sure the Executive Branch matters, but there’s no need to attack Harrison because he’s USWP or Claire because she’s a Libertarian. Look at people on the basis of merit.
But more importantly, I challenge all of you to drop partisan tensions entirely. Come together as a nation. Figure out what’s best for us to ensure our global power. Volunteer to help the Executive Branch. Come up with new strategies to protect our allies and our foreign interests. The sooner we move to a united country that focuses on global affairs, the sooner we can really become a true global powerhouse. Until then, we’re nothing more than a country on the borderline between power and weakness, caught up in our endless and pointless political squabbles.
Comments
"Look at people on the basis of merit"
I couldn't have said it better myself. Great article ProggyPop. Hopefully the 19th Congress will usher in a new age of bipartisanship. We just have to wait and see..
I've been saying this for months. But, you can't stop people from bickering. USWP included. If we were truly nonpartisan, I would have gotten the USWP nod in NJ in April. But I'm passed that and resigned to the conclusion that we're living in a partisan world and its never going to change. Ananias and I have tried to push for a primary system to get the best people in, but I'm at wits end with it because no one will ever agree on anything because all they want to do is put their party first. Its so frustrating.
Proggy, you wrote what I have tried to avoid publishing. Props, on a well-written (although sometimes hard to follow with the wall of text) piece of work.
I've always been a supporter of creating a two-party system: "Game Mechanics" and "Ideology" (insert a better name as you find them) because that is really all you can believe in. At least, in the gaming sense.
I couldn't agree more Proggy. Whether it's a party attacking the USWP or the USWP attacking a party, it's stupid, it wastes out time, and it makes us all look like children. Voted to the max.
Fantastic article Proggy! When you do write, you make very great points and to be honest, I am in 100% agreement with you.
I too have been guilty of criticizing candidates because they are USWP, but in the end, most of them are really good candidates and deserve their positions. What it comes down to at the end of the day is group-think. I do agree with you that Congress is rather powerless, however, a majority should be avoided for the benefit of the country. I will keep this article in mind next time I feel anti-USWP thoughts coming into my head. I've vowed to work better with them in the past, which failed, but I will make that same vow again today. I'm done with the name-calling and the pointless hate-think.
Congrats to everyone who won Congress yesterday!
*Note: I'm not running for president, so I'm not sure if you gave me a nod with Harrison because you thought I was. Trust me, I'm not.
@ Claire; I just used you as an example because you and Harrison are such buddies. I should've used Ajay instead, but I try to use him as an example as rarely as possible.
It's bystanders not "bystandards."
Great article, let's hope that this new Congress can realize this and get past the useless bickering.
So how do you propose we consolidate the parties?
Glad to see this happening.
Informative article, Proggy. I accept your challenge. Hopefully, I can learn to be useful. 🙂
Hear hear!
If Congress is worthless and the eUS needs to be focusing on a global game, why does the USWP hold so many seats and why did they 'waste' 1280 votes on eUS politics?
@ Fingerguns: Beats me. That's not my decision at this point.
@ Macrovirus: I don't think we need to eliminate parties. I just think the parties need to learn a better way to interact and to learn that Congressional battles are pointless.
I wasn't trying to bash you, Proggy. I just get a little frustrated that small parties are always asked to do more when the largest party in the world doesn't practice what they preach.
It's mostly Scrabman. He seems hellbent on undoing any multi-partisan progress that has been made. I thought this last month was great as far as bringing people together. Hell, the FEDS had two candidates run under the USWP banner! I really thought we were putting this behind us, and then Scrabman writes yet another article about how his party is the best and everyone else is stupid. He scoffs at the suggestion that the USWP NOT run for Congress and vote in eUS elections. I guess that's just for everyone else.
If the goal is to dissolve every party except the USWP, don't expect this fight to end. If the goals change, then so will the fighting.
I didn't think you were bashing me, so no worries.
And I'm not asking any of the parties to merge or anything like that. Parties are social clubs, and there's nothing wrong with having them. In a sense my major concern is how many votes all of us are using on our own Congress. I'd like to see a day where Congress is regarded as nothing more than a obligation that we HAVE to do. Maybe coordinate party breakdowns based on some formula ahead of time and just run races with no competition. I don't know HOW to do it, to be honest, but I do know that we're wasting a ton of manpower fighting over something as pointless as the eUS Congress.
Frankly, we live in a partisan world, like T said. Some people (this person not included) love role playing Senator (que my article: 'Why so Serious?') and thus want to "campaign" and "mud-sling" like their big real life counterparts do. They see this as a second life rather than a game. And it's sad.
I said earlier in IRC, we're busy playing Monopoly while PEACE is playing Risk. We need to stop this partisan crap.
I disagree about the social clubs. Let our social club be the eUSA as a whole. I know it's a pipedream, but the best way to protect ourselves and our allies from PTOs is having no more than two parties in the eUSA, and probably one.
We have to have a strong military in case we ever need to defend ourselves, and a military must fight to be strong. If we don't plan on being a nation that conquers regions, then the way we "win" this game is that we allow ourselves and our allies to retain their holdings, or allow our allies to conquer regions. We have to have strong allies and we have to allow our military to help them. We either conquer or police. Neither is death. This bicker is The Slow Death. If we continue down this path, we will lose, no matter what our goals are. And if we don't care to even play the game, then why don't we just go back to facebook or twitter and socialize there?
eRep is a GAME. We can choose to win, or we can choose to lose. Not deciding is a vote for losing.
agree to the highest power
>> "Maybe coordinate party breakdowns based on some formula ahead of time and just run races with no competition."
Well said!
I wish this were possible. I have had at least 5 different conversions since my eRep birth where someone asked what party I was in and then marginalized my opinion based on my party. Most of the were with members of one particular party. Some were PMs and some were in IRC.
These were not just political or economic opinions. The very first time this happened, I had PMed someone of some prominence and asked, "Do you think the government would be interested in a script that reduced the amount of work needed to send PMs?" I was told that no one could make such a script, and that I would be banned for doing so. That PM included language that insulted me for both my party affiliation and my eRep age. Luckily for many in the US, I dismissed this response as childish.
Due to eRep laws, I can't say exactly who that PM was with, but I will dispel rumors by saying it was not Scrabman. Scrabman has always responded to my PMs in a frank and never insulting manner.
That was beautiful.
Two thumbs up, way up!
I couldn't agree with this article more.
I especially like your follow up here:
"And I'm not asking any of the parties to merge or anything like that. Parties are social clubs, and there's nothing wrong with having them. In a sense my major concern is how many votes all of us are using on our own Congress. I'd like to see a day where Congress is regarded as nothing more than a obligation that we HAVE to do. Maybe coordinate party breakdowns based on some formula ahead of time and just run races with no competition. I don't know HOW to do it, to be honest, but I do know that we're wasting a ton of manpower fighting over something as pointless as the eUS Congress."
Maybe merging all the political parties is the answer? Create a new party called the eUS party and (try to) get every active eUS player to join.
If the admins ever implement a citizenship model that does away with the easy PTO's then we can go back to a multi-party system.
In the meantime, if we can't stop bickering about domestic politics and come together as one, there eventually won't be any domestic politics to bicker over...
I think the whole problem behind this "one party" idea is that its the largest party leading the drive for the idea. There appears to be too much ill will between the other parties and the USWP (which is a function of them being the biggest) to happen anytime soon.
Nothing against the USWP, but I think that people would be more receptive to the notion of "one-party" if it wasn't USWP-driven in most cases.
Good article
I do believe that there are certain in-game ideologies, but they are not for the most part reflected by parties. Our country was a bit partisan when it started, but it has become far more so after each election I've seen. I wouldn't go so far as to say that congress is powerless, but I have always disagreed with Justin's assessment that it is the weaker part of government. The president may have few proposals at his disposal as well, but it is where people look for leadership, and the president sets the tone of the country.
Would I love to see partisanship dead and buried? Of course.
Do I expect to? About as soon as they let 6th parties and independents run, which is to say never.
Do I hate members of the USWP? Some, but I hate plenty of people.
Do I hate the USWP itself? Yes, because I feel that it brought much of this partisanship and over seriousness on the country, and perpetuates it.
Do I hate other political parties? I'm certainly starting to. All of them seem to have sunk to the same level. I'm not sure that there is a party left worth defending entirely.
Good article though.
*Our country was a bit partisan when I started*
Excuse me while I interpret this article as vindication :3
Seriously though, if we could get back to the state of relaxed internal politics, everything would be so much better, less stressful, and we'd be able to see what's going on across the sea without making them come to us(no more foreign spam!)
Bah. LET'S ALL GO LIVE IN TEH HAPPY HAPPY WORLD dominated by YOUR party, correct? I notice that all these calls for bipartisanship seem to have originations mostly from the USWP. This is also the exact same crap that Scrabman has been spewing about roleplaying versus game playing. Sure, you might've changed the focus, made it a little more conciliatory, prettied it up and slapped a big bow on it, but I hate to tell you this and ruin the mood, but you can put all the perfume and bows you want on a pig, but that doesn't make it anything OTHER than a pig.
I don't buy into this because of the USWP's propensity for saying one thing, then doing whatever they want to in the interim. Again, not ALL of us are happy zombies endlessly clicking away pointlessly in whatever direction the great brain bug tells us to. Stop trying to treat us like them.
>>Claire
If you agree with this then stop running unqualified Lib. candidates like you did vs. SirEkim. I like you as a player and person, but I'm calling you out on this one.
Proggypop for POTUS!!! lol
I have a simple question for you Proggy. As I'm no doubt a bit sour over my impeachment, think about how your point #5 has to do with your reasons for my impeachment as well as how having Scrabman in power changed your views over congress.
Sam, I think you're a few weeks late.