Election night 2014 was an eye opener for me. Not because the Republicans success was a surprise, nor that the very left leaning propositions and amendments passed all over the country. But because I finally saw the beginning of the end for the two dominant parties. <\/p>\n
Embedded legacies don’t die easily. The Democrats are the party of Thomas Jefferson, and the Republicans Abraham Lincoln. <\/p>\n
Third parties have come to challenge them before, and failed in the process. Sometimes they were absorbed, and other times they were just defeated. But the theme was generally a niche interest that catered to a specific constituency, and then either fizzled out or went mainstream. <\/p>\n
This time it’s different. <\/p>\n
The two big parties have gone extreme. They now represent those niches and trendy issues that tend to fizzle out when theory hits reality. And they’ve left a gaping hole in the middle for someone to fill. <\/p>\n
And so I think, though I have no idea how we pull it off, my generation will be judged by our ability to bring political discourse and national progress back to the middle, by how purple we can make the country, and how we undo 20 years of pendulum swinging, mud slinging, social media rage, and the death of compromise. <\/p>\n
That’s going to be a hard problem to solve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Election night 2014 was an eye opener for me. Not because the Republicans success was a surprise, nor that the very left leaning propositions and amendments passed all over the country. But because I finally saw the beginning of the end for the two dominant parties. Embedded legacies don’t die easily. The Democrats are the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQyAq-lb","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":550,"url":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2012\/05\/26\/politics-amendment-one-and-some-thoughts\/","url_meta":{"origin":1313,"position":0},"title":"Politics, Amendment One, and some thoughts","date":"May 26, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"As I'm sure we all know by now, North Carolina recently passed Amendment One which institutionalized marriage as between one man and one woman in the state constitution. It is a black eye for a state that was so pivotal to the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1975,"url":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2021\/08\/08\/thoughts-as-i-leave-las-vegas\/","url_meta":{"origin":1313,"position":1},"title":"Thoughts as I leave Las Vegas","date":"August 8, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"With this trip, I\u2019ve now visited Las Vegas at least once per year every year since 1997 (I think). In the 90s and 00s, I was going with my dad to all of his industry conferences. I snuck into Comdex, the Venetian Gold Room, and was the king of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/img_0765-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1632,"url":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2015\/08\/03\/starting-with-questions\/","url_meta":{"origin":1313,"position":2},"title":"Starting with questions","date":"August 3, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"It's very easy to see when there is trust in a culture\/community\/unit - people start with questions.\u00a0 The opposite is true as well. When there is no trust - people start with solutions.\u00a0 The reason that questions signify trust is that asking questions brings both parties into the topic without\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Becoming a PM"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1652,"url":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2015\/12\/13\/self-worth-a-toddlers-point-of-view\/","url_meta":{"origin":1313,"position":3},"title":"Self-worth - a toddler's point of view","date":"December 13, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"It's fascinating how much of the reflection we see in the mirror is a reflection of what others have told us about ourselves. In this case, it's more of a metaphorical mirror, and also more of a metaphorical reflection. But it has a bigger impact than the physical one that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fatherhood"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1307,"url":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2014\/11\/02\/18-days-til-30\/","url_meta":{"origin":1313,"position":4},"title":"18 days til 30","date":"November 2, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"This idea was contributed by the dear and wonderful Saket. If you have an idea, then please let me know it! If the 20 year old version of yourself received $100,000\u00c2\u00a0in cash, what would he do with it? What would you do with it now? Thank you Saket. Great question.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":758,"url":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2014\/01\/10\/las-vegas-scorecard\/","url_meta":{"origin":1313,"position":5},"title":"Las Vegas scorecard","date":"January 10, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm posting this the next morning, but this is really Friday's post The final score is in. I lost a little bit of money, I saw a little bit of CES, and the rest of the time was better than it has been in years. We stayed at both the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life Updates"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}