This sort revolutionary fervor is generally counterproductive, and is a large part of why our national politics has become to toxic.
Do you have evidence for this claim? because to my mind, the exact opposite is true.
I completely agree with OP. I'd prefer Bernie but would take Trump. Some other users were quite rude saying you have to be an idiot to think a rich person would help poor people. I think that's a pretty silly statement, take Bill Gates for instance.
IMHO, members of HN are the vocal minority in their outright hatred for Trump. He will most certainly win the nomination if he goes against Hillary.
Trump (followed by Clinton) is the most disliked candidates in (at least modern) US history.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-distaste-for-b...
And yet it's impossible to win a general election without appealing to moderates and independents.
Elections are one more turnout among the people usually inclined to vote for your party (whether members of independents) than by "swinging" votes that might go either way.
Not sure why it's different when it's your government we're talking about.
That's why they vote for Trump. Nobody expects him to fix anything. They expect a clean slate at some point. Whether it's during his tenure or after, it's irrelevant. He's the catalyst.
A lot of what people hated about GWB was how he tried to turn Iraq and Afghanistan into a clean slate, and made a huge mess. Why would you want to do the same to USA (except out of some sense of radical fairness...)
I don't think anybody wants Trump building that new house... but I don't think it matters who the wrecking ball is? Hence the original sentiment of the OP that it doesn't matter if it's Trump or Bernie, same result.
...other than anyone who votes for Trump, which leads me to suspect they haven't thought it through beyond setting him loose and watching him burn down the White House. The repercussions of a bad presidency can last for decades, and are felt across the globe. I shudder to think about a purposely destructive presidency.
The tea party managed to scuttle Obama's "Grand Bargain" with Boehner, which consisted of TEN TRILLION DOLLARS of spending cuts in return for one trillion in new revenue (taxes). In my mind, this is when the national republicans ceased to be a rational force, in others' minds it could be the blowup over our debt ceiling or the government shutdowns, but regardless most rational observers with an understanding of the political process would agree that the right has lost its mind because of capture by revolutionaries. A Trump administration would bring far worse (just this week he suggested that he'd be open to partial default on US government debt). It's basically a self-reinforcing cycle of crazy where bad outcomes from bad decisions cause irrational actors to make worse decisions in response.
So the reason the two parties can't agree on anything is that there's really only one party, and that's the Democrats. This is problematic, because our political system is based on having two parties, either of which could be trusted to provide reasonably responsible governance.
The United States is, despite the apocalyptic rhetoric, a strong nation with a relatively stable government and an economy that is literally the envy of the world. We certainly do have problems, and that is what "politics as usual" is designed to fix. So I urge you to play the game rather than try to kick over the table.
The democrats want to soak the rich (I agree that, we probably should pay more anyhow), create a comprehensive social safety net, broadly have a larger role for government in individuals lives.
The republicans seem very concerned with collective security, 'judicial overreach' (any policy they don't like from a judge), and smaller government - this mostly seems to manifest itself as a firm 'no' to any proposed solution from the democrats.
Neither of them (at least at a national level) is focusing on what I see as the elephants in the room:
1. Broad swaths of the country that were prosperous 20 years ago are now not - and enormous areas that were busy 40 years ago are now dead wastelands. If you go out to a rural area, you'll see this, go on a road trip, go thru small towns, the only new buildings (built after ~1974 or so) are usually government or at funded by outside capital, (like McDonalds, or a Wal*Mart) sure, the college towns and county seats are often somewhat prosperous, but not like they were even in the 80's. If you look in third and fourth tier cities, you see similar trends.
2. In either place, rural or urban, its also very very hard for the young to find a good job, with or without a college degree - this has a multitude of causes - from we're teaching our youth the wrong things, to companies expecting inexperienced workers to come magically all trained up for the job - this topic alone is a couple thousand words - just suffice it to say, something is wrong.
Neither party is really speaking to this, they broadly don't see outside the beltway - I blame free trade, one size fits all regulation, and excessive defense spending (instead of say, infrastructure) for this malaise - I believe very strongly unless we fix these problems, they will come to breach the very foundations of our republic and we may end up with a much worse system than we have now.
This is how it works: take a platform based on issues and policy like the one you just sketched out, get the politicians who support it elected, and then let them horse trade to actualize some portion of your platform. Gain credibility, rinse, wash, repeat.