[rjbwork]

American politicians always seem to develop a conscience after leaving office or being excised by their party.

[a4isms]

Alternate explanation that can co-exist with or replace the above:

American parties always seem to maintain party discipline over their members, forcing those with other views to either remain silent, or leave.

[xg15]

True, but also the "party discipline" seems to stick oddly close to the interests of the rich, for both parties.

[a_victorp]

Alternate alternate explanation: they want to say popular things to attract attention/popular support

[fifilura]

Unfortunately probably closer to the truth. If you can not adhere you are not there.

[embedding-shape]

> American parties always seem to maintain party discipline over their members, forcing those with other views to either remain silent, or leave.

I mean, why wouldn't they? If you ran a party, and one individual seem (from your perspective) to hold opinions that goes against what you and others believe the party is for, wouldn't you also want them to leave your party?

Shouldn't be that hard of a problem really, if we could accept that people change beliefs and opinions as life goes on, and if you have more than 2 political parties as real options, people could be a bit more diverse and nuanced with their spoken opinions.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

My alternative is that they can speak their mind when they aren't representing constituents.

[lapcat]

Who exactly would you say is maintaining party discipline?

In 2012, Mitt Romney was at least nominally the leader of the Republican party as their Presidential nominee.

Nowadays, Donald Trump is clearly attempting to maintain party discipline, but I don't think anyone has ever been able to maintain discipline over Donald Trump, not even before he was their President or Presidential nominee.

[netsharc]

I still remember some American forum commenter saying the "just following orders"-mentality of Nazis could never happen in the Land of the Brave...

[Simulacra]

Your comment reminded me of James Traficant, the former congressman of Ohio. He went to jail for bribery, and then came out of jail suddenly caring about prison inmates. I've seen this in a few other, former elected officials, who have gone to jail.

[dabinat]

Some people are incapable of having empathy about an issue or a group of people unless they have a personal connection to that group or issue. You see it in politicians who are anti-gay rights until they have a child who comes out as gay (e.g. Rob Portman).

[thisisit]

Jail and isolation are big motivators for people to change their views.

[jaybrendansmith]

But the real issue here is his party. It's gone from 'economically conservative with preference for free markets, austerity, and military solutions' all the way over to 'Populist with slavish devotion to a fascist leader and a reactionary cause'. Romney now looks like a liberal compared to his party. We haven't had a party this bad since the know-nothings, federalists and the whigs, all of which self-destructed, and we haven't had a leader this bad since Andrew Johnson. It would be fun to think about what would have happened differently if we weren't on the brink of losing our democracy and/or being regressed back to 1890.

[tehwebguy]

Maybe “always” should be “only”