Yeah I meant more like staying the party you were elected but voting only for the other side while never voting for your side. Not actually switching to the other side officially.
In theory one could do this, but then you lose all backing from your party, and the side you “switch to” probably sees you as a double crosser, so you don’t have their trust either.
I’d also like to point out that in a bit ahitty system, switching sides doesn’t mean “never vote for you old side on anything.” That’s the point of having a larger group of people with different ideas. People may not align on everything, but there are some things we should be able to agree on, or at least discuss better than elementary school children before saying “he’s not in my club so I don’t care WHAT he has to say!”
Considering a woman ran as a democrat then switched to republican as soon as she was in office, it doesn’t seem like anything stopping them.
And when I went to find a link apparently it’s happened multiple times just this year.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/05/politics/north-carolina-republican-supermajority-democrat-switch-parties/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/13/politics/georgia-lawmaker-party-switch-democrat-republican/index.html
Yeah I meant more like staying the party you were elected but voting only for the other side while never voting for your side. Not actually switching to the other side officially.
Oh, gotcha! I think they would likely be ousted pretty quickly if they tried that.
In theory one could do this, but then you lose all backing from your party, and the side you “switch to” probably sees you as a double crosser, so you don’t have their trust either.
I’d also like to point out that in a bit ahitty system, switching sides doesn’t mean “never vote for you old side on anything.” That’s the point of having a larger group of people with different ideas. People may not align on everything, but there are some things we should be able to agree on, or at least discuss better than elementary school children before saying “he’s not in my club so I don’t care WHAT he has to say!”
So like reverse Joe Manchin…