Sure, but you also voted for a system of checks & balances, laws, and separation of powers - whatever happened to all these laws and stuff from the Cold War where even a hint that you may have ties to Russia would get you a Visit?
Do you think it's legitimate when the administration transgresses constitutional limits? With legal eyes nobody voted for that, you can't vote inside the system to break the system, office holders are expected to follow the law once elected.
The majority that did vote, voted for this. The participation rate has always been low in rich western countries. Given the standards of media literacy and civics education, there's no evidence that a higher participation rate would have changed the outcome.
Everybody votes in Australia (not sure how rich, but in top 20 for sure). If you don't you have to show cause or pay a AUD$50 fine. I know some think this is anti-freedom, but it does prevent farces like the current USA. Historically there have been problems in the past (30 years ago) but these days the Australian Electoral Commission (Independent from government) revise electoral boundaries to ensure no more gerrymanders.
We regularly have 92% - 93% participation in federal elections here in Australia. Having one next weekend, and already record numbers of pre-poll votes.
Arguments based on voter participation overlook that voting is a statistical sample of the population. The people who don’t vote broadly break down roughly the same way as the people who do vote. And even to the extent they don’t, it’s risky to make assumptions about how they would have voted.
If you can generalize about non-voters, it’s that they’re broadly more anti-institution than voters—which is what causes them to put less stock in the institutional practice of voting. In the U.S. in the Trump era, that has meant that non-voters or infrequent voters support Trump somewhat more strongly than regular voters.
The majority did not vote for Trump, and I question how many of the minority that did vote for him voted for this, specifically. Almost certainly not all of them, given his approval rating is now well below his popular vote share.
100% of voter age Americans made a decision. That includes not registering to vote or not voting.
Pretend I want a snack, I can choose between a cookie and an apple. If I dislike both then I also have the option to not get a snack. Neither is selected.
This is different from not voting because a candidate still wins.
If the US wanted voting to be more popular, there would be a Federal Holiday to promote it. There is no incentive when there are known costs...at least since the wild inflation of the 80s when it got prohibitive to lose a shift and the slow dissolution of union jobs. This is the result of the tyranny of indifference. Those that benefit continue to promote and benefit, those that do not, are disenfranchised. It's a common theme in history.
There is no democracy without a free press, or else no one can make an informed decision. I doubt that the press can be called free when it’s owned by oligarchs.
It’s interesting that people who claim Americans live in a democracy will slam-dunk any topic based on a completely binary decision made every four years.
I mean yes? Democracy is a pretty poor model for governance. IMO peak enlightenment happened circa the 17th or 18th century when classical liberalism decided government should be based on individual liberties and anything outside of that is decided democratically not because it is a good system but because votes are roughly a tally of who would win if we all pull knives on each other because we didn't like the vote.
Democracy is not 2 parties doing voter suppression and gerrymandering as a filter to pass the result to an electoral college.
The US system was never designed to be fair to individuals in the first place, pointing at it as a failure of democracy is IMHO pulling the actual issues under the rug.
It’s basically impossible to engage in meaningful voter suppression in a country where election results can be cross-checked against high-quality polling.
“Gerrymandering” also has no effect on Presidential elections. And in 2024, Republicans won a larger share of the House popular vote than their share of House seats.
How can someone talk about democracy peaking when the franchise was extended to a tiny minority of the population. You don't give a damn about individual liberties, you only care that the "right" people have liberty.
Ah yes, the wonderful time of enlightenment when all straight white Christian land-owning men's rights became recognized, not just the nobility's. Just a few short centuries from there, the rights of poorer white men, children, women, people of any other skin color, non-Christian, and LGBT people would be recognized too.
You jest, but skin in the game is argument is not irrelevant. It is called a franchise for a reason after all. You want a slice of the pie, you should be able to prove that you know what you are doing. Owning land was a good enough proxy then. We can argue what would be a good proxy now.
Whatbexactly are values you consider enlightened and did you ever bother to read history, specifically the parts about how society functions not just where armies went?
I assure you French prior, dueing and after French revolution was not pinacle of great governance. More like, the low.
I know that Harris put up zero fight about it. I infer that she believed it to be legitimate.
That's not definitive, to be sure. But it's sufficient for me to believe that we did this to ourselves. Now all we can do is figure out how we're going to get through it.
Maybe I'm too optimistic, but I think actual election fraud, big enough to steal an election, would be too big to miss.
Yes, it might only take a small number of votes in the right place, but either you somehow know the right place, or you have to move a lot of votes.
There's a reasonable discussion to be had along the lines of 'these guys seem to be doing everything they whine about', but could they get a big operation done without a) bragging openly about it, b) leaving a big trail, or c) having a falling out with a conspirator who then tells all.
Adding on, certainly gerrymandering and voter supression laws affect voting results, but I have trouble calling that stealing an election.
Trump did thank that "very popular guy. He was very effective. And he knows those computers better than anybody. All those computers, those vote counting computers, and we won Pennsylvania in a landslide." If Biden or Obama had said something like that the nation would be in uproar.
Also consider the circumstantial evidence of Musk illegally promising to pay people (via lottery) to vote, and then using the defense that the lottery was actually rigged.
If nothing else, that establishes a willingness to tamper with elections.
Democracy built lies, decide, and rejection of facts through propaganda.
Really need a viable means to fight it, say allowing an elected official's constitutes being able to sue them for no less than $10,000 for incidence of bearing false witness. Help erode the dark money networks.
Also having a 4th branch of Governments, the people with State and Federal binding resolution, would help. Only way to overrides those in power is to unionize the will.
The suing thing would be cool but the court system is slow by design. I can't see it working in practice however I'm also really fed up with the bullshit so i understand.
Sure, but you also voted for a system of checks & balances, laws, and separation of powers - whatever happened to all these laws and stuff from the Cold War where even a hint that you may have ties to Russia would get you a Visit?
Do you think it's legitimate when the administration transgresses constitutional limits? With legal eyes nobody voted for that, you can't vote inside the system to break the system, office holders are expected to follow the law once elected.
Less than 30% of voter age Americans voted for this
The majority that did vote, voted for this. The participation rate has always been low in rich western countries. Given the standards of media literacy and civics education, there's no evidence that a higher participation rate would have changed the outcome.
Everybody votes in Australia (not sure how rich, but in top 20 for sure). If you don't you have to show cause or pay a AUD$50 fine. I know some think this is anti-freedom, but it does prevent farces like the current USA. Historically there have been problems in the past (30 years ago) but these days the Australian Electoral Commission (Independent from government) revise electoral boundaries to ensure no more gerrymanders.
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> The participation rate has always been low in rich western countries.
The general election in 2022 had 84,2% of eligible voters in Sweden.
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Plurality, not majority. It may be pedantic but it's an important difference.
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We regularly have 92% - 93% participation in federal elections here in Australia. Having one next weekend, and already record numbers of pre-poll votes.
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Under fifty percent for what it’s worth. And there was a lot of disenfranchisement
Not majority, under 50%
There’s also no evidence that increased turnout would have had the same result.
What seems to be overlooked in these conversations is the skill with which American voters have been disenfranchised by partisan forces.
It’s easy to blame people for not voting if you ignore the real difficulties in actually casting a vote for many Americans.
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Arguments based on voter participation overlook that voting is a statistical sample of the population. The people who don’t vote broadly break down roughly the same way as the people who do vote. And even to the extent they don’t, it’s risky to make assumptions about how they would have voted.
If you can generalize about non-voters, it’s that they’re broadly more anti-institution than voters—which is what causes them to put less stock in the institutional practice of voting. In the U.S. in the Trump era, that has meant that non-voters or infrequent voters support Trump somewhat more strongly than regular voters.
> The participation rate has always been low in rich western countries.
Australia has entered the chat.
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> The majority that did vote, voted for this
Nitpick: Trump got less than 50% of the votes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...)
More importantly, I think quite a few who voted for Trump didn’t vote for this extreme version of Trump.
The majority did not vote for Trump, and I question how many of the minority that did vote for him voted for this, specifically. Almost certainly not all of them, given his approval rating is now well below his popular vote share.
100% of voter age Americans made a decision. That includes not registering to vote or not voting.
Pretend I want a snack, I can choose between a cookie and an apple. If I dislike both then I also have the option to not get a snack. Neither is selected.
This is different from not voting because a candidate still wins.
If the US wanted voting to be more popular, there would be a Federal Holiday to promote it. There is no incentive when there are known costs...at least since the wild inflation of the 80s when it got prohibitive to lose a shift and the slow dissolution of union jobs. This is the result of the tyranny of indifference. Those that benefit continue to promote and benefit, those that do not, are disenfranchised. It's a common theme in history.
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Voters who do not vote say "I'm fine with all winners", like "What pizza do you want?" - "I'm fine with every pizza".
And those that stayed at home deserve what they got.
What presidential elections are you comparing it to?
David Schor’s analysis found that if everyone had voted, Trump would have won by 4.8 points: https://www.vox.com/politics/403364/tik-tok-young-voters-202...
"American democracy"
And a minority of those who did vote voted for this.
There is no democracy without a free press, or else no one can make an informed decision. I doubt that the press can be called free when it’s owned by oligarchs.
It’s interesting that people who claim Americans live in a democracy will slam-dunk any topic based on a completely binary decision made every four years.
No discussion beyond that point is needed.
> We voted
Depends if your “democracy” have one person = one vote. Or if the land is included somewhere in the vote.
I mean yes? Democracy is a pretty poor model for governance. IMO peak enlightenment happened circa the 17th or 18th century when classical liberalism decided government should be based on individual liberties and anything outside of that is decided democratically not because it is a good system but because votes are roughly a tally of who would win if we all pull knives on each other because we didn't like the vote.
Democracy is not 2 parties doing voter suppression and gerrymandering as a filter to pass the result to an electoral college.
The US system was never designed to be fair to individuals in the first place, pointing at it as a failure of democracy is IMHO pulling the actual issues under the rug.
It’s basically impossible to engage in meaningful voter suppression in a country where election results can be cross-checked against high-quality polling.
“Gerrymandering” also has no effect on Presidential elections. And in 2024, Republicans won a larger share of the House popular vote than their share of House seats.
8 replies →
How can someone talk about democracy peaking when the franchise was extended to a tiny minority of the population. You don't give a damn about individual liberties, you only care that the "right" people have liberty.
That poster is specifically arguing against democracy
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Seems like US-centric view. Many countries had several iterations since then.
Ah yes, the wonderful time of enlightenment when all straight white Christian land-owning men's rights became recognized, not just the nobility's. Just a few short centuries from there, the rights of poorer white men, children, women, people of any other skin color, non-Christian, and LGBT people would be recognized too.
You jest, but skin in the game is argument is not irrelevant. It is called a franchise for a reason after all. You want a slice of the pie, you should be able to prove that you know what you are doing. Owning land was a good enough proxy then. We can argue what would be a good proxy now.
6 replies →
Whatbexactly are values you consider enlightened and did you ever bother to read history, specifically the parts about how society functions not just where armies went?
I assure you French prior, dueing and after French revolution was not pinacle of great governance. More like, the low.
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I know that Harris put up zero fight about it. I infer that she believed it to be legitimate.
That's not definitive, to be sure. But it's sufficient for me to believe that we did this to ourselves. Now all we can do is figure out how we're going to get through it.
Maybe I'm too optimistic, but I think actual election fraud, big enough to steal an election, would be too big to miss.
Yes, it might only take a small number of votes in the right place, but either you somehow know the right place, or you have to move a lot of votes.
There's a reasonable discussion to be had along the lines of 'these guys seem to be doing everything they whine about', but could they get a big operation done without a) bragging openly about it, b) leaving a big trail, or c) having a falling out with a conspirator who then tells all.
Adding on, certainly gerrymandering and voter supression laws affect voting results, but I have trouble calling that stealing an election.
Points B and C are believable. Constant headlines about screw ups like the signal chats and sloppy handling of data from doge
Trump did thank that "very popular guy. He was very effective. And he knows those computers better than anybody. All those computers, those vote counting computers, and we won Pennsylvania in a landslide." If Biden or Obama had said something like that the nation would be in uproar.
https://www.youtube.com/live/kdvpXxXVyok?si=XALuK7No9-PLQBAr...
Also consider the circumstantial evidence of Musk illegally promising to pay people (via lottery) to vote, and then using the defense that the lottery was actually rigged.
If nothing else, that establishes a willingness to tamper with elections.
Democracy built lies, decide, and rejection of facts through propaganda.
Really need a viable means to fight it, say allowing an elected official's constitutes being able to sue them for no less than $10,000 for incidence of bearing false witness. Help erode the dark money networks.
Also having a 4th branch of Governments, the people with State and Federal binding resolution, would help. Only way to overrides those in power is to unionize the will.
The suing thing would be cool but the court system is slow by design. I can't see it working in practice however I'm also really fed up with the bullshit so i understand.
Good luck relying on a court of law when the President suspends courts and arrests judges. The latter is happening right now.