Comment by bdcravens
1 day ago
As a single issue, probably not. However, the meta-issue that they did vote for was eliminating anything the government pays for (other than military, ICE, or related to drilling oil)
1 day ago
As a single issue, probably not. However, the meta-issue that they did vote for was eliminating anything the government pays for (other than military, ICE, or related to drilling oil)
The parent's point seems to be that since most voters of both corporate parties have pretty much universally internalized and accepted they're voting for the "lesser of two evils," it's safe to conclude our political system is captured and has been for decades. Furthermore, 1/3 of people refusing to vote is not solely out of laziness. Many of them have concluded the system is FUBAR.
We're given two shit options which come about through a broken primary process and is reported on by monopolistic media. The news media and social media is siloed in such a way that people filter into one of two corporation-approved spheres of groupthink. These two spheres manufacture consent for each other in numerous ways, one of which is exemplified above. The good cop/bad cop setup makes it look like things are constantly getting broken only to have the illusion of being re-fixed by the other group, as measured by a pre-approved narratives that are disseminated.
The COVID pandemic is another great example. Sadly the CDC has been a disgrace under all recent administrations of both parties and has lots of blood on its hands:
https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-co...
Unfortunately the WHO has similar issues:
https://old.reddit.com/r/ZeroCovidCommunity/comments/1q87aki...
Almost as if capital interests are running the show. But what are we fighting about in 2026? That's right, whether we should or should not be affiliated with the WHO, and to what extent our CDC should be funded. Two broken institutions and a performative fight about them. Meanwhile millions have/will see their grave earlier than they otherwise would have, thanks to long COVID (many of whom will never even make that connection, including their doctors who were spoonfed the "vax and relax" / "back to normal" messaging in service to an archaic consumption-based economy.
Voting for the lesser of two evils is entirely how representative democracy works. You'll never see a representative who PERFECTLY represents your own views.
Which is why we have so many single issue voters on things like immigration, abortion, etc, who can safely ignore all evils as long as their single checkbox is checked.
> You'll never see a representative who PERFECTLY represents your own views.
Your strawman has no power here.
It's obvious when we're in a race to the bottom versus when we're making actual long-term progress that benefits a majority of voters.
Holy false dilemma, Batman!
Maybe in the philosophical sense in that this is what their vote wrought, but there is absolutely no way to conclude that people wanted their institutions dismantled. The number of Americans who voted for Donald Trump was nearly identical in 2020 and 2024 once we compensate for population growth (22.4% of the population vs 22.7%). Anyone making drastic conclusions on the will of the people is just making something up whether they are conscious of that or not.
What changed is the number of people who decided they were ok with dismantling institutions. That grew by about 7 million, who voted for the opponent in 2020 but stayed home in 2024.
So perhaps the number of people who wanted institutions dismantled remained the same. But the will of the people as a whole changed sharply, mostly because of people who decided it wasn't worth the effort to oppose it.
>What changed is the number of people who decided they were ok with dismantling institutions. That grew by about 7 million, who voted for the opponent in 2020 but stayed home in 2024.
How do you know this? How can you say the deciding factor was dismantling institutions rather than inflation, Palestine, misogyny against a female candidate, or any number of countless other good or bad reasons to have stayed home? You can't treat a single binary choice for red or blue like it was a referendum on every single individual issue.