Comment by karmakurtisaani
13 hours ago
Even the nation's #1 dingleberry Joe Rogan is now turning against Trump. Would be a great time for folks to start admitting they fell for it again.
13 hours ago
Even the nation's #1 dingleberry Joe Rogan is now turning against Trump. Would be a great time for folks to start admitting they fell for it again.
I will dare to admit aloud that I think maybe the founders were making a rational choice when they decided that only certain citizens would have the right to vote. As awful as that sounds, there are halfway decent arguments in favor. Maybe not just restricting to white wealthy landowners, but sometimes I do wonder if we would benefit from a filter that adequately screens for people 1) with real skin in the game and 2) a plausible claim to being well informed.
That is just a thought experiment, though, I do not believe it would play out beneficially if we tried to implement it in real life.
I like this idea in theory. In practice, the problem is that someone gets to decide who is allowed to vote and on what grounds. If that institution is corrupted, it leads to worse outcome than allowing everyone to vote. And the bad actors would have all the incentives in the world to corrupt that institution.
The answer isn’t less voters, it’s more. Australia’s compulsory voting system has successfully taken the edge off extremist ideology.
Not quite sure this works out as nicely as that. Argentina has both compulsory voting and a legal voting age of 16 and it managed to produce Javier Milei (who makes Trump look like Kissinger).
What's the best way to have a sane system? I'm not sure. I personally lost all faith in democracy.
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There are far more pressing changes needed, like reducing the impact of vote buying (reasonable spending limits for political campaigns, and the lobbying problem) and a voting system that doesn't inevitably reduce down to two sides.
If people still elevate the worst candidate to POTUS after that, then blaming the voter might be in order.
The problem is what to do with those people who can't vote. At worst, they'll rise up in arms and create an ever bigger mess.
If you're not into social and demographic engineering, then you're going to face a real problem.
My solution would be to get it over with and shoot everyone who disagrees with the system I'm trying to build. It sounds childish but it does actually genuinely work. It has been put in practice in so many places it's easy to lose count.
That only works in the immediate term. It isn't even a stable short term solution, let alone medium to long term. Consider what the incentives of such an approach are when iterated.
Unless you aspire to the way of life in places like North Korea.
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People with those characteristics are often wealthy: can't have "real skin in the game" if you're just a pleb with a mortgage, 2 kids and 2 cars in a middle-class neighborhood, right? At which point, once again, those with $$ are more equal than others.
Sure, they might be better informed - which lets them figure out how best to corrupt the system.
Edit: in fact, I could see a strong reason to DISALLOW anyone in the top 1% to vote or spend any $$ towards the election.
1% of the vote isn't all that significant. It's the money that creates the problem.
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Everybody should be allowed to vote, except for people who don't want everyone to vote.
Even people who openly aim to violently overthrow the government and abolish elections?
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> Maybe not just restricting to white wealthy landowners,
Some of those people are not white and/or not straight. They - very incorrectly - think that wealth will shield them from the sharp teeth of White Christian Nationalism. They should consult with the Log Cabin Republicans and women who voted for both Trump and enshrining abortion into their state's constitution on the same ballot.
People are admitting that now. It's happening. There's some hope that something can be done about him.