Turnout in the past few elections was already extraordinarily high. Clearly this isn’t the answer. And neither is protesting, considering that 4 of the 5 largest demonstrations in US history happened in the past 10 years and achieved nothing.
I highly recommend the research done by Robert Faris, Hal Roberts, and Yochai Benkler.
In a nutshell, you have an issue where part of the information economy/market is captured. To the point that agenda can get set by theories or podcasts that have little truck with reality. Any checks or reviews of the claims, simply do not get surfaced within that ecosystem. This creates a more efficient system for political messaging.
You cannot have an effective democratic system when your consensus building mechanisms have been (intentionally) compromised and weakened.
> Turnout in the past few elections was already extraordinarily high.
In a sense, this in itself is the issue. It's long-term _worse_ to vote for the "lesser of two serious evils". This extreme "long-term pain for short-term gain" attitude is what's gotten the US to where it is. If in 2016 of 2024 even 20% of the dems would've stayed home or voted third party, the DNC's continuous forcing of awful corpocrats with zero charisma would've become completely untenable and Trump would've been limited to one term. Yet instead they were rewarded for it, so you'll see Newsom get the candidacy and presidency in 2028 (if 2028 even happens at this point), and then in 2032 you'll get something like Hegseth or Thiel winning and it's all over.
There is an answer: relentlessly vote, but only for candidates who are actually slightly decent - including third-party - and otherwise stay at home. "Relentlessly" means "at every level", including locally from the very bottom, all the way up.
The whole idea of "third-party voting is a complete waste in the US" is incredibly dumb because a vote for someone who loses isn't a wasted vote. It shows the others that there's a voter there who can be convinced if catered to, if they select a better candidate. The powers that be have done a fantastic job of brainwashing the entire population of the myth that anyone who _doesn't_ go out and vote for either major candidate is a morally bankrupt person, because it directly benefits them.
The reply to this will be "well it's too late for that now!". It's wrong because the alternative doesn't help you one bit. You're just wishing for a miracle, that in 4 years something happens, kicking the can down the road making things worse long term. And that's actually what's got you here.
It's a symptom of the terminal disease which has infected all layers of American society and has gotten it to where it's at: short-termism. Everyone just looks at the next quarter, the next election. China's ascendency is 1:1 tied to doing the exact opposite. Some smartypants will now point "but zero Covid", great you found a potential exception, now look at the other 90% of policy.
Every time I've explained this I've gotten instantly downvoted without a single reply making an argument against it, because it's too painful for people to admit that they've been part of the road to where the US is at. And again, short-termism: rather feel the short-term tiny dopamine hit by slamming that downvote button than thinking about it. Let's see if this happens again.
The trend has been going that direction, where low turnout elections favor Ds and high turnout favors Rs. But only kind of... that holds when Trump is on the ballot. Trump seems to activate a segment of low-info, low-propensity voters who stay home when their guy isn't on the ballot. Things will probably get scrambled again once Trump is gone though.
And don't discount protests. It's crucially important to have big public and forceful displays of united opposition. The regime is unlikely to be toppled by protests, but they will weaken it.
That really matters.
In an authoritarian take-over institutions are the front-lines, not the masses. Think colleges, media, industry, courts, legal firms, local governments, etc. The dilemma those institutions will face is to follow rule-of-law or submit to authoritarian corruption. Authoritarians win when those institutions decide it's safer to submit than it is to follow the law. And when institutions (and the people within them) feel like they are twisting in the wind alone and nobody cares, they are more likely to buckle. Protest movements help reinforce the rule-of-law side of that calculation.
(The rise and fall of Orban is a great lesson on all of this)
Definitely not, you may, at best, shift the problems to someone else. Both of "our" political parties are beyond redemption and cannot be reformed (if they were very not terrible in the first place). The only thing that will change outcomes is direct action and I'm including limitless scaling of that including the armed defense of your ideals.
Many of us find voting insulting, given very low marginal power in a vote; it’s akin to throwing breadcrumbs to the poor. The structure of governance (the reality, not the mythology taught in schools or pushed forth as propaganda) is not in support of ‘the people”.
Right or wrong, this is how many of feel. Voting is silly and futile.
Civics is a kind of religion, and it is difficult for people caught up in it to approach discussion from a logical and external perspective. This kind of civics is dangerous to society.
The other party needs to run better candidates. It’s their job to drive voter turnout in their favor (not internet argument warriors) and they’ve lost two out of the last three elections by sabotaging their own primaries and doing “Our candidate isn’t good but at least they’re not a got dang cheeto!!” campaigns.
“Less bad doesn’t have to mean good” is a mantra with a current 67% loss rate, soon to be 75%, and then 80% four years after that if they keep trying it. And they’ll keep blaming the voters that they failed every time.
There also needs to be, probably, more party diversity.
The fact that the current president has such a stranglehold over their party is pretty unprecedented; normally, the big tent parties have lots of little camps with power bases that somewhat insulate independence, whether that be on an issue or regional level. It's kind of odd that the disenfranchised members of that party have not started up their own party.
Also, I think the current gerrymandering race to the bottom has pretty clearly demonstrated the need for a better system of voting and district mapping. The House elections are already regulated by congressional act, not by the constitution.
Voting and getting everyone you know to vote
And civically engaging. Less than a fifth of voters regularly contact their electeds.
Yes more people should vote: https://data.blueroseresearch.org/hubfs/2024%20Blue%20Rose%2... (“Projecting onto the full voter file, if every registered voter voted, it’s likely that Trump would have won by even more.”).
Yes, more people should vote.
Always funny when Trumpers try to this out as a gotcha lmao.
As a believer in democracy, I think it's better that our government is more responsive rather than less responsive to the public.
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The people in power now are doing everything they can to make that as hard as possible by any means necessary. Good luck.
No, they are doing everything they can to ensure that only the people who are legally allowed to vote are the ones voting.
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Turnout in the past few elections was already extraordinarily high. Clearly this isn’t the answer. And neither is protesting, considering that 4 of the 5 largest demonstrations in US history happened in the past 10 years and achieved nothing.
Well right... you also need to vote for the correct ("less-bad") people and get your friends to do the same.
Voting for the worse people makes things worse.
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Protesting one weekend day every 6 months will obviously do nothing. The pressure needs to be non stop
I highly recommend the research done by Robert Faris, Hal Roberts, and Yochai Benkler.
In a nutshell, you have an issue where part of the information economy/market is captured. To the point that agenda can get set by theories or podcasts that have little truck with reality. Any checks or reviews of the claims, simply do not get surfaced within that ecosystem. This creates a more efficient system for political messaging.
You cannot have an effective democratic system when your consensus building mechanisms have been (intentionally) compromised and weakened.
> Turnout in the past few elections was already extraordinarily high.
In a sense, this in itself is the issue. It's long-term _worse_ to vote for the "lesser of two serious evils". This extreme "long-term pain for short-term gain" attitude is what's gotten the US to where it is. If in 2016 of 2024 even 20% of the dems would've stayed home or voted third party, the DNC's continuous forcing of awful corpocrats with zero charisma would've become completely untenable and Trump would've been limited to one term. Yet instead they were rewarded for it, so you'll see Newsom get the candidacy and presidency in 2028 (if 2028 even happens at this point), and then in 2032 you'll get something like Hegseth or Thiel winning and it's all over.
There is an answer: relentlessly vote, but only for candidates who are actually slightly decent - including third-party - and otherwise stay at home. "Relentlessly" means "at every level", including locally from the very bottom, all the way up.
The whole idea of "third-party voting is a complete waste in the US" is incredibly dumb because a vote for someone who loses isn't a wasted vote. It shows the others that there's a voter there who can be convinced if catered to, if they select a better candidate. The powers that be have done a fantastic job of brainwashing the entire population of the myth that anyone who _doesn't_ go out and vote for either major candidate is a morally bankrupt person, because it directly benefits them.
The reply to this will be "well it's too late for that now!". It's wrong because the alternative doesn't help you one bit. You're just wishing for a miracle, that in 4 years something happens, kicking the can down the road making things worse long term. And that's actually what's got you here.
It's a symptom of the terminal disease which has infected all layers of American society and has gotten it to where it's at: short-termism. Everyone just looks at the next quarter, the next election. China's ascendency is 1:1 tied to doing the exact opposite. Some smartypants will now point "but zero Covid", great you found a potential exception, now look at the other 90% of policy.
Every time I've explained this I've gotten instantly downvoted without a single reply making an argument against it, because it's too painful for people to admit that they've been part of the road to where the US is at. And again, short-termism: rather feel the short-term tiny dopamine hit by slamming that downvote button than thinking about it. Let's see if this happens again.
28 replies →
The trend has been going that direction, where low turnout elections favor Ds and high turnout favors Rs. But only kind of... that holds when Trump is on the ballot. Trump seems to activate a segment of low-info, low-propensity voters who stay home when their guy isn't on the ballot. Things will probably get scrambled again once Trump is gone though.
And don't discount protests. It's crucially important to have big public and forceful displays of united opposition. The regime is unlikely to be toppled by protests, but they will weaken it.
That really matters.
In an authoritarian take-over institutions are the front-lines, not the masses. Think colleges, media, industry, courts, legal firms, local governments, etc. The dilemma those institutions will face is to follow rule-of-law or submit to authoritarian corruption. Authoritarians win when those institutions decide it's safer to submit than it is to follow the law. And when institutions (and the people within them) feel like they are twisting in the wind alone and nobody cares, they are more likely to buckle. Protest movements help reinforce the rule-of-law side of that calculation.
(The rise and fall of Orban is a great lesson on all of this)
Also see: https://essayx.substack.com/p/the-35-percent-rule-just-made-...
Definitely not, you may, at best, shift the problems to someone else. Both of "our" political parties are beyond redemption and cannot be reformed (if they were very not terrible in the first place). The only thing that will change outcomes is direct action and I'm including limitless scaling of that including the armed defense of your ideals.
Many of us find voting insulting, given very low marginal power in a vote; it’s akin to throwing breadcrumbs to the poor. The structure of governance (the reality, not the mythology taught in schools or pushed forth as propaganda) is not in support of ‘the people”.
Right or wrong, this is how many of feel. Voting is silly and futile.
Ironically, the way to change this is by voting. One election at a time, we can trend towards the better or worse.
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Not voting is much more insulting, by far.
Edit: "civic religion" aha. Sorry, I should have guessed you were trolling. Can't wait to see what kind of revolution you cook up.
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Civics is a kind of religion, and it is difficult for people caught up in it to approach discussion from a logical and external perspective. This kind of civics is dangerous to society.
1 reply →
Violence. But people are still pretty comfortable so here we sit.
The actual effective strategy is “tit for tat”
Making the wealthy scared
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The other party needs to run better candidates. It’s their job to drive voter turnout in their favor (not internet argument warriors) and they’ve lost two out of the last three elections by sabotaging their own primaries and doing “Our candidate isn’t good but at least they’re not a got dang cheeto!!” campaigns.
“Less bad doesn’t have to mean good” is a mantra with a current 67% loss rate, soon to be 75%, and then 80% four years after that if they keep trying it. And they’ll keep blaming the voters that they failed every time.
There also needs to be, probably, more party diversity.
The fact that the current president has such a stranglehold over their party is pretty unprecedented; normally, the big tent parties have lots of little camps with power bases that somewhat insulate independence, whether that be on an issue or regional level. It's kind of odd that the disenfranchised members of that party have not started up their own party.
Also, I think the current gerrymandering race to the bottom has pretty clearly demonstrated the need for a better system of voting and district mapping. The House elections are already regulated by congressional act, not by the constitution.
Ranked choice voting and the implementation of independent impartial redistricting are very urgently needed reforms.
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