I would agree with you, had I not just had a conversation with a friend about a discord they’re in being infected with the “U.S. is a totalitarian state” tankie bullshit.

Indoctrination works both ways, it isn’t just conservatives.

Not funding a genocide is a tanky thing?

Lmao. The word had officially lost all meaning.

Linux and programming are not necessarily signs of overall intelligence.

So… no, that’s not even remotely true. The percentage of third party votes would not have helped Hillary win the 2016 election. She ran a terrible campaign and completely ignored the key states: Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. All 3 states, at least at the time, were considered heavily blue states, and she proceeded to lose in all 3. Her campaign lacked a clear, articulated message that spoke to voters to draw out a significant voter turnout, and just underestimated the populism aspect of Trump’s run. He was full of shit and his legacy will be the conservative supreme court justices he left behind, but his campaign promised to revitalize dying blue class industries in the Rust belt which incentivized working class voters in a way that Hillary’s moderate campaign absolutely failed to.

I don’t think the populism factor will attract new voters for this upcoming election, as both Trump and Biden have their core voter bases established. However, the campaign messaging that gives voters incentive for a better turnout will always be the key factor. The message of “Hey, at least I’m not the other guy” does not work. It didn’t work in 2016. Hillary didn’t even learn from her failed campaign because in the aftermath of her defeat she wrote in her book What Happened, “If just 40,000 people across Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania had changed their minds, I would have won”. That whole mindset is just so out of touch with the political landscape in 2016, and this upcoming election cycle will be no different.

You sure do not have any idea who I voted for beyond Bernie. I always look up candidates and pick the ones with better access to healthcare, education, working environment, etc.

First past the post. How does it work???

So, who ARE you voting for, by the way?

How to tell if someone’s a little mushroom:

if the left had a candidate I might understand what you are saying.

“Sleepy Joe is not even worthy of consideration, he’s barely a human! Hillary’s emails!”

But I’m sure behind the screen you’re very impartial.

Let me clarify as in hamburgerland we have a duopoly: the American left vs Mr “just a dictator on day one” with project 2025 heritage foundation puppet strings

Huh? Did anyone stop you or anyone else from running for President?

I’m not a fan of FPTP and think massive campaign finance and election reform needs to take place, but the choice presented right now is unfortunately a reflection of the broader electorate, and for better or worse that’s democracy.

You have a choice. Getting everything you want is just not one of the options.

Democracy is all about falling in line…

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I would argue that progress like this is only happening because of the pressure on Biden from people saying they won’t vote for him if he continues to support the genocide. The biggest change was after the uncommitted movement in some of the primaries That’s why I’m okay with people saying they won’t vote for him, as long as they agree to vote for him if he continues to improve.

https://lemmy.world/comment/8336943

However, I would guess that someone who is extremely anti-Israel would never be captured in a photo like that.

It’s trump. He has no real position on anything except what he thinks might make him look good. I’d bet everything I have that he doesn’t even understand the situation enough to have a cohesive position, and just figured wearing a little hat and putting his hand on the wall like other people do would play well with a group he wants to like him.

He’s like a child. He’s said so himself. This photo is a publicity shot, nothing more.

Can you name any country where non citizens have a right to vote?

Apartheid is something that a country does to its own citizens.

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Jews “aren’t supposed” to support or oppose anything as a monolith. That’s just racial essentialism.

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“ironically” it’s actually Christian far right nationalist evangelicals (a bunch of self contradicting terms if you ask me) who support Israel most in USA, not Jews living in USA (who often left or refused to move there for a reason!).

But - generally speaking - if you’ve got a delegate you support in the parliament you’re much better off than if you’re casting a protest vote for an individual or group who will never hold a seat.

And you’re better off still if you contact your representative about issues that matter to you in a community representation system.

Also people like Bernie Sanders or AOC simply wouldn’t have any prominence in prop rep system. Bernie is an independent that’s popular in his state. AOC is in congress because she won a primary in a safe blue district. They aren’t required to vote on party lines, so the Democratic party has to compromise with them. In a prop rep system they’d either have to fall in line with the party leadership or form their own party and be irrelevant.

Third Parties are only relevant because of their potential to spoil an election. In a multiparty system they no longer have that capability. The only power they could potentially have is in the backroom deals to form a coalition with a larger party if the larger party doesn’t have the majority of the votes. And once again, this kind of thing swings both ways. A center right party may need to form a coalition with far right extremists in order to take power, as we’ve seen happen in Israel.

Not if they’re doing the one-term Senate gambit, like Kristen Sinema. Six years cultivating favors with corporate interests, and then resign before you party can primary you out so you can take a job as a lobbyist.

Next election, Kristen Sinema will be gone. This is an indication of the system working, but you’re characterizing it as a sign of the system being broken. No matter which system you have, it’s not feasible to have elections every week. There will always be bad actors that will require an election to remove from power.

Coalition governments build support by appealing to particular interests of the various party members. That means an “Abolish the National Debt” Party and a “Green New Deal Party” are going to form a different kind of government than a “Green New Deal” and a “Small Business Alliance” party.

Exactly the problem. I don’t have a say in the nature of the coalition that’s formed after the election. I’m not going to 100% agree with any party, and in a Prop Rep system the policies will be determined after the election during backroom deals to form a coalition. I’m in Canada and the Green Party basically imploded over Israel-Palestine even though there’s no chance for them to ever have any influence over foreign policy. Many times I might agree with a party in theory, but politicians tend to be whacky people and party leadership tends to be even whackier. But since the 2 MPs they have represent their communities they can do that job even when the party leadership goes batshit crazy. People can still call their Green Party MPs and those MPs can bring up those concerns in the Parliament even when the party itself is completely broken.

The only reason why Justin Trudeau is PM is because his party has built a lot of capability in identifying community leaders and recruiting those people into the party. People may not even like the party but they like the person they have running in their area, so a few seats can be picked up in this way. It’s interesting how bringing in community leaders is a good strategy to win an election in the “bad” First Past the Post system isn’t it? In a prop rep system you’d want to fill your party with yes men who would go along with whatever the party leadership wants.

Also compare what happens if the party leadership goes nuts in both of these systems. In the first past the post system, if a majority of members (who are beholden to their communities) thinks the leadership is bad, then the leadership is gone. In a prop rep system is there’s any members that don’t like the leadership those members get replaced, because the seats belong to the party, not the people that sit in them.

See politics isn’t just a numbers game. There’s debate and discussion and compromise. Power dynamics should be the primary consideration in any system. Prop Rep is a party first system, the power flows down from the party leadership. In a community representation system the power flows up from the communities. Voters decide who represents the community, community leaders decide who the party leader is. No system is without flaws, but a prop rep is completely dependent on parties which creates too many disconnects between the voters and those in power.

A community representation system is better. Or as a lot of people like to call it, a “first past the post” system.

Sometimes things are named by those who oppose it. For example the Big Bang Theory was called that by people that thought it was preposterous. But it turned out to be the best theory.

“First past the post” was deliberately called that by people pushing a proportional representation system in an effort to make it sound arbitrary and unfair.

But when power dynamics are considered, proportional representation systems are far more arbitrary and unfair. It looks better on a spreadsheet to see the number of seats being proportional to the number of votes. But when you consider the seats are controlled by the parties and not the individuals sitting in them, there’s really no point to having seats at all, other than for optics. An optimal proportional representation system would simply have the each party appoint one representative and that representative would have exactly the number of votes the party got in the last election. The only reason there are legislatures and seats in a proportional representation system is to give people the illusion that there’s a legislative assembly.

A bicameral system with House that is community representation body and a Senate that’s a proportional representation system might be fine. But having seats in a pop rep is really silly, just have each party appoint someone to put on record why they’re voting for or against a bill. And bicameral systems can lead to gridlock, so I’d say that at most a prop rep system should only be able to delay legislation, not block it completely. This would encourage listening to the concerns of minority parties to get legislation passed sooner, but prevents some far right whackadoos from blocking everything because they want the government to fail.

You might have been taught in school that democracy is some ideal or maybe living in a market economy has made you think voting should be like picking out a product on amazon and having it delivered to you the next day.

But the reality is that democracy is a grind. You aren’t going to get everything you want by voting in one election. You get a small amount of progress towards the things you want in each successive election. Are you willing to vote in every election available to you for as many decades as it takes to achieve what you want?

If you’re not willing to do this, it shows you’re not really dedicated to any of the causes you espouse.

By not electing the 10000x worse evil.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-indictments-election-january-6-classified-documents-5cb04868bb1cdf91c19eafdb882af8c0

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