[roosterdawn]

You raise an interesting point, but I wonder if the point is less that people trust the brand than they _distrust_ the government. Do you think it might be possible that however much people distrust corporations, they at least trust the corporation to function unlike the government, which they only trust to deepen dysfunction?

[rayiner]

You’re absolutely right and there is proof of this: https://news.gallup.com/poll/5248/big-business.aspx

Scroll down to “In general, do you think there is too much, too little or about the right amount of government regulation of business and industry?“ Well over 2/3 of Americans thing there is the right amount of regulation of businesses, or that there should be even less.

Scroll further to: “ In your opinion, which of the following will be the biggest threat to the country in the future -- big business, big labor or big government?”

Just 26% say “big business” is the biggest threat, while a whopping 67% say “big government” is the biggest threat.

[waheoo]

Americas version of democracy is next level messed up.

Start voting for people you want in power.

Stop voting for the lesser evil.

Yes you cant always avoid it but a functioning democracy involves a forcing of ideologies to work together through multi party systems and the resulting coalitions.

[danaris]

Until and unless we have a completely different method of electing people (for instance, single transferable vote, preference voting, etc—I don't personally know which system is best for our particular circumstances), voting for anyone but the Democrat or the Republican on the ballot at the general election is going to be anywhere from very unlikely to get you somewhere (at the local level) to laughably impossible (at the national level, especially presidential elections).

Given the way our various systems interact, "multi-party systems" and "coalitions" are simply not possible.

[catalogia]

> "Start voting for people you want in power. Stop voting for the lesser evil."

I can do that, but I can't make other people do that. So your "advice" isn't really actionable is it?

[klyrs]

> Start voting for people you want in power.

> Stop voting for the lesser evil.

This is tantamount to calling for individuals to write-in their fave candidates. Do you actually think that will work?

[rayiner]

Only a minority of people view the candidates they’ll be voting for as “the lesser evil.” For the rest, they’re voting for the person they want in power. The recent Democratic primary is proof of that. There are a lot of progressives in the Democratic coalition who will vote for Biden because he’s the “lesser evil.” But all those voters who woke up at the last minute and drove Biden to a decisive victory did so because that’s who they wanted. They want someone to basically maintain the status quo and make modest changes, and do so without the racist tweets.

[scarface74]

I think a lot of the people voted for Biden because he was more electable than Sanders. I don’t share that opinion - Sanders scares the hell out of me.

I consider myself a bleeding heart pro capitalist pig. In other words I believe in a social safety net funded by taxes and the free market.

[rickyplouis]

I agree to an extent. I'm one of those people that believes corporations are more likely to function and government intervention is likely to deepen disfunction. However, I don't share the same laissez faire attitude that many share about big businesses.

As stated by Buffett in Bray's article, anti-trust enforcement has fallen so far into the favor of large corporations the past few decades that the average age of public companies has increased. One would think that public opinion should reflect the swing of the pendulum, but this hasn't entirely been the case.