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by waheoo 2205 days ago
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.

4 comments

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.

> "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?

> 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?

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.
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.