[foxglacier]

This is an endless complaint I've heard for many years but Americans always vote for lobbied parties. They are clearly happy with this compared to whatever other reasons they have to vote. Somehow there's always something more important that makes them think "I'll tolerate a bit of corruption because at least he's promising XYZ".

[Morromist]

As an american voter I confess you're right.

- but also there aren't many good alternatives for us. Say you have 3 people running for senate to choose from. Canidate A and B have super PACs that spend $80 million each on ads. Canidate C doesn't. You could vote for canidate C, but he will likely lose - nobody sees anything about them, they can't employ many people to work their campaign, they don't get interviewed on tv. It feels better to vote for someone who has a chance to win. Also candiate A is a nutjob who thinks we should take over Tierra del Fuego as our 51st state and all young boys should have a year where their schooling is just learning how to throw knives really good like a Ninja, so you really want them to lose - you pretty much have to vote for Canidate B.

[SAI_Peregrinus]

Also the official presidential debates are a privately run event, not a public thing open to all candidates. The president isn't the only politician, but it exemplifies the problem that our election campaigns are privatized.

[foxglacier]

But why not vote for a loser? Is it just some irrational pride/feeling thing? One vote is never going to determine the outcome anyway, yet a spoiler vote is still a signal to A and B about how competition is stealing their votes and how they could win you back.

That other reason you mentioned is ridiculous too. Since parties A and B always win, alternating each one or two cycles, it's not the end of the world if your hated one wins this time - if they don't, they'll just win next time anyway.

[Terr_]

> Americans always vote for lobbied parties. They are clearly happy with this compared to whatever other reasons they have to vote.

That's kinda backwards. (Yes, I know you said "compared to".) Rather, citizen are seldom "happy" about their selection of choices, and many are so very not-happy that they don't even vote.

The main fault is in the math and mechanics of our voting system, rather than the personal-traits of the people. The spoiler effect [0] is unusually strong with plurality-voting, an archaic scheme that still dominates US politics.

It's main "feature" is how it was easy to implement 250 years ago when more people were illiterate, calculating and printing was harder, and nothing traveled faster overland than a galloping horse. Nowadays there are many alternatives [1] and most would be an unequivocal upgrade.

> "I'll tolerate a bit of corruption because at least he's promising XYZ".

Hey now, don't tar the whole electorate with a worldview that is concentrated into a much smaller bloc. There's a reason that the most blatantly corrupt President in history never got anywhere when he spent years trying to run as a Democrat.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoiler_effect

[1] https://fairvote.org/resources/electoral-systems/comparing-v...