American Politics Discussion Thread

[Charriu]

Again, civics was looooong ago for me, but the framers were interested in preventing government overreach by making it nigh impossible for anything without cross party consensus to pass, and set things up accordingly:



Of course that was ~250 years ago and things have, um, changed.

Darrell

Still no. Why would you ever want to force people to vote? Most of us dont care who is in charge because A: things never change, basically every politician is corrupt. B: No matter who is in office, our day to day lives dont really change much.

I love when two posts fit so perfect together.

[superdeath]

I dont like the gridlock lol. Id rather we see big changes, as that IMO is the only way to see which party is actually doing any good for the common folk.

[Charriu]

I'm European and love a government that can actually accomplish something.

[Amicalola]

forcing people to the booth, is basically forcing them to vote. All it WOULD do is whatever party promises to eliminate that, will get all the votes. "not forcing people to vote, but they HAVE to submit a ballot"...

I don't understand what you mean. The only people who would be majorly against voting are those who are philosophically opposed to both parties, as you seem to be, and they can just donkey vote. In what way are they being forced to vote? 

Voting is done on a weekend in Australia, and you can submit early votes if you will be unavailable on the day.

[Jowy]

Yearly plug for compulsory voting and preferential voting as essential to a healthy and representative democracy.

Yes please.

One of the hard things growing up in America is we are always told we are the greatest democracy in the world. Its not even close to true and less so now; not going to lie it hurt learning that. We are the most geopolitically important democracy very very sadly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

Doc about how the elite control the masses, including about how they sell the greatest democracy lie to the people. It's 4 hours but very worth it.

[superdeath]

forcing people to the booth, is basically forcing them to vote. All it WOULD do is whatever party promises to eliminate that, will get all the votes. "not forcing people to vote, but they HAVE to submit a ballot"...

I don't understand what you mean. The only people who would be majorly against voting are those who are philosophically opposed to both parties, as you seem to be, and they can just donkey vote. In what way are they being forced to vote? 

Voting is done on a weekend in Australia, and you can submit early votes if you will be unavailable on the day.

66% of Americans voted, setting a new record in 2020.

34% is a rather large number to force to go to the voting booths and be like "hey, either vote for a party or write in mickey mouse, either way we are going to force you to waste 30mins or more of your time"

Forced voting is a bad idea. A good idea would be to have voting where you rank the candidates and they get voted in via that. (gives 3rd party slightly better chance) Most people dont vote 3rd party BECAUSE its completely wasted.

2 independents in the senate.
1 independent in the house.

The whole system is frankly, flawed and im probably a bad American for suggesting that we get rid of it.

[darrelljs]

It’s a participatory democracy and if you’re too lazy to participate you’re probably too lazy to make an informed vote. I’m all for making voting easier and educating people on why voting matters, though.

Darrell

[Mjmd]

I used to vote for Mickey Mouse a ton, but then I switched my vote to Donald Duck..... Sometimes on a whole ballot I used to cast only 1 actual vote. Ah the good old times. 

But seriously Ranked choice voting solves a lot of issues, but with people who don't feel represented and politically polarization. What happens right now is that primary turnout is low; its generally just the people who care most on either side. This produces even in normal times more far right and far left candidates. So even in swing states like WI we don't end up with moderate candidates. However, ranked choice voting means there is a reason for moderate candidates to run / at least for candidates to appear moderate. A moderate Republican might grit their teeth and vote for the far right Republican if the only other choice is a far left Democrat, but I think there is a descent chunk would would rather vote moderate one party and then moderate of the other party. See Alaska as a good case example. Basically you had a far right Palin, another more moderate Republican and a moderate Democrat. The Democrat won, IN ALASKA. I liked ranked choice voting before, but man seeing it in action makes me think it may be more important (and possible easier to do) than getting money out of politics.

So SD if you think the current system is flawed and want to get rid of it, I suggest advocating for Ranked Choice voting system. 

I don't think compulsory voting is a good idea without ranked choice voting. Again a lot of people just don't feel good about any candidates running (or again Americans are lazy), but with Ranked Choice Voting suddenly you can have candidates running who are specifically targeting voters, IE you can actually have 3rd parties that don't just exist to siphon votes away from the others. You could actually have libertarian candidates win some some seats or green party ect.

[Jowy]

Today I learned that the UK's justification for joining the Iraq invasion was a scene from a Nicolas Cage movie. Awesome work lads.

[darrelljs]

Today I learned that the UK's justification for joining the Iraq invasion was a scene from a Nicolas Cage movie. Awesome work lads.

You should watch the movie Vice if you want a good cry.

Darrell