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The US isn’t a parliamentary system and I think the analogy is bad because President is a very different beast than Prime Minister. The main difference is that if the other guy wins then he’s head of the other party. Vote withholding for president affects the leadership of both parties.
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Feb 25, 2024 02:10
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Bar Ran Dun posted:The US isn’t a parliamentary system and I think the analogy is bad because President is a very different beast than Prime Minister. I'm talking about a broader change in the direction of the Party. If you want to elect leftists, for example, it isn't enough to elect a single leftist, because there is sufficient institutional weight behind crushing that. A single person will be coopted, run against or run out. You need to change the structure within a party in order to change the outcomes that party produces. I have not advocated for a position of "Vote Republican to make Democrats lose in order to replace them" because that then creates a tacit approval of republican policies driving them right. I'm only talking about not voting for candidates who run on terrible policy bases. Can you please explain what you mean by the bolded? As it seems like Donald Trump losing the last election didn't change anything about the direction and structure of the Republican party.
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Feb 25, 2024 03:08
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hooman posted:Can you please explain what you mean by the bolded? As it seems like Donald Trump losing the last election didn't change anything about the direction and structure of the Republican party. Right generally one loses and one’s out. One wins and that confirms that convention selected the right leader of the party. That’s why they pushed a narrative asserting he didn’t really lose so hard. That and that party is revolutionary romantic party now.
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Feb 25, 2024 03:27
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hooman posted:Oh gently caress no, absolutely not. Do you think the Democratic Party cares about your individual reason for not voting? I 100% guarantee they do not. If your stance is among the majority, than withholding your vote makes tactical sense. But if your stance is among the minority (i.e. leftist views), they'll never think that they need to move closer to your political views to win elections.
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Feb 25, 2024 04:11
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Kalit posted:Do you think the Democratic Party cares about your individual reason for not voting? I 100% guarantee they do not. You don't even have to be a leftist for the Democratic Party to ignore your views. You just have to be a person who thinks genocide is bad. Providing material support to an ongoing genocide is very important to the modern Democratic Party, and there's not much individual voters or motivated groups of voters like those in Dearborn, Michigan can do to convince the Democratic Party to stop supporting genocide.
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Feb 25, 2024 04:18
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B B posted:You don't even have to be a leftist for the Democratic Party to ignore your views. You just have to be a person who thinks genocide is bad. Providing material support to an ongoing genocide is very important to the modern Democratic Party, and there's not much individual voters or motivated groups of voters like those in Dearborn, Michigan can do to convince the Democratic Party to stop supporting genocide. None of what you said refuted my point of Kalit posted:If your stance is among the majority, than withholding your vote makes tactical sense. But if your stance is among the minority[...], they'll never think that they need to move closer to your political views to win elections.
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Feb 25, 2024 04:28
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B B posted:You don't even have to be a leftist for the Democratic Party to ignore your views. You just have to be a person who thinks genocide is bad. Providing material support to an ongoing genocide is very important to the modern Democratic Party, and there's not much individual voters or motivated groups of voters like those in Dearborn, Michigan can do to convince the Democratic Party to stop supporting genocide. There is a very significant age divide in the party on Israel. How does increasing the non voting rate of folks who think what the Israelis are doing is genocide (and it is) affect the party behavior. These data driven motherfuckers, do they care what folks who don’t vote think?
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Feb 25, 2024 04:51
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Bar Ran Dun posted:There is a very significant age divide in the party on Israel. They should because it is a large and untapped market. They don't because, in general, it's considered better from an internal perspective to try to change other voters to your teams side. The problem with that is that polarization of political norms continues apace and it is no longer a thing you can really do, but instead of expanding to get votes from people outside of that paradigm or to try and bring disaffiliating or none voters into the party the same people keep trying to poach other voters over and over again. We keep returning to the Hilary campaign strategy about "every rust belt voter we lose will mean two in the suburbs" because that seems to be the overarching strategy of various different consultants.
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Feb 25, 2024 09:28
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Kalit posted:Do you think the Democratic Party cares about your individual reason for not voting? I 100% guarantee they do not. I don't assume they know why I am withholding my vote at all. I am saying to withhold votes from candidates that are bad and give them to candidates that are good. I am not saying to never vote, but to only vote for good candidates in order to change the overall grouping of views within the party. That is the only way we (as non super donors) can influence the views of the party or feed back to them.
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Feb 25, 2024 10:46
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hooman posted:I don't assume they know why I am withholding my vote at all. I am saying to withhold votes from candidates that are bad and give them to candidates that are good. I am not saying to never vote, but to only vote for good candidates in order to change the overall grouping of views within the party. That is the only way we (as non super donors) can influence the views of the party or feed back to them. For most people, when considering national offices, only voting for good candidates is functionally equivalent to not voting.
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Feb 25, 2024 12:53
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Bar Ran Dun posted:. These data driven motherfuckers, do they care what folks who don’t vote think? This is a good way of putting it. The flip side is, do they care about the people who always vote for the Democrat no matter what? The only voters worth persuading are the ones who might vote one way, or might vote differently, depending on how the candidates appeal to them. So it makes sense to want to be one of those voters.
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Feb 25, 2024 13:31
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hooman posted:I don't assume they know why I am withholding my vote at all. I am saying to withhold votes from candidates that are bad and give them to candidates that are good. I am not saying to never vote, but to only vote for good candidates in order to change the overall grouping of views within the party. That is the only way we (as non super donors) can influence the views of the party or feed back to them. So…if there are only bad candidates (most nation-wide/federal elections, red state elections, etc), how is not voting going to move the party closer to your views? Wouldn’t it be moved further away, since parties are more likely to move closer to the candidates who are winning elections? Kalit fucked around with this message at 13:56 on Feb 25, 2024 |
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Feb 25, 2024 13:51
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hooman posted:I don't assume they know why I am withholding my vote at all. How is that going to influence the politician or party to move in your preferred direction? If they even notice at all, how would they know that you aren't withholding the vote because Biden is LESS pro-Israel than you want?
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Feb 25, 2024 14:15
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Bel Shazar posted:For most people, when considering national offices, only voting for good candidates is functionally equivalent to not voting. It may be, at the moment, but I'm not saying that do not vote downticket if national candidates suck. Also see below. Stabbey_the_Clown posted:How is that going to influence the politician or party to move in your preferred direction? If they even notice at all, how would they know that you aren't withholding the vote because Biden is LESS pro-Israel than you want? Kalit posted:So…if there are only bad candidates (most nation-wide/federal elections, red state elections, etc), how is not voting going to move the party closer to your views? Wouldn’t it be moved further away, since parties are more likely to move closer to the candidates who are winning elections? I'm going to try and respond to both of these at once since I think maybe I'm not being clear about what I am talking about. The aim is not to change the minds of the people who currently lead/run/represent the party as I am taking as read that as voters without large amounts of lobbying money that is practically impossible. Instead the goal is to ensure that the members who are elected as part of the party are ones who you agree with. That means being involved in primary processes, trying to get good candidates in, as well as not voting for poo poo ones. Electing a single voice that agrees with us is not going to work as they are going to face institutional pressure from within the current structures of the party opposing any changes they would try to make. So, you need to replace those current structures which means getting bad incumbents out, which necessitates not voting for them, especially as incumbents (the current controlling voices within the party) are extremely hard to remove when they win. I want to be clear, this is not a strategy to change the policies of the currently elected representatives, I do not expect the currently elected representatives to do anything but what they already want to do/are lobbied hardest to do. This is a strategy that is intended to replace the constituent parts of the party to effect change.
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Feb 25, 2024 14:30
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B B posted:You don't even have to be a leftist for the Democratic Party to ignore your views. You just have to be a person who thinks genocide is bad. Providing material support to an ongoing genocide is very important to the modern Democratic Party, and there's not much individual voters or motivated groups of voters like those in Dearborn, Michigan can do to convince the Democratic Party to stop supporting genocide.
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Feb 25, 2024 14:41
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Josef bugman posted:They should because it is a large and untapped market. They don't because, in general, it's considered better from an internal perspective to try to change other voters to your teams side. They don’t think like this. They’re hiring overpaid consultants who are going to look at the data, whip up an objective function and then optimize for the positions to take to get the most voters. Think about how that math is going to work with the data collected.
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Feb 25, 2024 18:59
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Civilized Fishbot posted:This is a good way of putting it. The flip side is, do they care about the people who always vote for the Democrat no matter what? The people who always vote for the Republican no matter what solved that by also voting in the primary no matter what, at all levels from local to presidency. Ot turned out to be a devastatingly powerful strategy and made them disproportionately represented at every level of government, especially above people who only vote sometimes well if they're excited enough. It's a big enough deal that it's hard to believe anyone who discounts it in strategies for the left is actually serious about wanting to shift the party.
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Feb 25, 2024 19:08
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Killer robot posted:The people who always vote for the Republican no matter what solved that by also voting in the primary no matter what, at all levels from local to presidency. Ot turned out to be a devastatingly powerful strategy and made them disproportionately represented at every level of government, especially above people who only vote sometimes well if they're excited enough. It's a big enough deal that it's hard to believe anyone who discounts it in strategies for the left is actually serious about wanting to shift the party. These aren't mutually exclusive strategies - very easy to say "I'll vote for the candidate I like in the primary, but I won't vote for the party in the general unless that candidate wins the primary." In 2016 and 2020 it was called "Bernie or Bust" - more generally we can call it the voter using every tool at their disposal to drive a hard bargain with the party (both party leadership and their fellow primary voters).
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Feb 25, 2024 19:50
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Bar Ran Dun posted:They don’t think like this. They may not, but it is foolish of them not to do so. But this is the thing, if it doesn't matter how things look because the overpaid consultants will just come up with something with the right "vibes" any way, then why should there be an expectation to engage in the Civic religion at all?
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Feb 25, 2024 21:19
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Civilized Fishbot posted:These aren't mutually exclusive strategies - very easy to say "I'll vote for the candidate I like in the primary, but I won't vote for the party in the general unless that candidate wins the primary." For the following four years it was absolute fighting words among Bernie primary voters to imply that they didn't overwhelmingly show up for Clinton in the end, in numbers beyond past primary losers even. So it sounds like either that wasn't a widely employed strategy* or that many of the people who used it were afraid to own it. Which is probably good either way because staying home when your primary bid fails is not just mutually exclusive with the rightward primary+general strategy the far right used on the Republican party, but it's inherently inferior. If you stay home in the general a failed primary matters less, not least because politicians seeking reelection look first to the voters they already have. If the RINOs win they know they don't need you to win either primaries or general elections, so you're in line behind pleasing the people they know they can get and want to get again. If they lose it's even worse because Democrats are going to undo even the meager accomplishments of RINO leadership, building more barriers to whatever Real Conservative finally takes power. Since the liberals are the real enemy, having the RINO in charge is infinitely better since you can spend the whole time agiating from the right and convincing him that he's going to be fighting for his life next primary if he cedes an inch to moderates. And it might take several cycles to really sink in, decades for the big goals even, but the whole strategy relies on a ratchet that tightens to the right when you get a chance, but never is allowed to slip left. *In retrospect, 2020 and the shifts in Bernie's coallition from 2016 suggests that the people who really didn't turn out for Clinton in the end weren't particularly unified in policy or ideology so much as just in hating her personally. For every new voter he picked up he bled another to Biden or Pete or something.
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Feb 25, 2024 21:51
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Josef bugman posted:then why should there be an expectation to engage in the Civic religion at all? Because that’s how it is changed. If one opts out, then the folks that do not opt out control the direction of the group. Changing the group is accomplished by becoming more involved in participation in it. Furthermore it doesn’t even take majorities to change groups. There is research on how ideas outside a group consensus becomes part of the consensus. The percentage of vocal participating folks needed to flip things on a given issue is lower than most people would think. Opting out is what one does if one wants the group to start dying. That’s fine if that’s what one wants. We got posters on the forums who explicitly want that and who advocate for not voting and not participating in civic religion to start to kill American civic religion. That’s honest and coherent, it is however not my choice. What I have an issue with is this concept that one withdraws to causes the change in the group one desires, that’s just not what happens. It’s an incoherent assertion. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Feb 25, 2024 |
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Feb 25, 2024 21:59
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Josef bugman posted:They should because it is a large and untapped market. They don't because, in general, it's considered better from an internal perspective to try to change other voters to your teams side. The problem with that is that polarization of political norms continues apace and it is no longer a thing you can really do, but instead of expanding to get votes from people outside of that paradigm or to try and bring disaffiliating or none voters into the party the same people keep trying to poach other voters over and over again. There's no evidence that the pro-Palestine movement is a large and untapped market, and lots of historical evidence that it isn't. That might be in the process of changing right now in 2024, but we shouldn't really act shocked that politicians aren't all rushing to upend their entire party platforms for the sake of a political movement that barely even existed six months ago. The reason that they don't expand their policies to get votes from non-voters is that there's not much evidence that non-voters are withholding their votes because of specific policy things, and there's not much evidence that policy changes will get those non-voters to come out and vote. At least if someone's already voting for the other party, you know they care about politics or policies. Non-voters are less engaged, less likely to pay attention to politics, less likely to believe that politics has any effect on them personally, and less likely to feel that voting will have any impact at all on politics. Getting them to come out to vote is a lot more difficult than just adjusting your policy slate a bit. hooman posted:I'm going to try and respond to both of these at once since I think maybe I'm not being clear about what I am talking about. The aim is not to change the minds of the people who currently lead/run/represent the party as I am taking as read that as voters without large amounts of lobbying money that is practically impossible. Instead the goal is to ensure that the members who are elected as part of the party are ones who you agree with. That means being involved in primary processes, trying to get good candidates in, as well as not voting for poo poo ones. There's another reason that electing a single voice that agrees with you is not going to work: the fact that passing a law requires roughly 269 people to approve of it. I don't know how it works in whichever country you're in, but hyperfocusing on a single seat to the exclusion of all others fundamentally does not make sense in the American system. In order to get the policies you want, you need to flip a lot of seats, because American politicians are largely individuals that the party leadership has very limited power to pressure. The focus on the presidency over everything is a result of modern media more than anything. While the presidency is the most powerful single position, it's still very limited in what it can actually do without the support of the other branches. However, a single national election that everyone votes in makes for a more profitable audience for national mass media than hundreds of state and district races do, so that gets a wildly disproportionate focus. Putting that aside, I think the big disconnect I'm seeing in your overall strategy here is that you're treating "agreement" as a binary yes/no thing. Either you agree with a politician or you don't. But in reality, that's not how things work. There are a lot of political issues that a politician will have a stance on, and typically you'll agree with them on some of those issues while disagreeing with them on others. Because of the sheer number of political issues and positions, it's extremely unlikely that you'll ever have the opportunity to vote for a candidate who agrees with you on 100% of issues, unless you're a single-issue voter who only cares about one issue and none of the others. It's far more likely that you'll be choosing between a candidate who agrees with you on 80% of issues or a candidate that agrees with you on 5% of issues. If the candidate who agrees with you on 80% of issues wins, then both they and other politicians will be more likely to continue holding policy positions you agree with, which makes it more likely that you'll see candidates agreeing with you on 83% or 85% of issues in the future. Of course, it's also possible that you might see some candidates who only agree with you on 78% or 75% of the issues. But even that's still clearly better than if victory goes to the candidate who agrees with you on 5% of issues.
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Feb 25, 2024 22:01
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Bar Ran Dun posted:Because that’s how it is changed. If one opts out, then the folks that do not opt out control the direction of the group. Changing the group is accomplished by becoming more involved in participation in it. Is it? Because engaging in this sort of thing does not seem to be how it is changed. Can you think of an example that has delivered any categorical break in the prior body politik from the left, the equivalent of the death of the Keynesian consensus or realignment to Neoliberalism under Thatcher and Reagan, that was achieved via the ballot box? The fact is I have experience of this process and I also have experiuence of being frozen out and the entirety of my political ideals being utterly shafted by the political structues of a country/party. I've experienced it on both levels and your argument that "well, you have to be part of it to make it happen" does not actually hold true compared to my lived experience. One withdraws from supporting people in certain circumstances because one wishes to support others. I cannot vote for the Labour party any more because the love of my life is Trans and they are calling for her to be put on a different ward because of it. If they changed that I would vote for them again, but to what level do we have to go before it's okay to say "I will vote for you in these circumstances but not THOSE"? Main Paineframe posted:There's no evidence that the pro-Palestine movement is a large and untapped market, and lots of historical evidence that it isn't. That might be in the process of changing right now in 2024, but we shouldn't really act shocked that politicians aren't all rushing to upend their entire party platforms for the sake of a political movement that barely even existed six months ago. I'm quoting in general and not just about the Pro-Palestinian movements that exist in various places, I am talking about none voters in general. This is not the case in every nation, or is this solely a US discussion?
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Feb 25, 2024 22:18
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We've never faced a world quite like the one we've so very recently built. Every good argument for why "not voting for the lesser evil doesn't work" is a further condemnation against fundamental beliefs many have about democracy and the status quo (with its current power structures and incentives). It is uniquely mad. We built our world so "won", so successfully, people can't even meaningfully interact with it. The vote in theory gives power, but in reality placates. The market is openly the point and the power, and to threaten it is to threaten the world most people live in (materially and in their mind). What political movement could successfully reform this trajectory, without threatening the ideals we have about democracy? At what point would we say "this has failed" and look at things differently?
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Feb 25, 2024 22:59
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Josef bugman posted:Is it? Because engaging in this sort of thing does not seem to be how it is changed. Can you think of an example that has delivered any categorical break in the prior body politik from the left, the equivalent of the death of the Keynesian consensus or realignment to Neoliberalism under Thatcher and Reagan, that was achieved via the ballot box? Those things were a reaction to the widespread influence of social democracy which had wins achieved by the ballot box. Josef bugman posted:The fact is I have experience of this process and also have experiuence of being frozen out and the entirety of my political ideals being utterly shafted by the political structues of a country/party. I've experienced it on both levels and your argument that "well, you have to be part of it to make it happen" does not actually hold true compared to my lived experience. These fights can take a long time. Sometimes longer than lifetimes. “Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.” Josef bugman posted:One withdraws from supporting people in certain circumstances because one wishes to support others. I cannot vote for the Labour party any more because the love of my life is Trans and they are calling for her to be put on a different ward because of it. If they changed that I would vote for them again, but to what level do we have to go before it's okay to say "I will vote for you in these circumstances but not THOSE"? There are differences in the UK context vs the US context particularly on social questions. If it were my situation, I probably wouldn’t vote for labour over that. I’d find that intolerable. But also the UK stakes are different.
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Feb 26, 2024 04:21
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Bar Ran Dun posted:Because that’s how it is changed. If one opts out, then the folks that do not opt out control the direction of the group. Changing the group is accomplished by becoming more involved in participation in it. I disagree with this assertion. The direction of a party or group is controlled by the representatives that make it up, not the voters who elected them. Definitionally they are the ones who vote on legislation, and they have free reign to vote against the views of the people who voted for them if they wish. As Main Paineframe correctly notes you need a majority of representatives to be in favour of a policy to get it passed. Withdrawing your vote is not attempting to change the view of the currently elected representatives, it is trying to change who the currently elected representatives are. If a member of party A is dead against welfare, you would not vote for that member of party A if they are the encumbent so that they can be replaced with a representative who is in favour of that. You need to remove incumbents in order to replace them, that is the purpose of withdrawing votes. Also I want to be very clear that withdrawing your vote is not saying "don't participate at all" as you need to be involved in primaries and active to get members in place who support the policies you want, it is withdrawing your vote tactically to achieve goals. The purpose of this is trying to get members with the policies you agree with in place to be elected to replace the ones who will stop that legislation. Main Paineframe posted:Putting that aside, I think the big disconnect I'm seeing in your overall strategy here is that you're treating "agreement" as a binary yes/no thing. Either you agree with a politician or you don't. But in reality, that's not how things work. There are a lot of political issues that a politician will have a stance on, and typically you'll agree with them on some of those issues while disagreeing with them on others. Because of the sheer number of political issues and positions, it's extremely unlikely that you'll ever have the opportunity to vote for a candidate who agrees with you on 100% of issues, unless you're a single-issue voter who only cares about one issue and none of the others. That is a fair criticism and you are right that I have presented this in absolute terms, when it definitely does not. I think that is up to every person's individual judgement of where you draw the line between being willing to support an individual candidate or not. If there is ever a candidate you agree with 100% you aren't really engaging with policy you're just barracking for a team at that point. I doorknock, hand out how to vote cards, and volunteer for a political party that I do not agree with the policies of 100%, I am very lucky that I happen to live somewhere that has a voting system that does not necessarily produce a 2 party state. The vote withdrawl I am talking about requires being involved in primaries and being active, I am very specifically not saying "never vote, don't be involved" I am saying, be involved and withdraw your vote from people who you cannot agree with or whose policies cross your personal red lines or are actively working against policies you support. When it comes ot those kind of percentages, there is a clear cut answer when there are high percentages like that. For me, at least, vote withdrawl is talking about 20% vs 5%.
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Feb 26, 2024 05:06
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hooman posted:I am very lucky that I happen to live somewhere that has a voting system that does not necessarily produce a 2 party state. Here’s the problem federalist bourgeoisie republic. The state you live in isn’t politically analogous to the US. It’s analogous to one state in the US. To continue the example, The Labour Party in the UK isn’t analogous to the Democratic Party. It’s analogous to a single state’s Democratic Party. The stakes in our federal elections are fundamentally different than elections in other countries. We are a shambling monstrous relic that could have only come to being at the moment it did. Our system is like the model T, everybody else has the newest Prius. All (I can’t think of an exception here) the other federal systems of that era modeled after the US system imploded spectacularly. Arguably even ours imploded spectacularly in the civil war.
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Feb 26, 2024 06:28
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Bar Ran Dun posted:Here’s the problem federalist bourgeoisie republic. The state you live in isn’t politically analogous to the US. It’s analogous to one state in the US. To continue the example, The Labour Party in the UK isn’t analogous to the Democratic Party. It’s analogous to a single state’s Democratic Party. I haven't assumed the state I lived in was politically analogous to the US. I'm well aware of the dual federalism in the US model as well as the problems within that system. That is the context I am speaking to.
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Feb 26, 2024 07:44
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Bar Ran Dun posted:Those things were a reaction to the widespread influence of social democracy which had wins achieved by the ballot box. It had wins because it was backed by fear of violence and by the collapse of teh older order due to violence. The ballot box was not the sole means by which those things were achieved and, lets put it bluntly, they were only achieved for a period of about 35 years. In that same period of time, a period that I and I imagine most of the people in this thread have lived through, the sole consensus has been Neoliberalism and there is no effective democratic means to challenge that in a large number of nations. To appeal to patience and to hope is to pray for a better world when the world itself is deeply hosed. It is understandable but it's "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions", the entire ideal is one that I think has increasingly less validity as things worsen. Because you get to make sure that the Hegemon has a better leader? The conditions in the UK and a lot of other places are based on the USA's follies over the last several decades, and now we all have to live with the mistakes of being part of a dying empire.
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Feb 26, 2024 09:27
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You repeatedly insisting that democratic government is a religion does not actually make it so.
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Feb 26, 2024 11:20
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Discendo Vox posted:You repeatedly insisting that democratic government is a religion does not actually make it so. The idea of an American Civic religion I thought was fairly uncontroversial, and in this instance I am comparing Marx's words towards religion towards faith in democracy to deliver based on hope alone.
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Feb 26, 2024 12:01
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Discendo Vox posted:You repeatedly insisting that democratic government is a religion does not actually make it so. That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily bad Dis. Hidden civic religion are real thing. All government is built on civic religion, hidden or not.
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Feb 27, 2024 06:19
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To more explicitly talk about the myths that underlying democracy, to cut the question down to bone rather than wading around in more fat and muscle. Dis I’ve got two questions for you when you get back: 1. If US elections are free and fair, and the public participates fully do you think they have good outcomes for society and better government? 2. If we have an educated and engaged public does that public make better “correct” choices in elections? Separately I think the idea of civic religion is a good way to understand why this discussion can be a poo poo show. It’s a religious discussion. It is in a literal sense about participation in a ritual of civic religion. Josef bugman posted:The conditions in the UK and a lot of other places are based on the USA's follies over the last several decades, and now we all have to live with the mistakes of being part of a dying empire. No, a potentially dying Republic that could become an empire. Empires have a single authority, they are authoritarian. We have some characteristics of imperialism, we exert control in the world over other countries to our advantage. But we don’t have that unitary single authority. This is the root of why voting for President is different when compared to elections in a European Parliament. If our vote go wrong we could slip into actual being an Empire and that’s happened in the past to other republics and democracies.
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Feb 28, 2024 05:57
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Bar Ran Dun posted:No, a potentially dying Republic that could become an empire. Empires have a single authority, they are authoritarian. We have some characteristics of imperialism, we exert control in the world over other countries to our advantage. But we don’t have that unitary single authority. This is the root of why voting for President is different when compared to elections in a European Parliament. If our vote go wrong we could slip into actual being an Empire and that’s happened in the past to other republics and democracies. I think the word empire probably needs to have a broader definition than requiring a single authority and being authoritarian, otherwise you would rule out the British Empire because it has a non authoritarian parliament and an (in practice) figurehead monarch. I was under the impression that Empire related more to the power relationship between periphery states and the controlling metropole, not that it literally has an Emperor.
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Feb 28, 2024 06:17
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Imperialism is the power relationships between metropole and periphery. We 100% do some imperialist things in the world. Empires are imperialist. But republics can also be imperialist. The unitary authority is not the only major characteristic of empire. It’s the characteristic of empire we currently don’t have as country. Edit: missed a not Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 07:22 on Feb 28, 2024 |
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Feb 28, 2024 06:23
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Bar Ran Dun posted:To more explicitly talk about the myths that underlying democracy, to cut the question down to bone rather than wading around in more fat and muscle. I am not going to re-explain the history and reasoning behind the entirety of democracy and republicanism from first principles because you want to ask stupid political philosophy 101 questions.
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Feb 28, 2024 08:30
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Bar Ran Dun posted:No, a potentially dying Republic that could become an empire. Empires have a single authority, they are authoritarian. We have some characteristics of imperialism, we exert control in the world over other countries to our advantage. But we don’t have that unitary single authority. This is the root of why voting for President is different when compared to elections in a European Parliament. If our vote go wrong we could slip into actual being an Empire and that’s happened in the past to other republics and democracies. I would wholeheartedly disagree. I would say that the USA is an Empire/Imperial state in the same way that the end of the Roman Republic was still Imperial in its goals and actions. The US has continually acting as an extractive power in central and southern Americas alongside imperial wars over the past 3 decades. There is a difference between who is in charge of said empire, but the underlying assumption of imperial power and control is not changed based on who is in charge of the legislature. How would you define American Hegemony without it being an empire?
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Feb 28, 2024 09:24
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drat yo this thread descended into some "is the US an empire" nonsense right quick which is pretty irrelevant to the topic since any "imperial subjects" (however you wanna square) can't really participate in electoral politics i mean maybe posters were making some stealth arguments about the role of Guam and Puerto Rico and haven't yet disclosed their hand but ahaha no there was no chance they were going there anyway to peg my pet issue where is the US going, or not going, on electoral reform, and why? i have the luxury of living in URBAN CALIFORNIA, which in my particular district has the luxury of using ranked-choice voting... in some local elections, at least. the current (notoriously composed of slime extracted from the cogs of the Democratic Party machine) governor has vetoed broader statewide permission to use this system and, despite demonstrated success in a boring statistical sense, it faces challenges from local politicians (or rather, real estate lobby figureheads who lost with it in place) wishing to roll it back (because, idk, i guess you don't need to pay as much to sway a primary) to what extent is there a chance for the US to adopt democratic reforms developed since the 1800s? is it instead hopelessly mired in an pale simulacrum of democracy that fails to actually involve the electorate but is easily manipulated by political insiders? to note an earlier post Google Jeb Bush posted:Show up for your local and (if convenient) state Democratic conventions, people. ... It's how the nefarious shadowy DNC conspiracy gets elected, it's how election rules get set, it's how you signal boost issues that are important to you... NOBODY loving shows up for this poo poo. i am peak voter that pays attention to every local election, even for the goddamn transit boards and whatnot, and even i cannot be arsed to deal with the machinations of the local Democrat party apparatus. Theoretical democracy doesn't work when half the elections on a ballot are single-person contests featuring the one person the local party managed to coerce into running for some unpaid elected in hope that it may boost their chances of working the party machine to submit them in a race that offers primo insider trading opportunities down the road with de facto zero competition
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Feb 28, 2024 10:07
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Qtotonibudinibudet posted:drat yo this thread descended into some "is the US an empire" nonsense right quick which is pretty irrelevant to the topic since any "imperial subjects" (however you wanna square) can't really participate in electoral politics It is in fact possible for the US to adopt democratic reforms; there is no magic cutoff that makes the transitions or efforts involved impossible compared with, for instance, the 17th amendment, which took about 50 years of slowly increasing advocacy. These reforms and this history themselves reflect the profundity of the shifts that have occurred; the period before past representative and civil improvements is practically unrecognizable, especially the (agonizing, long) process of instilling the norms of a civil service. Qtotonibudinibudet posted:NOBODY loving shows up for this poo poo. i am peak voter that pays attention to every local election, even for the goddamn transit boards and whatnot, and even i cannot be arsed to deal with the machinations of the local Democrat party apparatus. Theoretical democracy doesn't work when half the elections on a ballot are single-person contests featuring the one person the local party managed to coerce into running for some unpaid elected in hope that it may boost their chances of working the party machine to submit them in a race that offers primo insider trading opportunities down the road with de facto zero competition You are answering your own question here; you, personally, cannot be arsed. Involvement and lack of involvement is a choice.
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Feb 28, 2024 10:35
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Discendo Vox posted:It is in fact possible for the US to adopt democratic reforms; there is no magic cutoff that makes the transitions or efforts involved impossible compared with, for instance, the 17th amendment, which took about 50 years of slowly increasing advocacy. These reforms and this history themselves reflect the profundity of the shifts that have occurred; the period before past representative and civil improvements is practically unrecognizable, especially the (agonizing, long) process of instilling the norms of a civil service. im asking less "is this legally possible" than "will political elites entertain this in the slightest" if it functionally reduces their ability to broker power. my cynical take is that people in higher political office see more utility in preserving broken systems if they can manipulate them towards power for their party. gerrymandering, and its validation by the judiciary, is probably the most prominent example quote:You are answering your own question here; you, personally, cannot be arsed. Involvement and lack of involvement is a choice. i assure you more people on average participate in the vote for their federal representative than their local Democrat party who knows what the gently caress board (much less the internal party dealing between those board members). far more of the electorate participates in the former, but at least in my district the only viable candidate has been decided by the latter. democracy shouldn't need to be something you can only meaningfully participate in if you have time to do politics as a hobby. i (and the vast majority of people less interested in local politics than i) should not be obligated to delve into party minutiae to participate in our government
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Feb 28, 2024 11:24
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