4 ms·

Fair point, but where are you getting your statement "For the time being a couple percent of the electorate selects your house member"? As far as I know, voter

Fair point, but where are you getting your statement "For the time being a couple percent of the electorate selects your house member"? As far as I know, voter turnout is at least a magnitude higher. It's important to realize that what seems like the obvious way an ideal democracy should function is not what we have in the US. We have a partial democracy where all decisions are heavily lobbied by massive corporations to a degree that can't even be compared to most nations. If the 'free market' didn't surround these lobbyists, it would be called racketeering the government.

microcolonel 8y ago
> Fair point, but where are you getting your statement "For the time being a couple percent of the electorate selects your house member"? As far as I know, voter turnout is at least a magnitude higher. I'm talking about some uncompetitive districts where only one party is ever considered in the general, and only a teeny tiny fraction of the electorate bother with the primary. Added: For example, in New York's 14th congressional district, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won in the general election because, barring a monumental scandal, the democrat will inevitably win there; and in the primary, she won by an okay margin, but her total number of votes in the primary was just ~17k. As far as I can tell, this means that about 17k people selected the house member for that district of ~690k people (of which 141k voted in the general election). I think I was being imprecise when I said "a couple percent of the electorate", it's really a couple percent of the overall population in this case, but the point largely stands.
bluGill 8y ago
There is more to the local election. Much less do anything to help select which person their party actually runs. Even of those that do, who is a great speaker or looks the best is often a more important consideration than what policy they support/oppose.

microcolonel 8y ago

> Fair point, but where are you getting your statement "For the time being a couple percent of the electorate selects your house member"? As far as I know, voter turnout is at least a magnitude higher. I'm talking about some uncompetitive districts where only one party is ever considered in the general, and only a teeny tiny fraction of the electorate bother with the primary. Added: For example, in New York's 14th congressional district, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won in the general election because, barring a monumental scandal, the democrat will inevitably win there; and in the primary, she won by an okay margin, but her total number of votes in the primary was just ~17k. As far as I can tell, this means that about 17k people selected the house member for that district of ~690k people (of which 141k voted in the general election). I think I was being imprecise when I said "a couple percent of the electorate", it's really a couple percent of the overall population in this case, but the point largely stands.

bluGill 8y ago

There is more to the local election. Much less do anything to help select which person their party actually runs. Even of those that do, who is a great speaker or looks the best is often a more important consideration than what policy they support/oppose.