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I'm a bit confused as to why politicians always bring up ‘ignoring the will of the people’ when it's been shown that ‘the people’ have been lied to on a grand s

by dotdi 8y ago

I'm a bit confused as to why politicians always bring up ‘ignoring the will of the people’ when it's been shown that ‘the people’ have been lied to on a grand scale and there is evidence that Cambridge Analytica had worked pro-Brexit. I guess nowadays you cannot convince people with facts anymore. You can only convince them with covert, subliminal ads on their social media feeds.

cheeseomlit 8y ago
I guess nowadays all you have to do is run some Facebook ads and spin up some Twitter bots and that's enough to convince people this whole democracy thing is a sham. Unless of course the people vote for the right result, then all the social engineering and censorship on social media is a-ok
atombender 8y ago
As recently as one year ago [1], polls indicated that sentiment in favour of Brexit was still strong enough that another referendum might have resulted in another "leave" vote. A more recent poll [2] shows that this is now much less likely, but there's still strong support among a huge portion of the population. As much as I agree that the Brexit leave campaign was fraudulent and the whole referendum tainted, I don't think it's as clear-cut as you want. At what point do decide a vote that was made through a legal process should be rejected? You can't run the "will of the people" through some kind of legitimacy filter to weed out the ones that have been unduly influenced by political forces. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2018/jan/26/guardian-icm-brexit-poll-full-results https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2018/jan... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/06/britons-would-now-vote-to-stay-in-eu-want-second-referendum---poll.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/06/britons-would-now-vote-to-st...
- dotdi 8y ago
  > At what point do decide a vote that was made through a legal process should be rejected? When it's fundamental premises are shown to be fraudulent. As you said. Also, don't ignore the fact that the wording of the vote had a big impact. It was `remain` vs. `literally everything else with the only constraint being "not in the EU"`.

by dotdi 8y ago

cheeseomlit 8y ago

I guess nowadays all you have to do is run some Facebook ads and spin up some Twitter bots and that's enough to convince people this whole democracy thing is a sham. Unless of course the people vote for the right result, then all the social engineering and censorship on social media is a-ok

atombender 8y ago

As recently as one year ago [1], polls indicated that sentiment in favour of Brexit was still strong enough that another referendum might have resulted in another "leave" vote. A more recent poll [2] shows that this is now much less likely, but there's still strong support among a huge portion of the population. As much as I agree that the Brexit leave campaign was fraudulent and the whole referendum tainted, I don't think it's as clear-cut as you want. At what point do decide a vote that was made through a legal process should be rejected? You can't run the "will of the people" through some kind of legitimacy filter to weed out the ones that have been unduly influenced by political forces. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2018/jan/26/guardian-icm-brexit-poll-full-results https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2018/jan... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/06/britons-would-now-vote-to-stay-in-eu-want-second-referendum---poll.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/06/britons-would-now-vote-to-st...

dotdi 8y ago
> At what point do decide a vote that was made through a legal process should be rejected? When it's fundamental premises are shown to be fraudulent. As you said. Also, don't ignore the fact that the wording of the vote had a big impact. It was `remain` vs. `literally everything else with the only constraint being "not in the EU"`.