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>I think that's dramatically underselling the American voter's role in all of this. Many, many Americans balk at the prospect of raising taxes to pay for univer

by magduf 7y ago

>I think that's dramatically underselling the American voter's role in all of this. Many, many Americans balk at the prospect of raising taxes to pay for universal healthcare. But those same people shrug indifferently to the enormous costs to sustain the US military and the tremendous costs of campaigns such as Afghanistan. I think that's dramatically understating these American voters' role in this and their reaction to anything that can be dubbed "socialism". They happily vote for candidates who push for enormous "corporate welfare" to defense contractors, and scream bloody murder if anyone suggests using any public money at all to pay for someone else's healthcare. American voters are getting exactly what they're voting for. >They're part of the reason we don't have it. They are the reason we don't have it. As I frequently like to remind people, every nation gets the government it deserves.

danans 7y ago
You and the GP can both be right because, arguably, the voters have been given the "choice" of 2 platforms from the 2 dominant parties that share a common pro war-industrial-complex agenda.
jjeaff 7y ago
I'm not sure that's really case. I find that few people think much more deeply about policy issues than the headlines and zingers from pundits like Shawn Hannity or Rachel Maddow. We have a serious information problem, or lack thereof. If people were truly informed on some of the issues, I can't imagine soany issues would be so divisive. I think setting up some kind of reporting requirents to divorce opinion and pundits from actual journalistic news would be a start. A perfect example is the turmoil inside the fox news network right now. If you watch the actual newscasters/journalists you will believe the obvious truth that Trump was ordering funds withheld to get negative press for the Democrats and Bidens from Ukraine. (Whether that rises to impeachment level is up for debate and tangential to my point). If you watch only the fox news pundits (which are most of the primetime lineup) you will believe that it's all totally made up and even that the impeachment process itself is somehow unconstitutional and some sort of coop. Which is just completely divorced from reality. This same thing plays out everyday on countless issues on both sides and is being controlled by a small handful of powerful people that are manipulating viewers for their own gain.
TuringNYC 7y ago
How often do voters get a real choice rather than two slightly different sides of the same coin? I seem to remember multiple presidential primaries in the US where progressive candidates get side-lined within the party as either un-electable (long before actually competing at polling stations) or get kicked out due to technicalities meant to steer watered-down right-centrists into the general election. I'm not talking about some right-wing conspiracy, I'm talking about basic mechanics of the electoral process that are unfair at the party level, in media, etc. As one example, I might cite how current candidate Andrew Yang barely gets time to speak at debates while others polling at the same level get 2x or 3x as many minutes to speak. Another example might be the way Bernie Sanders was all but eliminated by backstage machinations in the Democratic party in 2015/2016. How are voters supposed to vote for true progressive candidates who want to change the system in a major way if they cant even compete on an even playing field
- magduf 7y ago
  >How often do voters get a real choice rather than two slightly different sides of the same coin? The fact that voters don't have much choice is their own fault. It's their job to reform the system if they don't like it. >I seem to remember multiple presidential primaries in the US where progressive candidates get side-lined within the party as either un-electable Again, this is the voters' fault. If they don't like it, they should do more to change it. >How are voters supposed to vote for true progressive candidates who want to change the system in a major way if they cant even compete on an even playing field If the citizens of a country don't like the way the elections are run, it's their job to change it, by whatever means are necessary. That is what it means when I say that every nation has the government it deserves. This applies to every nation (except maybe occupied ones), no matter what kind of government it has. The citizens are the ones who ultimately have the power, so if their government sucks, it's their own fault.

by magduf 7y ago

danans 7y ago

You and the GP can both be right because, arguably, the voters have been given the "choice" of 2 platforms from the 2 dominant parties that share a common pro war-industrial-complex agenda.

jjeaff 7y ago

I'm not sure that's really case. I find that few people think much more deeply about policy issues than the headlines and zingers from pundits like Shawn Hannity or Rachel Maddow. We have a serious information problem, or lack thereof. If people were truly informed on some of the issues, I can't imagine soany issues would be so divisive. I think setting up some kind of reporting requirents to divorce opinion and pundits from actual journalistic news would be a start. A perfect example is the turmoil inside the fox news network right now. If you watch the actual newscasters/journalists you will believe the obvious truth that Trump was ordering funds withheld to get negative press for the Democrats and Bidens from Ukraine. (Whether that rises to impeachment level is up for debate and tangential to my point). If you watch only the fox news pundits (which are most of the primetime lineup) you will believe that it's all totally made up and even that the impeachment process itself is somehow unconstitutional and some sort of coop. Which is just completely divorced from reality. This same thing plays out everyday on countless issues on both sides and is being controlled by a small handful of powerful people that are manipulating viewers for their own gain.

TuringNYC 7y ago

How often do voters get a real choice rather than two slightly different sides of the same coin? I seem to remember multiple presidential primaries in the US where progressive candidates get side-lined within the party as either un-electable (long before actually competing at polling stations) or get kicked out due to technicalities meant to steer watered-down right-centrists into the general election. I'm not talking about some right-wing conspiracy, I'm talking about basic mechanics of the electoral process that are unfair at the party level, in media, etc. As one example, I might cite how current candidate Andrew Yang barely gets time to speak at debates while others polling at the same level get 2x or 3x as many minutes to speak. Another example might be the way Bernie Sanders was all but eliminated by backstage machinations in the Democratic party in 2015/2016. How are voters supposed to vote for true progressive candidates who want to change the system in a major way if they cant even compete on an even playing field

magduf 7y ago
>How often do voters get a real choice rather than two slightly different sides of the same coin? The fact that voters don't have much choice is their own fault. It's their job to reform the system if they don't like it. >I seem to remember multiple presidential primaries in the US where progressive candidates get side-lined within the party as either un-electable Again, this is the voters' fault. If they don't like it, they should do more to change it. >How are voters supposed to vote for true progressive candidates who want to change the system in a major way if they cant even compete on an even playing field If the citizens of a country don't like the way the elections are run, it's their job to change it, by whatever means are necessary. That is what it means when I say that every nation has the government it deserves. This applies to every nation (except maybe occupied ones), no matter what kind of government it has. The citizens are the ones who ultimately have the power, so if their government sucks, it's their own fault.