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I don't get why the people elect presidents and parties whom interestst clear don't align with theirs. They elect people which promise them they will basically
by tanto 7y ago
I don't get why the people elect presidents and parties whom interestst clear don't align with theirs. They elect people which promise them they will basically destroy governmental institutions and THAN complain the the government doesn't work. That's like ordering poisoned food and than complaining about the cook...
- nostromo 7y ago*then Quite often people don't vote for their own self-interest because they believe in a greater good or a larger principle. This is a good thing.
- extralegos 7y agoWhat “greater good” are you talking about? You think people just love Bill gates so they want to live in a dystopia for him? Is the “greater good” Bill Gates’ bank accounts that keep getting bigger every day, despite his perpetual generosity?
- SpicyLemonZest 7y agoMost people's basic principles aren't particularly related to how rich Bill Gates is.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- maximente 7y agoelected representatives aren't perfectly rational robots that take in each of their constituents' inputs into a fancy weighted matrix and produce a vote accordingly and without concern for anything else. in fact, a big issue is that upon assuming office one's priorities can (and often do) immediately shift so far as to essentially ignore whatever was promised while campaigning - there aren't exactly contracts or anything. it's not uncommon to just blatantly lie about what you'll (not) do then do it, especially if maintaining/increasing power level is on your list. a better analogy would be something like: your options are ordering one of a few dubious multi-year long supplies of food [politicians] from a couple of entrenched vendors [parties], without any real assurances of what's under the covers [promises, etc.], and with a hefty dose of marketing and falsehoods surrounding all of them [us vs. them, tribal stuff]. or trying to do it all yourself [run for office yourself], which is a huge undertaking and draws ire/counter efforts from all the established players.
- danso 7y agoThe U.S. presidency and Congress are elected via a majority vote, not unanimous vote.
- evan_ 7y ago> majority vote No they aren’t.
- danso 7y agoPlurality
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y agoNot even that. A plurality of electors, which was a minority of voters.
- evan_ 7y agoTrump got 63 million votes and Clinton got 66 million votes. GW Bush got 50.4 million votes, Gore got 50.9 million.
- danso 7y agoYes, a plurality of electoral votes. In Congress, it's a plurality of popular votes. The point is that elected officials were not voted by as much as 50-60% of the people who showed up to vote.
- anigbrowl 7y agoLook into public choice theory. Some voters even see an advantage in incompetent government, in the sense that they think paralysis will preserve a status quo and this is more productive of stability than well-intentioned change that may ultimately go in the wrong direction. It even kinda works as long as you don't have any external shocks; the US has maintained a very long economic expansion (at least on paper) despite a longish period of divided government that has resulted in relatively little getting done. Of course when an external shock does hit an incompetent or paralyzed government the results can be catastrophic, as we're seeing now.