4 ms·
Voters opinions are not a black and white thing. People might be in favor of something but still vote for you even if you aren’t. Especially in a two party syst
by legulere 6y ago
Voters opinions are not a black and white thing. People might be in favor of something but still vote for you even if you aren’t. Especially in a two party system politicians have to optimize for not losing your voters. If 80% of your voters are for legalization and 20% against it but you would loose 15% of your voters if you would take it into your political platform, the you simply won’t do it.
- koboll 6y agoCertain stances also carry more political risk than others. For example, if you openly want to make small changes to social welfare programs that make them more sustainable -- the kind of changes that would be a part of negotiations on any social welfare reform bill anyway -- you'll get crushed by ads saying you want to destroy social welfare. It's the same with drug policy. On an individual level, most voters would probably understand drug policy liberalization if you sat down with them and showed them data around how it affects use, recidivism, et cetera. But if you vocalize support for it, you'll be risking your opponent taking a soundbyte and turning it into an ad for how you're soft on crime and you want to let dangerous criminals out of prison. So unless you have a lot of politicians in safe seats, or voters have had a lot of time to learn the nuance around these issues, it's a risky undertaking.