8 ms·

There is an alternative to such polarized views. In many countries, politics is just politics, it happens in the background and is about as heart felt as the we

by ehnto 6y ago

There is an alternative to such polarized views. In many countries, politics is just politics, it happens in the background and is about as heart felt as the weather report. It can be controversial and felt by all sure, but it shouldn't be a lifestyle or ideological platform that the general public use to divide themselves. It's backoffice stuff, for the most part, and I am too busy being friends to really mind what someone's political views are, if they even think about it much at all themselves. Now more than ever the US needs democracy, and the government needs to work harder than ever on protecting it. But I argue that the people of America, the general public, need to give it a bloody rest with the politics. Be humans again and meet your neighbors as you are, part of the same cohort as citizens. Your vote is just as powerful, no matter how many flags, banners, or yard signs you have. Your vote is what decides the direction of your country, not the chest thumping and rallies and flag brigades.

riffraff 6y ago
>In many countries, politics is just politics, it happens in the background and is about as heart felt as the weather report. Which countries are those? Because the US are insane, but politics is heartfelt in all countries I'm familiar with. Which doesn't mean we have to reach such levels of infighting of course.
- tempestn 6y ago
  Canada feels closer to what your parent described than to what I see in the US, for one. There are of course those at the extremes who are very partisan. Although most of those identify more with US politics than Canadian it seems. But for the vast majority it's much less of an issue than it is in the US. For one thing, most people are not members of one of our federal political parties. Local politicians don't even align with federal parties, nor do provincial ones in all cases. Many people will shift their vote between ideologically similar parties, especially the Liberals and NDP. Basically, for myself and most people I know, we vote for the party whose platform most closely matches our own priorities and beliefs, but it's not part of our identities in the same way. The parties themselves are also far less polarized than in the US. And because it's a multi-party system, you can have minority government that actually functions by garnering support of opposition parties. (We also effectively don't have multiple veto points though, so generally the governing party is able to govern; I think that also helps keep things from getting overheated.) Of course, the system isn't perfect. For instance by virtue of being both multi-party and first past the post, the winning party usually has the vote of a minority of the population, and still generally holds a majority of seats in parliament. But I've really come to appreciate it in comparison over the past few years.
  - michaelmior 6y ago
    As a Canadian, I would say the organization of our system of government and how voting in Canada works also plays a part in this. I can vote for my party of choice in a federal election and even if they do not become the governing party, I have the possibility of gaining more seats for party in parliament. Compare this to the US where aside from being a two party system, the majority can vote for a candidate in a federal election and that party can lose and get nothing. (Of course, votes for members of congress don't function like this, but clearly not as much weight as placed on these.)
    - tempestn 6y ago
      That's a good point. Less feeling that your vote was wasted. Of course the first past the post system does mean in many ridings it still effectively can be, but I still agree with your point. The lack of divided government also largely removes the blame game. Government governs, and the people either like it and keep voting for them, or vote for change (and get it). That's actually the one thing that gives me pause about a proprtional representation system (despite having voted for in in two BC referenda now). Would regular minority governments bring in more of that uncertainty? Maybe. But it would further improve the situation you described, which seems worth trying to me. (From my perspective it would be reasonable to agree to hold two elections under a PR system, then automatically have another referendum on whether to switch back.)
- ehnto 6y ago
  Australia is one, New Zealand another. I can't speak too much for other countries I guess so I probably shouldn't have written "many countries" as that's just an assumption on my part.
  - Hallucinaut 6y ago
    We must know different people in NZ and Australia, because I disagree with the inference their citizens treat politics like the weather report. One of the biggest differences at least in NZ is that there exists MMP for voting, which allows NZ to avoid brinkmanship in policy and winner-takes-all mindsets that lead to sharp divides.
    - ehnto 6y ago
      It's not quite that it's unimportant to people I guess, it comes up in conversation during election periods of course. People just aren't particularly partisan or passionate in my experience. I think most people have other things they would rather talk about. Similarly as the comment above mentions, Australia has preferential voting which helps in reducing the overall divisivness of the two party system most democracies end up with.
  - old_hat 6y ago
    I'm from the US, moved to Australia and am now a dual citizen. I think the reason for this here is because we have preferences in our voting, and we have compulsory voting. I can say, "First the communist, then the gun people, and if neither of those, finally go for a major party." if that suits me. That means our voices get heard, and the major parties listen. In NSW government for example we had an unpopular law put in place that killed our nightlife, so an entire political party was created just to fight that one law. They got lots of first preference votes, and the votes for all who did that were routed back to candidates that actually won because of the preferences. Being able to allocate our votes back to major parties with our voices being heard is important. Liberal then realised this wasn't a hill they were particularly keen to die on, so they repealed the law. (https://www.timeout.com/sydney/nightlife/keep-sydney-opens-official-end-of-lockout-law-party https://www.timeout.com/sydney/nightlife/keep-sydney-opens-o...) Also, compulsory voting means that everyone is going to vote. They have to by law. So there's no need to stoke the base to get turnout. Stoking the base makes you scary to everyone else and you get the smack down at the polls for it. We currently have Greens members in our house of reps, and many many 3rd party candidates in the senate. It's nowhere near perfect, but having your voice heard clearly, having that reflected in law, and ensuring there's no apathetic middle that lets the extremes dictate policy cuts the crazy right down.
crooked-v 6y ago
Issues like basic rights for transgender people, protection of voting rights for minorities, health care for unavoidable illnesses, and the major economic retooling needed to mitigate the effects of climate change are 'just politics' only for people privileged enough not to suffer because of them.
- ehnto 6y ago
  I don't dispute that, but also realise my comment is about the general population so inherently has to generalize. I guess my reply would also be that in a well functioning democratic government people get to trust that those issues will get addressed in time, though that is also not universally true.
  - crooked-v 6y ago
    The history of the US shows that 'in time' means hundreds of years to get nominal equality, a hundred more years for that equality to be even moderately enforced, and continued harassment, mistreatment, and open murder by the state fifty years after that.
  - freeone3000 6y ago
    Well, when you have one side saying "count the votes" and another side saying "stop the count", it's unlikely we're in a well-functioning democracy. These are the exact issues at stake in elections: whether religious protections extend to denying abortion care, whether one polling place per county overwhelmingly favors rural whites, whether racial sensitivity training is itself racist and should therefore be banned from government contracting. These are from the last month. So it's fair to assume, with one side for and one side against, that while these issues might resolve themselves they might not to your satisfaction.
    - michaelmior 6y ago
      You also have the same side saying both "count the votes" and "stop the count." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jrj3n0j2Q2w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jrj3n0j2Q2w
heavyset_go 6y ago
Yeah, sorry, but my access to healthcare isn't something as heart felt as the weather report. I either live or die without it.
- ehnto 6y ago
  Right, but my comment isn't about current-day America, more a possible future where your access to care doesn't rest on an election, because not everything is hyper-politicized and some decisions get made for what is the best decision for most not what matches the ideology. The hyper-polarization of the political landscape means you either get care or you don't. If one side will help you and one side wont, you're going to have a tough time holding on to your rights regardless of one election win. A more unified America with a strong middle class wouldn't need to undermine one group to bolster another, and you would have more moderate political candidates rather than having to choose between two distant evils every election. I get to not care because years of moderate politics in my country has seen a general trend toward humanitarianism regardless of which "side" wins. Recently the "right-wing" political group of my country protected same-sex marriage, even though it doesn't align with their ideology, because they're only moderate-right, and so their priorities still lie in pleasing the majority and not extreme political interests. Obviously the US would have a long way to go before it could ever take any of this advice seriously, I was just trying to point out that the divided nature of your population drives the politics too.
- doopy1 6y ago
  I don't think anyone who's sick/dying gets turned away from the hospital.
  - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
    Only for emergency care. If you need, say, cancer treatment, you are on your own.
- highmastdon 6y ago
  Would you rather be forced to pay 130 bucks a month and still have to pay up to 800 bucks a year for initial costs of health care? Because that’s what it means. Or you get your own health insurance and have something to choose from

by ehnto 6y ago

riffraff 6y ago

>In many countries, politics is just politics, it happens in the background and is about as heart felt as the weather report. Which countries are those? Because the US are insane, but politics is heartfelt in all countries I'm familiar with. Which doesn't mean we have to reach such levels of infighting of course.

tempestn 6y ago
Canada feels closer to what your parent described than to what I see in the US, for one. There are of course those at the extremes who are very partisan. Although most of those identify more with US politics than Canadian it seems. But for the vast majority it's much less of an issue than it is in the US. For one thing, most people are not members of one of our federal political parties. Local politicians don't even align with federal parties, nor do provincial ones in all cases. Many people will shift their vote between ideologically similar parties, especially the Liberals and NDP. Basically, for myself and most people I know, we vote for the party whose platform most closely matches our own priorities and beliefs, but it's not part of our identities in the same way. The parties themselves are also far less polarized than in the US. And because it's a multi-party system, you can have minority government that actually functions by garnering support of opposition parties. (We also effectively don't have multiple veto points though, so generally the governing party is able to govern; I think that also helps keep things from getting overheated.) Of course, the system isn't perfect. For instance by virtue of being both multi-party and first past the post, the winning party usually has the vote of a minority of the population, and still generally holds a majority of seats in parliament. But I've really come to appreciate it in comparison over the past few years.
- michaelmior 6y ago
  As a Canadian, I would say the organization of our system of government and how voting in Canada works also plays a part in this. I can vote for my party of choice in a federal election and even if they do not become the governing party, I have the possibility of gaining more seats for party in parliament. Compare this to the US where aside from being a two party system, the majority can vote for a candidate in a federal election and that party can lose and get nothing. (Of course, votes for members of congress don't function like this, but clearly not as much weight as placed on these.)
  - tempestn 6y ago
    That's a good point. Less feeling that your vote was wasted. Of course the first past the post system does mean in many ridings it still effectively can be, but I still agree with your point. The lack of divided government also largely removes the blame game. Government governs, and the people either like it and keep voting for them, or vote for change (and get it). That's actually the one thing that gives me pause about a proprtional representation system (despite having voted for in in two BC referenda now). Would regular minority governments bring in more of that uncertainty? Maybe. But it would further improve the situation you described, which seems worth trying to me. (From my perspective it would be reasonable to agree to hold two elections under a PR system, then automatically have another referendum on whether to switch back.)
ehnto 6y ago
Australia is one, New Zealand another. I can't speak too much for other countries I guess so I probably shouldn't have written "many countries" as that's just an assumption on my part.
- Hallucinaut 6y ago
  We must know different people in NZ and Australia, because I disagree with the inference their citizens treat politics like the weather report. One of the biggest differences at least in NZ is that there exists MMP for voting, which allows NZ to avoid brinkmanship in policy and winner-takes-all mindsets that lead to sharp divides.
  - ehnto 6y ago
    It's not quite that it's unimportant to people I guess, it comes up in conversation during election periods of course. People just aren't particularly partisan or passionate in my experience. I think most people have other things they would rather talk about. Similarly as the comment above mentions, Australia has preferential voting which helps in reducing the overall divisivness of the two party system most democracies end up with.
- old_hat 6y ago
  I'm from the US, moved to Australia and am now a dual citizen. I think the reason for this here is because we have preferences in our voting, and we have compulsory voting. I can say, "First the communist, then the gun people, and if neither of those, finally go for a major party." if that suits me. That means our voices get heard, and the major parties listen. In NSW government for example we had an unpopular law put in place that killed our nightlife, so an entire political party was created just to fight that one law. They got lots of first preference votes, and the votes for all who did that were routed back to candidates that actually won because of the preferences. Being able to allocate our votes back to major parties with our voices being heard is important. Liberal then realised this wasn't a hill they were particularly keen to die on, so they repealed the law. (https://www.timeout.com/sydney/nightlife/keep-sydney-opens-official-end-of-lockout-law-party https://www.timeout.com/sydney/nightlife/keep-sydney-opens-o...) Also, compulsory voting means that everyone is going to vote. They have to by law. So there's no need to stoke the base to get turnout. Stoking the base makes you scary to everyone else and you get the smack down at the polls for it. We currently have Greens members in our house of reps, and many many 3rd party candidates in the senate. It's nowhere near perfect, but having your voice heard clearly, having that reflected in law, and ensuring there's no apathetic middle that lets the extremes dictate policy cuts the crazy right down.

crooked-v 6y ago

Issues like basic rights for transgender people, protection of voting rights for minorities, health care for unavoidable illnesses, and the major economic retooling needed to mitigate the effects of climate change are 'just politics' only for people privileged enough not to suffer because of them.

ehnto 6y ago
I don't dispute that, but also realise my comment is about the general population so inherently has to generalize. I guess my reply would also be that in a well functioning democratic government people get to trust that those issues will get addressed in time, though that is also not universally true.
- crooked-v 6y ago
  The history of the US shows that 'in time' means hundreds of years to get nominal equality, a hundred more years for that equality to be even moderately enforced, and continued harassment, mistreatment, and open murder by the state fifty years after that.
- freeone3000 6y ago
  Well, when you have one side saying "count the votes" and another side saying "stop the count", it's unlikely we're in a well-functioning democracy. These are the exact issues at stake in elections: whether religious protections extend to denying abortion care, whether one polling place per county overwhelmingly favors rural whites, whether racial sensitivity training is itself racist and should therefore be banned from government contracting. These are from the last month. So it's fair to assume, with one side for and one side against, that while these issues might resolve themselves they might not to your satisfaction.
  - michaelmior 6y ago
    You also have the same side saying both "count the votes" and "stop the count." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jrj3n0j2Q2w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jrj3n0j2Q2w

heavyset_go 6y ago

Yeah, sorry, but my access to healthcare isn't something as heart felt as the weather report. I either live or die without it.

ehnto 6y ago
Right, but my comment isn't about current-day America, more a possible future where your access to care doesn't rest on an election, because not everything is hyper-politicized and some decisions get made for what is the best decision for most not what matches the ideology. The hyper-polarization of the political landscape means you either get care or you don't. If one side will help you and one side wont, you're going to have a tough time holding on to your rights regardless of one election win. A more unified America with a strong middle class wouldn't need to undermine one group to bolster another, and you would have more moderate political candidates rather than having to choose between two distant evils every election. I get to not care because years of moderate politics in my country has seen a general trend toward humanitarianism regardless of which "side" wins. Recently the "right-wing" political group of my country protected same-sex marriage, even though it doesn't align with their ideology, because they're only moderate-right, and so their priorities still lie in pleasing the majority and not extreme political interests. Obviously the US would have a long way to go before it could ever take any of this advice seriously, I was just trying to point out that the divided nature of your population drives the politics too.
doopy1 6y ago
I don't think anyone who's sick/dying gets turned away from the hospital.
- amanaplanacanal 6y ago
  Only for emergency care. If you need, say, cancer treatment, you are on your own.
highmastdon 6y ago
Would you rather be forced to pay 130 bucks a month and still have to pay up to 800 bucks a year for initial costs of health care? Because that’s what it means. Or you get your own health insurance and have something to choose from