7 ms·

Once again - the best educated voter still only has two choices, and neither of these represent the poor. Do people on HN really think the very rich or the ver

by anewaccount2021 6y ago

Once again - the best educated voter still only has two choices, and neither of these represent the poor. Do people on HN really think the very rich or the very poor were at all bothered by the Capitol riots? Government is irrelevant to both groups, in different ways.

thatguy0900 6y ago
Judging by the unanimous and immediate technocrat and media response to the capitol riot I would wager the rich are very concerned about it. I agree noone wealthy seemed all that concerned about the riots before that
- Dma54rhs 6y ago
  There was no way to spin it off as marketing either, why would they be concerned.
kaitai 6y ago
The best educated voter -- any voter in fact -- can also run for office and transform the party. I dislike the rhetoric you're using that implies the parties are outside and beyond the reach of "normal" citizens. Of course they are institutions with substantial inertia and aims of their own. But as the elections of people as diverse as Cori Bush and Madison Cawthorne and Marjorie Taylor Greene show, it is certainly still possible to make your way from citizen to elected official.
- anewaccount2021 6y ago
  You need look no further than the concerted and organized effort to shut-down Bernie Sanders twice, and frankly he isn't even particularly radical. No one you mentioned represents a meaningful threat to the status quo - America has a single ruling class and the Capitol is their museum.
  - PeterStuer 6y ago
    You could also look at the concerted and organized shut-down of Tulsi Gabbard.
- tathougies 6y ago
  they are increasingly beyond the reach of normal citizens. If your views do not align 100% with either party, you are increasingly marginalized. See the treatment of Donald Trump (a republican outsider, and not a traditional conservative by any means, but not a democrat in principle either) by the Republican party. For the past four years, republicans have refused to pass bills due to not matching ideological purity tests from Trump. The best example of this is DACA (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/01/09/trump-meets-congressional-leaders-immigration/1016369001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/01/09/trum...), for which Trump has repeatedly asked for a legislative solution that gives these children legal status. Because that is not the exact party line of the GOP, they didn't like his solution. And then along with that, he wanted the wall of course, which doesn't fall into line exactly with the democrats, so now, despite DACA and secure borders being an issue many care about, no political party would take them up due to ideological purity. On the democrat side, see the treatment of Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard (Both non-traditional democrats in different ways) by their party. Honestly, after seeing both how the GOP and Democrats treated Trump, Sanders, and Gabbard, I find myself supportive of all three of them despite them having a very different views. I simply like that they're not either party. It increasingly seems that both parties are becoming incredibly dogmatic, and anyone who doesn't fall in line is simply barred from public discourse or elected office. It is increasingly true that in order to even get to elected office you need the support of a party. In my state of Oregon, the democrats and republicans actually mandated that you be part of a party before being elected to office. You can no longer run as an independent. It's so bad, some people made an 'independent party' just to be able to have non-democrat or republican candidates on the ballot, but this suffers from the same issues as parties, in that those individuals still need to be 'nominated' by a select group of people annointed by the party organizers, which means even the independent party has a bias, even if they try to minimize it. We need major electoral reform, nationwide, but it doesn't benefit any party to do that. What I would like to see are protesters from both BLM, Antifa, or whatever and the capitol protesters (not the rioters of any group please...) band together for a change and demand a better means of governance from their legislators. The people need to band together on common principles, instead of being divided by stupid policy points.
  - leesalminen 6y ago
- jonhohle 6y ago
  Have you been involved in a party’s political process? I participated in a primary caucus for a small district and was disgusted by the leadership and how the event was run. No one was heard, whatever the moderator wanted was how the vote turned out, regardless of how the group actually voted. All of the leadership was among the most smarmy, slimy people I’ve ever been in a room with. If you want to run for office, not only do you have to spend time with these narcissistic, power drunk politicians at the local level, you have to get them to support you. This meeting was on the extreme local level for a community of maybe 35k people. I can’t even imagine what the county level, or national level would be like. Maybe others have had a better experience, but this disillusioned me from any participation in politics and politicians in general.
  - root_axis 6y ago
    > disillusioned me from any participation in politics and politicians in general. It's so much easier when the troublemakers show themselves out of the room. Of course, nobody could be blamed for wanting nothing to do with politics, but its only the people who are disgusted by the system that change it.
- sdsaga12 6y ago
  What do you make of this study by professors from Princeton and Northwestern that finds that "economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence"? Source: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli... What do you make of Jimmy Carter saying in 2014 that "America doesn't have a functioning democracy right now"? Source: https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/nsa-affaere-jimmy-carter-kritisiert-usa-a-911589.html https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/nsa-affaere-jimmy-car... Translated from German: https://archive.is/Lhlq2 https://archive.is/Lhlq2 It might be unpleasant to acknowledge, but there is increasingly overwhelming evidence to suggest that the major American political parties are indeed "outside and beyond the reach of 'normal' citizens". In 2017, the DNC argued in federal court that, as a private corporation, it was entitled to select whichever candidate it preferred for the general election regardless of the preferences of "normal citizens" who voted in the party's primary election. This was in a hearing for a lawsuit filed by Sanders supporters who weren't happy about the DNC working with the Clinton campaign and against the Sanders campaign, as revealed by WikiLeaks. Source: https://ivn.us/posts/dnc-to-court-we-are-a-private-corporation-with-no-obligation-to-follow-our-rules https://ivn.us/posts/dnc-to-court-we-are-a-private-corporati... and, for convenience, https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/independent-voter-network-ivn/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/independent-voter-network-ivn... Growing up in a blue household, social group, and state, I'm less familiar with the history of the anti-democratic machinations of the RNC, but my understanding of the Trump phenomenon was that, at least early on, many Republican voters were attracted to the idea of a political outsider who they hoped wouldn't sell them out like they felt RNC-affiliated Republicans had been doing. Some contemporary sources seem to back up that interpretation: https://archive.fo/2Vidx https://archive.fo/2Vidx (Wall Street Journal) and https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/11/09/election-analysis-hillary-clinton-donald-trump/93198882/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/...
  - bob_doggo 6y ago
    You, like many others have some really good arguments to why the current american system doesn't work. But where is the american movement to end the FPTP-voting system?
- yosefjaved1 6y ago
  It's always been possible for everybody in the US to run for for office but how likely is it without having serious money? Everything from advertising to filing comes with serious cost in US federal election. In Texas alone it costs $3k to just get on a primary ballot for a federal election as a representative. Even the candidates you mentioned had to raise over $1MM just to run their elections. Yes, it's possible just very unlikely if you don't have the cash. Sources: Cori Bush Amount Raised: https://www.opensecrets.org/races/candidates?cycle=2020&id=MO01&spec=N https://www.opensecrets.org/races/candidates?cycle=2020&id=M... Madison Cawthorne Amount Raised: https://www.opensecrets.org/races/candidates?cycle=2020&id=NC11&spec=N https://www.opensecrets.org/races/candidates?cycle=2020&id=N... Marjorie Taylor Amount Raised: https://www.opensecrets.org/races/candidates?cycle=2020&id=GA14&spec=N https://www.opensecrets.org/races/candidates?cycle=2020&id=G... Filing in the 2020 Democratic and Republican Primary: https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/candidates/guide/2020/demorrep2020.shtml https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/candidates/guide/2020/...
- syshum 6y ago
  Polical Parties are the problem, and can in no way be a solution to the problem To update George Washington for current year: While political parties may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled politicians will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion. If we want better governance in the US, we must limit or eliminate political parties
  - jfengel 6y ago
    That's a taller order than it appears. Political parties are, at core, freedom of association: you and I agree to put our differences aside in support of the things we overlap on. I'll support your things if you support mine, and we'll both oppose the others. Once we reach 50% of the people to make that bargain, we'll win everything. Subverting that isn't easy without giving up something that seems necessary. You can eliminate majority rules. You can eliminate freedom of association. You can eliminate voting. Even term limits don't help: you can eliminate the politician but not their constituents, who will find somebody equivalent to send. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's not as simple as "eliminate political parties". Even if you could wish them away with a magic wand, they'd come right back.
- bob_doggo 6y ago
  Not op, but while you are not wrong, I would argue that the critique of the FPTP-voting system is very relevant here.
cbozeman 6y ago
God, this is true, but most HN posters can't see it for some reason. Princeton already proved America is an oligarchy with a paper that was released a few years back, showing that when the rich wanted a certain policy implemented, it was passed into law at any almost 80% rate, compared with the "average voter" wanting a policy made into law at about a 50% rate. Here's that article: https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi... Now here's what's super telling, or at least should be... if you Google "princeton oligarchy study america" or some combination, the very first fucking result you'll find will be a Vox article saying its wrong. Because the ultra-rich need to perpetuate the myth that your voice matters. Google needs you to be stupid enough to believe that.
- linspace 6y ago
  The difference between 80% and 50% is very significant but if you want a positive angle: 1. Average voters still pass laws at a significant rate 2. An elite university publishes the study It's very far from perfection but I don't think it's an oligarchy. There is always going to be a bias in favor of the rich. That's what money is for.

thatguy0900 6y ago

Judging by the unanimous and immediate technocrat and media response to the capitol riot I would wager the rich are very concerned about it. I agree noone wealthy seemed all that concerned about the riots before that

Dma54rhs 6y ago
There was no way to spin it off as marketing either, why would they be concerned.

kaitai 6y ago

The best educated voter -- any voter in fact -- can also run for office and transform the party. I dislike the rhetoric you're using that implies the parties are outside and beyond the reach of "normal" citizens. Of course they are institutions with substantial inertia and aims of their own. But as the elections of people as diverse as Cori Bush and Madison Cawthorne and Marjorie Taylor Greene show, it is certainly still possible to make your way from citizen to elected official.

anewaccount2021 6y ago
You need look no further than the concerted and organized effort to shut-down Bernie Sanders twice, and frankly he isn't even particularly radical. No one you mentioned represents a meaningful threat to the status quo - America has a single ruling class and the Capitol is their museum.
- PeterStuer 6y ago
  You could also look at the concerted and organized shut-down of Tulsi Gabbard.
tathougies 6y ago
they are increasingly beyond the reach of normal citizens. If your views do not align 100% with either party, you are increasingly marginalized. See the treatment of Donald Trump (a republican outsider, and not a traditional conservative by any means, but not a democrat in principle either) by the Republican party. For the past four years, republicans have refused to pass bills due to not matching ideological purity tests from Trump. The best example of this is DACA (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/01/09/trump-meets-congressional-leaders-immigration/1016369001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/01/09/trum...), for which Trump has repeatedly asked for a legislative solution that gives these children legal status. Because that is not the exact party line of the GOP, they didn't like his solution. And then along with that, he wanted the wall of course, which doesn't fall into line exactly with the democrats, so now, despite DACA and secure borders being an issue many care about, no political party would take them up due to ideological purity. On the democrat side, see the treatment of Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard (Both non-traditional democrats in different ways) by their party. Honestly, after seeing both how the GOP and Democrats treated Trump, Sanders, and Gabbard, I find myself supportive of all three of them despite them having a very different views. I simply like that they're not either party. It increasingly seems that both parties are becoming incredibly dogmatic, and anyone who doesn't fall in line is simply barred from public discourse or elected office. It is increasingly true that in order to even get to elected office you need the support of a party. In my state of Oregon, the democrats and republicans actually mandated that you be part of a party before being elected to office. You can no longer run as an independent. It's so bad, some people made an 'independent party' just to be able to have non-democrat or republican candidates on the ballot, but this suffers from the same issues as parties, in that those individuals still need to be 'nominated' by a select group of people annointed by the party organizers, which means even the independent party has a bias, even if they try to minimize it. We need major electoral reform, nationwide, but it doesn't benefit any party to do that. What I would like to see are protesters from both BLM, Antifa, or whatever and the capitol protesters (not the rioters of any group please...) band together for a change and demand a better means of governance from their legislators. The people need to band together on common principles, instead of being divided by stupid policy points.
- leesalminen 6y ago
jonhohle 6y ago
Have you been involved in a party’s political process? I participated in a primary caucus for a small district and was disgusted by the leadership and how the event was run. No one was heard, whatever the moderator wanted was how the vote turned out, regardless of how the group actually voted. All of the leadership was among the most smarmy, slimy people I’ve ever been in a room with. If you want to run for office, not only do you have to spend time with these narcissistic, power drunk politicians at the local level, you have to get them to support you. This meeting was on the extreme local level for a community of maybe 35k people. I can’t even imagine what the county level, or national level would be like. Maybe others have had a better experience, but this disillusioned me from any participation in politics and politicians in general.
- root_axis 6y ago
  > disillusioned me from any participation in politics and politicians in general. It's so much easier when the troublemakers show themselves out of the room. Of course, nobody could be blamed for wanting nothing to do with politics, but its only the people who are disgusted by the system that change it.
sdsaga12 6y ago
What do you make of this study by professors from Princeton and Northwestern that finds that "economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence"? Source: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli... What do you make of Jimmy Carter saying in 2014 that "America doesn't have a functioning democracy right now"? Source: https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/nsa-affaere-jimmy-carter-kritisiert-usa-a-911589.html https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/nsa-affaere-jimmy-car... Translated from German: https://archive.is/Lhlq2 https://archive.is/Lhlq2 It might be unpleasant to acknowledge, but there is increasingly overwhelming evidence to suggest that the major American political parties are indeed "outside and beyond the reach of 'normal' citizens". In 2017, the DNC argued in federal court that, as a private corporation, it was entitled to select whichever candidate it preferred for the general election regardless of the preferences of "normal citizens" who voted in the party's primary election. This was in a hearing for a lawsuit filed by Sanders supporters who weren't happy about the DNC working with the Clinton campaign and against the Sanders campaign, as revealed by WikiLeaks. Source: https://ivn.us/posts/dnc-to-court-we-are-a-private-corporation-with-no-obligation-to-follow-our-rules https://ivn.us/posts/dnc-to-court-we-are-a-private-corporati... and, for convenience, https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/independent-voter-network-ivn/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/independent-voter-network-ivn... Growing up in a blue household, social group, and state, I'm less familiar with the history of the anti-democratic machinations of the RNC, but my understanding of the Trump phenomenon was that, at least early on, many Republican voters were attracted to the idea of a political outsider who they hoped wouldn't sell them out like they felt RNC-affiliated Republicans had been doing. Some contemporary sources seem to back up that interpretation: https://archive.fo/2Vidx https://archive.fo/2Vidx (Wall Street Journal) and https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/11/09/election-analysis-hillary-clinton-donald-trump/93198882/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/...
- bob_doggo 6y ago
  You, like many others have some really good arguments to why the current american system doesn't work. But where is the american movement to end the FPTP-voting system?
yosefjaved1 6y ago
It's always been possible for everybody in the US to run for for office but how likely is it without having serious money? Everything from advertising to filing comes with serious cost in US federal election. In Texas alone it costs $3k to just get on a primary ballot for a federal election as a representative. Even the candidates you mentioned had to raise over $1MM just to run their elections. Yes, it's possible just very unlikely if you don't have the cash. Sources: Cori Bush Amount Raised: https://www.opensecrets.org/races/candidates?cycle=2020&id=MO01&spec=N https://www.opensecrets.org/races/candidates?cycle=2020&id=M... Madison Cawthorne Amount Raised: https://www.opensecrets.org/races/candidates?cycle=2020&id=NC11&spec=N https://www.opensecrets.org/races/candidates?cycle=2020&id=N... Marjorie Taylor Amount Raised: https://www.opensecrets.org/races/candidates?cycle=2020&id=GA14&spec=N https://www.opensecrets.org/races/candidates?cycle=2020&id=G... Filing in the 2020 Democratic and Republican Primary: https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/candidates/guide/2020/demorrep2020.shtml https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/candidates/guide/2020/...
syshum 6y ago
Polical Parties are the problem, and can in no way be a solution to the problem To update George Washington for current year: While political parties may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled politicians will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion. If we want better governance in the US, we must limit or eliminate political parties
- jfengel 6y ago
  That's a taller order than it appears. Political parties are, at core, freedom of association: you and I agree to put our differences aside in support of the things we overlap on. I'll support your things if you support mine, and we'll both oppose the others. Once we reach 50% of the people to make that bargain, we'll win everything. Subverting that isn't easy without giving up something that seems necessary. You can eliminate majority rules. You can eliminate freedom of association. You can eliminate voting. Even term limits don't help: you can eliminate the politician but not their constituents, who will find somebody equivalent to send. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's not as simple as "eliminate political parties". Even if you could wish them away with a magic wand, they'd come right back.
bob_doggo 6y ago
Not op, but while you are not wrong, I would argue that the critique of the FPTP-voting system is very relevant here.

cbozeman 6y ago

God, this is true, but most HN posters can't see it for some reason. Princeton already proved America is an oligarchy with a paper that was released a few years back, showing that when the rich wanted a certain policy implemented, it was passed into law at any almost 80% rate, compared with the "average voter" wanting a policy made into law at about a 50% rate. Here's that article: https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi... Now here's what's super telling, or at least should be... if you Google "princeton oligarchy study america" or some combination, the very first fucking result you'll find will be a Vox article saying its wrong. Because the ultra-rich need to perpetuate the myth that your voice matters. Google needs you to be stupid enough to believe that.

linspace 6y ago
The difference between 80% and 50% is very significant but if you want a positive angle: 1. Average voters still pass laws at a significant rate 2. An elite university publishes the study It's very far from perfection but I don't think it's an oligarchy. There is always going to be a bias in favor of the rich. That's what money is for.