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The political supermajority in California is an interesting example of this. I'm a registered Democrat but having a single party dominate every aspect of societ

The political supermajority in California is an interesting example of this. I'm a registered Democrat but having a single party dominate every aspect of society is increasingly narrowing Overton windows and creating homogenized monoculture views amongst those who don't think. Opposition and counterculture is as essential to liberal democracies as free speech imo

bergenty 4y ago
astrange 4y ago
That means almost nothing. If the only party label that gets you elected is Democrat then everyone runs as a Democrat - it’s still the same people. You don’t live in the UK where the party can fire you. They literally have no control over anything. (Everything people blame on this is actually caused by having primary elections, but California uses jungle primaries, which have different incentives.)
- olivermarks 4y ago
  UK politics is essentially run by Whitehall mandarins with elected pols as hood ornaments on the political machines. (Current PM Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson's bizarre life and political 'career' is a particularly good example of this) California is rapidly heading down the same path, not least because the giant bureaucracy has been staffed with layers of supermajority appointments, all headed up by a Getty family hood ornament
Barrin92 4y ago
This kind of thinking can be misleading. Baudrillard made the interesting cold war observation that while the US and the Soviet Union might have seemed superficially like alternatives, they were both part of a meta-stable, static system of nuclear deterrence. In the US struggles between either party might seem fantastic to members of both parties, but anyone outside that Overton window, often people with widely diverse views, dread nothing more. Another way of putting it is that sophisticated systems of control always incorporate their own opposition, which actually provides stability. Lone empires tend to topple over. Taking California as an example, not despite but because of its dominant culture it is more dynamic. Even its real opposition, which is forced to act outside of the system is more interesting, subversive, radical than what you'd find in a 'balanced' state.

bergenty 4y ago

astrange 4y ago

That means almost nothing. If the only party label that gets you elected is Democrat then everyone runs as a Democrat - it’s still the same people. You don’t live in the UK where the party can fire you. They literally have no control over anything. (Everything people blame on this is actually caused by having primary elections, but California uses jungle primaries, which have different incentives.)

olivermarks 4y ago
UK politics is essentially run by Whitehall mandarins with elected pols as hood ornaments on the political machines. (Current PM Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson's bizarre life and political 'career' is a particularly good example of this) California is rapidly heading down the same path, not least because the giant bureaucracy has been staffed with layers of supermajority appointments, all headed up by a Getty family hood ornament

Barrin92 4y ago

This kind of thinking can be misleading. Baudrillard made the interesting cold war observation that while the US and the Soviet Union might have seemed superficially like alternatives, they were both part of a meta-stable, static system of nuclear deterrence. In the US struggles between either party might seem fantastic to members of both parties, but anyone outside that Overton window, often people with widely diverse views, dread nothing more. Another way of putting it is that sophisticated systems of control always incorporate their own opposition, which actually provides stability. Lone empires tend to topple over. Taking California as an example, not despite but because of its dominant culture it is more dynamic. Even its real opposition, which is forced to act outside of the system is more interesting, subversive, radical than what you'd find in a 'balanced' state.