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It's pretty obvious these people simply aren't voting or aren't voting for appropriate representatives. The US is an optional democracy. It doesn't really matte

It's pretty obvious these people simply aren't voting or aren't voting for appropriate representatives. The US is an optional democracy. It doesn't really matter what you answer in these no-stakes surveys if you can't be bothered to show up for them when electing your representatives. If you sent out a survey asking if people wanted free money, you'll probably get a similarly high approval rate. Your revealed preference when you don't vote accordingly is not "deep down I think Congress should legalize marijuana", it's "I don't care". And let's not get carried away, not legalizing marijuana or establishing your preferred healthcare system does not mean the system is "broken". There are ways for people to express that they think the system is broken, but it usually takes more effort than voting accordingly if you're actually right that there is such a strong consensus.

autoexec 4y ago
The problem I see now is that neither party in our two party system have any interest in candidates who are willing to represent the American people. It's nice that in theory we can vote for anyone we want, but the impracticality of that makes it irrelevant. In practice we vote for who they tell us we can vote for. We are essentially not allowed to vote for appropriate representatives. We usually see the frustration with that reality expressed as some form of "Nobody votes for who they want in office, we all just vote against the person we oppose". The problem is widely acknowledged and there have been a number of suggestions like ranked voting systems which would make it more likely for people to be allowed to vote for the candidates they actually want in office, but as you'd expect those elected by our current system have no interest in implementing them. The system may not be entirely broken (it has allowed for things to get accomplished in the past), but because today it consistently fails to represent our interests or meet our needs even over several election cycles there are clearly bugs to be worked out and I think the problems go beyond which particular asses are filling seats in the capitol building. If we had the ability to simply vote our way out of this mess we'd have done it decades ago. That said, I'll agree that far too many people aren't participating in the process, and the longer this goes on the more I think that will change and in fact it has been improving (in presidential elections voter turn out hasn't been this high since the early 90s and for the 18-24 group it hasn't been this high since the early 70s), but that's also why we're seeing an increase in voter suppression.
- themacguffinman 4y ago
  Both parties in the two party system have primaries to choose party candidates. If people don't participate in primaries, they shouldn't be surprised when neither party pays attention to who they want. Anyone can run in primaries and they don't even have to win. The whole primary process is designed to signal to the party and the winning candidate what voters are willing to show up for. "Nobody votes for who they want in office" is a natural result of high political polarization and the inherent polarization in any democracy, when that many voters hold competing and conflicting priorities then of course practically no one gets what they want. Spinning this as some kind of evidence that American democracy is broken makes no sense when this is said about practically every democracy, including democracies that use ranked choice. Ranked choice or any other voting system is not going to change this dynamic where the will of millions of disagreeable voters are condensed into a relatively small committee. Alternative voting systems are a trade-off like any other and at best will just move the needle a bit on a handful of issues. Voter suppression is yet another exaggerated bogeyman, it's largely a fight between two equally well-funded factions and the votes it accounts for pales in comparison to voluntary abstinence. Of course the problems go beyond which particular asses sit in Capitol Hill, it goes right up to the asses that sit in the United States, including the people who promote the distracting fable that the system citizens repeatedly voted for (directly or not) is the fault of other people.
  - autoexec 4y ago
    > Anyone can run in primaries and they don't even have to win. Nope. You need to meet requirements which vary by state. Most require some mix of signatures (often thousands) and fees (can range from hundreds to tens of thousands). The high barrier to entry is another long acknowledged problem (example: https://www.cnn.com/2012/01/22/politics/newcomers-campaign-costs/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2012/01/22/politics/newcomers-campaign-c...) which has only gotten worse. If you want to stand a chance to win (and you'd be a fool to spend the time and money to enter if you didn't) expect to spend many millions. (see https://mcfn.org/node/7427/2020-us-house-races-cost-868-million-a-record https://mcfn.org/node/7427/2020-us-house-races-cost-868-mill...). Go ahead and count the number of people in congress who were living paycheck to paycheck before running for office. Most of them are not millionaires by chance. It's also worth mentioning that primaries are not required to be fair, as we saw when the DNC colluded with Hillary's campaign to undermine her opponent and install their preferred candidate ahead of the 2016 primary election. > Ranked choice or any other voting system is not going to change this dynamic experts disagree with you, and for good reason. There's zero incentive to not vote for the candidate you want in office when your vote will go to your next choice if your preferred choice cannot win. The problem we have now is that we're forced to vote for who is most likely to win no matter how we feel about them. There is research showing it would increase voter turnout and it would also open the door for more than just two parties expanding our options. There are issues that come with ranked choice voting, but the biggest problem is that it confuses voters and that problem can be solved by education and acclimation. > Voter suppression is yet another exaggerated bogeyman Once again, experts disagree with you. I can provide sources if you like. Gerrymandering and other forms of voter suppression have a significant impact on the outcomes of elections in opposition of the will of American voters. In short, people who would not have been elected into office are being elected because voters are silenced. Any scheme intended to prevent eligible American voters from having their votes cast or counted should be abhorrent to anyone who cares about democracy and research shows that the practice hurts voter turnout as well (people whose votes are being rendered meaningless unsurprisingly don't vote as often). For someone who seems so concerned about voter turnout you're awfully dismissive of things which would change that for the better. I don't claim that the American people don't have a role in the decline of our democracy. We certainty have been complacent and we have allowed ourselves to become discouraged and conditioned to accept things as they are, but I can't pretend that the system hasn't been systematically refined over hundreds of years to limit the power of the average citizen to effect change or influence policy and anyone can see that what we have has not been working for us. You vastly overestimate the ability for the average citizen to enact change (see for example: 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...) but the fact that we, that you, haven't been able to do it so far says it all. We all share a responsibility for how things got to where they are, and a responsibility to reform the system which is failing us, but if it's still possible to enact change with the system we have today it's going to be a very difficult fight.

autoexec 4y ago

The problem I see now is that neither party in our two party system have any interest in candidates who are willing to represent the American people. It's nice that in theory we can vote for anyone we want, but the impracticality of that makes it irrelevant. In practice we vote for who they tell us we can vote for. We are essentially not allowed to vote for appropriate representatives. We usually see the frustration with that reality expressed as some form of "Nobody votes for who they want in office, we all just vote against the person we oppose". The problem is widely acknowledged and there have been a number of suggestions like ranked voting systems which would make it more likely for people to be allowed to vote for the candidates they actually want in office, but as you'd expect those elected by our current system have no interest in implementing them. The system may not be entirely broken (it has allowed for things to get accomplished in the past), but because today it consistently fails to represent our interests or meet our needs even over several election cycles there are clearly bugs to be worked out and I think the problems go beyond which particular asses are filling seats in the capitol building. If we had the ability to simply vote our way out of this mess we'd have done it decades ago. That said, I'll agree that far too many people aren't participating in the process, and the longer this goes on the more I think that will change and in fact it has been improving (in presidential elections voter turn out hasn't been this high since the early 90s and for the 18-24 group it hasn't been this high since the early 70s), but that's also why we're seeing an increase in voter suppression.

themacguffinman 4y ago
Both parties in the two party system have primaries to choose party candidates. If people don't participate in primaries, they shouldn't be surprised when neither party pays attention to who they want. Anyone can run in primaries and they don't even have to win. The whole primary process is designed to signal to the party and the winning candidate what voters are willing to show up for. "Nobody votes for who they want in office" is a natural result of high political polarization and the inherent polarization in any democracy, when that many voters hold competing and conflicting priorities then of course practically no one gets what they want. Spinning this as some kind of evidence that American democracy is broken makes no sense when this is said about practically every democracy, including democracies that use ranked choice. Ranked choice or any other voting system is not going to change this dynamic where the will of millions of disagreeable voters are condensed into a relatively small committee. Alternative voting systems are a trade-off like any other and at best will just move the needle a bit on a handful of issues. Voter suppression is yet another exaggerated bogeyman, it's largely a fight between two equally well-funded factions and the votes it accounts for pales in comparison to voluntary abstinence. Of course the problems go beyond which particular asses sit in Capitol Hill, it goes right up to the asses that sit in the United States, including the people who promote the distracting fable that the system citizens repeatedly voted for (directly or not) is the fault of other people.
- autoexec 4y ago
  > Anyone can run in primaries and they don't even have to win. Nope. You need to meet requirements which vary by state. Most require some mix of signatures (often thousands) and fees (can range from hundreds to tens of thousands). The high barrier to entry is another long acknowledged problem (example: https://www.cnn.com/2012/01/22/politics/newcomers-campaign-costs/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2012/01/22/politics/newcomers-campaign-c...) which has only gotten worse. If you want to stand a chance to win (and you'd be a fool to spend the time and money to enter if you didn't) expect to spend many millions. (see https://mcfn.org/node/7427/2020-us-house-races-cost-868-million-a-record https://mcfn.org/node/7427/2020-us-house-races-cost-868-mill...). Go ahead and count the number of people in congress who were living paycheck to paycheck before running for office. Most of them are not millionaires by chance. It's also worth mentioning that primaries are not required to be fair, as we saw when the DNC colluded with Hillary's campaign to undermine her opponent and install their preferred candidate ahead of the 2016 primary election. > Ranked choice or any other voting system is not going to change this dynamic experts disagree with you, and for good reason. There's zero incentive to not vote for the candidate you want in office when your vote will go to your next choice if your preferred choice cannot win. The problem we have now is that we're forced to vote for who is most likely to win no matter how we feel about them. There is research showing it would increase voter turnout and it would also open the door for more than just two parties expanding our options. There are issues that come with ranked choice voting, but the biggest problem is that it confuses voters and that problem can be solved by education and acclimation. > Voter suppression is yet another exaggerated bogeyman Once again, experts disagree with you. I can provide sources if you like. Gerrymandering and other forms of voter suppression have a significant impact on the outcomes of elections in opposition of the will of American voters. In short, people who would not have been elected into office are being elected because voters are silenced. Any scheme intended to prevent eligible American voters from having their votes cast or counted should be abhorrent to anyone who cares about democracy and research shows that the practice hurts voter turnout as well (people whose votes are being rendered meaningless unsurprisingly don't vote as often). For someone who seems so concerned about voter turnout you're awfully dismissive of things which would change that for the better. I don't claim that the American people don't have a role in the decline of our democracy. We certainty have been complacent and we have allowed ourselves to become discouraged and conditioned to accept things as they are, but I can't pretend that the system hasn't been systematically refined over hundreds of years to limit the power of the average citizen to effect change or influence policy and anyone can see that what we have has not been working for us. You vastly overestimate the ability for the average citizen to enact change (see for example: 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...) but the fact that we, that you, haven't been able to do it so far says it all. We all share a responsibility for how things got to where they are, and a responsibility to reform the system which is failing us, but if it's still possible to enact change with the system we have today it's going to be a very difficult fight.