7 ms·

This is politics in a nutshell. People keep voting for the same politicians so they keep the same problems. Power infrastructure is poor? Keep voting for the sa

This is politics in a nutshell. People keep voting for the same politicians so they keep the same problems. Power infrastructure is poor? Keep voting for the same people that made it that way. Lots of violent crime in your city? Keep voting for the people that release criminals back into society immediately. Politics is so binary and broken in this country that we are just making fixable issues into permanent hardships. This is a Dem and Rep problem and more importantly the end result of a 2 party system. That and corruption all the way down.

briffle 3y ago
I understand your point, but if I let the $OTHER party get control, they will work against my beliefs on Abortion and Guns, which are the only 2 beliefs that the parties have together taught me matters...
- bcrosby95 3y ago
  Have you been under a rock the last few years? It's way more than just abortion and guns these days.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- wonderwonder 3y ago
  You are 100% correct. Thats what we are missing. Additional parties that perhaps hold party A's thoughts on Abortion and Guns but maybe share party B's thoughts on immigration or health care or whatever. The country really needs choice. I'm a swing voter, I vote both R and D. To the best of my knowledge I have never met another one in real life. I know they do exist though. I find myself voting one party at the state level and another at the federal level. Both parties have stances I agree and disagree with. I would love a party that does the same.
  - drewchew 3y ago
    Ranked choice voting seems like the only plausible way to introduce nuance into the ballots...
- meinmissoula 3y ago
  The irony of this post. If you over-simplify, stereotype and demean people who disagree with you, you're part of the problem. Honestly if it was that simple, then maybe we should just say no more killing babies and let the hunters shoot their deer and otherwise move forward with the rest of the Democratic party's platform.
  - timeon 3y ago
    > you're part of the problem. Did he voted for people that are responsible for this?
zackmorris 3y ago
Yes but the "both sides" argument is a fallacy. I live in a red state whose natural environment has been devastated by Republican policies for over a century. What people see here today is a remnant of primordial old-growth wilderness. But they think it's natural and how it's always been. Similarly to the way that austerity drives struggle and suffering for working class families, but they continue voting conservative against their own self-interest. The worse it gets, the more they vote Republican. Like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown right as he is about to kick it. Democrats have been pushing for sustainability and a national rollout of renewable energy since at least the 1960s, definitely before the Earth First! movement of the 1980s, and probably all the way back to the strengthening of national parks by Teddy Roosevelt during the Progressive Era around 1900. It's odd to imagine a Republican as an environmentalist today, but there used to be many. That helps us to understand how the parties flipped due to stuff like Nixon's Southern Strategy. We can blame Democrats for urban sprawl, high state sales tax, red tape/overregulation, basic hypocrisy in not living sustainably at an individual level and subscribing to neoliberalism like Republicans. But the economic and environmental problems we face today are mostly a result of decades of anti-sustainability legislation and subsidies for fossil fuel companies by Republicans. To say otherwise is revisionist history and not the academic view IMHO. With the 100 year storms hitting the south every 2-10 years now, the environmental bill is coming due. It's all but certain that some number of southern states will flip blue. It will be interesting to see if that improves their infrastructure, or if it's too late. But I do agree with you about the dysfunction. When the Boomers pass, I wonder if the parties will flip again and introduce a whole new set of wedge issues to argue about incessantly as the world burns.
- wonderwonder 3y ago
  That's exactly my point though. It's only a fallacy because of your particular view on certain topics. For some people it's guns and abortion, for you it's the environment. Imagine the world from the point of view of some one that truly believes that abortion is the murder of little children. I really mean it, just for 30 seconds. We all have these core issues that we hold most dear and assume others must as well. Many people care far more about social issues than the environment or taxation or whatever their 'it' is. Having only 2 parties forces us to choose the party that best represents our 'it' but to also vote for the myriad of other policies we may disagree with. We very much dislike the other party though because they have the opposite stance on our 'it'. "It's all but certain that some number of southern states will flip blue" Florida is redder than ever. I encourage you to pause and reflect on the why of that. It's very much not because the voters are stupid, they have other 'its' that are important to them.

briffle 3y ago

I understand your point, but if I let the $OTHER party get control, they will work against my beliefs on Abortion and Guns, which are the only 2 beliefs that the parties have together taught me matters...

bcrosby95 3y ago
Have you been under a rock the last few years? It's way more than just abortion and guns these days.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
wonderwonder 3y ago
You are 100% correct. Thats what we are missing. Additional parties that perhaps hold party A's thoughts on Abortion and Guns but maybe share party B's thoughts on immigration or health care or whatever. The country really needs choice. I'm a swing voter, I vote both R and D. To the best of my knowledge I have never met another one in real life. I know they do exist though. I find myself voting one party at the state level and another at the federal level. Both parties have stances I agree and disagree with. I would love a party that does the same.
- drewchew 3y ago
  Ranked choice voting seems like the only plausible way to introduce nuance into the ballots...
meinmissoula 3y ago
The irony of this post. If you over-simplify, stereotype and demean people who disagree with you, you're part of the problem. Honestly if it was that simple, then maybe we should just say no more killing babies and let the hunters shoot their deer and otherwise move forward with the rest of the Democratic party's platform.
- timeon 3y ago
  > you're part of the problem. Did he voted for people that are responsible for this?

zackmorris 3y ago

Yes but the "both sides" argument is a fallacy. I live in a red state whose natural environment has been devastated by Republican policies for over a century. What people see here today is a remnant of primordial old-growth wilderness. But they think it's natural and how it's always been. Similarly to the way that austerity drives struggle and suffering for working class families, but they continue voting conservative against their own self-interest. The worse it gets, the more they vote Republican. Like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown right as he is about to kick it. Democrats have been pushing for sustainability and a national rollout of renewable energy since at least the 1960s, definitely before the Earth First! movement of the 1980s, and probably all the way back to the strengthening of national parks by Teddy Roosevelt during the Progressive Era around 1900. It's odd to imagine a Republican as an environmentalist today, but there used to be many. That helps us to understand how the parties flipped due to stuff like Nixon's Southern Strategy. We can blame Democrats for urban sprawl, high state sales tax, red tape/overregulation, basic hypocrisy in not living sustainably at an individual level and subscribing to neoliberalism like Republicans. But the economic and environmental problems we face today are mostly a result of decades of anti-sustainability legislation and subsidies for fossil fuel companies by Republicans. To say otherwise is revisionist history and not the academic view IMHO. With the 100 year storms hitting the south every 2-10 years now, the environmental bill is coming due. It's all but certain that some number of southern states will flip blue. It will be interesting to see if that improves their infrastructure, or if it's too late. But I do agree with you about the dysfunction. When the Boomers pass, I wonder if the parties will flip again and introduce a whole new set of wedge issues to argue about incessantly as the world burns.

wonderwonder 3y ago
That's exactly my point though. It's only a fallacy because of your particular view on certain topics. For some people it's guns and abortion, for you it's the environment. Imagine the world from the point of view of some one that truly believes that abortion is the murder of little children. I really mean it, just for 30 seconds. We all have these core issues that we hold most dear and assume others must as well. Many people care far more about social issues than the environment or taxation or whatever their 'it' is. Having only 2 parties forces us to choose the party that best represents our 'it' but to also vote for the myriad of other policies we may disagree with. We very much dislike the other party though because they have the opposite stance on our 'it'. "It's all but certain that some number of southern states will flip blue" Florida is redder than ever. I encourage you to pause and reflect on the why of that. It's very much not because the voters are stupid, they have other 'its' that are important to them.