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They are a reflection of the electorate. If you don’t want crazy and incompetent, don’t vote for it. If you get what you voted for, don’t be sad about it, it’s

They are a reflection of the electorate. If you don’t want crazy and incompetent, don’t vote for it. If you get what you voted for, don’t be sad about it, it’s what you voted for. Regime change will come with time, but it’s going to suck for a while because of this governance failure mode.

denkmoon 8mo ago
A fair position if the electoral system weren't a complete shambles. When gerrymandering is openly used as a weapon by the only two parties, it's pretty clearly not working. Of course, change is impossible without a complete dissolution of governance in the US.
- toomuchtodo 8mo ago
  ~89 million eligible voters did not vote in the last presidential election. “Fuck around find out”, and we are at the “find out” stage. This was a collective choice. So if you didn’t vote, or you voted for this, you voted for this. Enjoy the ride. https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-11-15/how-many-people-didnt-vote-in-the-2024-election https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-11-1...
  - fzeroracer 8mo ago
    What percentage of those eligible voters do you think would've mattered? For example I lived in WA and voted, how much do you think my vote mattered over an entire red county of 100 people voting for Trump? Our electoral system is designed to disenfranchise the most populated areas.
    - hedora 8mo ago
      Trump got less than 50% of the vote, and less than a third of eligible voters voted for him. The real issue is that the two parties have created a situation where you cannot vote for a viable candidate. Case in point: approximately a dozen democratic senators have come out in support of the war. Like, if you don’t want to intentionally bring about the apocalypse/nuclear holocaust, and you live in those states, the only way to avoid voting for those things is to not vote. You can try getting your incumbent kicked out in the primaries, but that’s a dangerous game in swing states. In your case (WA) you absolutely should vote in the primary for the farthest left democrat possible. We probably should switch to multi-party proportional representation at some point.
      - bubblewand 8mo ago
        This is the right idea. Under-appreciated is that voting in the federal general elections is the point at which you have the least effect on anything. Earlier (primaries) and more local (all those elections way fewer people go to because there are no nationally-covered races on it) is far more effective at actually affecting the world. Someone who votes in all of those and skips the federal general bubbles is a more-effective voter than someone who does the opposite and only votes for the big federal offices (and those are the only ones people will commonly shame you for skipping, which is really backwards)
    - toomuchtodo 8mo ago
      More voters 55+ will have died in a year (~2M/year) since he was elected to office than was the margin of victory. High single digit percentage points of eligible voters who did not vote. Ahh, well, it is what it is. We take the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.
  - denkmoon 8mo ago
    I can understand why someone would choose not to participate in an unrepresentative electoral process. Here in the authoritarian hellhole that is the Commonwealth of Australia, showing up to the voting booth is mandatory. We also have preferential voting, and in a few jurisdictions we even have proportional representation.
    - ggm 8mo ago
      "authoritarian hellhole" as in Jon Kudelka's "Tasmania is awful don't come here" hellhole. In these times, I think humour does not work well in written communications without a flag. It's not a hellhole, and it's no more authoritarian now, than it was when I came here in 1988.
      - denkmoon 8mo ago
        Sorry you got downvoted for explaining my sarcasm :| No idea why, you’re exactly right
        actionfromafar 8mo ago
        The downvoters thought you were dog-whistlin' for them.
  - cykros 8mo ago
    Yea...forgive me for doubting that Genocide Joe's MK-Ultra'd lieutenant would not have us similarly murderous.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
fzeroracer 8mo ago
I wouldn't say it's a reflection of the electorate. There's a lot of states that have been gerrymandered for years and Christians in extremely red areas have outsized voting power compared to everywhere else. Combined with the complete media capture by billionaires, the dumbest rule by fiat. Unfortunately Christian nationalists happen to be extremely wealthy and extremely stupid.
- diogenescynic 8mo ago
  >There's a lot of states that have been gerrymandered for years and Christians in extremely red areas have outsized voting power compared to everywhere else. Combined with the complete media capture by billionaires, the dumbest rule by fiat. It's happening on both sides. https://www.npr.org/2026/01/14/nx-s1-5647442/midterm-elections-redistricting-trump-california https://www.npr.org/2026/01/14/nx-s1-5647442/midterm-electio... We the public should be rejecting it, but we're idiots and keep falling for 'but they're doing it!' and then undermine our own political power to 'own' the other side. We're being played for fools.
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
  - fzeroracer 8mo ago
    It's happening on both sides now because the Supreme Court has signed off on it for years and given all the power to gerrymandering efforts from the right. The public can't reject what is unaccountable to said public.
  - tzs 8mo ago
    That's a ridiculous comparison. The California special redistricting was done via a voter initiative that was approved by a majority of California voters, and imposes a temporary change on the rules for drawing districts that reverts to the neutral rules when after the next census. It was specifically proposed to counter the Texas special redistricting which was done by the Texas legislature and government with no concern over whether or not Texas voters approved (and polls show that more Texas voters disapprove than approve).
JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
> If you don’t want crazy and incompetent, don’t vote for it We have less of a problem with crazies voting for crazies than non-crazies not voting. Because if the crazies can find compromise with someone approximately as crazy as them while the non-crazies are either too lazy to turn out or unable to get out of stitches because the less-crazy candidate disagrees with them on two issues, the crazies win.
- Schmerika 8mo ago
  Was arming genocide in Gaza sane? Even if you have no moral red line whatsoever, that decision was still certain to lose millions of votes in swing states... Because millions of voters do have morality, even in America. America's problems are far bigger than whether people vote or not. The insanity is thoroughly bipartisan. Look at the Democrats giving Trump standing ovations while he talked about military action in Iran last week! It's just a matter of degree: Genocide, or genocide+. ICE, or ICE+. Do you want your fossil fuel subsidies massive or ginormous. Techno-feudalism, or turbo techno-feudalism. Those aren't sane options. It's not sane to accept them. The idea that we could elect Democrats and "push them left" "once the fire was out" was thoroughly disproved shortly after October 7th - if not before then, when Trump's insurrection prosecution for was slow-rolled; or when we decided that the correct legal procedure was to let Garland sit on the Epstein files for 4 years. So... Maybe diminishing one half of the problem as 'insane', but not the other half because it's slightly better, is doomed to failure. Either way the crazies win.
  - _DeadFred_ 8mo ago
    "I refuse to wear glasses, they don't give me perfect vision and they don't fix my underlying eyesight problem"
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
gruez 8mo ago
But only around a quarter of Americans support the war?
- treetalker 8mo ago
  *special Judeo-Christian operation

denkmoon 8mo ago

A fair position if the electoral system weren't a complete shambles. When gerrymandering is openly used as a weapon by the only two parties, it's pretty clearly not working. Of course, change is impossible without a complete dissolution of governance in the US.

toomuchtodo 8mo ago
~89 million eligible voters did not vote in the last presidential election. “Fuck around find out”, and we are at the “find out” stage. This was a collective choice. So if you didn’t vote, or you voted for this, you voted for this. Enjoy the ride. https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-11-15/how-many-people-didnt-vote-in-the-2024-election https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-11-1...
- fzeroracer 8mo ago
  What percentage of those eligible voters do you think would've mattered? For example I lived in WA and voted, how much do you think my vote mattered over an entire red county of 100 people voting for Trump? Our electoral system is designed to disenfranchise the most populated areas.
  - hedora 8mo ago
    Trump got less than 50% of the vote, and less than a third of eligible voters voted for him. The real issue is that the two parties have created a situation where you cannot vote for a viable candidate. Case in point: approximately a dozen democratic senators have come out in support of the war. Like, if you don’t want to intentionally bring about the apocalypse/nuclear holocaust, and you live in those states, the only way to avoid voting for those things is to not vote. You can try getting your incumbent kicked out in the primaries, but that’s a dangerous game in swing states. In your case (WA) you absolutely should vote in the primary for the farthest left democrat possible. We probably should switch to multi-party proportional representation at some point.
    - bubblewand 8mo ago
      This is the right idea. Under-appreciated is that voting in the federal general elections is the point at which you have the least effect on anything. Earlier (primaries) and more local (all those elections way fewer people go to because there are no nationally-covered races on it) is far more effective at actually affecting the world. Someone who votes in all of those and skips the federal general bubbles is a more-effective voter than someone who does the opposite and only votes for the big federal offices (and those are the only ones people will commonly shame you for skipping, which is really backwards)
  - toomuchtodo 8mo ago
    More voters 55+ will have died in a year (~2M/year) since he was elected to office than was the margin of victory. High single digit percentage points of eligible voters who did not vote. Ahh, well, it is what it is. We take the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.
- denkmoon 8mo ago
  I can understand why someone would choose not to participate in an unrepresentative electoral process. Here in the authoritarian hellhole that is the Commonwealth of Australia, showing up to the voting booth is mandatory. We also have preferential voting, and in a few jurisdictions we even have proportional representation.
  - ggm 8mo ago
    "authoritarian hellhole" as in Jon Kudelka's "Tasmania is awful don't come here" hellhole. In these times, I think humour does not work well in written communications without a flag. It's not a hellhole, and it's no more authoritarian now, than it was when I came here in 1988.
    - denkmoon 8mo ago
      Sorry you got downvoted for explaining my sarcasm :| No idea why, you’re exactly right
      - actionfromafar 8mo ago
        The downvoters thought you were dog-whistlin' for them.
- cykros 8mo ago
  Yea...forgive me for doubting that Genocide Joe's MK-Ultra'd lieutenant would not have us similarly murderous.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]

fzeroracer 8mo ago

I wouldn't say it's a reflection of the electorate. There's a lot of states that have been gerrymandered for years and Christians in extremely red areas have outsized voting power compared to everywhere else. Combined with the complete media capture by billionaires, the dumbest rule by fiat. Unfortunately Christian nationalists happen to be extremely wealthy and extremely stupid.

diogenescynic 8mo ago
>There's a lot of states that have been gerrymandered for years and Christians in extremely red areas have outsized voting power compared to everywhere else. Combined with the complete media capture by billionaires, the dumbest rule by fiat. It's happening on both sides. https://www.npr.org/2026/01/14/nx-s1-5647442/midterm-elections-redistricting-trump-california https://www.npr.org/2026/01/14/nx-s1-5647442/midterm-electio... We the public should be rejecting it, but we're idiots and keep falling for 'but they're doing it!' and then undermine our own political power to 'own' the other side. We're being played for fools.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- fzeroracer 8mo ago
  It's happening on both sides now because the Supreme Court has signed off on it for years and given all the power to gerrymandering efforts from the right. The public can't reject what is unaccountable to said public.
- tzs 8mo ago
  That's a ridiculous comparison. The California special redistricting was done via a voter initiative that was approved by a majority of California voters, and imposes a temporary change on the rules for drawing districts that reverts to the neutral rules when after the next census. It was specifically proposed to counter the Texas special redistricting which was done by the Texas legislature and government with no concern over whether or not Texas voters approved (and polls show that more Texas voters disapprove than approve).

JumpCrisscross 8mo ago

> If you don’t want crazy and incompetent, don’t vote for it We have less of a problem with crazies voting for crazies than non-crazies not voting. Because if the crazies can find compromise with someone approximately as crazy as them while the non-crazies are either too lazy to turn out or unable to get out of stitches because the less-crazy candidate disagrees with them on two issues, the crazies win.

Schmerika 8mo ago
Was arming genocide in Gaza sane? Even if you have no moral red line whatsoever, that decision was still certain to lose millions of votes in swing states... Because millions of voters do have morality, even in America. America's problems are far bigger than whether people vote or not. The insanity is thoroughly bipartisan. Look at the Democrats giving Trump standing ovations while he talked about military action in Iran last week! It's just a matter of degree: Genocide, or genocide+. ICE, or ICE+. Do you want your fossil fuel subsidies massive or ginormous. Techno-feudalism, or turbo techno-feudalism. Those aren't sane options. It's not sane to accept them. The idea that we could elect Democrats and "push them left" "once the fire was out" was thoroughly disproved shortly after October 7th - if not before then, when Trump's insurrection prosecution for was slow-rolled; or when we decided that the correct legal procedure was to let Garland sit on the Epstein files for 4 years. So... Maybe diminishing one half of the problem as 'insane', but not the other half because it's slightly better, is doomed to failure. Either way the crazies win.
- _DeadFred_ 8mo ago
  "I refuse to wear glasses, they don't give me perfect vision and they don't fix my underlying eyesight problem"
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]

gruez 8mo ago

But only around a quarter of Americans support the war?

treetalker 8mo ago
*special Judeo-Christian operation