The right thinks the left is going to force their kids to get sex changes, the center and left see the right as wanting to end voting rights
the center and left see the right as wanting to end voting rights
It's less of "see the right" and more of "has observed the right". We just had Moore v. Harper which had republicans pushing the independent state legislature theory where they argued state legislatures had sole authority to decide how elections are conducted and could change the rules however they wanted. Even if it meant disenfranchising voters. Thankfully SCOTUS shot it down.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear. By see I meant literally see it happen before their eyes. See=observe
Nah, you're cool. A little bit of a fail on my part. I'm hyped up on caffeine and see the change in your sentence from "thinks" to "see".
Meanwhile the actual left is largely ignored.
Right view of Left: satanist groomers
Right view of Center: sheeple
Right view of Right: "you're white enough, you can date my daughter if I can date yours"
Center view of Left: unionized HR professionals with blue hair
Center view of Center: ordinary chill folks
Center view of Right: scary uncles and/or scary incels
Left view of Left: splitters!
Left view of Center: sheeple
Left view of Right: "you realize y'all are actual fucking Nazi pedos, yeah?"
As a center person, this is how I feel as well.
They really are Nazi pedos, though.
Yeah, but the alternative is working with the union instead of against it, so...
Lmao nailed it
Exactly. Talking heads on Fox or the legion of alpha male/libtards destroyed podcasts will bitch and moan endlessly about problems that only exist in their own vile imaginations, while everyone else is scrambling (or slowly shuffling in the neoliberal grandpa section of the Democratic Party's leadership) to fix everything those manchildren keep breaking whenever they're given a nickel from a lobbyist.
We haven't had real democracy since Dubya stole office; who are we even kidding anymore?
Speaking in terms of economic power, we pretty much haven't had real democracy ever.
Sad but true; ultimately capitalism can't allow democracy. Its end goal is just feudalism with extra steps.
you'd have to go back a lot further than that - pre-lincoln
Do tell?
eh, democracy is fine but the current batch of politicians are fucked. we need to get a batch of under 50 year old folks in congress/senate/white house. enough of these 70+ year old geezers.
Hard to be pessimistic about something that doesn't exist. The US is not a democracy and never has been. Our votes are not equal and there are many institutions in place to ensure that our vote can just not matter whenever is convenient for those in power, both on state and federal levels.
Edit: remember when we voted for the Supreme Court members? Lol. It's all a joke fam.
Quick Civics Lesson: A Representative Republic IS a form of democracy. Saying the United States isn't a democracy is false.
Exactly. It's an imperfect democracy with some anti-democratic institutions, for sure-- but to say it's not a democracy is simply not accurate.
Oh no, think of the accuracy! Be blind to what your eyes see as long as you can cling to a definition you learned in grade school that was propaganda to begin with lmao.
It's like if a nail salon is a front for money laundering and I say "hey that nail salon is a front!" and the pedants come back with "ACK-shually, that is indeed a nail salon." No fucking shit. It's true purpose is a front, despite the fact that it functions as a nail salon AND a front.
The US is functioning as intended, with a thin veneer of "democracy" to keep it "legitimate" in the eyes of the world.
You realize the right wing spends billions on spreading that exact propaganda line among the left, because every left-leaning person they manage to blackpill means one less vote against their candidates in the next election, right?
Alternate take: you wouldn't be able to blackpill people on the left if the democrat party actually showed up and executed policy that makes the working people's lives easier. Republicans can push this propaganda because, like most propaganda, there is a nugget of truth at the core. The state doesn't give a shit about "we the people" except for the cases where "people" are corporations.
the democrat party
You Republicans are really fucking bad at pretending to be left-leaning.
You realize that this line of thinking basically boils down to "blackpilled leftists are too stupid to form their own ideology and conclusions and are mere puppets of the right wing", right?
It's really condescending and I wish liberal democrats spent half the effort actually fighting the right wing as they did anyone even slightly to their left.
My brother in Christ, I spend orders of magnitude more time and effort working IRL to keep Republicans out of office than I do arguing with you guys online. In fact, the only reason I'm still interacting with you is because I think you're a decent person who just has a difference of opinion than me. I don't argue with right wingers online because there's no point, it's block and report on sight. Save your energy for the real battles in the real world, ya know?
I will say that some states have a lot more democratic abilities than others.
Lack of voting is one problem, but the overarching problem is how we select our representatives. We have a two party system with winner takes all elections which cements the two party system. You pretty much have to vote for one party or the other otherwise you're essentially throwing away your vote. Personally, I think a system like ranked choice would be an improvement. At least then you could vote your conscience, and if your first choice doesn't make it then your vote goes towards your 2nd, 3rd, etc. A system like that should produce a result that is closer to the ideological center of the voters.
Ribbit
You have to vote to change all that too. You think people would?
You have to vote to change all that too.
I think if you crack open a history book you'll find that the vast, VAST majority of changes did not come about by voting. Historically it hasn't done much at all, actually.
I think that shows you don't know much about history.
Lol. Okay.
Oh no, now they’re burning cars! Why don’t they just vote? As if they aren’t already doing that.
Ranked Choice is about the worst voting system designed. Possible only beaten by Plurality.
The TLDR is that Ranked Choice is complex, meaning that it cannot be counted at the polling location. It must be counted at a single location, which is a single point of failure. This has led to real world failures in the 2011 Alameda County election and the 2021 NYC Mayoral Election.
Note that these were direct failures that were only possible under Ranked Choice.
Then there are cases like the 2009 Burlington Mayoral election that resulted in the repeal of their Ranked Choice election laws.
Which is the main issue I have with the system. It's so bad that it actually sets voting reform efforts back. It makes it that much harder to implement an actually good voting system.
I am currently recommending STAR. It's easy to understand because everyone knows how 5-star reviews work. It's easy to count, because it's just addition, and then a second round of addition. It can be counted at the polling locations, so there's no single point of failure.
Australia chiming in here. I'd encourage you to dive into how counting works over here.
I've worked at poling places several times.
We have ranked choice voting. Always have as far as I know.
We definitely undertake a first count at the poling place. It is then send to a hub location and verified, then if close enough it is recounted.
For many poling places there is a large clear majority so the ranked choices do not impact the outcome.
For those that are close, there are many recounts with a significant amount of redundancy and scrutiny.
I remember watching tutorial videos from the Australian Electoral Commission when I started, not sure if they are publicly available but they would be a great starting point for you!
.
I know that the counting can be better. However, that wouldn't fix what happened in Burlington.
That case is an example of how fucked the system is when everything is working as intended. The result was so bad that Burlington repealed their Ranked Choice law, because in that election, Plurality would have given a better result.
It really says something about a system when Plurality can do a better job.
Then there's the fact that Ranked Choice doesn't actually get rid of the spoiler effect, or really encourage the growth of viable third parties. Which are the two major claims about the system.
And the very worst part of the system, ballot exhaustion. Imagine that you're only allowed to rank 5 candidates and there are a dozen in the running. Now imagine that your 2nd through 5th choices are eliminated before your 1st choice is. At the 6th round, you might as well not have cast a ballot, but if your 1st choice was eliminated first, one of your other choices could have won.
if one could vote without being signed up for a lot of ancillary bullshit, more people would vote. I personally am not registered to vote in the state I live in because I dont want anything to do with the jury system.
Perhaps it has something to do with how popular policies aren't passed but unpopular policies are?
The United States is controlled by oligarchs who are above the law. Big Tech is censoring everyone and gathering data on everyone for law enforcement agencies.
American's are caught up in so much BS that doesn't matter. We aren't even capable of focusing on what does matter. All the facts are right there in front of us but we ignore them. We are turning away from science and returning to superstition and religious fanaticism. This whole republic/democracy experiment thing needs competent, clear thinking people to keep it together. It doesnt matter if they are believers or not, they just need to be sane. There seems to be less and less of those people running around or at least speaking up about it. If we keep going down the road we are going now, there is no hope for us. We may have already lost the battle and just dont realize it yet.
I don't think the US has ever not been overly religious. Most of its history has been full of religious people doing terrible things and framing social issues in religious terms.
Colonization? Religion. Ethnic cleansing of the natives? Religion. Manifest destiny? Religion. The Mexican-American war? Religion. Prohibition? Religion. The Red Scare? Religion. The Ku Klux Klan and other racists? Better believe it's religion.
Sure vote, but don't fool yourselves that it has a very significant influence. The degree of manipulation by gerrymandering, partisan structures, bias toward rural southern states in the electoral college, and billionaire corporate dark money spending leaves the actual accuracy of voting in question.
Voting is basically the little brother playing the video game in "2 player" mode even though the controller is not plugged in scenario. That's what being working class in the US feels like lol
Yeah, Ohio is so messed up. So many times the map was shot down, but they used it anyway. It's unjust.
There is no democracy in the United States, the ultra rich just gather in the same room and throw money at the table to decide the next president.
I really think we are almost at taxation without representation, we should look into that
lol what are you gonna do, protest? rofl
I can't possibly imagine why!
Maybe it's time to rethink everything, and stop acting like we can just go back to brunch.
It'd work a lot better if y'all would read a book and we started getting rid of shit like the electoral college. And Congress. And the Supreme Court. And the presidency.
Seriously. We're living in the 21st century. Why are us citizens not the ones voting for every law and policy change? Just spitballing here, but maybe we could use one of those computers we all keep in our pockets?
Will they get off the couch and VOTE this time?
The last two Republican presidents were installed while receiving less votes than the Democrat. If Democrats had spent the past 23 years blaming a rigged system, and trying to change it, rather than vote-shaming and insulting the general public and their intelligence (by claiming that they don't, in fact, vote more than Republicans), maybe they'd have actually gotten something done by now.
That assumes the idea that they actually want to get anything done other than send out more emails about how your 27 dollars is vital to the fight against fascism.
Yes, and that happened because of the dismal Vote participation.
Election Voting-age population (VAP) Turnout as % of VAP
2008 229,945,000 57.1%
2012 235,248,000 53.8%
2016 249,422,000 54.8%
2020 257,605,088 62.0%
8% was the entire difference between 45 having a second disaster.
No, it happened because we have an extremely stupid system, which was designed by slave owners, racists, sexists and violent criminals (men who raped their slaves, genocidal maniacs, etc) to restrict who is allowed to vote and allow someone who gets less votes to win the presidency, and the democrats have spent a quarter century not saying a word about it despite it happening twice in that period. Please try to focus the blame where it belongs. Well designed modern democracies DO NOT have this problem.
The United States was fundamentally broken, immoral and undemocratic from day one, and no amount of ranting on the internet about how it's the public's fault 250 years later will change that fact. This entire thread exists because people are rapidly losing faith and trust in the legitimacy of the system that was built upon that foundation.
The right thinks the left is going to force their kids to get sex changes, the center and left see the right as wanting to end voting rights
It's less of "see the right" and more of "has observed the right". We just had Moore v. Harper which had republicans pushing the independent state legislature theory where they argued state legislatures had sole authority to decide how elections are conducted and could change the rules however they wanted. Even if it meant disenfranchising voters. Thankfully SCOTUS shot it down.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear. By see I meant literally see it happen before their eyes. See=observe
Nah, you're cool. A little bit of a fail on my part. I'm hyped up on caffeine and see the change in your sentence from "thinks" to "see".
Meanwhile the actual left is largely ignored.
Right view of Left: satanist groomers
Right view of Center: sheeple
Right view of Right: "you're white enough, you can date my daughter if I can date yours"
Center view of Left: unionized HR professionals with blue hair
Center view of Center: ordinary chill folks
Center view of Right: scary uncles and/or scary incels
Left view of Left: splitters!
Left view of Center: sheeple
Left view of Right: "you realize y'all are actual fucking Nazi pedos, yeah?"
As a center person, this is how I feel as well.
They really are Nazi pedos, though.
Yeah, but the alternative is working with the union instead of against it, so...
Lmao nailed it
Exactly. Talking heads on Fox or the legion of alpha male/libtards destroyed podcasts will bitch and moan endlessly about problems that only exist in their own vile imaginations, while everyone else is scrambling (or slowly shuffling in the neoliberal grandpa section of the Democratic Party's leadership) to fix everything those manchildren keep breaking whenever they're given a nickel from a lobbyist.
We haven't had real democracy since Dubya stole office; who are we even kidding anymore?
Speaking in terms of economic power, we pretty much haven't had real democracy ever.
Sad but true; ultimately capitalism can't allow democracy. Its end goal is just feudalism with extra steps.
you'd have to go back a lot further than that - pre-lincoln
Do tell?
eh, democracy is fine but the current batch of politicians are fucked. we need to get a batch of under 50 year old folks in congress/senate/white house. enough of these 70+ year old geezers.
Hard to be pessimistic about something that doesn't exist. The US is not a democracy and never has been. Our votes are not equal and there are many institutions in place to ensure that our vote can just not matter whenever is convenient for those in power, both on state and federal levels.
Edit: remember when we voted for the Supreme Court members? Lol. It's all a joke fam.
Quick Civics Lesson: A Representative Republic IS a form of democracy. Saying the United States isn't a democracy is false.
Exactly. It's an imperfect democracy with some anti-democratic institutions, for sure-- but to say it's not a democracy is simply not accurate.
Oh no, think of the accuracy! Be blind to what your eyes see as long as you can cling to a definition you learned in grade school that was propaganda to begin with lmao.
It's like if a nail salon is a front for money laundering and I say "hey that nail salon is a front!" and the pedants come back with "ACK-shually, that is indeed a nail salon." No fucking shit. It's true purpose is a front, despite the fact that it functions as a nail salon AND a front.
The US is functioning as intended, with a thin veneer of "democracy" to keep it "legitimate" in the eyes of the world.
You realize the right wing spends billions on spreading that exact propaganda line among the left, because every left-leaning person they manage to blackpill means one less vote against their candidates in the next election, right?
Alternate take: you wouldn't be able to blackpill people on the left if the democrat party actually showed up and executed policy that makes the working people's lives easier. Republicans can push this propaganda because, like most propaganda, there is a nugget of truth at the core. The state doesn't give a shit about "we the people" except for the cases where "people" are corporations.
You Republicans are really fucking bad at pretending to be left-leaning.
You realize that this line of thinking basically boils down to "blackpilled leftists are too stupid to form their own ideology and conclusions and are mere puppets of the right wing", right?
It's really condescending and I wish liberal democrats spent half the effort actually fighting the right wing as they did anyone even slightly to their left.
My brother in Christ, I spend orders of magnitude more time and effort working IRL to keep Republicans out of office than I do arguing with you guys online. In fact, the only reason I'm still interacting with you is because I think you're a decent person who just has a difference of opinion than me. I don't argue with right wingers online because there's no point, it's block and report on sight. Save your energy for the real battles in the real world, ya know?
I will say that some states have a lot more democratic abilities than others.
There are always more equals.
Ribbit
Lack of voting is one problem, but the overarching problem is how we select our representatives. We have a two party system with winner takes all elections which cements the two party system. You pretty much have to vote for one party or the other otherwise you're essentially throwing away your vote. Personally, I think a system like ranked choice would be an improvement. At least then you could vote your conscience, and if your first choice doesn't make it then your vote goes towards your 2nd, 3rd, etc. A system like that should produce a result that is closer to the ideological center of the voters.
Ribbit
You have to vote to change all that too. You think people would?
I think if you crack open a history book you'll find that the vast, VAST majority of changes did not come about by voting. Historically it hasn't done much at all, actually.
I think that shows you don't know much about history.
Lol. Okay.
Oh no, now they’re burning cars! Why don’t they just vote? As if they aren’t already doing that.
Ranked Choice is about the worst voting system designed. Possible only beaten by Plurality.
This 3-hour long video goes pretty in depth on why it's horrendously bad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-dzK3YIAf8
The TLDR is that Ranked Choice is complex, meaning that it cannot be counted at the polling location. It must be counted at a single location, which is a single point of failure. This has led to real world failures in the 2011 Alameda County election and the 2021 NYC Mayoral Election.
Note that these were direct failures that were only possible under Ranked Choice.
Then there are cases like the 2009 Burlington Mayoral election that resulted in the repeal of their Ranked Choice election laws.
Which is the main issue I have with the system. It's so bad that it actually sets voting reform efforts back. It makes it that much harder to implement an actually good voting system.
I am currently recommending STAR. It's easy to understand because everyone knows how 5-star reviews work. It's easy to count, because it's just addition, and then a second round of addition. It can be counted at the polling locations, so there's no single point of failure.
Australia chiming in here. I'd encourage you to dive into how counting works over here.
I've worked at poling places several times.
We have ranked choice voting. Always have as far as I know.
We definitely undertake a first count at the poling place. It is then send to a hub location and verified, then if close enough it is recounted.
For many poling places there is a large clear majority so the ranked choices do not impact the outcome.
For those that are close, there are many recounts with a significant amount of redundancy and scrutiny.
I remember watching tutorial videos from the Australian Electoral Commission when I started, not sure if they are publicly available but they would be a great starting point for you!
.
I know that the counting can be better. However, that wouldn't fix what happened in Burlington.
That case is an example of how fucked the system is when everything is working as intended. The result was so bad that Burlington repealed their Ranked Choice law, because in that election, Plurality would have given a better result.
It really says something about a system when Plurality can do a better job.
Then there's the fact that Ranked Choice doesn't actually get rid of the spoiler effect, or really encourage the growth of viable third parties. Which are the two major claims about the system.
And the very worst part of the system, ballot exhaustion. Imagine that you're only allowed to rank 5 candidates and there are a dozen in the running. Now imagine that your 2nd through 5th choices are eliminated before your 1st choice is. At the 6th round, you might as well not have cast a ballot, but if your 1st choice was eliminated first, one of your other choices could have won.
Ballot exhaustion means that an average of 10% of the vote is just thrown away. Those people's opinions don't matter, they might as well have not voted at all.
Elections in the states are often won by less than 10%. I can say with certainty that RCV has elected the wrong people, time after time.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=O-dzK3YIAf8
https://piped.video/watch?v=O-dzK3YIAf8
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
A huge chunk of Trump supporters never voted before he ran, watch out for what you wish for.
That was also how Bush won in 2004. He expanded the electorate. There was also a bunch of other crap going on, but that was crucial to his win.
Check turnout. Even in presidential elections, we rarely get more than 1/3 of the eligible voters to actually cast a ballot.
Voting doesn’t matter when your only choices are bevis and butt head. That is by design.
Ribbit
if one could vote without being signed up for a lot of ancillary bullshit, more people would vote. I personally am not registered to vote in the state I live in because I dont want anything to do with the jury system.
Perhaps it has something to do with how popular policies aren't passed but unpopular policies are?
The United States is controlled by oligarchs who are above the law. Big Tech is censoring everyone and gathering data on everyone for law enforcement agencies.
American's are caught up in so much BS that doesn't matter. We aren't even capable of focusing on what does matter. All the facts are right there in front of us but we ignore them. We are turning away from science and returning to superstition and religious fanaticism. This whole republic/democracy experiment thing needs competent, clear thinking people to keep it together. It doesnt matter if they are believers or not, they just need to be sane. There seems to be less and less of those people running around or at least speaking up about it. If we keep going down the road we are going now, there is no hope for us. We may have already lost the battle and just dont realize it yet.
I don't think the US has ever not been overly religious. Most of its history has been full of religious people doing terrible things and framing social issues in religious terms.
Colonization? Religion. Ethnic cleansing of the natives? Religion. Manifest destiny? Religion. The Mexican-American war? Religion. Prohibition? Religion. The Red Scare? Religion. The Ku Klux Klan and other racists? Better believe it's religion.
Sure vote, but don't fool yourselves that it has a very significant influence. The degree of manipulation by gerrymandering, partisan structures, bias toward rural southern states in the electoral college, and billionaire corporate dark money spending leaves the actual accuracy of voting in question.
Voting is basically the little brother playing the video game in "2 player" mode even though the controller is not plugged in scenario. That's what being working class in the US feels like lol
Yeah, Ohio is so messed up. So many times the map was shot down, but they used it anyway. It's unjust.
There is no democracy in the United States, the ultra rich just gather in the same room and throw money at the table to decide the next president.
I really think we are almost at taxation without representation, we should look into that
lol what are you gonna do, protest? rofl
I can't possibly imagine why!
Maybe it's time to rethink everything, and stop acting like we can just go back to brunch.
It'd work a lot better if y'all would read a book and we started getting rid of shit like the electoral college. And Congress. And the Supreme Court. And the presidency.
Seriously. We're living in the 21st century. Why are us citizens not the ones voting for every law and policy change? Just spitballing here, but maybe we could use one of those computers we all keep in our pockets?
Will they get off the couch and VOTE this time?
The last two Republican presidents were installed while receiving less votes than the Democrat. If Democrats had spent the past 23 years blaming a rigged system, and trying to change it, rather than vote-shaming and insulting the general public and their intelligence (by claiming that they don't, in fact, vote more than Republicans), maybe they'd have actually gotten something done by now.
That assumes the idea that they actually want to get anything done other than send out more emails about how your 27 dollars is vital to the fight against fascism.
Yes, and that happened because of the dismal Vote participation.
Election Voting-age population (VAP) Turnout as % of VAP
2008 229,945,000 57.1%
2012 235,248,000 53.8%
2016 249,422,000 54.8%
2020 257,605,088 62.0%
8% was the entire difference between 45 having a second disaster.
No, it happened because we have an extremely stupid system, which was designed by slave owners, racists, sexists and violent criminals (men who raped their slaves, genocidal maniacs, etc) to restrict who is allowed to vote and allow someone who gets less votes to win the presidency, and the democrats have spent a quarter century not saying a word about it despite it happening twice in that period. Please try to focus the blame where it belongs. Well designed modern democracies DO NOT have this problem.
The United States was fundamentally broken, immoral and undemocratic from day one, and no amount of ranting on the internet about how it's the public's fault 250 years later will change that fact. This entire thread exists because people are rapidly losing faith and trust in the legitimacy of the system that was built upon that foundation.