629
We'll have a long memory as things get worse for working class Americans, minorities and women
(lemmy.world)
this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2024
629 points (73.6% liked)
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That is the system though. Democracy isn't really about getting what you want. That's impossible under any system other than a dictatorship where you are the dictator. Parasocial psychology has lead a lot of people thinking that Trump getting what he wants is what they want. But that won't work out well for anyone.
Democracy is really about removing the worst people from power and preventing them from getting power in the first place. Over many years in something akin to natural selection you can have progress. But like evolution, it goes slowly.
Voting third party isn't a brave choice, it's just a fantasy. Even in a proportional representation system, it's still a fantasy, just you'd see maybe a few powerless people sitting in a legislature complaining on C-Span (which nobody will watch) instead of on social media.
Politics is about power and compromise. Vote for a representative that has a reasonable chance of winning, and write to them to encourage them to compromise closer to your position on things. That's actually effective, people that go on about a fantasy world where they just tick a box and whatever they want will happen are just being silly.
"Even in a proportional representation system"
In a proportional system votes for other candidates aren't lost tho, which means it doesn't force a two party system by design.
I don't think it is stated enough how horribly weak the current US one seat FPTP system is.
Proportional representation grants all power to political parties and eliminates the representative nature that a community representation (what you call FPTP) system offers. And the votes of the parties that aren't in the ruling coalition are lost and therefore the votes of anyone that voted for those parties are also lost.
You dont even get a representative by 2., 3. and 4. candidate votes in the 1 seat districts. Your vote is actually worth zero if it doesn't win. My 7th party vote goes towards a party representative that can voice my cause. My vote is not lost at all.
You always have a representative in a community representation system. It may not be the person you voted for, but there is someone that's supposed to represent your community. If they don't do a good job of that then they get voted out in the next election. Parties don't want to lose seats so they're incentivized to pick people that are capable of representing community interests. This is why you get oddities where people like Josh Hawley speaking loudly against programs like FEMA, but also accepting FEMA money when his district needs it. Push comes to shove, they have to represent their communities.
Also because the seat belongs to the person (not the party as in a PR system) a party could lose a seat even between elections if they fail to serve the interests of a community. So if a party is doing something that's really bad for your community, then you may not even wait until the next election for them to lose a seat.
In a PR system, you vote for a party that isn't part of the ruling coalition, you have no representation at all. Because it's not a good representative system. The power lies solely in the parties forming the ruling coalition, If you can get 50% + 1 votes for your party by screwing over minorities your party rules the country. PR systems have more of a tendency towards radical right wing politics because there's less need to represent minority interests. In a Community Representation system if even five members of a party are in close districts in communities with a significant number of minorities that might be the deciding factor that can change party policy.
And this isn't really theoretical either. The EU is PR and has countries leaving because they don't feel represented and they've taking a turn towards the extreme right. Israel has a PR system and it's current ruling coalition is made up of a right wing party that has to make concessions to extreme right parties to stay in power. Before claiming PR is better than a community representation system then I suggest closing the spreadsheet for a few minutes and look at the real world track record of PR systems. I've had conversations with people in Europe that are a little jealous of us for having community representation.
Of course any democratic system will fail without participation of the people. So make sure you go and vote.
That's a weird take on politics. "Hitler comes from my place so he represents me."
As a non-EU European I vote on country politics at the national elections, and local politics at the county elections. That way I have local representation in local matters, and national representation at national matters.
The current right wing surge in Europe is mostly because people don't like the amount of Muslim immigrants and most countries have only far right parties that rides on that matter. Plus Russian influence I assume.
You do not get a good political landscape with one seat districts that can even be gerrymandered. Every fucking US state house is divided in DEM and REP, that's not healthy.