It's not being celebrated. It simply strikes me as an inconceivable spontaneous response to what happened to him. His entirely response is utterly incomprehensible to me as such. Therefore I look for other explanations.
And my soul is not sick. Projection anyone?
Are you saying you celebrate this attempted murder?
He specifically said it is not being celebrated.
Half of the US population voted for this human being to lead the country over the feeble option they were given.
“Feeble option” aside, this is simply not correct.
In 2016, the population of the United States was approximately 323.1 million. 136,787,187 people, or 59.2% of the voting eligible population of the US, actually voted in that election. Of those, 62,984,828, or 46.1% of voters, voted for Trump, while 65,853,514, or 48.2% of voters, voted for Clinton.
So Trump lost the popular vote in that election. The best you can say is that 19.4% of the US population voted for Donald Trump for president in 2016. But more voted for Clinton.
In 2020, the population of the United States was approximately 329.5 million. 159,690,457, or 66.9 of the voting eligible population, actually voted in that election. Of those, 74,223,975, or 46.8 of voters, voted for Trump, while 81,283,501, or 51.3 of voters, voted for Biden.
So Trump lost the popular vote in that election. The best you can say in 2020 is that 22.5% of the US population voted for Trump for president. But more voted for Biden.
Yes, I'm absolutely saying that anyone capable of voting for Trump is sick. Sick unto death of their soul. 100%. The idea of indulging an artificial sense of grievance to the point of supporting the destruction of all meaningful public services, all care of the environment, the persecution of various minorities, including women of childbearing age (who, taken on their own, are a minority of the population), and any meaningful response to the existential threat faced by humanity is sick.
In my experience, a huge chunk of voters in any election are voting on the basis of one or two issues, or even just the candidates' personalities, and don't understand the overall platforms that they're supporting, or even the idea that platforms influence governmrnt policy.
In 2016, Slate magazine quoted a Rust Belt swing voter who was pro-choice, but voting for Trump because she thought he would save factory jobs. .When asked if she was worried that he'd try to ban abortion, she replied "Oh no. He's probably paid for lots of abortions himself."
A naive opinion, to the point of stupidity, but not what I would call sick. The woman just didn't understand how party politics works, and thought Trump would be at total liberty to implement his own personal views on abortion(*).
Other examples abound. Not everyone who voted for brexit had faragist ideas on immigration, heck, Tariq Ali was citing Tony Benn as his inspiration for supporting Leave. Plus, a zillion other dupes who just one saw bus ad saying that the EU was the reason for shortages in the NHS, and thought that sounded as credible as anything else.
Okay, so they're all morons, or maybe even in some cases actual bigots who know what they're voting for. But, sorry to say, some of them are also in the category of "swing voter", aka the people you absolutely need to win over if you're gonna kick the right out of power, and diagnosing them all as "sick" isn't gonna help you in attaining that goal.
(*) And this is easier to do in the American system, where party cohesiveness and discipline tends to be much weaker than under Westminister.
It's not being celebrated. It simply strikes me as an inconceivable spontaneous response to what happened to him. His entirely response is utterly incomprehensible to me as such. Therefore I look for other explanations.
And my soul is not sick. Projection anyone?
Are you saying you celebrate this attempted murder?
He specifically said it is not being celebrated.
Half of the US population voted for this human being to lead the country over the feeble option they were given.
“Feeble option” aside, this is simply not correct.
In 2016, the population of the United States was approximately 323.1 million. 136,787,187 people, or 59.2% of the voting eligible population of the US, actually voted in that election. Of those, 62,984,828, or 46.1% of voters, voted for Trump, while 65,853,514, or 48.2% of voters, voted for Clinton.
So Trump lost the popular vote in that election. The best you can say is that 19.4% of the US population voted for Donald Trump for president in 2016. But more voted for Clinton.
In 2020, the population of the United States was approximately 329.5 million. 159,690,457, or 66.9 of the voting eligible population, actually voted in that election. Of those, 74,223,975, or 46.8 of voters, voted for Trump, while 81,283,501, or 51.3 of voters, voted for Biden.
So Trump lost the popular vote in that election. The best you can say in 2020 is that 22.5% of the US population voted for Trump for president. But more voted for Biden.
that’s a lot of people, which was my point. I wanted to know if thunderbunk thought all Trump voters were evil and he has answered quite clearly and unequivocally.
And Ruth seems to hold they/we are all fascists.
Yes, I'm absolutely saying that anyone capable of voting for Trump is sick. Sick unto death of their soul. 100%.
In my experience living in a state that has twice voted for Trump, this is very much an over-generalization, almost to the point of caricature. It is true of some people who vote for Trump, but it is not true of all people who vote for Trump.
And in my view, it’s a deeply unhelpful view that does damage by demonizing those with whom one disagrees politically. I think the take provided by @stetson is much closer to reality, though I would also include the group of Trump voters who I think are being duped and used.
It's not being celebrated. It simply strikes me as an inconceivable spontaneous response to what happened to him. His entirely response is utterly incomprehensible to me as such. Therefore I look for other explanations.
And my soul is not sick. Projection anyone?
Are you saying you celebrate this attempted murder?
He specifically said it is not being celebrated.
Half of the US population voted for this human being to lead the country over the feeble option they were given.
“Feeble option” aside, this is simply not correct.
In 2016, the population of the United States was approximately 323.1 million. 136,787,187 people, or 59.2% of the voting eligible population of the US, actually voted in that election. Of those, 62,984,828, or 46.1% of voters, voted for Trump, while 65,853,514, or 48.2% of voters, voted for Clinton.
So Trump lost the popular vote in that election. The best you can say is that 19.4% of the US population voted for Donald Trump for president in 2016. But more voted for Clinton.
In 2020, the population of the United States was approximately 329.5 million. 159,690,457, or 66.9 of the voting eligible population, actually voted in that election. Of those, 74,223,975, or 46.8 of voters, voted for Trump, while 81,283,501, or 51.3 of voters, voted for Biden.
So Trump lost the popular vote in that election. The best you can say in 2020 is that 22.5% of the US population voted for Trump for president. But more voted for Biden.
that’s a lot of people, which was my point.
Of course a lot of people voted for him. But it was nowhere near “half of the US population,” which is what you said. It wasn’t even ans any many people as those who voted against him.
I wanted to know if thunderbunk thought all Trump voters were evil and he has answered quite clearly and unequivocally.
And Ruth seems to hold they/we are all fascists.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think all Trump voters are evil or fascists.
But I do think all Trump voters are voting for someone dangerously close to fascism and demagoguery, if not already there, who has demonstrated time and time again his belief that the Constitution and democracy only are to be paid attention to when it benefits him, and who only cares about himself. He tells people what they want to hear and what benefits him. Why anyone believes a word that comes out of his mouth is frankly beyond me.
Yes, I'm absolutely saying that anyone capable of voting for Trump is sick. Sick unto death of their soul. 100%. The idea of indulging an artificial sense of grievance to the point of supporting the destruction of all meaningful public services, all care of the environment, the persecution of various minorities, including women of childbearing age (who, taken on their own, are a minority of the population), and any meaningful response to the existential threat faced by humanity is sick.
I generally agree with this. Especially after experiencing four years of what Trump actually did (and tried to do) in office, and what he has explicitly said he will do if elected again. But some of what I consider this kind of "sickness" has been induced by a very, very false and toxic right-wing media bubble. (We have our own media bubble on the left, which definitely has its issues.)
There are some issues on the left in the US, perhaps especially on college campuses and in some approaches to cultural theory (in my view), but in terms of power, I don't think we have any lefties in the House, Senate, Supreme Court, or state governorships to compare with people like the most extreme and/or conspiracy-theory-promoting people on the right who hold those offices of power, so right this moment, in the United States, I consider the extreme right more of a danger than the extreme left. I don't think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, or Bernie Sanders are as extreme or even literally crazy as Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, DeSantis in Florida (where I live--please pray for us, it's horrible), Abbott in Texas, etc.
There are old-school conservatives whom I respect, and who I wish could take their party back, but they're literally being called "RINOs" and even "woke" for not being all-in on Trump and far-right extremism. (Ironically, I've come to respect more people on this kind of old-fashioned right over the last few years than I had for years and years before. I don't necessarily agree with them on many things, but they are people one could "sit down and reason together" with, and I've actively been peering out of my own blue (liberal) bubble at conservative-but-anti-Trumpism voices like the Dispatch, the Bulwark, and David French--not to leave out The Lincoln Project.) Indeed, I've come to respect moderate voices, in general, more than before--there's real value in trying to compromise when running a government. (It doesn't always lead to good things, of course, depending on the compromise, like with regard to basic human rights, etc.)
If you are very, very certain that they, by virtue uf the definition “Trump voter”, are evil, or scary - or in some way not deserving of consideration as a human being - please consider the implications.
Of course Trump voters are human beings (as are people on the other side(s), and everyone else). I do think Trump is scary for the reasons mentioned above. I do think there is some kind of blind spot or worse in this situation (which is why I mostly concur with "sick" in my last comment), but again, I think it might be due to the media bubble. I know a friendly acquaintance (we knew each other in high school) who voted for Trump and was so horrified when Biden won that she was literally crying. (I hugged her. I'm sure there would be awful people who would rub it in. I don't want to be someone like that.) Despite the awful bumper stickers and t-shirt slogans, I know that Trump voters are three-dimensional human beings, who have souls, and who are people for whom Christ died. (Even Trump is.)
Why anyone believes a word that comes out of his mouth is frankly beyond me.
Well, lemme put it like this...
I had no real concept of Trump's voice or mannerisms until about 2015, when he had already identified himself politically as Republican, a party I intensely dislike. However, when I much later watched the YouTube video Does Trump think George W. Bush lied about Iraq? I tried to put myself in the mindset of a generic Iraq War-opponent coming to his personality tabula rasa.
And yeah, I think that antiwar individual would think that not only was the content spot-on(*), but that the delivery sounded both calm and authoritative.
(It does help that his sparring is a twerpy little weekend warrior who seems on the verge of tears because someone said that Bush lied about Iraq. It's almost like a comedy skit.)
(*) The main objection I would have to his lecture was that he was speaking from basically isolationist sentiment, and didn't directly voice objections to the loss of Iraqi life. But that doesn't negate the truth of his expressed opinions, and in any case "Why the hell should we spend this money over there instead of helping our people over here?" is a pretty common sentiment within mainstream public opinion.
Also, I'm not intending to verify Trump's stance on the war, and I believe there is actually some question as to how consistently antiwar he really was. I'm talking about how his persona would appear to someone who was already inclined to similar opinions. I could vote other examples, but that's the clearest one I can think of.
Let me rephrase, @stetson. I completely get why someone like you describe would listen to him, like what he says, and think “he knows what he’s talking about.”
But he lies with such regularity, saying things that are easily identified as lies, that I think it’s quite reasonable to assume he’s lying, or at the least to assume he can’t be trusted to be truthful. Given that, I think one has to already have bought into what he’s selling to grant him any degree of trustworthiness.
I wanted to know if thunderbunk thought all Trump voters were evil and he has answered quite clearly and unequivocally.
And Ruth seems to hold they/we are all fascists.
They're either fascists or they're unknowingly supporting fascism or they're willing to go along with fascism because it serves some other purpose for them. Trump is a full-on fascist strongman. If you're voting for him, you're voting for fascism.
I have a friend who is gay whose sister supports Trump because she likes the tax cuts - my friend can barely bring himself to speak to her because she cares more about taxes she can easily afford than about his civil rights. Is she evil? I don't know. At what point does doing evil things make someone evil?
Arguably (just to be tediously pedantic), in traditional Christian theology, we’re all evil enough to need redemption, but all able to be saved. But saying that one person here on Earth is “evil,” in the way another is not, is a kind of shorthand for a certain level of non-goodness. Not that this answers the question.
By the way, it’s awesome to see you again, Ruth! ❤️
I wanted to know if thunderbunk thought all Trump voters were evil and he has answered quite clearly and unequivocally.
And Ruth seems to hold they/we are all fascists.
They're either fascists or they're unknowingly supporting fascism or they're willing to go along with fascism because it serves some other purpose for them. Trump is a full-on fascist strongman. If you're voting for him, you're voting for fascism.
I have a friend who is gay whose sister supports Trump because she likes the tax cuts - my friend can barely bring himself to speak to her because she cares more about taxes she can easily afford than about his civil rights. Is she evil? I don't know. At what point does doing evil things make someone evil?
OK Ruth, I’m sure you understand my motivations much more than I do.
I wanted to know if thunderbunk thought all Trump voters were evil and he has answered quite clearly and unequivocally.
And Ruth seems to hold they/we are all fascists.
They're either fascists or they're unknowingly supporting fascism or they're willing to go along with fascism because it serves some other purpose for them. Trump is a full-on fascist strongman. If you're voting for him, you're voting for fascism.
I have a friend who is gay whose sister supports Trump because she likes the tax cuts - my friend can barely bring himself to speak to her because she cares more about taxes she can easily afford than about his civil rights. Is she evil? I don't know. At what point does doing evil things make someone evil?
OK Ruth
You have more confidence in your own discernment, than I do.
I wanted to know if thunderbunk thought all Trump voters were evil and he has answered quite clearly and unequivocally.
And Ruth seems to hold they/we are all fascists.
They're either fascists or they're unknowingly supporting fascism or they're willing to go along with fascism because it serves some other purpose for them. Trump is a full-on fascist strongman. If you're voting for him, you're voting for fascism.
I'm not disagreeing with you, however I think there is also a constituency of voters who have been (are being) frightened into voting for Trump.
Which might not be direct threats to an individual as much as the feeling that things in the future might not be good for people who vote against him, particularly if they are from minority ethnic groups.
Of course, there's also an argument that the Republicans benefit if people are too scared to vote for anyone.
I have a friend who is gay whose sister supports Trump because she likes the tax cuts - my friend can barely bring himself to speak to her because she cares more about taxes she can easily afford than about his civil rights. Is she evil? I don't know. At what point does doing evil things make someone evil?
Well, I know people who'd say that that woman isn't any worse than someone who thinks that Biden's Israel/Palestine policies are about equally as genocidal as Trump's, but plan to vote for Biden anyway because they depend on the ACA and want to preserve it.
I wanted to know if thunderbunk thought all Trump voters were evil and he has answered quite clearly and unequivocally.
And Ruth seems to hold they/we are all fascists.
They're either fascists or they're unknowingly supporting fascism or they're willing to go along with fascism because it serves some other purpose for them. Trump is a full-on fascist strongman. If you're voting for him, you're voting for fascism.
I'm not disagreeing with you, however I think there is also a constituency of voters who have been (are being) frightened into voting for Trump.
Which might not be direct threats to an individual as much as the feeling that things in the future might not be good for people who vote against him, particularly if they are from minority ethnic groups.
Of course, there's also an argument that the Republicans benefit if people are too scared to vote for anyone.
So, you mean there are people thinking "If Trump wins, he might start persecuting people from minority groups who didn't vote for him, so since I'm a member of one of those minority groups, I'd better vote for him?"
I think you'd better go back to the drawing board on that one. Just for starters, how is Trump gonna know who voted for him or not? And if the scenario is just that eg. he's rounding up all Hispanics because most Hispanics didn't vote for him, then it's not gonna matter for any individual Hispanic how they voted.
OK Ruth, I’m sure you understand my motivations much more than I do.
I don't have the first clue what your motivations are, or even what your opinions are, because you haven't stated them. If you want to show how pure your motivations are, state them and defend them.
@stetson: The difference is my friend's sister can easily afford to pay more taxes without it affecting her lifestyle. She's just stingy. And yeah, I think it's evil for an affluent person to care more about hanging onto a few thousand dollars she doesn't need than about whether a blood relative is regarded as a full human being with full rights by the state.
“Feeble option” aside, this is simply not correct.
In 2016, the population of the United States was approximately 323.1 million. 136,787,187 people, or 59.2% of the voting eligible population of the US, actually voted in that election. Of those, 62,984,828, or 46.1% of voters, voted for Trump, while 65,853,514, or 48.2% of voters, voted for Clinton.
So Trump lost the popular vote in that election. The best you can say is that 19.4% of the US population voted for Donald Trump for president in 2016. But more voted for Clinton.
In 2020, the population of the United States was approximately 329.5 million. 159,690,457, or 66.9 of the voting eligible population, actually voted in that election. Of those, 74,223,975, or 46.8 of voters, voted for Trump, while 81,283,501, or 51.3 of voters, voted for Biden.
So Trump lost the popular vote in that election. The best you can say in 2020 is that 22.5% of the US population voted for Trump for president. But more voted for Biden.
that’s a lot of people, which was my point. I wanted to know if thunderbunk thought all Trump voters were evil and he has answered quite clearly and unequivocally.
And Ruth seems to hold they/we are all fascists.
I think this illustrates the divide that's being argued here. @Moyessa is bearing false witness about Trump's popular support. Their point seems to be that this doesn't matter because they were doing so for good, or at least understandable, reasons. Ignorance? Carelessness? A known falsehood that somehow illustrates a greater truth? The point they're making is that the falsehood doesn't matter because they had good (or at least acceptable) motives in propagating it.
The other side seems to be advancing the argument that actions are more important than internal motives. That if you're doing bad things for sympathetic or understandable reasons you're still doing bad things, and that matters a lot more than whatever motives you have for your bad actions.
This reminds me of some of the difficulties of getting redress for racial discrimination in the U.S. prior to 1964. One of the big stumbling blocks was proving racial animus or intent. Not impossible, but very difficult. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 changed that standard to having to prove that something had a disparate impact along racial lines. In other words the standard was no longer trying to weigh the contents of people's hearts but measuring the results of their actions, something a lot simpler for the legal system to do.
Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed.
That word is "Nazi." Nobody cares about their motives anymore.
So yeah, maybe all those Trump supporters waving their "Mass Deportation Now" signs don't hate their immigrant neighbors. Maybe they're motivated by economic anxiety, or religious values, or dislike of Democrats, or whatever. I'm not sure that's going to be much of a comfort to those being imprisoned or the families broken up if that policy is enacted.
Actually, I wasn't planning to post that, because I double-checked and saw that you specifically stated the woman's concern was avoiding taxes that she could afford to pay. Not sure how that made it into public view.
I'm not cutting Trump slack but how would any of us behave if a bullet narrowly missed our face and went through our ear?
I'd guess that the immediate response to being unexpectedly shot in the ear by a would-be assassin might be similar to the immediate response of being unexpectedly involved in a car crash - something that rather more people have personal experience with, and for which the statistics available are rather better.
You see a range of immediate responses. Some people come out fighting (some literally), some huddle in a gibbering heap of shock, some can't stop crying. I think Trump's response to his attempted assassination is consistent with the normal range of human behavior.
I think this illustrates the divide that's being argued here. @Moyessa is bearing false witness about Trump's popular support.
Almost half of those who voted in 2020 voted Trump, and just over half voted Biden. The margin was almost five percentage points, which is a substantial enough margin to be able to say that Biden was unequivocally ahead in the popular vote, but it's still reasonable to say that about half the voters voted Trump.
The extrapolation from "half of voters wanted this" to "half the country wanted this" is commonly made, and is not unreasonable. The sort of person who likes to group non-voters together with voters against (whatever), so they can say that "only small number % of people supported Trump / Biden / Brexit / whatever" are the ones being dishonest. All you can say about the people who didn't vote is that they didn't vote.
To the extent that people didn't vote, because they weren't able to (voter registration challenges, people not able to show an id, people without stable addresses, people who gave up because the lines were too long), that's a problem that should be addressed. People who could have voted, but chose not to? I think the most reasonable interpretation of such an action is no preference between the two main candidates, although there's also an element of can't be bothered stronghold state bias: if you live in a location where the elections are not competitive, then whether you support or oppose the person who is going to win in your area, there's plenty of incentive to not bother to vote because your vote won't make a difference.
The extrapolation from "half of voters wanted this" to "half the country wanted this" is commonly made, and is not unreasonable.
It’s commonly made, but whether it’s reasonable or not is debatable.
All you can say about the people who didn't vote is that they didn't vote.
Which pretty much establishes that it’s unreasonable to extrapolate from “half of voters wanted this” to “half the country wanted this.”
I'd imagine some politucal-scientist somewhere has done a comparison between Australian election results post-1924, with hypothesized results from an alternate time-line without mandatory voting.
No idea what the conclusions would be, but my educated guess would be roughly the same overall patterns. My own belief is that most stay-at-home folks agree with one of the major parties on whatever issues they find relevant, but are just too apathetic to vote.
The extrapolation from "half of voters wanted this" to "half the country wanted this" is commonly made, and is not unreasonable.
It’s commonly made, but whether it’s reasonable or not is debatable.
All you can say about the people who didn't vote is that they didn't vote.
Which pretty much establishes that it’s unreasonable to extrapolate from “half of voters wanted this” to “half the country wanted this.”
I'd imagine some politucal-scientist somewhere has done a comparison between Australian election results post-1924, with hypothesized results from an alternate time-line without mandatory voting.
No idea what the conclusions would be, but my educated guess would be roughly the same overall patterns. My own belief is that most stay-at-home folks agree with one of the major parties on whatever issues they find relevant, but are just too apathetic to vote.
Yes, but what is the basis for assuming they agree with one of the major parties in the same proportions as those who voted? And what is the basis for excluding the possibility that some people truly don’t care?
I think this illustrates the divide that's being argued here. @Moyessa is bearing false witness about Trump's popular support.
Almost half of those who voted in 2020 voted Trump, and just over half voted Biden. The margin was almost five percentage points, which is a substantial enough margin to be able to say that Biden was unequivocally ahead in the popular vote, but it's still reasonable to say that about half the voters voted Trump.
That would be reasonable to say. However, @Moyessa did not say that.
The extrapolation from "half of voters wanted this" to "half the country wanted this" is commonly made, and is not unreasonable.
It's only reasonable if you think "the US population" and "the voting US electorate" are identical. This is the kind of sloppy thinking that anti-democratic leaders trying to maintain a veneer of democracy love. For example, I wouldn't assume that the pool of disproportionately black adult non-voters in Alabama in 1958 supported George Wallace in exactly the same proportion as the disproportionately white voters who elected him governor. But hey, you do you.
The most you can say is that in 2020 24.5% of the American population preferred Joe Biden for the presidency, 22.4% preferred Donald Trump, 0.9% of preferred some other candidate, 28.1% were ineligible to vote because they were under 18 years old or non-citizens, approximately* 1.5% were ineligible to vote because of a prior felony conviction and approximately 22.6% were eligible to vote but either chose not to or were unable to navigate the bureaucratic or logistical hurdles to do so. Assuming that all these various groups on non-voters exactly mirrors the preferences of voters, especially non-citizens or the very young, seems like hubris.
Basing governance on who shows up at the polls may be a necessary assumption of democracy, but extrapolating from that is dubious at best.
* It is incredibly difficult to find reliable numbers on exactly how many American adults have been disenfranchised by the criminal justice system.
Given that older people and white people are more likely to vote than other Americans, it is not reasonable to extrapolate the views of non-voters based on those of voters.
If Kamala Harris enters the presidential election, as seems likely from what one hears on this side of the Pond, will it make a big difference to Black, immigrant, and other minority voters?
Apologies if I haven't expressed this very well, but I hope you see what I mean.
If Kamala Harris enters the presidential election, as seems likely from what one hears on this side of the Pond, will it make a big difference to Black, immigrant, and other minority voters?
Do you mean "Would they be likely to vote for Harris?", or "Will a Harris administration have better policies for them?", or...?
If Kamala Harris enters the presidential election, as seems likely from what one hears on this side of the Pond, will it make a big difference to Black, immigrant, and other minority voters?
Do you mean "Would they be likely to vote for Harris?", or "Will a Harris administration have better policies for them?", or...?
To be honest, I'm not sure. Both, I suppose, if that makes sense...
Given Trump's hatred of so many different groups, I don't doubt that President Harris would have more appealing policies, in which case I guess they would be more likely to support her.
This just a gut feeling, though, as I really do find US politics hard to fathom.
It's not "if." Harris is in, and she'll be the nominee.
She will appeal to BIPOC voters overall more than Trump, though she will do better with women than with men among these groups. Trump has pealed off some Black and Latino young men from the Dems with his strongman schtick.
It's not "if." Harris is in, and she'll be the nominee.
She will appeal to BIPOC voters overall more than Trump, though she will do better with women than with men among these groups. Trump has pealed off some Black and Latino young men from the Dems with his strongman schtick.
I'm not cutting Trump slack but how would any of us behave if a bullet narrowly missed our face and went through our ear?
I'd guess that the immediate response to being unexpectedly shot in the ear by a would-be assassin might be similar to the immediate response of being unexpectedly involved in a car crash - something that rather more people have personal experience with, and for which the statistics available are rather better.
You see a range of immediate responses. Some people come out fighting (some literally), some huddle in a gibbering heap of shock, some can't stop crying. I think Trump's response to his attempted assassination is consistent with the normal range of human behavior.
Well yes, which is why I shared my own experience of surviving a serious car crash upthread.
But to return to the current situation in the US. It's good to hear that the Democrats are dedicating a lot of resources to their campaign.
They are going to need that, plus plenty of stamina, determination and clear heads if they are going to face down a populist demagogue.
I have been looking through this thread, though not with great attention, and my comment is that I am unlikely, any time soon, to watch anyone's posted 75-minute video.
A number of tech millionaires/billionaires have moved rightwards over the last few years; and are mostly reconciled with a Republican government. Thiel has long been the most prominent, but there are an increasing number of others. FT has a story on them today https://archive.is/1jDrB
Lower taxes and legislation are a powerful motivator, but some of them have moved in significantly more particularist and neo-reactionary directions:
"Simply put, there is a ton of fascist-chic cosplay involved."
A lot of this goes back to the so called 'Dark Enlightenment' of Curtis Yarvin, Nick Land and others.
The really disturbing aspect of this crowd's ideology is the extent to which it embraces accelerationism:
Accelerationism is a range of revolutionary and reactionary ideas in left-wing and right-wing ideologies that call for the drastic intensification of capitalist growth, technological change, infrastructure sabotage and other processes of social change to destabilize existing systems and create radical social transformations, otherwise referred to as "acceleration".
...
While originally used by the far-left, the term has, in a manner strongly distinguished from original accelerationist theorists, been used by right-wing extremists such as neo-fascists, neo-Nazis, white nationalists and white supremacists to increasingly refer to an "acceleration" of racial conflict through assassinations, murders and terrorist attacks as a means to violently achieve a white ethnostate.
It's hard to know how seriously to take this stuff. Some of the sound and fury looks like business expediency - but who knows how many of the people involved are true believers?
Bearing in mind that tech bosses have demonstrated over the last 20 years or so that they really don't have our best interests at heart, coupled with the incredible influence they have over our societies, I think it's worth paying close attention to the policies they support.
And understanding something about the ideologies should help us recognise references to them in the written and spoken word.
I'd imagine some politucal-scientist somewhere has done a comparison between Australian election results post-1924, with hypothesized results from an alternate time-line without mandatory voting.
No idea what the conclusions would be, but my educated guess would be roughly the same overall patterns. My own belief is that most stay-at-home folks agree with one of the major parties on whatever issues they find relevant, but are just too apathetic to vote.
As far as I know, no-one has carried out that exercise, at least in a publicly available report. Indeed, I have difficulty imagining how it could be done.
There are very few voices against compulsory voting. As I've noted before, voting, at least in the morning, is a very social affair - people chatting with friends and neighbours, buying some of the home-made products from community groups (not one of the parties) and then going off for morning tea or lunch. Not talking politics though, our electorate being the one of the safest in the country for the conservative side, such talk is irrelevant. Your vote and preferences generally, are assumed
@Gee D, even though our system is not perfect and I have no idea what might constitute a perfect one, it does work pretty well and I don't know how we could improve it. I am always intrigued by things like Hare Clark which seem to operate in some states and not others, that's confusing to me!
I think of it as less being compulsory voting, but compulsory attendance at a voting place and am always astounded at the idea that in other countries voting is not held at the weekend to enable everyone to participate with ease. It is possible to attend, have your name marked as attending, but to submit a blank voting form, or one that has been defaced. I don't endorse either of those practices but no one really knows what happens in the voting cubicle and I have no problem with that. I would not like people to waste their vote, but it is possible to do so. I sometimes wonder if we had a box that said "none of the above", how many people would choose that option, but that's just me musing to myself.
I have to say I'm thrilled to see the rise in Independents here and the highlight of the day is definitely the cake stall and sausage sizzle!! It seems as though the term democracy sausage is now a thing, but I've had to say that I've never heard it used ever except in the media.
@Gee D, even though our system is not perfect and I have no idea what might constitute a perfect one, it does work pretty well and I don't know how we could improve it. I am always intrigued by things like Hare Clark which seem to operate in some states and not others, that's confusing to me!
There are many different systems of voting, but of course no way of properly comparing them. We go part of the way by having a different system for upper and lower houses - not just a different system but a different electorate for each when you think about it. Then, a century ago Queensland went and abolished its Upper House!
I think that the US could use ranked choice voting. I don’t know if it would be the same for other places, but the whole matter of basically desperately trying to not get the “opposite” candidate has helped make our system here both exclusionary to third parties and possibly more extreme. (And/or too middle of the road, depending on what one wants the government to do, like if you want more social programs than the Democrats are aiming for, etc.) I actually think Harris is good, but if there was a third party person I might prefer, I dare not vote for them because it could hand Trump the victory.
And to add - most States have a lower house with single-member electorates elected by the preferential system. Then the upper houses in 4 of the 5 states that have them have elected members chosen on variations of the proportional system, similar to that used for the Federal Senate. As Tasmania uses that system for its lower house, it uses a type of preferential system for its upper house. All very complicated.
I think that the US could use ranked choice voting. I don’t know if it would be the same for other places, but the whole matter of basically desperately trying to not get the “opposite” candidate has helped make our system here both exclusionary to third parties and possibly more extreme. (And/or too middle of the road, depending on what one wants the government to do, like if you want more social programs than the Democrats are aiming for, etc.) I actually think Harris is good, but if there was a third party person I might prefer, I dare not vote for them because it could hand Trump the victory.
Idaho will have a people's initiative calling for open primary with rank choice possibility. The state secretary (Republican) has researched the cost. He claims it will cost $40 million to run. The proponents say while it may cost $40 million to set up any subsequent vote will be relatively nil.
I think that the US could use ranked choice voting.
Maine and Alaska have ranked choice voting. We discussedAlaska's system a bit in back in 2022.
Ranked choice voting strikes me as our best hope for improving our political system. Once we manage to switch to that, a lot of other possibilities open up.
I think that the US could use ranked choice voting.
Maine and Alaska have ranked choice voting. We discussedAlaska's system a bit in back in 2022.
Ranked choice voting strikes me as our best hope for improving our political system. Once we manage to switch to that, a lot of other possibilities open up.
I think one problem with a ranked choice voting in Alaska (you could also say this about two round voting in California) is that in the initial round of voting (the “jungle primary”) that Elmo ages the candidates down to four in Alaska and two in California, there are multiple candidates for each party because the parties have not united behind one candidate for each seat (these are elections for a single seat, unlike STV elections in Ireland and for the Australian Federal Senate).
I think it would be better if the parties could have their own primaries, maybe using ranked choice of a short list of five candidates nominated by a certain number of party elected officials in the state or by gathering enough signatures of registered party members. Then only the winners of those primaries plus independents who can get enough petition signatures advance to the jungle primary if there is one or straight to the general election, where ranked choice voting is used again. That way, the elections aren’t between two or three democrats and two or three Republicans, who are often mainly running on name recognition rather than policy differences, and instead there will be more room for parties other than the main two to distinguish themselves in terms of policy.
I think one problem with a ranked choice voting in Alaska (you could also say this about two round voting in California) is that in the initial round of voting (the “jungle primary”) that Elmo ages the candidates down to four in Alaska and two in California, there are multiple candidates for each party because the parties have not united behind one candidate for each seat (these are elections for a single seat, unlike STV elections in Ireland and for the Australian Federal Senate).
I think it would be better if the parties could have their own primaries, maybe using ranked choice of a short list of five candidates nominated by a certain number of party elected officials in the state or by gathering enough signatures of registered party members. Then only the winners of those primaries plus independents who can get enough petition signatures advance to the jungle primary if there is one or straight to the general election, where ranked choice voting is used again. That way, the elections aren’t between two or three democrats and two or three Republicans, who are often mainly running on name recognition rather than policy differences, and instead there will be more room for parties other than the main two to distinguish themselves in terms of policy.
We have two principal methods of voting here in Australia. In most jurisdictions, there is what we call preferential voting of the lower house, and proportional for the upper house/federal Senate (it's the reverse in Tasmania). Victoria has its own method for the upper house of the State legislature Both methods ask electors to rank candidates in order of choice. Preferential works for single-member electorates and proportional for multi-member ones. In Federal elections, each State is an electorate for Senators.
Preferential voting is easy to understand - if no candidate obtains an absolute majority of first preference votes, then the second preference votes of the least favoured candidate are counted and distributed amongst remaining candidates. That process continues by counting third and fourth etc preferences until one candidate emerges with 50% (plus 1) of the votes cast and is elected. Proportional voting works in the reverse - the second choice votes of those who voted for the most favoured candidate are those first distributed. There's a lot of strange mathematics involved in proportional voting and I do not really understand it.
It sounds complex and in theory it is. Not so much so in practice.
I think one problem with a ranked choice voting in Alaska (you could also say this about two round voting in California) is that in the initial round of voting (the “jungle primary”) that Elmo ages the candidates down to four in Alaska and two in California, there are multiple candidates for each party because the parties have not united behind one candidate for each seat (these are elections for a single seat, unlike STV elections in Ireland and for the Australian Federal Senate).
I think it would be better if the parties could have their own primaries, maybe using ranked choice of a short list of five candidates nominated by a certain number of party elected officials in the state or by gathering enough signatures of registered party members. Then only the winners of those primaries plus independents who can get enough petition signatures advance to the jungle primary if there is one or straight to the general election, where ranked choice voting is used again. That way, the elections aren’t between two or three democrats and two or three Republicans, who are often mainly running on name recognition rather than policy differences, and instead there will be more room for parties other than the main two to distinguish themselves in terms of policy.
We have two principal methods of voting here in Australia. In most jurisdictions, there is what we call preferential voting of the lower house, and proportional for the upper house/federal Senate (it's the reverse in Tasmania). Victoria has its own method for the upper house of the State legislature Both methods ask electors to rank candidates in order of choice. Preferential works for single-member electorates and proportional for multi-member ones. In Federal elections, each State is an electorate for Senators.
Preferential voting is easy to understand - if no candidate obtains an absolute majority of first preference votes, then the second preference votes of the least favoured candidate are counted and distributed amongst remaining candidates. That process continues by counting third and fourth etc preferences until one candidate emerges with 50% (plus 1) of the votes cast and is elected. Proportional voting works in the reverse - the second choice votes of those who voted for the most favoured candidate are those first distributed. There's a lot of strange mathematics involved in proportional voting and I do not really understand it.
It sounds complex and in theory it is. Not so much so in practice.
I think the difference that I was trying to point out is that for the Australian federal House of Representatives, the parties get to select their candidate for each constituency before voters rank them. In Alaska, voters have a first round (called a primary but different than primaries in most other states) where the ballot has lots of people running as a Republican or a Democrat for the same seat on the same ballot. The top four vote getters regardless of party advance to the general election, which uses ranked choice voting. California uses a similar system but only the top two vote getters advance to the general election, meaning that it is just a run off and you don’t need ranked choice.
This means that the general election technically could have four candidates all from the same party in Alaska, although that is unlikely, or two candidates from the same party in California, which has happened before. It also means that the parties have much less control over who their candidates are and can be hijacked by candidates who have very little connection to the party at all, who are at odds with the party’s policies, who have various scandals, etc., but who have high name recognition or good fundraising ability.
I know in the Australian federal Senate sometimes voters will rank someone that their party listed third higher and that means they get a seat whereas the person the party listed second doesn’t get a seat. But the party at least gets to determine who is on the ballot at all and who isn’t. That isn’t really the case in Alaska and California, and you could argue that parties have limited ability to prevent any candidate from running under the party label in any US state, at least in a primary.
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“Feeble option” aside, this is simply not correct.
In 2016, the population of the United States was approximately 323.1 million. 136,787,187 people, or 59.2% of the voting eligible population of the US, actually voted in that election. Of those, 62,984,828, or 46.1% of voters, voted for Trump, while 65,853,514, or 48.2% of voters, voted for Clinton.
So Trump lost the popular vote in that election. The best you can say is that 19.4% of the US population voted for Donald Trump for president in 2016. But more voted for Clinton.
In 2020, the population of the United States was approximately 329.5 million. 159,690,457, or 66.9 of the voting eligible population, actually voted in that election. Of those, 74,223,975, or 46.8 of voters, voted for Trump, while 81,283,501, or 51.3 of voters, voted for Biden.
So Trump lost the popular vote in that election. The best you can say in 2020 is that 22.5% of the US population voted for Trump for president. But more voted for Biden.
In my experience, a huge chunk of voters in any election are voting on the basis of one or two issues, or even just the candidates' personalities, and don't understand the overall platforms that they're supporting, or even the idea that platforms influence governmrnt policy.
In 2016, Slate magazine quoted a Rust Belt swing voter who was pro-choice, but voting for Trump because she thought he would save factory jobs. .When asked if she was worried that he'd try to ban abortion, she replied "Oh no. He's probably paid for lots of abortions himself."
A naive opinion, to the point of stupidity, but not what I would call sick. The woman just didn't understand how party politics works, and thought Trump would be at total liberty to implement his own personal views on abortion(*).
Other examples abound. Not everyone who voted for brexit had faragist ideas on immigration, heck, Tariq Ali was citing Tony Benn as his inspiration for supporting Leave. Plus, a zillion other dupes who just one saw bus ad saying that the EU was the reason for shortages in the NHS, and thought that sounded as credible as anything else.
Okay, so they're all morons, or maybe even in some cases actual bigots who know what they're voting for. But, sorry to say, some of them are also in the category of "swing voter", aka the people you absolutely need to win over if you're gonna kick the right out of power, and diagnosing them all as "sick" isn't gonna help you in attaining that goal.
(*) And this is easier to do in the American system, where party cohesiveness and discipline tends to be much weaker than under Westminister.
And Ruth seems to hold they/we are all fascists.
And in my view, it’s a deeply unhelpful view that does damage by demonizing those with whom one disagrees politically. I think the take provided by @stetson is much closer to reality, though I would also include the group of Trump voters who I think are being duped and used.
Of course a lot of people voted for him. But it was nowhere near “half of the US population,” which is what you said. It wasn’t even ans any many people as those who voted against him.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think all Trump voters are evil or fascists.
But I do think all Trump voters are voting for someone dangerously close to fascism and demagoguery, if not already there, who has demonstrated time and time again his belief that the Constitution and democracy only are to be paid attention to when it benefits him, and who only cares about himself. He tells people what they want to hear and what benefits him. Why anyone believes a word that comes out of his mouth is frankly beyond me.
No, half of the people who voted did. Definitely not the same thing.
I generally agree with this. Especially after experiencing four years of what Trump actually did (and tried to do) in office, and what he has explicitly said he will do if elected again. But some of what I consider this kind of "sickness" has been induced by a very, very false and toxic right-wing media bubble. (We have our own media bubble on the left, which definitely has its issues.)
There are some issues on the left in the US, perhaps especially on college campuses and in some approaches to cultural theory (in my view), but in terms of power, I don't think we have any lefties in the House, Senate, Supreme Court, or state governorships to compare with people like the most extreme and/or conspiracy-theory-promoting people on the right who hold those offices of power, so right this moment, in the United States, I consider the extreme right more of a danger than the extreme left. I don't think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, or Bernie Sanders are as extreme or even literally crazy as Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, DeSantis in Florida (where I live--please pray for us, it's horrible), Abbott in Texas, etc.
There are old-school conservatives whom I respect, and who I wish could take their party back, but they're literally being called "RINOs" and even "woke" for not being all-in on Trump and far-right extremism. (Ironically, I've come to respect more people on this kind of old-fashioned right over the last few years than I had for years and years before. I don't necessarily agree with them on many things, but they are people one could "sit down and reason together" with, and I've actively been peering out of my own blue (liberal) bubble at conservative-but-anti-Trumpism voices like the Dispatch, the Bulwark, and David French--not to leave out The Lincoln Project.) Indeed, I've come to respect moderate voices, in general, more than before--there's real value in trying to compromise when running a government. (It doesn't always lead to good things, of course, depending on the compromise, like with regard to basic human rights, etc.)
Of course Trump voters are human beings (as are people on the other side(s), and everyone else). I do think Trump is scary for the reasons mentioned above. I do think there is some kind of blind spot or worse in this situation (which is why I mostly concur with "sick" in my last comment), but again, I think it might be due to the media bubble. I know a friendly acquaintance (we knew each other in high school) who voted for Trump and was so horrified when Biden won that she was literally crying. (I hugged her. I'm sure there would be awful people who would rub it in. I don't want to be someone like that.) Despite the awful bumper stickers and t-shirt slogans, I know that Trump voters are three-dimensional human beings, who have souls, and who are people for whom Christ died. (Even Trump is.)
Well, lemme put it like this...
I had no real concept of Trump's voice or mannerisms until about 2015, when he had already identified himself politically as Republican, a party I intensely dislike. However, when I much later watched the YouTube video Does Trump think George W. Bush lied about Iraq? I tried to put myself in the mindset of a generic Iraq War-opponent coming to his personality tabula rasa.
And yeah, I think that antiwar individual would think that not only was the content spot-on(*), but that the delivery sounded both calm and authoritative.
(It does help that his sparring is a twerpy little weekend warrior who seems on the verge of tears because someone said that Bush lied about Iraq. It's almost like a comedy skit.)
(*) The main objection I would have to his lecture was that he was speaking from basically isolationist sentiment, and didn't directly voice objections to the loss of Iraqi life. But that doesn't negate the truth of his expressed opinions, and in any case "Why the hell should we spend this money over there instead of helping our people over here?" is a pretty common sentiment within mainstream public opinion.
Also, I'm not intending to verify Trump's stance on the war, and I believe there is actually some question as to how consistently antiwar he really was. I'm talking about how his persona would appear to someone who was already inclined to similar opinions. I could vote other examples, but that's the clearest one I can think of.
But he lies with such regularity, saying things that are easily identified as lies, that I think it’s quite reasonable to assume he’s lying, or at the least to assume he can’t be trusted to be truthful. Given that, I think one has to already have bought into what he’s selling to grant him any degree of trustworthiness.
They're either fascists or they're unknowingly supporting fascism or they're willing to go along with fascism because it serves some other purpose for them. Trump is a full-on fascist strongman. If you're voting for him, you're voting for fascism.
I have a friend who is gay whose sister supports Trump because she likes the tax cuts - my friend can barely bring himself to speak to her because she cares more about taxes she can easily afford than about his civil rights. Is she evil? I don't know. At what point does doing evil things make someone evil?
By the way, it’s awesome to see you again, Ruth! ❤️
OK Ruth
You have more confidence in your own discernment, than I do.
I'm not disagreeing with you, however I think there is also a constituency of voters who have been (are being) frightened into voting for Trump.
Which might not be direct threats to an individual as much as the feeling that things in the future might not be good for people who vote against him, particularly if they are from minority ethnic groups.
Of course, there's also an argument that the Republicans benefit if people are too scared to vote for anyone.
Well, I know people who'd say that that woman isn't any worse than someone who thinks that Biden's Israel/Palestine policies are about equally as genocidal as Trump's, but plan to vote for Biden anyway because they depend on the ACA and want to preserve it.
So, you mean there are people thinking "If Trump wins, he might start persecuting people from minority groups who didn't vote for him, so since I'm a member of one of those minority groups, I'd better vote for him?"
I think you'd better go back to the drawing board on that one. Just for starters, how is Trump gonna know who voted for him or not? And if the scenario is just that eg. he's rounding up all Hispanics because most Hispanics didn't vote for him, then it's not gonna matter for any individual Hispanic how they voted.
I don't have the first clue what your motivations are, or even what your opinions are, because you haven't stated them. If you want to show how pure your motivations are, state them and defend them.
@stetson: The difference is my friend's sister can easily afford to pay more taxes without it affecting her lifestyle. She's just stingy. And yeah, I think it's evil for an affluent person to care more about hanging onto a few thousand dollars she doesn't need than about whether a blood relative is regarded as a full human being with full rights by the state.
Back atcha!
I think this illustrates the divide that's being argued here. @Moyessa is bearing false witness about Trump's popular support. Their point seems to be that this doesn't matter because they were doing so for good, or at least understandable, reasons. Ignorance? Carelessness? A known falsehood that somehow illustrates a greater truth? The point they're making is that the falsehood doesn't matter because they had good (or at least acceptable) motives in propagating it.
The other side seems to be advancing the argument that actions are more important than internal motives. That if you're doing bad things for sympathetic or understandable reasons you're still doing bad things, and that matters a lot more than whatever motives you have for your bad actions.
This reminds me of some of the difficulties of getting redress for racial discrimination in the U.S. prior to 1964. One of the big stumbling blocks was proving racial animus or intent. Not impossible, but very difficult. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 changed that standard to having to prove that something had a disparate impact along racial lines. In other words the standard was no longer trying to weigh the contents of people's hearts but measuring the results of their actions, something a lot simpler for the legal system to do.
I'm also thinking about this A.R. Moxon quote.
So yeah, maybe all those Trump supporters waving their "Mass Deportation Now" signs don't hate their immigrant neighbors. Maybe they're motivated by economic anxiety, or religious values, or dislike of Democrats, or whatever. I'm not sure that's going to be much of a comfort to those being imprisoned or the families broken up if that policy is enacted.
Actually, I wasn't planning to post that, because I double-checked and saw that you specifically stated the woman's concern was avoiding taxes that she could afford to pay. Not sure how that made it into public view.
I'd guess that the immediate response to being unexpectedly shot in the ear by a would-be assassin might be similar to the immediate response of being unexpectedly involved in a car crash - something that rather more people have personal experience with, and for which the statistics available are rather better.
You see a range of immediate responses. Some people come out fighting (some literally), some huddle in a gibbering heap of shock, some can't stop crying. I think Trump's response to his attempted assassination is consistent with the normal range of human behavior.
Almost half of those who voted in 2020 voted Trump, and just over half voted Biden. The margin was almost five percentage points, which is a substantial enough margin to be able to say that Biden was unequivocally ahead in the popular vote, but it's still reasonable to say that about half the voters voted Trump.
The extrapolation from "half of voters wanted this" to "half the country wanted this" is commonly made, and is not unreasonable. The sort of person who likes to group non-voters together with voters against (whatever), so they can say that "only small number % of people supported Trump / Biden / Brexit / whatever" are the ones being dishonest. All you can say about the people who didn't vote is that they didn't vote.
To the extent that people didn't vote, because they weren't able to (voter registration challenges, people not able to show an id, people without stable addresses, people who gave up because the lines were too long), that's a problem that should be addressed. People who could have voted, but chose not to? I think the most reasonable interpretation of such an action is no preference between the two main candidates, although there's also an element of can't be bothered stronghold state bias: if you live in a location where the elections are not competitive, then whether you support or oppose the person who is going to win in your area, there's plenty of incentive to not bother to vote because your vote won't make a difference.
Which pretty much establishes that it’s unreasonable to extrapolate from “half of voters wanted this” to “half the country wanted this.”
I'd imagine some politucal-scientist somewhere has done a comparison between Australian election results post-1924, with hypothesized results from an alternate time-line without mandatory voting.
No idea what the conclusions would be, but my educated guess would be roughly the same overall patterns. My own belief is that most stay-at-home folks agree with one of the major parties on whatever issues they find relevant, but are just too apathetic to vote.
That would be reasonable to say. However, @Moyessa did not say that.
It's only reasonable if you think "the US population" and "the voting US electorate" are identical. This is the kind of sloppy thinking that anti-democratic leaders trying to maintain a veneer of democracy love. For example, I wouldn't assume that the pool of disproportionately black adult non-voters in Alabama in 1958 supported George Wallace in exactly the same proportion as the disproportionately white voters who elected him governor. But hey, you do you.
The most you can say is that in 2020 24.5% of the American population preferred Joe Biden for the presidency, 22.4% preferred Donald Trump, 0.9% of preferred some other candidate, 28.1% were ineligible to vote because they were under 18 years old or non-citizens, approximately* 1.5% were ineligible to vote because of a prior felony conviction and approximately 22.6% were eligible to vote but either chose not to or were unable to navigate the bureaucratic or logistical hurdles to do so. Assuming that all these various groups on non-voters exactly mirrors the preferences of voters, especially non-citizens or the very young, seems like hubris.
Basing governance on who shows up at the polls may be a necessary assumption of democracy, but extrapolating from that is dubious at best.
* It is incredibly difficult to find reliable numbers on exactly how many American adults have been disenfranchised by the criminal justice system.
Apologies if I haven't expressed this very well, but I hope you see what I mean.
Do you mean "Would they be likely to vote for Harris?", or "Will a Harris administration have better policies for them?", or...?
To be honest, I'm not sure. Both, I suppose, if that makes sense...
Given Trump's hatred of so many different groups, I don't doubt that President Harris would have more appealing policies, in which case I guess they would be more likely to support her.
This just a gut feeling, though, as I really do find US politics hard to fathom.
She will appeal to BIPOC voters overall more than Trump, though she will do better with women than with men among these groups. Trump has pealed off some Black and Latino young men from the Dems with his strongman schtick.
Thanks for the update!
As I said before, I wish her well.
Well yes, which is why I shared my own experience of surviving a serious car crash upthread.
But to return to the current situation in the US. It's good to hear that the Democrats are dedicating a lot of resources to their campaign.
They are going to need that, plus plenty of stamina, determination and clear heads if they are going to face down a populist demagogue.
The stakes couldn't be higher.
The really disturbing aspect of this crowd's ideology is the extent to which it embraces accelerationism:
Bearing in mind that tech bosses have demonstrated over the last 20 years or so that they really don't have our best interests at heart, coupled with the incredible influence they have over our societies, I think it's worth paying close attention to the policies they support.
And understanding something about the ideologies should help us recognise references to them in the written and spoken word.
As far as I know, no-one has carried out that exercise, at least in a publicly available report. Indeed, I have difficulty imagining how it could be done.
There are very few voices against compulsory voting. As I've noted before, voting, at least in the morning, is a very social affair - people chatting with friends and neighbours, buying some of the home-made products from community groups (not one of the parties) and then going off for morning tea or lunch. Not talking politics though, our electorate being the one of the safest in the country for the conservative side, such talk is irrelevant. Your vote and preferences generally, are assumed
I think of it as less being compulsory voting, but compulsory attendance at a voting place and am always astounded at the idea that in other countries voting is not held at the weekend to enable everyone to participate with ease. It is possible to attend, have your name marked as attending, but to submit a blank voting form, or one that has been defaced. I don't endorse either of those practices but no one really knows what happens in the voting cubicle and I have no problem with that. I would not like people to waste their vote, but it is possible to do so. I sometimes wonder if we had a box that said "none of the above", how many people would choose that option, but that's just me musing to myself.
I have to say I'm thrilled to see the rise in Independents here and the highlight of the day is definitely the cake stall and sausage sizzle!! It seems as though the term democracy sausage is now a thing, but I've had to say that I've never heard it used ever except in the media.
There are many different systems of voting, but of course no way of properly comparing them. We go part of the way by having a different system for upper and lower houses - not just a different system but a different electorate for each when you think about it. Then, a century ago Queensland went and abolished its Upper House!
Idaho will have a people's initiative calling for open primary with rank choice possibility. The state secretary (Republican) has researched the cost. He claims it will cost $40 million to run. The proponents say while it may cost $40 million to set up any subsequent vote will be relatively nil.
Maine and Alaska have ranked choice voting. We discussed Alaska's system a bit in back in 2022.
Ranked choice voting strikes me as our best hope for improving our political system. Once we manage to switch to that, a lot of other possibilities open up.
I think one problem with a ranked choice voting in Alaska (you could also say this about two round voting in California) is that in the initial round of voting (the “jungle primary”) that Elmo ages the candidates down to four in Alaska and two in California, there are multiple candidates for each party because the parties have not united behind one candidate for each seat (these are elections for a single seat, unlike STV elections in Ireland and for the Australian Federal Senate).
I think it would be better if the parties could have their own primaries, maybe using ranked choice of a short list of five candidates nominated by a certain number of party elected officials in the state or by gathering enough signatures of registered party members. Then only the winners of those primaries plus independents who can get enough petition signatures advance to the jungle primary if there is one or straight to the general election, where ranked choice voting is used again. That way, the elections aren’t between two or three democrats and two or three Republicans, who are often mainly running on name recognition rather than policy differences, and instead there will be more room for parties other than the main two to distinguish themselves in terms of policy.
We have two principal methods of voting here in Australia. In most jurisdictions, there is what we call preferential voting of the lower house, and proportional for the upper house/federal Senate (it's the reverse in Tasmania). Victoria has its own method for the upper house of the State legislature Both methods ask electors to rank candidates in order of choice. Preferential works for single-member electorates and proportional for multi-member ones. In Federal elections, each State is an electorate for Senators.
Preferential voting is easy to understand - if no candidate obtains an absolute majority of first preference votes, then the second preference votes of the least favoured candidate are counted and distributed amongst remaining candidates. That process continues by counting third and fourth etc preferences until one candidate emerges with 50% (plus 1) of the votes cast and is elected. Proportional voting works in the reverse - the second choice votes of those who voted for the most favoured candidate are those first distributed. There's a lot of strange mathematics involved in proportional voting and I do not really understand it.
It sounds complex and in theory it is. Not so much so in practice.
I think the difference that I was trying to point out is that for the Australian federal House of Representatives, the parties get to select their candidate for each constituency before voters rank them. In Alaska, voters have a first round (called a primary but different than primaries in most other states) where the ballot has lots of people running as a Republican or a Democrat for the same seat on the same ballot. The top four vote getters regardless of party advance to the general election, which uses ranked choice voting. California uses a similar system but only the top two vote getters advance to the general election, meaning that it is just a run off and you don’t need ranked choice.
This means that the general election technically could have four candidates all from the same party in Alaska, although that is unlikely, or two candidates from the same party in California, which has happened before. It also means that the parties have much less control over who their candidates are and can be hijacked by candidates who have very little connection to the party at all, who are at odds with the party’s policies, who have various scandals, etc., but who have high name recognition or good fundraising ability.
I know in the Australian federal Senate sometimes voters will rank someone that their party listed third higher and that means they get a seat whereas the person the party listed second doesn’t get a seat. But the party at least gets to determine who is on the ballot at all and who isn’t. That isn’t really the case in Alaska and California, and you could argue that parties have limited ability to prevent any candidate from running under the party label in any US state, at least in a primary.