this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2023
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United States | News & Politics
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It's not bullshit. You USAians have distilled complex issues to "yes, no", " with us, or against us", "right, wrong", "racist, not racist", etc.
The first past the post system limits the voting options to just two, which limits the power and decision making to a few people who aren't allowed to diverge from their voter-base.
A centrist republican voter and a centrist democrat voter can't both vote for a centrist party. They both have to make a decision of "republican or democrat". A working class USAian can't vote for a working class party - no it has to be one of the two parties.
It's much easier for both parties to make it harder for working class people to vote and garner votes from the middle class upwards, than try to serve the working class. Or, they just indoctrinate the working class to vote against their own interests - what option do they have anyway? It's not like they could vote for a third, forth or fifth party that represents them.
Both parties do little for the working class because they know they don't have to do much. Feed them propaganda on social media, have political ads that DESTROY, OBLITERATE, SMASH the other side (or whatever sensationalist word is used), make promises, claim moral highground and quote Jebus a few times, and the working class will for them. And if they don't vote at all, that's even better!
Yeah yeah, democrats do more than republicans, but "represent" the working class is a stretch.
The USA needs a multi-party system, possibly with preferential voting. The only people with actual representative are the rich, in the USA.
Counterpoint: the rich want to get richer, and the lapdogs want their bribes, and the lazy folks in the middle can only be motivated by fear (not even greed works anymore, e.g. for retirees who already got theirs), so to break out of this cycle would take... ... ...
I have no clue.
Well voting for the Capitalist party ain't it. So start by NOT voting for the Capitalist parties, and then seeing what else you can do outside of the voting booth. But if you refuse NOT to vote for the Capitalist party, then do you really have a problem with the current system since you are actively supporting it.
I don't follow you. They are BOTH the capitalist party, though not equally so. Also, voting for one side vs. the other does not mean that you agree with EVERYTHING that they do - in fact it is more common these days to vote against the other side and ignore what your own might plan or actually do. Nor is it true that avoiding voting - e.g. for mental or physical health reasons - means that someone does not care at all about what happens as a result of the election. Plus, a rather ENORMOUS fraction of people in the USA could skip a particular vote and it would not make the tiniest iota of difference, due to the electoral college system, though that heavily depends on where you live, and also trends to be more true the larger the region impacted (federal > state > county), whereas local elections could turn on a dime and also make a huge impact regardless of what goes on in upper levels - e.g. federal sends monies to help people but locals turn that aid away b/c "reasons".
Unpopular opinion alert: I dare to say that many people who should NOT be voting - especially those who do little to no research beforehand - would vastly improve the outcome of elections by NOT voting, and thereby contribute more that way than they do now, by actually voting, where they tend to just magnify the votes of whatever the TV & radio talk show people (or more recently, pastors behind the pulpit) tell them to do. The latter makes the USA even more of a plutocracy than later, when the votes get ignored and the rich get whatever they want regardless of who got elected does.
You are missing the big picture. Capital benefits by people voting for either party of Capital. It doesn't matter which one you vote for, important things like material conditions for real people will never improve if you vote like you are advocating. If you can't even vote against Capital, then what good are you?