America III: Going Deutsche

[Dogg Thang]

I saw that screenshot on Twitter but then couldn't verify if it's real because it turns out I blocked Musk to stop Twitter throwing his dumbass tweets into my timeline. Has anyone looked to see if that's real?

[MartyG]

It's fake, it's not in his timeline that I can see (the bottom one, the full support one was real), well unless it's since been deleted.

[MartyG]

I guess though, if you're not getting the results, like, ever then you can safely say there is something wrong with the system.

The people that voted for Trump got the result they wanted as did those that voted for the Tories. Just because it's not the result you like (and I'm using "you" in the general sense), doesn't mean the system is inherently wrong.

Not to say there aren't issues like voter supression and constituency boundaries (although in the states, the electoral college system probably needs an overhaul) - but when you have a two party system, they only thing that can happen is swinging between the two.

The democratic system itself isn't a bad ideology, neither is communism an inherently bad ideology, the problem is always down to the way those systems are manipulated, so it doesn't make a huge difference what that political ideology is.

[Dogg Thang]

Personally, I feel "it's what people wanted" isn't enough of a defense of a system. If people turn up to a hospital and ask that the staff set them on fire and the staff do it, I'd tell you the hospital has a problem. At a certain point, you need to evaluate the results and see how that's working. And really, given that so many Trump supporters were basically protest votes and they still don't seem to be all that happy, I have a feeling that we can say the system isn't working for them either. I would very definitively say at this point that the system is inherently wrong.

[MartyG]

It sounds like you're basically saying people should not have been allowed to vote for Trump - that not something for you or I to judge, all you can do is educate people, otherwise what you're suggesting is Geniocracy; restricting who can vote and who can stand as a candidate, based on a criteria you like at the expense of others. How is that fair just because you don't like someone else's choice? Suggesting it's broken because people might want to burn allowed to burn down hospitals is a strawman argument (people generally don't want to burn down hospitals anyway).

Voters are presented with a choice of candidates and they should be free to make that choice whether you or I agree with it or not. You can make a difference by standing as an MP yourself and make the argument as to why you are a better candidate for MP, that's how you make the system better, not by telling people who they can't vote for or restricting their choices to a narrower political spectrum.

[Dogg Thang]

Sounds like you're suggesting stuff I haven't in any way suggested and then while tearing down that strawman, in an ironic twist, threw a strawman accusation in my direction.

For clarity, here's what I'm suggesting: the system is broken and needs an overhaul.

[Hirst]

There's realistically no way of fighting the main parties unless you had an almost unlimited amount of money to fund it - which leads to the completely corrupt system of everything being paid by rich party donors who want to protect their own interests. It's why almost everyone you'll encounter on the street hates things like offshore tax havens of corporate tax dodging, but nobody really does anything about it. Got to keep the donors happy or their party will collapse through lack of funds. American system is bad for it as their system relies heavily on how much you can soak into advertising and it's a huge country.

I think unless you were already some kind of billionaire who was quite happy to lose most of their fortune, there's no realistic way of becoming opposition here (and I think even then it would take many decades of relentlessly advertising and putting up candidates in every single ward). Certainly the idea of some regular folks on normal wages deciding to form a party and becoming elected is completely fanciful - possible in theory, but only like the theory that a human being could technically walk a full circuit around the world. Even if you slowly build momentum as a party, it only takes it being a close call between the big two and everyone will abandon you to make sure their idea of the "lesser evil" gets in.

[MartyG]

But you haven't in any way suggested how it's broken other than inferring someone was voted into power that shouldn't have been or how it should be overhauled to prevent it.

Trump became president because he got the most votes in the primaries allowing him to stand on the ballot paper and then got the highest number of EC tickets. Johnson got into power because more people voted for the Tories than any other party; that sounds to me like the system is working in exactly the way it was designed to work - those with the most votes winning, as decided by the people.

If you think the result is wrong, then you must by logic, think that how the people elected them (by more people voting for them) is also wrong. If you want "better" candidates, then there needs to be restrictions on who can stand, what should those restrictions be? But I would argue that if we truly want a free democracy, then it follows that anyone should be allowed to be a political candidate and it should be for the electorate to decide who that is regardless of how evil or bad they are - just as everyone should be free to vote for who they want, regardless of where they are on the intelligence spectrum, even if that means the outcome might not align with my own ideals. That is true democracy, anything else is Oligarchy.

There is definitely an argument, certainly in the US, that money carries the presidency. In the UK at least, there are very strict guidelines on how much money can be spent on electioneering and the Electoral Commission that oversees this is strict about it; we certainly don't get the same level of advisarial advertising, so money definitely isn't as big of an issue for MP candidates in the UK as it is for politicians in the US.

There is no perfect political system, there will always be winners and losers and yes, having an open democracy where anyone can run as a candidate and everyone one has a single free vote sometimes means that clowns like Trump and Johnson will get into power, not that the system is broken.

[Dogg Thang]

I feel like you're arguing with an imaginary version of my posts, Marty. I said that, if you don't get the results ever, then you have to look at the system. Trump is obviously a huge problem but I think the issue is much deeper than that. You know there is much more than just people voting for who they want to vote for. Who gets put forward, who can pay to advertise, where that money comes from and the dodgy deals they make to get it and what party interests they need to serve in order to stand a chance all taint the systems - certainly in the US, the two party system breaks democracy.

[Asura]

I don't think the system of modern democracy works. How can it be that we end up with the population having to pick between several absolutely awful options?

I guess though, if you're not getting the results, like, ever then you can safely say there is something wrong with the system.

Joseph De Maistre famously suggest that every country gets the government it ultimately deserves. Remember that the tories won with 47% of the vote, which gave them the biggest majority of any party since 1970. For nearly half the people in the country, they've got exactly what they wanted.

"The system" is only broken in that it's fairly and correctly measuring the opinion of the public, but the public are humans, and plenty of them are unsymapthetic, selfish *****. Duplicitous arseholes who clap for the NHS on Thursday then vote Tory at the next election. Who go on holiday to Spain every year and smile nicely at their immigrant neighbours then vote for Brexit when they have a moment's privacy.

Some would point out that people like Johnson get in because on the political spectrum, there's a divide - it's the same thing happening in the US right now - where the people on Biden's side have torn into him lately for not practically walking on water, and having done bad things in the past - whereas Trump's base will dutifully vote for a billionaire, misogynist, sociopathic, whoremongering WANKER. But this is still in agreement with the above; if that's how people are, then that's the government they deserve under a democratic system.

The question then, to ask, is whether or not you believe in open democracy, where every able-minded citizen gets to vote; or whether maybe we should require more of the people who can vote. Like do they need to demonstrate basic reasoning skills, are they easily disqualified by misdemeanours and so on. That's a difficult one as western democracies have flowed towards "more open" in general as time has gone by.

Who gets put forward, who can pay to advertise, where that money comes from and the dodgy deals they make to get it and what party interests they need to serve in order to stand a chance all taint the systems - certainly in the US, the two party system breaks democracy.

This is the bit which is unarguably kinda broken. It's naive to suggest it's a fair playing field and people are voting just based on the issues.

[Lebowski]

But you haven't in any way suggested how it's broken other than that someone you don't like was voted into power or how it should be overhauled

Trump became president because he got the most votes in the primaries allowing him to stand on the ballot paper and then got the highest number of EC tickets. Johnson got into power because more people voted for the Tories than any other party; that sounds to me like the system is working in exactly the way it was designed to work - those with the most votes winning.

I think he said pretty well how the system is broken its the people with the most money that are winning and to get to this point they end up in the pockets of the people with the most money. Anyone who dares to try and do something about the broken systems gets hung out to dry in the press.

[Hirst]

The system is broken because it relies on parties to be very well-funded by party donors and realistically that isn't going to happen for a party that isn't almost guaranteed to get in, keeping us stuck in a two-party cycle (controlled largely not by voters but party donors) forever. Not to mention all the money that gets soaked into unofficial-but-paid-for-by-donors stuff, which is very dodgy and should be completely illegal - all these social media ads bought by "independent" companies funded indirectly via money funnelled out of party donors and what-not.

I would say the best system would be for something where the money is taken out of it completely, campaigning is strictly limited to a downloadable manifesto and a single party political broadcast for each party, no other advertising, unlawful campaigning to be dealt with much more severely - including having up to 100% of their votes invalidated. At the moment the clock-and-dagger stuff goes all through the system with quasi-official websites/organisations turning up on the run up to election to dispense "facts" and disappearing shortly after. It stinks.

[Dogg Thang]

Joseph De Maistre famously suggest that every country gets the government it ultimately deserves. Remember that the tories won with 47% of the vote, which gave them the biggest majority of any party since 1970. For nearly half the people in the country, they've got exactly what they wanted.

And yet I don't feel they're happy. I'm not convinced that, because they voted and got a guy in, that the system even worked for them. I think there is much more to it than just saying they got in who they voted for.

I'm also not in any way convinced that we have an open democracy for all the reasons I've already suggested. It's a democracy under a very set system of rules that, as we've all seen, can and will be manipulated, often to serve the interests of the highest bidder. I couldn't really call that an open democracy even before I start to consider the question of whether I really think we should have one (and I'm honestly not sure where I'd land on that one way or another).

The idea that we get the government we deserve, yeah, I can see that. But again it's within a very set system that, at this point, is structured to serve a particular type of politician. And we have that here in Ireland in a big way. With the best will in the world, it's very hard for an idealistic candidate to break through because they've got to work the system and the system is weighted against that type of candidate. People vote but, when the system itself is weighted that way, I find it hard to even blame the voters. As you say, it's not a fair playing field.

[MartyG]

The donors don't vote for candidates. voters vote for candidates; there is an issue with party donors, but I'll get to that shortly. It's exceedingly rare for there to be only one or two candidates on a ballot paper at a GE, voters don't have to vote for a Tory or Labour candidate, they choose to - they can equally choose for independants - so the question that should be being asked is why don't they, it's certainly not down to party loyalty as Corbyn found out to his detriment.

The party expenditures aren't massive in the grand scheme of GDP or compared to the PR budget of the vast majority UK corporations: https://www.electoralcommission.org....ties-published but I do think that there should be greater restrictions on party donations - not because this influences elections so much as it influences policy although I wouldn't be unhappy for there to be greater limits on spending in elections - however, restrict that too much and there'd be a greater amount of "cloak and dagger" influencing going on.

I think perhaps the truth is actually fairly simple, for better or worse, more people simply preferred Johnson for PM whether that be because of policy or personality, and so he won.

[Lebowski]

The donors don't vote for candidates. voters vote for candidates; there is an issue with party donors, but I'll get to that shortly. It's exceedingly rare for there to be only one or two candidates on a ballot paper at a GE, voters don't have to vote for a Tory or Labour candidate, they choose to - they can equally choose for independants - so the question that should be being asked is why don't they, it's certainly not down to party loyalty as Corbyn found out to his detriment.

The party expenditures aren't massive in the grand scheme of GDP or compared to the PR budget of the vast majority UK corporations: https://www.electoralcommission.org....ties-published but I do think that there should be greater restrictions on party donations - not because this influences elections so much as it influences policy although I wouldn't be unhappy for there to be greater limits on spending in elections - however, restrict that too much and there'd be a greater amount of "cloak and dagger" influencing going on.

I think perhaps the truth is actually fairly simple, for better or worse, more people simply preferred Johnson for PM whether that be because of policy or personality, and so he won.

There is already a massive amount of cloak and dagger going on, how esle do you explain supposedly independent movements set up to promote Tory policy's or undermine opposition party's, spending 50 grand on target web advertising then disappearing as soon as the election is over. Half a million was spent in this way on the web that now direct you to dead or blank websites or dead Facebook pages that haven't been updated in months. There seems to be lots of way you can financially benefit a party and keep your name of their books and the above is just one of them.


Also the reason people vote either of the two main party's is because its seen as a wasted vote to vote someone else and the rhetoric that if you don't vote the big two you might as well not bother is rampant, we also live in a world where if you actively stand against the gutter press you can look forward to exposes, lies and slander being published about you on a daily basis, for someone to almost win under that amount of crap being slung is a small miracle.