this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2024
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Typographical errors aside, are you proposing any actual solutions or just trying to discourage people from voting?
Oh no, far from that. Vote Biden all the way (I’m not voting cause I am not an American and not in the US).
But I think that higher levels of political participation would have prevented this in the first place, as it would probably mean that waaaaay better candidates would come out of both parties (and eventually new ones)
I used to think people who voted party above politics were the worst kinds of people. Then Trump won a term and I realized that while party politics were extremely stupid, we have a responsibility to do damage control. Failing to do damage control will result in someone with the IQ of a candy bracelet becoming leader of the free world and doing exactly what you think he'd do with that power.
I love this metaphor - after taking a moment to consider whether it's unfair to candy bracelets...
If you are looking for a more perfect reason to abandon a two party system it's going to have to come up to you and put you in a headlock.
"Abandon the two party systen" isn't a solution.
Supporting a 3rd party would be a solution. A terrible solution that has historically proven to only hurt the cause you are trying to support. But bad solutions are at least still solutions.
Changing the election system is another solution. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is one of the many issues I consider when weighing who I vote for. But the reality is that law has not passed and may never pass, so we are stuck with the electoral college and first-past-the-post voting system in the US for the 2024 election.
Then there's coups. If you're advocating for political violence I suggest you visit a nation experiencing it. There's a reason so much of the country was terrified watching the news on January 6th 2021.
Then there's leaving the country, which is basically just an option for the wealthy or otherwise lucky exceptions. Not really fixing the system as much as abandoning it.
If no one supports third parties third parties will never have support. Ultimately campaign finance reforms that allow third parties to have a platform is what I'm looking for. The solution is a long game that not enough voters are interested in playing, but it starts with picking people within the two party system that are willing to make some basic reforms (financing and RCV) that can make room for more diverse candidates.
Your nihilism brings nothing but more of the same clown shows that we have currently.
Tbf voting is a scam thanks to the electoral college
Less the electoral college and more because of faithless electors.
How many faithless electoral have ever happened in history?
Dozens. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector
Out of the tens of thousands of electors in history, there's been just over a hundred faithless electors.
And, to quote from your link:
And the source for that comment is a Newsweek article by Alexandra Hutzler that has no cited sources. I guess this is why we don't use Wikipedia in school.
Fair enough, I was just rolling with what you brought.
Does CNN work better? Or CBS?
I think I would agree with you on a lot: faithless electors should be legislated out of existence and the electoral college sucks. Where I disagree is that I don't think this is significant enough to discourage voting. Faithless Electors are more of a trivia question than anything meaningful to American politics.
Oh I'm not discouraging voting I'm just saying that the electoral college is a problem, faithless electors are and can be a big part of that problem, and they need to be addressed. Even if they haven't swung an election all on their own yet, they have the ability to. I personally also don't like the idea of votes being weighed differently because of the state you live in and it's frustrating to see things like the popular vote not line up with the winner of the election.
Yeah. Let’s not do this. Pretty simple solution honestly.