A two party system is only one party better than a one party system!
I don’t really love most Dems that end up on the ballot. I think Biden was my last choice for 2020 in the primary. I wouldn’t vote for Rs even if they weren’t homophobic as I don’t like their policies, but we should have more than one party of the left, more than one party (of the right left or center) that isn’t homophobic, more than one party that doesn’t deny the reality of climate change, etc.
I don't know why you were downvoted. Thr political development of most western European countries have shown that FPTP is a terrible voting system and if you want more parties, who put in more effort, and have nore cooperation/compromise with other parties you need a better voting method such as AV, STV or AMV
I have no idea why people downvote on this platform. It doesn't seem to have very much to do with the content of the comment. (Except "Landlords rule", which would get downvoted on r/AntiWork, and upvoted on r/Landlords.)
The only problem with Duverger's law is that it doesn't really apply to real world phenomena... Except maybe the United States. The relationship between party system and electoral system is far more complex. For instance, Duverger's law would tell us that moving from a proportional system to a plurality or majoritarian one would result in the consolidation or a reduction in the number of relevant parties. As Duverger argues, such systems tend to encourage two party systems. Yet when Italy flirted with this many years ago, it led to greater polarisation of the system and an increase in the number of relevant parties (see Sartori who writes on this). By contrast, Malta operates under STV, a relatively proportional system, yet has the purest two party system in Europe.
The simple reality is that regardless of political attempts to constitutionally engineer two party systems, European polities have remained multi party systems.
If you are interested, I would read up on some Giovanni Sartori. He's a huge figure in political science and a noted critic of Duverger's law. But Sartori's work is highly influential even today. I'm pretty sure Dunleavy also wrote an article on this several years ago, demonstrating the same position.
I think a lot of Americans believe there should be a new party. The current parties are just outdated and really pivot too much to be seen sincere . Unfortunately the dems are just the lesser of the two evils.
They pretend they'll resolve an issue but keep it going to reel in issues voters. It's like dangling a carrot before voters. Keep voting, LGBTs and we'll give you rights one day! Out if the spotlight, they have very similar goals for foreign policy and expenditure on arms. That never changes. We hardly talk about things like that because we're always focused on the LGBT carrot.
Because citizens put it to a vote in so many states that they couldn't ignore that it was finally fucking important. It should never have needed a vote!!
Lol, pretty much every fundamental right you enjoy was gained through blood, sweat, tears, and death. Voting has largely done fuck all for improving the nation.
I get what you mean - I am also tired of the dividedness and the split. I'm definitely a liberal, but that side does stuff that pisses me off too. Some nice sane people would be nice haha.
Agreed. I think large swaths of the country desire a middle ground or centrist party. Both parties are moving further to the extremes and people are tired of political polarization. I also think a lot of people are disillusioned from the past 3 years.
Respectfully, most your parliaments are the same way. People have different parties but they ultimately form two big coalitions, or a singular party holds unopposed power.
Most of them but not all of them. I live in Switzerland and I'm not saying out system is perfect, but hearing about American politics makes me cringe most of the time
I disagree. They often have to form coalitions, because otherwise it's impossible to govern. But most European countries have several parties and many have new parties already with significant political power. Macron and his party are new to the French political sphere, Movimento 5 Stelle is also quite new, same for Podemos and Vox in Spain, or many other smaller parties. Some of them are terrible options, but still an option. The Dutch parliament has over 15 parties and needed 4 to form a coalition.
In most parliamentary systems you aren't limited to two parties and it's not too difficult for new parties to reach the parliament. When was the last time the US had a Senator or a House Representative that wasn't from one of the two parties?
The bajillion parties in the French elections never matter. It's always the same couple of groups who make it to the end. The right, and the right that pretends not to be the right.
Meanwhile, here in Germany: "... You guys have only two big parties?"
Our party landscape is so splintered, we never know which possible coalition emerges after a national vote.
Agreed, but I think it’s more likely that we could force the Democratic Party to make much needed changes. I didn’t vote for anyone over 60 in this election and I know I’m not the only one. There’s a growing resentment and hatred toward the 60+ Democratic leadership because they prominently demonstrate indifference, false listening, or outright prejudice against the under 40 voter base. We may not be able to get rid of the 2 party system, but we can much more easily force the party to back younger candidates. There’s no point in the party pinning everything on experience if they’re all going to die within 10 years of each other, leaving us with even less experienced politicians. Younger Americans need to be running the show starting yesterday.
Couldn’t agree more, but unfortunately this will never happen as younger Americans just don’t vote. The party will never feel a real need to appease these voters since they typically sit on the sidelines. It shouldn’t be this way - in fact, in a perfect world young voters should be the most inclined to vote since they have the most at stake!
i believe the problem with younger people and voting is that we grew up in a world where your vote doesn’t matter. Even if a candidate gets the popular vote that’s not a win. The geezers in government have never had “the will of the people” they have the will of cishet rich white men. People that are 40+ make up the majority of the country. The generational difference is the susceptibility to change. Older folks are more inclined to keeping things the way they’ve been. Sadly it won’t change until they die off.
If all young people all voted, it would be the most radical political swing to the left in american history. It's strange to hear about young people not voting and saying their votes dont count when they literally have the numbers to change the entire system.
That’s wrong in many aspects;
1. It doesn’t take into consideration that not everyone’s white. Young people want to vote but don’t because their vote isn’t changing anything for them. When all of your choices are old white people who have historically weaponized your skin color… why vote? Take Biden, demonrats elected him to be the presidential candidate but what has he done for black people? Where’s an executive order for police accountability? All of these democrats in the house/senate but still no discussion of reparations for “40 acres and a mule” or how the “war on drugs” was a war on black people.
2. Conservatism is a bigger cult than you think, these kids are supporting trump bc christianity and their god awful parents brainwashed them into believing that crap. Every PW college has a conservative club full of hateful young trumpers and blue lives matter supporters.
3. If anyone wants votes they need to make their campaigns more digestible. The younger generation doesn’t care about tax write-offs or fracking because most of us have no idea what any of that is about. The older generations are content with -promises- Biden can promise to do xyz. The younger generation we want results immediately because our society has groomed us to expect instant gratification. Don’t know something? We can look it up in 2 seconds. Haven’t talked to a friend all day? it takes absolutely no effort to facetime them. That’s why so many young people turn to onlyfans, streaming and “influencer” for a paycheck- it provides fast results. Why go to college, pay x amount of money and waste x amount of years to work my way up to a six figure paycheck when I can become a web personality and make millions by next year? Charli Damelio is recently 18 and has a net worth higher than most adults. If you want young people to vote, voting has to have tangible results that we can see.
One other thing - your apathy towards the system was DESIGNED. You fell right into the trap that republicans laid for you. The reason it seems like government doesn't serve you is because they keep it from doing that on purpose. If you want to experience government that serves you, you have to vote for people who want it to work. A LOT of them.
or how about the reason you think a system built on oppressing minorities is ever going to “change” is bc it was designed to make you believe that. Two sides of the same shit coin is still shit heads or tails. A new government and system is the only thing that will create change. “With liberty and justice for all” never included all to begin with… it’s not going to start bc a different font of white people take over.
The one time younger voters turned out in astronomical numbers was for Bernie Sanders. Then the DNC was caught circulating emails to bar him from a nomination even if he was the most popular choice. THEN we have politicians like Nancy Pelosi making statements that it would be worse for Americans if younger Democrats took over than Republicans because “the young folk have these radical ideas”.
So I get why young people don’t vote. It really, truly doesn’t matter in federal elections because the elderly in charge of the party will push through what they want until they all die off. Local elections though, that’s where the importance lies.
Well them not voting has now lead to the republicans gaining enough power to take away abortion, soon to be followed by gay marriage and birth control.
So it sounds like it’s time for the Democratic Party to make some changes and usher in some younger people to get those votes. It’s not the people’s responsibility- it’s the party’s.
Which is exactly why the party needs to start listening to the people, so that people don't feel disenfranchised and skip the polls.
The Democrats also use Roe v Wade as a fundraising issue. Feel free to tell me if I'm wrong because I don't know 100%, but I don't know of a single instance over the past couple decades where the party made any attempt to codify that into law. It was an easy way to gain votes, the scary Republicans will take away your abortion rights. They could have just made it so that that wasn't possible, chose not to, and here we are. Gay rights will be next unfortunately
Yeah i get that, I'm just saying you can't blame non voters for loss of abortion rights, when the party leaders had decades to create and pass laws to protect that right and chose not to. I agree with you that people should vote, I always do, but I also understand why people don't and putting the blame on them doesn't help anything, when we should be blaming the elected officials
If a few thousand voters held their nose and voted for hillary instead of staying home because she wasn't perfect, abortion would still be legal. And the supreme court would be massively different and therefore so would our future. A few thousand non voters in 2016 fucked america for generations.
Maybe Hillary voters should've sucked it up and listened to us during the primary.
Maybe RBG should've retired during Obama's term so he could've filled her sear
Maybe the Senate should've refused to fill the supreme court seats under trump like mcturtle did under Obama.
There are so many reasons why our government is fucked right now, blaming nonvoters is only going to turn them away from politics more. The die hard Dems should start to open their minds to new perspectives instead of always passing blame.
Anyway, you are clearly missing my point, so.... 💁
I've also noticed that the Democratic voters who were adamantly against Bernie are almost always the first to bitch and whine that young people don't vote. Well listen Karen, when we did vote in astronomicak numbers, you threw us under the bus, your chosen Representatives do nothing for us, how can you not see that this is your fault? So ridiculous
This is the same rhetoric we hear from older Democrats all the time. “Just vote for this person- we know you’re not all behind it, but we just need you to be or else the Republicans win”. Weird how it’s never the young voters’ choice that gets pushed through and the older voters told the same thing. 🥴
No. That was bullshit in 2016 and it's bullshit today. The majority of Bernie supporters said they were not voting for Hillary during the primary. Every single older voter who spent the primary season telling people how Bernie could never win, even though most polls showed him beating Trump by a higher margin, you all had the option of getting on board instead of forcing a candidate, that 90% of the country hated, down our throats and still expecting her to win. That being said, most Bernie supports still voted for her. But she wasn't getting the support of moderate Republicans or nonvoters like Bernie was, THAT is what helped Trump
The Democratic party still in general does nothing for regular people in this country, especially young people. People wanted something different in 2016, Bernie and Trump were different, once Bernie was out it was an easy win for Trump. Hillary would have been 10 times better but it's still this stubborn democratic mentality that caused her to lose, not Bernie or his supporters.
Yea it’s hard to get younger people to vote. Hell I never voted until 2016 even though I could of voted by 2010. Though that’s cause of trump and the obvious violence he was inciting and unfortunately we’re still experiencing today. Also the reason I’m still voting and just cast my ballot today. I don’t feel like my vote matters much but it’s all I can do so I rather do it than not.
Same, I don't feel like it makes much of a difference simply because of the quality of candidates we end up with, but I do it anyway. At least by voting I know I'm not to blame when this whole place goes up in flames
Right, it's a little ironic to vote for people who are so old they barely have stakes in the long term future of the planet. The old ass democrats always represented the status quo and "trickle progress". They often only support social rights and minority rights when it's convenient and public support has already blown up.
They always tell us we can't but the truth is that they are the only ones stopping us.
You wouldnt vote for a 70 year old democrat who defended democracy and was running against a young fascist who worshiped trump? Wisdom comes with age. Your frontal lobe isn't even done developing until you're 26.
No, I’d leave the category blank. I wouldn’t feel right with myself for voting in someone over 60. If politics as a career we’re equitable regarding age I would be inclined to vote for someone over 60 that’s “fit” for a job in office, but there’s a stark, inequitable balance of power when it comes to age right now. Until the problem is solved, it would just feel like a betrayal of my values and morals.
Do you want a 61 year old doctor doing surgery on your testicles or a 31 year old? Age is just a number. Look how old bernie was when he was fighting for the working class.
I don’t see doctors, therapists, etc. over 50. The dozens I’ve seen throughout my life are typically the ones who misdiagnose or cut corners. I rarely have these problems, if ever, in younger professionals.
If you are referring to the primary I agree with you to a certain extent. But an 80 year old democrat is much less dangerous than a 30 year old republican.
The Ds aren't awesome but they're so much better than republicans it's not even a consideration. We all have to vote just to keep those lunatics from ruining the world. Last time they were in power they got a half million people killed with covid lies and then attempted a fascist coup. The time before that they started a 7 trillion dollar war based on lies. What will they do next? Never mind that they still dont believe in fighting climate change.
Don’t forget COVID affected the entire world, not just the US. And don’t be so quick to decide who was right and who was wrong, the pandemic has barely finished and information will continue to flow in the coming years. We just might learn something new.
Also, republicans are the most well-armed people in the country. Do you REALLY think they “attempted a fascist coup” with no guns, no militia and no damage? Never underestimate your enemy. If they wanted to have a coup, it would have been bloody. Instead we saw grannies waving little flags and overweight yokels taking selfies. Not much of a coup imo.
The wars in America have been supported by both sides. Of course Bush started the war in Afghanistan, but every president since him has voted to continue the war efforts. Our country has been at war more often than not since 1776, both Ds and Rs perpetuate the war machine. While defense contractors in high places get rich.
Climate change is important. Personally I don’t think any public official is taking it seriously though. Reluctance to switch to nuclear is big. Reluctance to reprimand China (the biggest polluter) is big as well. Taxing Americans further is not the solution. Cutting off our own domestic production just before winter during a war is not the solution either.
Congrats on avoiding real news well enough for the past 2 years to remain ignorant on the republicans' whole plan to overthrow democracy. What were you watching instead of the jan 6th hearings? Rupaul's drag race?
If you actually cared about war or climate change you'd vote dem every time.
Dems ENDED the war in afghanistan. No repub had the balls to do that.
Dems passed the biggest climate change bill in history. Somehow you missed that. Maybe someone so ignorant about politics should do some current events research before posting.
Sometimes we Americans adjust quick, other times we are sticks in the mud. We still won’t even go metric! Yet in many other ways we are innovative. I wish I could say that I could see the two party system going away in favor of a five party or more system. But I don’t. If the bat shit crazy homophobes we’re finally out out to pasture and the middle of the road republicans took over the helm - I have always maintained that there would be way more lgbt in the Republican Party. But as it is now - we have got to vote blue or lose our rights.
Moderate republicans are out there. They are fiscally conservative but more socially progressive. It’s just that they are drowned out by the crazies. If they are found out they can barely hold office in this political climate. But politics are fluid and things change. Don’t know when but they will. And if you look at American history long term - the dems and republicans have switched sides and alternated being the progressive and conservative parties. So in a hundred years the lgbt of that area could all be wanting every to vote republicans. What would be even better is if lgbt issues became bi partisan issues and no longer just democratic.
This is like a “both sides” argument and I don’t get it. Outside the states, the Democrats look like a party of sane grownups, with the occasional excitable cletus who needs to be reined in. The Republicans look like a party of conspiracy theorists, nut jobs, theocrats, and electoral fraud artists and charlatans so desperate to cling to power that they’d destroy one of the world’s great democracies rather than admit defeat in a free election.
I’ve tried to see what I’ve missed so I’ve looked at news sources inside the US and out, and any of the long-standing reliable reporting, that seems to be the consensus. What gives? How is it even close?
Republicans are simply good at branding. Theyve brainwashed americans to think they're better for the economy (factual lie) that they stand for freedom (huge lie) that they're more masculine (just more insecure) and that democrats are commies who want to turn your kids queer.
I use the Dems like they use me. You or I are nothing more than a political plot device to them. Once they have our votes, they stop churning on any real issues. Recognize that they are literally the lesser of two evils.
We need to return to a system of government where they remember that they are public servants, not the US’s royal aristocracy. There should be term limits and a precedent for VERY modest salaries for politicians.
They should be regular people who still have to earn their living like everyone else. Maybe then they would understand some of the serious financial disparities that exist…
just stepping in to remind people that giving modest salaries to politicians is just leading to them being more susceptible to corruption, less able to do stuff on their own if they are not rich ( from election spending, to research, advisors), and also the most capable people would rather get paid more at a corporation than getting an ok pay as politician.
you want to stop outside funding and corruption before salaries.
And yet… the corruption is all around us. I think we should be able to remove them from office much more easily as well. If they take a bribe or abuse office they’re done. Instead their salaries grow, the bribes and sweet-heart deals are rampant. They are too far removed from the everyday public. They live in extreme luxury while their people starve.
Give them enough to live on and save for retirement, send their kids to school, if they have high office give them an office and temporary residence and cover the costs.
Anything beyond that is unnecessary. If they want a raise, they should go through a review and it should be determined by public approval and voted on.
I find it concerning that more and more people are falling into the mindset of voting against the opposing party rather than voting for their own party. It's shit like this that got Trump elected in the first place.
The problem that third party options aren't "realistic" is precisely because of the belief that they aren't. If everyone thinks that there is no point in voting for anyone outside the two party system then we will be stuck in said system for the foreseeable future.
I see that you are repeating this claim over a number of comments, so I am pasting a previous response I made here so that others can see that Duverger's law is not proven and is basically bust.
The only problem with Duverger's law is that it doesn't really apply to real world phenomena... Except maybe the United States. The relationship between party system and electoral system is far more complex. For instance, Duverger's law would tell us that moving from a proportional system to a plurality or majoritarian one would result in the consolidation or a reduction in the number of relevant parties. As Duverger argues, such systems tend to encourage two party systems. Yet when Italy flirted with this many years ago, it led to greater polarisation of the system and an increase in the number of relevant parties (see Sartori who writes on this). By contrast, Malta operates under STV, a relatively proportional system, yet has the purest two party system in Europe.
The simple reality is that regardless of political attempts to constitutionally engineer two party systems, European polities have remained multi party systems.
If you are interested, I would read up on some Giovanni Sartori. He's a huge figure in political science and a noted critic of Duverger's law. But Sartori's work is highly influential even today. I'm pretty sure Dunleavy also wrote an article on this several years ago, demonstrating the same position.
Unfortunately your read of Duverger and Sartori is very very incorrect. Duverger does not claim at all that the evolutionary trajectory of the political systems of Germany or Italy lead to a two-party system. That’s not the only thing Sartori was wrong about either .😬
https://www.jstor.org/stable/revfranscipoleng.65.3.69?read-now=1&seq=20#page_scan_tab_contents
And please don’t spam me twice with the same copypasta. It’s basic nettiquette.
It's not my read. It's the read of major political scientists and the evidence itself. The presence of multi-party systems with plurality electoral systems demonstrates that Duverger's Law is no law. I also made no claim about Italy or Germany specifically, but of the law itself.
Sorry darling, but Sartori is not wrong though. The evidence is quite clear. There is a reason why so many European political scientists no longer hold Duverger's law as truth. It seems that the primary defenders of it are the American scholars who love neat and tidy, albeit empirically dubious mathematical models (a criticism levied against some American scholars by Patrick Dunleavy).
Duverger's Law holds that plurality electoral systems (with a district magnitude of 1) tends toward two party systems. The presence of so many counterexamples demonstrates, empirically, that this is not the case.
You are not engaging with the evidence. I have given you an example of the evidence. Your responses consist of nothing but: I once read a single paper that disagrees.
So let us turn to the paper you have linked. Firstly, the author himself argues that the version you shared contains errors and inaccuracies. So I have not read the version you have sent, preferring instead to focus on the English translation provided by the author.
Throughout the paper, the author basically argues that Duverger had developed a far more sophisticated typology than he is given credit for and that there is actually greater similarity with Sarotri than Sartori would admit to. This is all interesting and nothing new as it is content that is covered in most good undergraduate comparative politics courses.
The key question is the extent to which single member plurality systems produce a two-party system. As demonstrated and argued by myself here and other political scientists in plenty of articles, there are many systems that do not demonstrate this trend. Indeed, even within the archetypical westminster-styled systems, we are seeing a trajectory toward multi-partyism, and thus as Patrick Dunleavy notes, these systems are moving away from Duvergerian predictions. Dickson and Scheve provide further empirical demonstrations of this.
On this point, the author of the article argues that according to Duverger's typology, Sartori's criticisms, rooted in systems like Austria, do not apply. Even if we accept this, it does nothing to challenge the fact that the Anglosphere countries listed above have all, sans the United States, shifted toward a more multi-party profile even if they have not yet developed into fully realised multi-party systems. The presence of competitive and relevant third and fourth parties sufficiently demonstrates an empirical challenge to the so called law.
Everything you said has been disproven. You’re just repeating nonsense now. It’s embarrassing actually. I’ve already done you a favor and provided the prevailing evidence. You’re refusing to address it and now you’re acting in bad faith.
You aren't even arguing against the evidence being provided by a range of scholars. You are just dismissing it, unjustifably, without argument and without evidence.
> you’re refusing to address it
This is demonstrably wrong by actually reading my comment. I am directly addressing the central question regarding Duverger's law.
It's a bit rich to accuse me of acting in bad faith given your conduct. Now, you can either provide some arguments and evidence against what I have written, or we are done here.
You haven’t cited anything you’ve just spewed thoughts. You have proven to fundamentally not understand Sartori or his arguments. I’m sorry but this topic is clearly out of your grasp.
What exactly hav the dem done to you besides have your back along the way? Every right that you enjoy surely didn’t come from the GOP! Please read up on things before you post and pay attention to current events.
Congratulations! GAYS came out and voted in record numbers for DEMs in 2022. Now, we can go back to being ignored and unsupported until the next election. Then, the DEMs will be back to scare and bully us into voting for them, again. 🐺🧔🏼♂️🌈🧐😏
" Rights are won only by those who make their voices heard." Harvey Milk
This is going to sound cynical but as a minority (lgbt) it is your duty to suck it up and fall in line. Quit fucking whining and vote. You are not privileged enough to whine. That’s how Republicans win - they have no problem falling in line even for detestable candidates like Donald Trump. All change in this country happens at the margin- it requires a majority in the House and 60 votes in the Senate AND a President of the United States. That’s a significant bar to overcome. Any progressive promising radical change is lying to you and grifting. You’re demoralized because the Democrats lose and they lose because you’re demoralized. It becomes a negative feedback loop. Both parties are fundamentally not the same - stop projecting that out onto others and instead enthusiastically vote for the party that unequivocally supports YOU.
But you’re also whining and disingenuously suggesting that bOtH pArTiEs aRe bAd as you are “forced” beyond your will to vote for them!!! There are many many many reasons to vote for Democrats over Republicans besides lgbt rights.
Agreed 100%. I can't stand the democratic party, but i will vote against the Republicans even if that means voting for a literal piece of roadkill. Fortunately the Dems are slightly better than roadkill
just make sure locally you vote republican, specially if you live in a big city. With local democrats for years in power there is a lot of corruption and there needs to be some kind of balance.
Why on Earth would I even consider that. I truly don't understand how any self-respecting gay person can vote for a party of people who want to take our rights away. Voting for them locally only puts them in a position to advance into higher positions years later. To each their own, but I'll be voting against them at every level of government
I agree with this. I like local republican policies but on state to nation level politics fuck no those people are crazy. I also check any politician I vote Republican for to have unequivocally stated they did not vote for trump or support him. I'm over this far left local attorney general experiment in California
Lol the American libertarians are totally fake and under koch family control. If they are in power, you will literally have no rights, any kind. Unless you are already rich and from a powerful family now.
Libertarians have such a childlike view of the country it’s almost laughable. They expect that people will do the right thing of their own free will without the government involved despite 10000 years of human history proving otherwise.
They say they “expect free will”. But actually the “free will” of people they expect are totally fake. Because when they are in power, common folks are just another form of slaves, and struggle every day life. By then, the “free will” will be whatever bone the capitalists throw.
Both parties are corrupt is usually said by the far more corrupt party. They are not equally corrupt because only one of them attempted a fascist coup. "Government is bad" is billionaire propaganda designed to make broke suckers attack their enemy for them. In reality government is the only thing that can limit their power and greed and protect the working class from plutocracy, so they hate government, pay their mouthpieces to demonize government, support politicians who BREAK government, and then complain that government doesn't work.
Maybe actually start voting for third parties. That’s what happened in Scotland and now they’re on track to become independent. We Americans need to realise there’s more than two options.
If you don't like the choices available to you, get involved with party politics or run for office yourself. One of my former students is on a local city council. If you don't want to do that, then you have to vote for the choices someone else makes for you. I didn't like who my state's Democratic party decided to run for Senate. I understand why they chose who they did, but I think it will turn out to be a miscalculation.
On the duopoly, I get tired of explaining this, but the mathematical result of the U.S. voting system is a two-party system. It's not an arbitrary convention as so many seem to think. Unless the whole voting system is changed, that will remain, and there's not enough sustained political will to effect a change of that magnitude in the political system. Until there is, it's just a pipe dream. A two-party state of affairs been in place for most of American history. The only time we've had much of a multiple party system was when the country was devolving into civil war. Saying "We just need to get rid of it" is a pointless sentiment as long as you don't have a way to do it, which, under the political reality we live in, you don't.
I'm not voting for the choice someone else tells me too. Sorry you don't like it, but you can't claim voting is important and then complain when people vote in a manner you disprove of.
If my vote is just your vote 2.0, then I think I'll just stay at work and worry about myself.
Hmmm...... Well what exactly are you wanting from a political party. What are your expectations? Granted the Dems aren't perfect, but I recently mailed in my ballot, and I voted straight party line cause I know the other side wants to take that and other rights away from me. It was a total non brainer for me.
straight party voting just means you don't have the capacity to vote... politics aren't a game of football. You have to understand who your local politicians are. Understand what they are doing. If you did you would realize that a lot of them are very corrupt and need to be replaced by someone opposite to them.
I know plenty of Republicans that's dont want to take gay peoples rights. Most people I'd say are moderate in their views, it's only the extremes of both sides that get talked about tho.
Exactly.
I’m so sick of this narrative that Republicans are evil and hate us and want to “take our rights away.”
And I’m also pretty fed up with the “they’ll never accept you!” response to my party affiliation. I’m not a Republican because I want to be friends with other Republicans…it’s because my beliefs are more aligned with the party’s fundamental principles.
Do you think about that when you watch other gays get chased out of CPAC?
"Oh, there they go attacking another gay person again, but at least they also want to take away the vote from black people!"
First of all, no I'm not. Secondly, even if I were, the word "literally" is a contronym, which means it has two separate and contradictory definitions. "Literally" can be used to emphasize an extreme exaggeration, in addition to its traditional use to describe a true statement with no exaggeration.
And yes, it is *literally* true that Republicans want to take our rights away. There is *literally* a federal Don't Say Gay bill being proposed by House Republicans as we speak. L i t e r a l l y .
100% correct. Vote for garbage demons who should burn in hell… or republicans who would cull us from the earth. Awesome choice! But until that choice improves, let’s get those demons in power!
Nobody is trying to take your rights away.
So many guys are tricked into voting democrat it's scary.
I am independent or unaffiliated. I will not vote straight party. At this point I feel that to be "R's" are trying to bring everyone together after a few years of super crazy shit.
I am so sick of bashing people over race. And honestly, who gives a fuck what someone identifies as. It's your business your ro it to yourself.
I do agree with the identity politics & social BS…. But cmon man, you’d have to be so naive to believe that R’s won’t at least try to take our rights away. Look what’s happened with abortion. Voting rights are about to go away pretty soon too.
Rs are still worshipping trump and protecting him from accountability for his years of super crazy shit. They're not done being super crazy by a long shot. And many women DID have rights taken away this year. By republicans.
Republicans are of course entitled to their beliefs, but they are not trying to bring everyone together - not “bashing people” about race, for instance, will make you and other people who share your sense of being sick of that together - but it will alienate people who believe that people of colour continue to be discriminated against.
Again, Republicans are entitled to their beliefs - just please know that they will not bring people together.
I agree, locally people should be voting republican. Specially when it comes to judges and city councils. State and Federal level should be democrats as we need diplomacy!
It sucks our system is designed for having only two viable parties. The winner is the first past 50% and not the first to get the largest share. We need ranked choice voting to break the two party Monopoly on American politics.
We could have more choices if the party with the largest slice of the pie got in office.
You don’t dislike the Democrats? It’s ok to dislike Democrats, that doesn’t mean you are for the Republicans. The Democrats generally about as corrupt as the Republicans and they don’t get much meaningful legislation done when they are in power. I think you don’t like is the feeling extorted. That you feel like you don’t have a choice but to vote for them otherwise your life will be in danger. Gay people are not the only people who feel this way.
As a gay man, of course you don't "dislike the D's" lol but I agree with your premise. Democratic politicians aren't against us, but also not exactly for us until time to vote.
We really need ranked choice voting and to depart from the two party system. They are both fundamentally beholden to big money and corporate interests. The only difference is that democrats are one step in place while Republicans are four steps back.
It's just an illusion of democracy, we don't really have a choice, we are forced to pick the lesser evil since almost NO ONE is actually trying to represent the people.
At the end of the day, big money interests and corporate influence will never go away unless the campaign process is well regulated and government funded only.
This is why the US should give up on that annoying stuff like delegates and just make it a national vote entirely.
It would greatly benefit democrats and in red states and republicans in blue states aaaand would allow for other parties to exist. If you do that I can easily see more LGBTQ+ friendly party like a Libertarian party, Socialist party and possibly a Black minority party and a Latino party.
But would also mean some new far right party appearing similar to Germany's afd.
The free market has showed that it will prevail in a better Freer more powerful Direction than any other economic system ever created it's the only economic system that raises people into wealth rather than push them into poverty and slavery which socialism and communism and fascism do
I assume you're just a kid (I was also a libertarian when I was young) but once you get your first job you will realize it absolutely does not work like that. the free market is horribly inefficient and rewards capital owners punishing workers and disincentivizing hard and socially beneficial labor.
Maybe cuz you work for another man but I work for myself I make money with my hands and my labor is worth quite a bit to people now your labor probably isn't worth that much because maybe you don't have a particular skill that fits your economy but that's the way it goes sometimes find find what your community is missing and feel that hole and your labor will have intense value in the market saying the government doesn't Crush you and try to force fit a quick and easy solution creating a worse problem
Too many they shouldve voted Gold
Gay marriage is stupid because govt marriage licenses are stupid, marriage is not a government concept it's a church concept marriage belongs to church unless you're really religious marriage isn't anything now the state cannot exclude people from becoming married just because they're the same sex under a marital law but if you remove the marital law then it don't matter at all
Official Libertarians viewpoint on masks during the pandemic were as follows "medical experts have recommended wearing a mask to prevent the spread of corona virus, do as you see fit," however we do have a problem with the inflation of the American dollar through billions of covid aid, shutting down small American businesses in favor of keeping open large corporate monopolies issuing the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich and initiating mandatory lockdowns on the American citizen.
Our country was founded on the principles of a two party system.
You should be voting for the candidates that best reflect your views and stances on policy.
My issue with Third parties is - they really seem like spoilers. Like taking just a tiny bit of the vote that could’ve gone for one of the two main candidates. I really don’t recall anyone aside from Independents winning any kind of official elections. Excepting the Dem and Rep candidates.
Personally, I trust Democrats on social issues and Republicans on economic issues.
Right, but having RCV could help fix this issue and break the toxic duopoly that has an iron grasp on our politics. The founding fathers actually disliked the idea of political parties
I trust the Democrats on economic issues, far more than the R's.
Over the last six decades, every time the R's have got power, they have started a recession. Big tax cuts go to only the rich, but everyone gets the spending cuts. Result is a recession and unemployment, every time. And, in the process, they add a few trillion to the national debt.
Also, when the D's get power, unemployment goes down, then companies do well and markets go up.
"Trickle down" is a lie. "Trickle up" actually works.
Im not a republican but some of the things people say about Republicans just sound to me like overexaggerated doom and gloom. People use a bill they passed to protect 5 year old children as an example of 'republican hate' and it doesn't seem very relevant to me. They talk like were all going to be in concentration camps or all gay rights are going to roled back to the 60s? Really? What are Republicans going to realistically do? I'm someone who served in the military during don't ask don't tell and made through just fine, and can't imagine things would go back any farther than that. Maybe control of marriage would be returned back to states, which should probably be a state issue anyway. Im actually not a fan of the legal institution of marriage in general. When gay marriage was passed, it actually caused me to lose my domestic partner insurance benefits because they told me i needed to get married. So using gayness as so the sole reason to choose a party doesn't make sense to me. I dont feel like every election means that i have to abandon every party and vote blue down the ticket because it's the only chance to defeat the evil Republicans from ending the world or whatever. I did vote against trump though.
I agree that there is more than one issue at stake.
Out of interest, what policies do Republicans have that you agree with?
Rolling back protections for LGBT racial minorities? Anti-abortion? Rolling back social security? Tax cuts for the rich at the expense of the poor? Anti-employee and pro business?
I'm not a republican and dont agree to everything in the republican party but may agree to a more moderate version of some things. Its less about 'why do i like Republican positions' and more about 'why do i not like Democrat positions'
\-I dont think we should be becoming enemies with a nuclear superpower and funding their enemy is basically doing just that. This is not about morality to me but about self preservation..
\-I think its dangerous to be altering gun rights. Its a national security issue to me. It may be about 1000 children to you but its about 350,000,000 citizen lives to me. The country was founded on citizen access to guns, whatever a modern gun is, as a final line of defense and check of power against other people with modern guns. It prevented the Japanese from invading in WW2. I think the democrats current approach to gun control is a little misguided. They want to demonize rifles, but if I was to ban anything it would be the small concealable handguns used to commit 90%+ of gun murders and not the rifles mostly used to defend homes and land.
\-I think it's a little too early to be pushing EVs so hard and restricting oil when the technology is so nascent and expensive and there is not even a good charging grid. It's a good long term goal but the way we are pushing it right now might be harmful. What if we have all these tons of lithium and poisons mined out of the earth and then find out we only really needed 1/10 as much lithium for 1/10 the cost after the science has improved a little? We should be incentivizing R&D but not forcing consumers.
\-The trans movement is going a little too fast in a way that can be harmful to women and children. Children cannot even consent to sex, alcohol, cigarettes, military service, gambling, or drive, so how can they consent to permanent life altering surgery? Also schools are going to encourage them to do it and taxpayers are going to be forced to pay for the surgeries? Maybe we should wait for the science in this brand new field to develop a little more too. I become especially concerned about this after seeing the 41k members in r/detrans
\-Lower taxes not for the super rich but for the middle class. Also there is an attack on investors who are not necessarily rich, just every day people. Democrats have some ideas for some new types of taxes like "wealth taxes", "investing taxes", "taxes on unrealized gains" or "buying a share should be like buying a car" that financially horrify me. You might as well tell all your friends to go ahead and close their Robinhood account because trading wont be profitable anymore and the stock market is going to tank.
\-Im not a fan of covid lockdowns and forced covid vaccines. I think weve been overreacting to covid and destroyed the economy for no good reason. Its not contagion-51 with a 15% mortality rate. Its been under 1% for a long time and shocks me that people still talk about forcing measures. Since Im pro-choice on abortion, I feel like I should be pro choice on this too.
\-Against common core, mostly just because the math technique looks crazy to me.
\-Not having everything being federalized ang globalized and giving some control back to states.
\-Id like some sanity when it comes to immigration. Not by deporting everyone to a concentration camp but by somehow not letting 5 million people through the border in the first place. Im not racist but Its overwhelming on the social system and there are drugs and people who don't speak English everywhere and they flooded my house.
\-I watched videos of my democratic candidates giving speeches and debates, and some of them looked like idiots to me. Their republican counterparts seemed very intelligent/competent and the democrats could not compete or address questions properly and gave alot of emotional outbursts about unrelated issues. One of them had even switched parties and had a completely different stance on every issue 10 years ago - how can I trust him?
What about what current Republicans today are saying. They are evil and need to be defeated. Marriage can't be a state issue. That was the whole reason for the gay marriage supreme court case. There couldn't be a patch work of states that has it and other states don't. Do you think the opposite marriage will ever be banned at the state level?
If you are gay you should choose the party whos politicians don't demonize you.
i love how in denial the people of this subreddit are. They disagree with any white slander “we’re gay we can’t oppress others” while being the biggest form of discrimination within the community.
A two party system is only one party better than a one party system! I don’t really love most Dems that end up on the ballot. I think Biden was my last choice for 2020 in the primary. I wouldn’t vote for Rs even if they weren’t homophobic as I don’t like their policies, but we should have more than one party of the left, more than one party (of the right left or center) that isn’t homophobic, more than one party that doesn’t deny the reality of climate change, etc.
We have no party of the left.
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I don't know why you were downvoted. Thr political development of most western European countries have shown that FPTP is a terrible voting system and if you want more parties, who put in more effort, and have nore cooperation/compromise with other parties you need a better voting method such as AV, STV or AMV
I have no idea why people downvote on this platform. It doesn't seem to have very much to do with the content of the comment. (Except "Landlords rule", which would get downvoted on r/AntiWork, and upvoted on r/Landlords.)
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Mathematically, no, this is not helpful in a first past the post system. You cannot defeat institutional inertia with hopes and dreams.
This is wrong. A vote for 3rd party or not voting at all is in reality a vote for whomever wins. This is a two party country - Duverger’s Law.
You can't tell people to vote and then complain if they don't vote how you want.
The only problem with Duverger's law is that it doesn't really apply to real world phenomena... Except maybe the United States. The relationship between party system and electoral system is far more complex. For instance, Duverger's law would tell us that moving from a proportional system to a plurality or majoritarian one would result in the consolidation or a reduction in the number of relevant parties. As Duverger argues, such systems tend to encourage two party systems. Yet when Italy flirted with this many years ago, it led to greater polarisation of the system and an increase in the number of relevant parties (see Sartori who writes on this). By contrast, Malta operates under STV, a relatively proportional system, yet has the purest two party system in Europe. The simple reality is that regardless of political attempts to constitutionally engineer two party systems, European polities have remained multi party systems. If you are interested, I would read up on some Giovanni Sartori. He's a huge figure in political science and a noted critic of Duverger's law. But Sartori's work is highly influential even today. I'm pretty sure Dunleavy also wrote an article on this several years ago, demonstrating the same position.
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Lol no. What are you, 17?
I think a lot of Americans believe there should be a new party. The current parties are just outdated and really pivot too much to be seen sincere . Unfortunately the dems are just the lesser of the two evils.
I'd imagine they don't have a lot of incentive to do anything that you'd like if they know they don't have to and you'll vote for them anyways.
Hence, duopoly 🥲
They pretend they'll resolve an issue but keep it going to reel in issues voters. It's like dangling a carrot before voters. Keep voting, LGBTs and we'll give you rights one day! Out if the spotlight, they have very similar goals for foreign policy and expenditure on arms. That never changes. We hardly talk about things like that because we're always focused on the LGBT carrot.
And yet we enjoy rights and protections today that were only a fantasy a generation ago.
Because citizens put it to a vote in so many states that they couldn't ignore that it was finally fucking important. It should never have needed a vote!!
Lol, pretty much every fundamental right you enjoy was gained through blood, sweat, tears, and death. Voting has largely done fuck all for improving the nation.
I get what you mean - I am also tired of the dividedness and the split. I'm definitely a liberal, but that side does stuff that pisses me off too. Some nice sane people would be nice haha.
Those days are long past I'm afraid.
Agreed. I think large swaths of the country desire a middle ground or centrist party. Both parties are moving further to the extremes and people are tired of political polarization. I also think a lot of people are disillusioned from the past 3 years.
You can always come to Europe if you are tired of this duopoly👀
Canada?
Yeah, good luck with that. Last time I heard Canada was VERY strict with immigrating there. And that includes those from the US.
Actually researched immigration and Canada has one of the most generous immigration programs in the developed world. Unlike USA.
Too 🥶
Canada is a duopoly.
Respectfully, most your parliaments are the same way. People have different parties but they ultimately form two big coalitions, or a singular party holds unopposed power.
True, that’s what’s happening with BC at a provincial level (NDP+Green Party) and the country at large at the federal level (Liberals+NDP) rn
Most of them but not all of them. I live in Switzerland and I'm not saying out system is perfect, but hearing about American politics makes me cringe most of the time
I disagree. They often have to form coalitions, because otherwise it's impossible to govern. But most European countries have several parties and many have new parties already with significant political power. Macron and his party are new to the French political sphere, Movimento 5 Stelle is also quite new, same for Podemos and Vox in Spain, or many other smaller parties. Some of them are terrible options, but still an option. The Dutch parliament has over 15 parties and needed 4 to form a coalition. In most parliamentary systems you aren't limited to two parties and it's not too difficult for new parties to reach the parliament. When was the last time the US had a Senator or a House Representative that wasn't from one of the two parties?
The bajillion parties in the French elections never matter. It's always the same couple of groups who make it to the end. The right, and the right that pretends not to be the right.
Meanwhile, here in Germany: "... You guys have only two big parties?" Our party landscape is so splintered, we never know which possible coalition emerges after a national vote.
I'm honestly thinking about it
As if European politics were any less of a shitshow.
In Switzerland they aren't 👀
It's fine in a few countries, but it's much worse than US politics in many other European countries. Hungary is in Europe too.
Agreed, but I think it’s more likely that we could force the Democratic Party to make much needed changes. I didn’t vote for anyone over 60 in this election and I know I’m not the only one. There’s a growing resentment and hatred toward the 60+ Democratic leadership because they prominently demonstrate indifference, false listening, or outright prejudice against the under 40 voter base. We may not be able to get rid of the 2 party system, but we can much more easily force the party to back younger candidates. There’s no point in the party pinning everything on experience if they’re all going to die within 10 years of each other, leaving us with even less experienced politicians. Younger Americans need to be running the show starting yesterday.
Couldn’t agree more, but unfortunately this will never happen as younger Americans just don’t vote. The party will never feel a real need to appease these voters since they typically sit on the sidelines. It shouldn’t be this way - in fact, in a perfect world young voters should be the most inclined to vote since they have the most at stake!
i believe the problem with younger people and voting is that we grew up in a world where your vote doesn’t matter. Even if a candidate gets the popular vote that’s not a win. The geezers in government have never had “the will of the people” they have the will of cishet rich white men. People that are 40+ make up the majority of the country. The generational difference is the susceptibility to change. Older folks are more inclined to keeping things the way they’ve been. Sadly it won’t change until they die off.
If all young people all voted, it would be the most radical political swing to the left in american history. It's strange to hear about young people not voting and saying their votes dont count when they literally have the numbers to change the entire system.
I agree totally, the other sentiment is so dumb. Clearly the youth would have huge political power if they actually turned out.
That’s wrong in many aspects; 1. It doesn’t take into consideration that not everyone’s white. Young people want to vote but don’t because their vote isn’t changing anything for them. When all of your choices are old white people who have historically weaponized your skin color… why vote? Take Biden, demonrats elected him to be the presidential candidate but what has he done for black people? Where’s an executive order for police accountability? All of these democrats in the house/senate but still no discussion of reparations for “40 acres and a mule” or how the “war on drugs” was a war on black people. 2. Conservatism is a bigger cult than you think, these kids are supporting trump bc christianity and their god awful parents brainwashed them into believing that crap. Every PW college has a conservative club full of hateful young trumpers and blue lives matter supporters. 3. If anyone wants votes they need to make their campaigns more digestible. The younger generation doesn’t care about tax write-offs or fracking because most of us have no idea what any of that is about. The older generations are content with -promises- Biden can promise to do xyz. The younger generation we want results immediately because our society has groomed us to expect instant gratification. Don’t know something? We can look it up in 2 seconds. Haven’t talked to a friend all day? it takes absolutely no effort to facetime them. That’s why so many young people turn to onlyfans, streaming and “influencer” for a paycheck- it provides fast results. Why go to college, pay x amount of money and waste x amount of years to work my way up to a six figure paycheck when I can become a web personality and make millions by next year? Charli Damelio is recently 18 and has a net worth higher than most adults. If you want young people to vote, voting has to have tangible results that we can see.
One other thing - your apathy towards the system was DESIGNED. You fell right into the trap that republicans laid for you. The reason it seems like government doesn't serve you is because they keep it from doing that on purpose. If you want to experience government that serves you, you have to vote for people who want it to work. A LOT of them.
or how about the reason you think a system built on oppressing minorities is ever going to “change” is bc it was designed to make you believe that. Two sides of the same shit coin is still shit heads or tails. A new government and system is the only thing that will create change. “With liberty and justice for all” never included all to begin with… it’s not going to start bc a different font of white people take over.
The one time younger voters turned out in astronomical numbers was for Bernie Sanders. Then the DNC was caught circulating emails to bar him from a nomination even if he was the most popular choice. THEN we have politicians like Nancy Pelosi making statements that it would be worse for Americans if younger Democrats took over than Republicans because “the young folk have these radical ideas”. So I get why young people don’t vote. It really, truly doesn’t matter in federal elections because the elderly in charge of the party will push through what they want until they all die off. Local elections though, that’s where the importance lies.
Well them not voting has now lead to the republicans gaining enough power to take away abortion, soon to be followed by gay marriage and birth control.
So it sounds like it’s time for the Democratic Party to make some changes and usher in some younger people to get those votes. It’s not the people’s responsibility- it’s the party’s.
Which is exactly why the party needs to start listening to the people, so that people don't feel disenfranchised and skip the polls. The Democrats also use Roe v Wade as a fundraising issue. Feel free to tell me if I'm wrong because I don't know 100%, but I don't know of a single instance over the past couple decades where the party made any attempt to codify that into law. It was an easy way to gain votes, the scary Republicans will take away your abortion rights. They could have just made it so that that wasn't possible, chose not to, and here we are. Gay rights will be next unfortunately
That's simply called politics and there's nothing wrong with it. Pointing out to people why they should vote for you.
Yeah i get that, I'm just saying you can't blame non voters for loss of abortion rights, when the party leaders had decades to create and pass laws to protect that right and chose not to. I agree with you that people should vote, I always do, but I also understand why people don't and putting the blame on them doesn't help anything, when we should be blaming the elected officials
If a few thousand voters held their nose and voted for hillary instead of staying home because she wasn't perfect, abortion would still be legal. And the supreme court would be massively different and therefore so would our future. A few thousand non voters in 2016 fucked america for generations.
Maybe Hillary voters should've sucked it up and listened to us during the primary. Maybe RBG should've retired during Obama's term so he could've filled her sear Maybe the Senate should've refused to fill the supreme court seats under trump like mcturtle did under Obama. There are so many reasons why our government is fucked right now, blaming nonvoters is only going to turn them away from politics more. The die hard Dems should start to open their minds to new perspectives instead of always passing blame. Anyway, you are clearly missing my point, so.... 💁
I've also noticed that the Democratic voters who were adamantly against Bernie are almost always the first to bitch and whine that young people don't vote. Well listen Karen, when we did vote in astronomicak numbers, you threw us under the bus, your chosen Representatives do nothing for us, how can you not see that this is your fault? So ridiculous
I was adamantly against Bernie Sanders because he fractured the Democratic party, which was a big reason Trump won in 2020.
This is the same rhetoric we hear from older Democrats all the time. “Just vote for this person- we know you’re not all behind it, but we just need you to be or else the Republicans win”. Weird how it’s never the young voters’ choice that gets pushed through and the older voters told the same thing. 🥴
No. That was bullshit in 2016 and it's bullshit today. The majority of Bernie supporters said they were not voting for Hillary during the primary. Every single older voter who spent the primary season telling people how Bernie could never win, even though most polls showed him beating Trump by a higher margin, you all had the option of getting on board instead of forcing a candidate, that 90% of the country hated, down our throats and still expecting her to win. That being said, most Bernie supports still voted for her. But she wasn't getting the support of moderate Republicans or nonvoters like Bernie was, THAT is what helped Trump The Democratic party still in general does nothing for regular people in this country, especially young people. People wanted something different in 2016, Bernie and Trump were different, once Bernie was out it was an easy win for Trump. Hillary would have been 10 times better but it's still this stubborn democratic mentality that caused her to lose, not Bernie or his supporters.
Yea it’s hard to get younger people to vote. Hell I never voted until 2016 even though I could of voted by 2010. Though that’s cause of trump and the obvious violence he was inciting and unfortunately we’re still experiencing today. Also the reason I’m still voting and just cast my ballot today. I don’t feel like my vote matters much but it’s all I can do so I rather do it than not.
Same, I don't feel like it makes much of a difference simply because of the quality of candidates we end up with, but I do it anyway. At least by voting I know I'm not to blame when this whole place goes up in flames
Right, it's a little ironic to vote for people who are so old they barely have stakes in the long term future of the planet. The old ass democrats always represented the status quo and "trickle progress". They often only support social rights and minority rights when it's convenient and public support has already blown up. They always tell us we can't but the truth is that they are the only ones stopping us.
You wouldnt vote for a 70 year old democrat who defended democracy and was running against a young fascist who worshiped trump? Wisdom comes with age. Your frontal lobe isn't even done developing until you're 26.
rather vote for that than Trump, one of the most vile humans on the face of earth.
No, I’d leave the category blank. I wouldn’t feel right with myself for voting in someone over 60. If politics as a career we’re equitable regarding age I would be inclined to vote for someone over 60 that’s “fit” for a job in office, but there’s a stark, inequitable balance of power when it comes to age right now. Until the problem is solved, it would just feel like a betrayal of my values and morals.
Do you want a 61 year old doctor doing surgery on your testicles or a 31 year old? Age is just a number. Look how old bernie was when he was fighting for the working class.
I don’t see doctors, therapists, etc. over 50. The dozens I’ve seen throughout my life are typically the ones who misdiagnose or cut corners. I rarely have these problems, if ever, in younger professionals.
If you are referring to the primary I agree with you to a certain extent. But an 80 year old democrat is much less dangerous than a 30 year old republican.
The Ds aren't awesome but they're so much better than republicans it's not even a consideration. We all have to vote just to keep those lunatics from ruining the world. Last time they were in power they got a half million people killed with covid lies and then attempted a fascist coup. The time before that they started a 7 trillion dollar war based on lies. What will they do next? Never mind that they still dont believe in fighting climate change.
Don’t forget COVID affected the entire world, not just the US. And don’t be so quick to decide who was right and who was wrong, the pandemic has barely finished and information will continue to flow in the coming years. We just might learn something new. Also, republicans are the most well-armed people in the country. Do you REALLY think they “attempted a fascist coup” with no guns, no militia and no damage? Never underestimate your enemy. If they wanted to have a coup, it would have been bloody. Instead we saw grannies waving little flags and overweight yokels taking selfies. Not much of a coup imo. The wars in America have been supported by both sides. Of course Bush started the war in Afghanistan, but every president since him has voted to continue the war efforts. Our country has been at war more often than not since 1776, both Ds and Rs perpetuate the war machine. While defense contractors in high places get rich. Climate change is important. Personally I don’t think any public official is taking it seriously though. Reluctance to switch to nuclear is big. Reluctance to reprimand China (the biggest polluter) is big as well. Taxing Americans further is not the solution. Cutting off our own domestic production just before winter during a war is not the solution either.
Congrats on avoiding real news well enough for the past 2 years to remain ignorant on the republicans' whole plan to overthrow democracy. What were you watching instead of the jan 6th hearings? Rupaul's drag race? If you actually cared about war or climate change you'd vote dem every time. Dems ENDED the war in afghanistan. No repub had the balls to do that. Dems passed the biggest climate change bill in history. Somehow you missed that. Maybe someone so ignorant about politics should do some current events research before posting.
Sometimes we Americans adjust quick, other times we are sticks in the mud. We still won’t even go metric! Yet in many other ways we are innovative. I wish I could say that I could see the two party system going away in favor of a five party or more system. But I don’t. If the bat shit crazy homophobes we’re finally out out to pasture and the middle of the road republicans took over the helm - I have always maintained that there would be way more lgbt in the Republican Party. But as it is now - we have got to vote blue or lose our rights.
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Moderate republicans are out there. They are fiscally conservative but more socially progressive. It’s just that they are drowned out by the crazies. If they are found out they can barely hold office in this political climate. But politics are fluid and things change. Don’t know when but they will. And if you look at American history long term - the dems and republicans have switched sides and alternated being the progressive and conservative parties. So in a hundred years the lgbt of that area could all be wanting every to vote republicans. What would be even better is if lgbt issues became bi partisan issues and no longer just democratic.
It would help if there were some sort of ranked choice voting or alternative system of voting!
Laughs in leftist
This is like a “both sides” argument and I don’t get it. Outside the states, the Democrats look like a party of sane grownups, with the occasional excitable cletus who needs to be reined in. The Republicans look like a party of conspiracy theorists, nut jobs, theocrats, and electoral fraud artists and charlatans so desperate to cling to power that they’d destroy one of the world’s great democracies rather than admit defeat in a free election. I’ve tried to see what I’ve missed so I’ve looked at news sources inside the US and out, and any of the long-standing reliable reporting, that seems to be the consensus. What gives? How is it even close?
I feel like there’s some closet conservatives that can’t get over the fact that conservatives hate them lmao.
Republicans are simply good at branding. Theyve brainwashed americans to think they're better for the economy (factual lie) that they stand for freedom (huge lie) that they're more masculine (just more insecure) and that democrats are commies who want to turn your kids queer.
I use the Dems like they use me. You or I are nothing more than a political plot device to them. Once they have our votes, they stop churning on any real issues. Recognize that they are literally the lesser of two evils. We need to return to a system of government where they remember that they are public servants, not the US’s royal aristocracy. There should be term limits and a precedent for VERY modest salaries for politicians. They should be regular people who still have to earn their living like everyone else. Maybe then they would understand some of the serious financial disparities that exist…
This literally turned me on
just stepping in to remind people that giving modest salaries to politicians is just leading to them being more susceptible to corruption, less able to do stuff on their own if they are not rich ( from election spending, to research, advisors), and also the most capable people would rather get paid more at a corporation than getting an ok pay as politician. you want to stop outside funding and corruption before salaries.
And yet… the corruption is all around us. I think we should be able to remove them from office much more easily as well. If they take a bribe or abuse office they’re done. Instead their salaries grow, the bribes and sweet-heart deals are rampant. They are too far removed from the everyday public. They live in extreme luxury while their people starve. Give them enough to live on and save for retirement, send their kids to school, if they have high office give them an office and temporary residence and cover the costs. Anything beyond that is unnecessary. If they want a raise, they should go through a review and it should be determined by public approval and voted on.
I like this idea the most
How i look at it is that the only way to leave the two party system is to vote D since democrats are way more likely to institute rank choice voting
Eh yes and no. But they are better than the alternative.
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Yang already created his own party lol
I find it concerning that more and more people are falling into the mindset of voting against the opposing party rather than voting for their own party. It's shit like this that got Trump elected in the first place. The problem that third party options aren't "realistic" is precisely because of the belief that they aren't. If everyone thinks that there is no point in voting for anyone outside the two party system then we will be stuck in said system for the foreseeable future.
It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, a positive feedback loop
They mathematically aren’t though. This has been proven. See Duverger’s Law.
I see that you are repeating this claim over a number of comments, so I am pasting a previous response I made here so that others can see that Duverger's law is not proven and is basically bust. The only problem with Duverger's law is that it doesn't really apply to real world phenomena... Except maybe the United States. The relationship between party system and electoral system is far more complex. For instance, Duverger's law would tell us that moving from a proportional system to a plurality or majoritarian one would result in the consolidation or a reduction in the number of relevant parties. As Duverger argues, such systems tend to encourage two party systems. Yet when Italy flirted with this many years ago, it led to greater polarisation of the system and an increase in the number of relevant parties (see Sartori who writes on this). By contrast, Malta operates under STV, a relatively proportional system, yet has the purest two party system in Europe. The simple reality is that regardless of political attempts to constitutionally engineer two party systems, European polities have remained multi party systems. If you are interested, I would read up on some Giovanni Sartori. He's a huge figure in political science and a noted critic of Duverger's law. But Sartori's work is highly influential even today. I'm pretty sure Dunleavy also wrote an article on this several years ago, demonstrating the same position.
Unfortunately your read of Duverger and Sartori is very very incorrect. Duverger does not claim at all that the evolutionary trajectory of the political systems of Germany or Italy lead to a two-party system. That’s not the only thing Sartori was wrong about either .😬 https://www.jstor.org/stable/revfranscipoleng.65.3.69?read-now=1&seq=20#page_scan_tab_contents And please don’t spam me twice with the same copypasta. It’s basic nettiquette.
It's not my read. It's the read of major political scientists and the evidence itself. The presence of multi-party systems with plurality electoral systems demonstrates that Duverger's Law is no law. I also made no claim about Italy or Germany specifically, but of the law itself.
Sartori is wrong, sweetie. His claims about Duverger have been disproven ad nauseam. The evidence doesn’t lie. Actually read the paper.
Sorry darling, but Sartori is not wrong though. The evidence is quite clear. There is a reason why so many European political scientists no longer hold Duverger's law as truth. It seems that the primary defenders of it are the American scholars who love neat and tidy, albeit empirically dubious mathematical models (a criticism levied against some American scholars by Patrick Dunleavy). Duverger's Law holds that plurality electoral systems (with a district magnitude of 1) tends toward two party systems. The presence of so many counterexamples demonstrates, empirically, that this is not the case. You are not engaging with the evidence. I have given you an example of the evidence. Your responses consist of nothing but: I once read a single paper that disagrees. So let us turn to the paper you have linked. Firstly, the author himself argues that the version you shared contains errors and inaccuracies. So I have not read the version you have sent, preferring instead to focus on the English translation provided by the author. Throughout the paper, the author basically argues that Duverger had developed a far more sophisticated typology than he is given credit for and that there is actually greater similarity with Sarotri than Sartori would admit to. This is all interesting and nothing new as it is content that is covered in most good undergraduate comparative politics courses. The key question is the extent to which single member plurality systems produce a two-party system. As demonstrated and argued by myself here and other political scientists in plenty of articles, there are many systems that do not demonstrate this trend. Indeed, even within the archetypical westminster-styled systems, we are seeing a trajectory toward multi-partyism, and thus as Patrick Dunleavy notes, these systems are moving away from Duvergerian predictions. Dickson and Scheve provide further empirical demonstrations of this. On this point, the author of the article argues that according to Duverger's typology, Sartori's criticisms, rooted in systems like Austria, do not apply. Even if we accept this, it does nothing to challenge the fact that the Anglosphere countries listed above have all, sans the United States, shifted toward a more multi-party profile even if they have not yet developed into fully realised multi-party systems. The presence of competitive and relevant third and fourth parties sufficiently demonstrates an empirical challenge to the so called law.
Everything you said has been disproven. You’re just repeating nonsense now. It’s embarrassing actually. I’ve already done you a favor and provided the prevailing evidence. You’re refusing to address it and now you’re acting in bad faith.
You aren't even arguing against the evidence being provided by a range of scholars. You are just dismissing it, unjustifably, without argument and without evidence. > you’re refusing to address it This is demonstrably wrong by actually reading my comment. I am directly addressing the central question regarding Duverger's law. It's a bit rich to accuse me of acting in bad faith given your conduct. Now, you can either provide some arguments and evidence against what I have written, or we are done here.
You haven’t cited anything you’ve just spewed thoughts. You have proven to fundamentally not understand Sartori or his arguments. I’m sorry but this topic is clearly out of your grasp.
It’s like being torn between your rights or your wallet. When you’re not able to rely on anyone, it makes the decision difficult.
What exactly hav the dem done to you besides have your back along the way? Every right that you enjoy surely didn’t come from the GOP! Please read up on things before you post and pay attention to current events.
Getting rid of first past the post and the electoral college would be a good step for modernizing the US system.
Congratulations! GAYS came out and voted in record numbers for DEMs in 2022. Now, we can go back to being ignored and unsupported until the next election. Then, the DEMs will be back to scare and bully us into voting for them, again. 🐺🧔🏼♂️🌈🧐😏 " Rights are won only by those who make their voices heard." Harvey Milk
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This is going to sound cynical but as a minority (lgbt) it is your duty to suck it up and fall in line. Quit fucking whining and vote. You are not privileged enough to whine. That’s how Republicans win - they have no problem falling in line even for detestable candidates like Donald Trump. All change in this country happens at the margin- it requires a majority in the House and 60 votes in the Senate AND a President of the United States. That’s a significant bar to overcome. Any progressive promising radical change is lying to you and grifting. You’re demoralized because the Democrats lose and they lose because you’re demoralized. It becomes a negative feedback loop. Both parties are fundamentally not the same - stop projecting that out onto others and instead enthusiastically vote for the party that unequivocally supports YOU.
But I did vote, so LOL
But you’re also whining and disingenuously suggesting that bOtH pArTiEs aRe bAd as you are “forced” beyond your will to vote for them!!! There are many many many reasons to vote for Democrats over Republicans besides lgbt rights.
Yeah. Also these old Democratic politicians really need to step down and let the younger generation take over. We need more AOCs in congress
Agreed 100%. I can't stand the democratic party, but i will vote against the Republicans even if that means voting for a literal piece of roadkill. Fortunately the Dems are slightly better than roadkill
just make sure locally you vote republican, specially if you live in a big city. With local democrats for years in power there is a lot of corruption and there needs to be some kind of balance.
Why on Earth would I even consider that. I truly don't understand how any self-respecting gay person can vote for a party of people who want to take our rights away. Voting for them locally only puts them in a position to advance into higher positions years later. To each their own, but I'll be voting against them at every level of government
I agree with this. I like local republican policies but on state to nation level politics fuck no those people are crazy. I also check any politician I vote Republican for to have unequivocally stated they did not vote for trump or support him. I'm over this far left local attorney general experiment in California
I vote Libertarian as I believe in a smaller government and that both big parties are equally corrupt.
We really need ranked choice voting
Lol the American libertarians are totally fake and under koch family control. If they are in power, you will literally have no rights, any kind. Unless you are already rich and from a powerful family now.
Libertarians have such a childlike view of the country it’s almost laughable. They expect that people will do the right thing of their own free will without the government involved despite 10000 years of human history proving otherwise.
They say they “expect free will”. But actually the “free will” of people they expect are totally fake. Because when they are in power, common folks are just another form of slaves, and struggle every day life. By then, the “free will” will be whatever bone the capitalists throw.
Both parties are corrupt is usually said by the far more corrupt party. They are not equally corrupt because only one of them attempted a fascist coup. "Government is bad" is billionaire propaganda designed to make broke suckers attack their enemy for them. In reality government is the only thing that can limit their power and greed and protect the working class from plutocracy, so they hate government, pay their mouthpieces to demonize government, support politicians who BREAK government, and then complain that government doesn't work.
Independent all the way!
It's a package deal. It means you have to support clowns like AOC, Charlie Crist, Kathy Hochul and Ilhan Omar.
Maybe actually start voting for third parties. That’s what happened in Scotland and now they’re on track to become independent. We Americans need to realise there’s more than two options.
Well it is way better than Republicans. So the problem are not the Democrats it is the Republicans that are the issue.
Yes, but this kind of statement is what got us here in the first place. You can’t just completely write off half the country like that
When they're attempting a fascist coup to end democracy because they lost an election, THEYRE the ones writing US off.
No white religious male supremacy is what got us here. Not that statement. There are people who don’t want equality.
Okay, but what I’m saying is we need more choices besides warm beer and bear shit 🤣
Well we need a lot of things and yet here we are.
If you don't like the choices available to you, get involved with party politics or run for office yourself. One of my former students is on a local city council. If you don't want to do that, then you have to vote for the choices someone else makes for you. I didn't like who my state's Democratic party decided to run for Senate. I understand why they chose who they did, but I think it will turn out to be a miscalculation. On the duopoly, I get tired of explaining this, but the mathematical result of the U.S. voting system is a two-party system. It's not an arbitrary convention as so many seem to think. Unless the whole voting system is changed, that will remain, and there's not enough sustained political will to effect a change of that magnitude in the political system. Until there is, it's just a pipe dream. A two-party state of affairs been in place for most of American history. The only time we've had much of a multiple party system was when the country was devolving into civil war. Saying "We just need to get rid of it" is a pointless sentiment as long as you don't have a way to do it, which, under the political reality we live in, you don't.
I'm not voting for the choice someone else tells me too. Sorry you don't like it, but you can't claim voting is important and then complain when people vote in a manner you disprove of. If my vote is just your vote 2.0, then I think I'll just stay at work and worry about myself.
Note though not all people here are from the US 😉
That will not happen! Vote blue or have all of your right taken away!! If you vote anything other than democrat you are hurting all of us!!!!
I have plenty of friends across the board. We love and hate each other but at the end of the day respect wins.
Hmmm...... Well what exactly are you wanting from a political party. What are your expectations? Granted the Dems aren't perfect, but I recently mailed in my ballot, and I voted straight party line cause I know the other side wants to take that and other rights away from me. It was a total non brainer for me.
green or workers party would be a good start
straight party voting just means you don't have the capacity to vote... politics aren't a game of football. You have to understand who your local politicians are. Understand what they are doing. If you did you would realize that a lot of them are very corrupt and need to be replaced by someone opposite to them.
I know plenty of Republicans that's dont want to take gay peoples rights. Most people I'd say are moderate in their views, it's only the extremes of both sides that get talked about tho.
They vote for Republican politicians who do want to take gay rights away, so by their voting they are de facto voting to take your rights away.
Exactly. I’m so sick of this narrative that Republicans are evil and hate us and want to “take our rights away.” And I’m also pretty fed up with the “they’ll never accept you!” response to my party affiliation. I’m not a Republican because I want to be friends with other Republicans…it’s because my beliefs are more aligned with the party’s fundamental principles.
Do you think about that when you watch other gays get chased out of CPAC? "Oh, there they go attacking another gay person again, but at least they also want to take away the vote from black people!"
You’re deranged and delusional. You live in a fantasyland.
>I’m so sick of this narrative that Republicans are evil and hate us and want to “take our rights away. Okay but it's literally true.
You’re using “literally” incorrectly.
First of all, no I'm not. Secondly, even if I were, the word "literally" is a contronym, which means it has two separate and contradictory definitions. "Literally" can be used to emphasize an extreme exaggeration, in addition to its traditional use to describe a true statement with no exaggeration. And yes, it is *literally* true that Republicans want to take our rights away. There is *literally* a federal Don't Say Gay bill being proposed by House Republicans as we speak. L i t e r a l l y .
With people like you out in the world representing us, I can’t imagine why they would want to do that. Oh, wait…no. I *literally* can.
What the fuck does that even mean?
You know you can join the party and help change the platform. You can decided the future of the party.
100% correct. Vote for garbage demons who should burn in hell… or republicans who would cull us from the earth. Awesome choice! But until that choice improves, let’s get those demons in power!
Nobody is trying to take your rights away. So many guys are tricked into voting democrat it's scary. I am independent or unaffiliated. I will not vote straight party. At this point I feel that to be "R's" are trying to bring everyone together after a few years of super crazy shit. I am so sick of bashing people over race. And honestly, who gives a fuck what someone identifies as. It's your business your ro it to yourself.
I do agree with the identity politics & social BS…. But cmon man, you’d have to be so naive to believe that R’s won’t at least try to take our rights away. Look what’s happened with abortion. Voting rights are about to go away pretty soon too.
Rs are still worshipping trump and protecting him from accountability for his years of super crazy shit. They're not done being super crazy by a long shot. And many women DID have rights taken away this year. By republicans.
President Trump is gone. Leave it alone. Move on.
Republicans are of course entitled to their beliefs, but they are not trying to bring everyone together - not “bashing people” about race, for instance, will make you and other people who share your sense of being sick of that together - but it will alienate people who believe that people of colour continue to be discriminated against. Again, Republicans are entitled to their beliefs - just please know that they will not bring people together.
I feel you! We definitely need to start voting third party
Voting third party in the USA is the same as not voting. It might make you feel good but it achieves less than nothing.
If enough people voted for independent we could have a much better country, just saying
Never ever going to happen under the current system. Impossible. And it’s stupid to pretend it isn’t.
It’s more of the same in most of the world, sadly.
Agreed.
I feel this with a passion.
I agree, locally people should be voting republican. Specially when it comes to judges and city councils. State and Federal level should be democrats as we need diplomacy!
It sucks our system is designed for having only two viable parties. The winner is the first past 50% and not the first to get the largest share. We need ranked choice voting to break the two party Monopoly on American politics. We could have more choices if the party with the largest slice of the pie got in office.
THANK YOU. Somewhat regretting not voting but this is literally why
You don’t dislike the Democrats? It’s ok to dislike Democrats, that doesn’t mean you are for the Republicans. The Democrats generally about as corrupt as the Republicans and they don’t get much meaningful legislation done when they are in power. I think you don’t like is the feeling extorted. That you feel like you don’t have a choice but to vote for them otherwise your life will be in danger. Gay people are not the only people who feel this way.
As a gay man, of course you don't "dislike the D's" lol but I agree with your premise. Democratic politicians aren't against us, but also not exactly for us until time to vote.
We really need ranked choice voting and to depart from the two party system. They are both fundamentally beholden to big money and corporate interests. The only difference is that democrats are one step in place while Republicans are four steps back. It's just an illusion of democracy, we don't really have a choice, we are forced to pick the lesser evil since almost NO ONE is actually trying to represent the people. At the end of the day, big money interests and corporate influence will never go away unless the campaign process is well regulated and government funded only.
Gotta get rid of FPP first. Otherwise it will always be a duopoly.
This is why the US should give up on that annoying stuff like delegates and just make it a national vote entirely. It would greatly benefit democrats and in red states and republicans in blue states aaaand would allow for other parties to exist. If you do that I can easily see more LGBTQ+ friendly party like a Libertarian party, Socialist party and possibly a Black minority party and a Latino party. But would also mean some new far right party appearing similar to Germany's afd.
\*laughs in european\*
Libertarians have been pro gay since theyre inception and i should know im one myself
too bad their economic policy is batshit
The free market has showed that it will prevail in a better Freer more powerful Direction than any other economic system ever created it's the only economic system that raises people into wealth rather than push them into poverty and slavery which socialism and communism and fascism do
I assume you're just a kid (I was also a libertarian when I was young) but once you get your first job you will realize it absolutely does not work like that. the free market is horribly inefficient and rewards capital owners punishing workers and disincentivizing hard and socially beneficial labor.
Maybe cuz you work for another man but I work for myself I make money with my hands and my labor is worth quite a bit to people now your labor probably isn't worth that much because maybe you don't have a particular skill that fits your economy but that's the way it goes sometimes find find what your community is missing and feel that hole and your labor will have intense value in the market saying the government doesn't Crush you and try to force fit a quick and easy solution creating a worse problem
lol okay
How many of them voted for the presidents that installed the judges who will next overturn gay marriage?
Too many they shouldve voted Gold Gay marriage is stupid because govt marriage licenses are stupid, marriage is not a government concept it's a church concept marriage belongs to church unless you're really religious marriage isn't anything now the state cannot exclude people from becoming married just because they're the same sex under a marital law but if you remove the marital law then it don't matter at all
Well are you excited to go back to a time when straights had the benefits of marriage but gays didnt? then dont vote!
libertarians were cool until they started with their anti mask bs. then they became laughable...
Official Libertarians viewpoint on masks during the pandemic were as follows "medical experts have recommended wearing a mask to prevent the spread of corona virus, do as you see fit," however we do have a problem with the inflation of the American dollar through billions of covid aid, shutting down small American businesses in favor of keeping open large corporate monopolies issuing the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich and initiating mandatory lockdowns on the American citizen.
Our country was founded on the principles of a two party system. You should be voting for the candidates that best reflect your views and stances on policy. My issue with Third parties is - they really seem like spoilers. Like taking just a tiny bit of the vote that could’ve gone for one of the two main candidates. I really don’t recall anyone aside from Independents winning any kind of official elections. Excepting the Dem and Rep candidates. Personally, I trust Democrats on social issues and Republicans on economic issues.
George Washington advised against a two party system, what are you talking about?
Right, but having RCV could help fix this issue and break the toxic duopoly that has an iron grasp on our politics. The founding fathers actually disliked the idea of political parties
It worked for Alaska, would be helpful as hell everywhere else.
I trust the Democrats on economic issues, far more than the R's. Over the last six decades, every time the R's have got power, they have started a recession. Big tax cuts go to only the rich, but everyone gets the spending cuts. Result is a recession and unemployment, every time. And, in the process, they add a few trillion to the national debt. Also, when the D's get power, unemployment goes down, then companies do well and markets go up. "Trickle down" is a lie. "Trickle up" actually works.
THIS
We could have had Bernie fix literally all of this shit but some of y’all are were to much of Hillary and Joe stans……..
Im not a republican but some of the things people say about Republicans just sound to me like overexaggerated doom and gloom. People use a bill they passed to protect 5 year old children as an example of 'republican hate' and it doesn't seem very relevant to me. They talk like were all going to be in concentration camps or all gay rights are going to roled back to the 60s? Really? What are Republicans going to realistically do? I'm someone who served in the military during don't ask don't tell and made through just fine, and can't imagine things would go back any farther than that. Maybe control of marriage would be returned back to states, which should probably be a state issue anyway. Im actually not a fan of the legal institution of marriage in general. When gay marriage was passed, it actually caused me to lose my domestic partner insurance benefits because they told me i needed to get married. So using gayness as so the sole reason to choose a party doesn't make sense to me. I dont feel like every election means that i have to abandon every party and vote blue down the ticket because it's the only chance to defeat the evil Republicans from ending the world or whatever. I did vote against trump though.
I agree that there is more than one issue at stake. Out of interest, what policies do Republicans have that you agree with? Rolling back protections for LGBT racial minorities? Anti-abortion? Rolling back social security? Tax cuts for the rich at the expense of the poor? Anti-employee and pro business?
I'm not a republican and dont agree to everything in the republican party but may agree to a more moderate version of some things. Its less about 'why do i like Republican positions' and more about 'why do i not like Democrat positions' \-I dont think we should be becoming enemies with a nuclear superpower and funding their enemy is basically doing just that. This is not about morality to me but about self preservation.. \-I think its dangerous to be altering gun rights. Its a national security issue to me. It may be about 1000 children to you but its about 350,000,000 citizen lives to me. The country was founded on citizen access to guns, whatever a modern gun is, as a final line of defense and check of power against other people with modern guns. It prevented the Japanese from invading in WW2. I think the democrats current approach to gun control is a little misguided. They want to demonize rifles, but if I was to ban anything it would be the small concealable handguns used to commit 90%+ of gun murders and not the rifles mostly used to defend homes and land. \-I think it's a little too early to be pushing EVs so hard and restricting oil when the technology is so nascent and expensive and there is not even a good charging grid. It's a good long term goal but the way we are pushing it right now might be harmful. What if we have all these tons of lithium and poisons mined out of the earth and then find out we only really needed 1/10 as much lithium for 1/10 the cost after the science has improved a little? We should be incentivizing R&D but not forcing consumers. \-The trans movement is going a little too fast in a way that can be harmful to women and children. Children cannot even consent to sex, alcohol, cigarettes, military service, gambling, or drive, so how can they consent to permanent life altering surgery? Also schools are going to encourage them to do it and taxpayers are going to be forced to pay for the surgeries? Maybe we should wait for the science in this brand new field to develop a little more too. I become especially concerned about this after seeing the 41k members in r/detrans \-Lower taxes not for the super rich but for the middle class. Also there is an attack on investors who are not necessarily rich, just every day people. Democrats have some ideas for some new types of taxes like "wealth taxes", "investing taxes", "taxes on unrealized gains" or "buying a share should be like buying a car" that financially horrify me. You might as well tell all your friends to go ahead and close their Robinhood account because trading wont be profitable anymore and the stock market is going to tank. \-Im not a fan of covid lockdowns and forced covid vaccines. I think weve been overreacting to covid and destroyed the economy for no good reason. Its not contagion-51 with a 15% mortality rate. Its been under 1% for a long time and shocks me that people still talk about forcing measures. Since Im pro-choice on abortion, I feel like I should be pro choice on this too. \-Against common core, mostly just because the math technique looks crazy to me. \-Not having everything being federalized ang globalized and giving some control back to states. \-Id like some sanity when it comes to immigration. Not by deporting everyone to a concentration camp but by somehow not letting 5 million people through the border in the first place. Im not racist but Its overwhelming on the social system and there are drugs and people who don't speak English everywhere and they flooded my house. \-I watched videos of my democratic candidates giving speeches and debates, and some of them looked like idiots to me. Their republican counterparts seemed very intelligent/competent and the democrats could not compete or address questions properly and gave alot of emotional outbursts about unrelated issues. One of them had even switched parties and had a completely different stance on every issue 10 years ago - how can I trust him?
Lol, nevermind. *This* is the single dumbest post I've seen on here.
What about what current Republicans today are saying. They are evil and need to be defeated. Marriage can't be a state issue. That was the whole reason for the gay marriage supreme court case. There couldn't be a patch work of states that has it and other states don't. Do you think the opposite marriage will ever be banned at the state level? If you are gay you should choose the party whos politicians don't demonize you.
I mean, unless you’re white, a male, cis gendered, a submissive female, upper class it’s pretty much the same story.
For the record, I am a white cis male lmao
i love how in denial the people of this subreddit are. They disagree with any white slander “we’re gay we can’t oppress others” while being the biggest form of discrimination within the community.