The "Silent Majority."

[wareyin]

"Just as untrustworthy" =/= "Just as Respectable"

Thank you though, for demonstrating what I mean by a psychotic exchange, and why I choose to end them. Now please pontificate I'm the phrase "and so ends".

Er...if he's just as untrustworthy as the people you happily vote for, then he's also just as much a respectable candidate as they are, by your criteria. That's the consequence of your false equivalence defenses, if they're no worse than the candidate you voted for then by definition they're just as good as the candidate you voted for.

You're the phrase "and so ends", huh? Well, ok, you do you, I guess.

 

[Upchurch]

One of the drawbacks of mandatory voting is that those who wouldn't bother voting unless forced to will simply fill in the circle without thinking much or at all about whom or what they're voting for/against.

Would they fill in random circles or would they just insert a blank ballot into the box? I feel like that is a legit option with mandatory voting as a statement of either "I don't care" or "I don't like any of the options."

In my book, mandatory voting only means they have to submit a ballot, not that they have to actually pick something.

 

[JoeMorgue]

It might be uncharacteristically optimistic of me but if we "made" everyone vote like other countries do I have just a gut feeling that most people would at least try to cast a vote that was a token attempt at meaningful.

Sure you'd get the petulant little "How dare you tell me what to do" types but most people would not see it a loophole opportunity to have an excuse to be a nihilistic turd.

But the counter-cynic in mean also thinks that even with that it wouldn't make much a difference in our current political setup. Sure it would tip close races, especially at first, but soon the Dems and Republicans would re-carve out their niches.

We start with 100 people, only 60 of them vote, 30 for the Democrat, 30 for the Republican and after an adjustment period we'd wind up with 100 people, all 100 vote, 30 for the Democrat, 30 for the Republican, 20 for the Libertarian, and 20 for the Green Party.

As long as we have first past the post non-ranked voting a two party system cannot be avoided.

 

[dudalb]

Best guess, probably.

I think it is reasonable to look at a lot (no I can't put an exact number on it or say "most" and I doubt anyone else can either) of the unpolitically loud as being... motivated isn't the exact right word but its close by a dislike of one of the established parties rather than a like of one of them.

Mainly because if they liked one of the major parties... they'd just be a member of the party in most, again not all, cases.

Stil have problems with manadatory voting.

 

[Venom]

I think people largely don't care because they don't see in real time how they are affected by policy and who came up with those policies. They hardly see how it affects their community or group let alone at an individual level.

Gasoline prices are easy to see. Big number on the sign goes up...look at the leader. Even if people are somewhat right about the president having influence over the price of gasoline at the pump, none of these knuckleheads can explain it. It affirms their gut intuition which they use for practically everything else. I can't think of too many other things that can make the common person so suddenly political.

Somehow we need to get most of the country to spend as much time thinking about politics as the active ISF userbase. And actual government and politics, not just partisan claptrap parroted from social media. Sadly that's what seems to pass as "getting political".

 

[Thermal]

I think people largely don't care because they don't see in real time how they are affected by policy and who came up with those policies. They hardly see how it affects their community or group let alone at an individual level.

Gasoline prices are easy to see. Big number on the sign goes up...look at the leader. Even if people are somewhat right about the president having influence over the price of gasoline at the pump, none of these knuckleheads can explain it. It affirms their gut intuition which they use for practically everything else. I can't think of too many other things that can make the common person so suddenly political.

Somehow we need to get most of the country to spend as much time thinking about politics as the active ISF userbase. And actual government and politics, not just partisan claptrap parroted from social media. Sadly that's what seems to pass as "getting political".

Sort of? Many subscribe to the Mindless Machine theory, and find it more productive to tend to our own gardens. Being a posturing political puppy is great and all, but some of us are more concerned with the policies that brought about $5/gal gas, than looking at Biden. From the Chomsky school of thought, for instance.

I called $5/gal gas at the beginning of COVID. The price went down around $2, and there is no way in holy hell that oil companies were going to eat that loss. Same for commodities across the board. Anyone who didn't see hyperinflation coming two years ago is a political puppy. It has nothing to do with who is president, and everything to do with who is making profits and buying futures.

 

[lionking]

the problem isn't with The Silent Majority (TSM), but rather with the fact that US elections are gerrymandered on the local all the way up to the federal level: no one cares about what the people in the solid Red or Blue States want, so they might as well stay silent.

Changing the Voting system would go a long way towards increased participation, such as:

- mandatory voting
- gerrymandering for competition
- ranked choice
- quadratic voting

and, of course, abolishing the EC, but that is a no-brainer.

If Australia did not have mandatory voting the participation rate would be much lower than the US. There is almost no complaint about mandatory voting. We see it as a price to pay for democracy.

 

[Stacyhs]

If Australia did not have mandatory voting the participation rate would be much lower than the US. There is almost no complaint about mandatory voting. We see it as a price to pay for democracy.

Do you have a major party actively working against democracy?

 

[bruto]

Do you have a major party actively working against democracy?

This is indeed a problem, but I imagine that it might prove difficult to combine mandatory voting with voter suppression. Probably a good reason why we will likely never have it.

 

[lionking]

Do you have a major party actively working against democracy?

Fair enough. The answer, of course, is no. Which is why we haven’t had any attempts at armed insurrection since the nation was formed in 1901.

 

[Norman Alexander]

One of the drawbacks of mandatory voting is that those who wouldn't bother voting unless forced to will simply fill in the circle without thinking much or at all about whom or what they're voting for/against. IOW, fill it in, get it over with ASAP. Of course, there are people who do that now anyway, but there would be many more of this type of vote if we had mandatory voting. At least the way it is now, those who do vote likely give it a bit more thought.

It's called a "donkey" vote. Which is why, in Australia which has mandatory preferential voting, candidates' positions on the ballots are set by (essentially) drawing names from a hat. Followed by the inevitable wailing and gnashing of teeth by candidates who end up further down the card. It's considered the luck of the game, the rub of the green, etc.

 

[Brainster]

It might be uncharacteristically optimistic of me but if we "made" everyone vote like other countries do I have just a gut feeling that most people would at least try to cast a vote that was a token attempt at meaningful.

Sure you'd get the petulant little "How dare you tell me what to do" types but most people would not see it a loophole opportunity to have an excuse to be a nihilistic turd.

But the counter-cynic in mean also thinks that even with that it wouldn't make much a difference in our current political setup. Sure it would tip close races, especially at first, but soon the Dems and Republicans would re-carve out their niches.

We start with 100 people, only 60 of them vote, 30 for the Democrat, 30 for the Republican and after an adjustment period we'd wind up with 100 people, all 100 vote, 30 for the Democrat, 30 for the Republican, 20 for the Libertarian, and 20 for the Green Party.

As long as we have first past the post non-ranked voting a two party system cannot be avoided.

If you had mandatory voting in 2016 and 2020 Donald Trump would still be President, and he would have won the popular vote both times, just on the basis of his celebrity alone. Low-information voters are going to vote on the limited information they do have.

As for the various voting schemes, you are going to see a blizzard of them over the next few years. The NYC mayoral election primary was ranked choice, which resulted in a two-week delay before the outcome on the Democratic side was announced. I generally think these things end up making the process less transparent to the average voter, but trying them out in primaries in city elections is a good way to test them.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

If you had mandatory voting in 2016 and 2020 Donald Trump would still be President, and he would have won the popular vote both times, just on the basis of his celebrity alone. Low-information voters are going to vote on the limited information they do have.

it's not a question of outcome, but legitimacy.

As for the various voting schemes, you are going to see a blizzard of them over the next few years. The NYC mayoral election primary was ranked choice, which resulted in a two-week delay before the outcome on the Democratic side was announced. I generally think these things end up making the process less transparent to the average voter, but trying them out in primaries in city elections is a good way to test them.

anything new is opaque - we still have to explain the EC to voters every four years, because it's such a bonkers system.

Ranked Choice without primaries is obviously more transparent and more free of Party control - anyone who wants the voters, not the Party National Committees to pick their representatives should be in favor of it.

 

[Stacyhs]

If you had mandatory voting in 2016 and 2020 Donald Trump would still be President, and he would have won the popular vote both times, just on the basis of his celebrity alone. Low-information voters are going to vote on the limited information they do have.

You base this on what?

 

[Brainster]

You base this on what?

Who had been on the cover of People magazine more often as of 2016, Hillary or Donald? My argument is simply that if you force more people to vote, you may find that, contra Joe Morgue's OP, they do not suddenly become serious students of politics, that they vote on the basis of the limited information they already have. Trump was on network TV every week for years on a hit show where everybody sucked up to him like crazy.

 

[lionking]

Who had been on the cover of People magazine more often as of 2016, Hillary or Donald? My argument is simply that if you force more people to vote, you may find that, contra Joe Morgue's OP, they do not suddenly become serious students of politics, that they vote on the basis of the limited information they already have. Trump was on network TV every week for years on a hit show where everybody sucked up to him like crazy.

I understood that a disproportionate number of blacks don’t vote. Blacks tend towards Democrat. I need more than this back of the envelope nonsense.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Who had been on the cover of People magazine more often as of 2016, Hillary or Donald? My argument is simply that if you force more people to vote, you may find that, contra Joe Morgue's OP, they do not suddenly become serious students of politics, that they vote on the basis of the limited information they already have. Trump was on network TV every week for years on a hit show where everybody sucked up to him like crazy.

That's the same argument Trumpers made why Biden could not possibly have gotten more votes than Trump ... forgetting that in US politics, more often than not, you vote AGAINST a particular candidate, not for his competitor.

Do you think a Kardashian could win a Federal Election?

 

[JoeMorgue]

I understood that a disproportionate number of blacks don’t vote. Blacks tend towards Democrat. I need more than this back of the envelope nonsense.

Yeah and that sort of ties up back to what I'm talking about.

When they vote demographic X tends to vote for Y.

It doesn't then logically follow that if you could get more X's to vote they would vote in the same ration for Y.

No the reasons some blacks don't vote and the reason some blacks don't Democrat aren't the same, but there's probably some shared reasons in there.

 

[JoeMorgue]

That's the same argument Trumpers made why Biden could not possibly have gotten more votes than Trump ... forgetting that in US politics, more often than not, you vote AGAINST a particular candidate, not for his competitor.

It really is the whole "But I don't see any BIDEN flags!" thing as if belonging to a death cult of personality is the only way to be political.

If that logic was true Calvin pissing on a Truck Logo would be crowned Emperor of the Universe for Life.

 

[Stacyhs]

Who had been on the cover of People magazine more often as of 2016, Hillary or Donald?

So you're basing it on who was on the cover of People magazine more often? Um. Yeah.....

My argument is simply that if you force more people to vote, you may find that, contra Joe Morgue's OP, they do not suddenly become serious students of politics,

I agree with that as I said in my post about above.

that they vote on the basis of the limited information they already have. Trump was on network TV every week for years on a hit show where everybody sucked up to him like crazy.

People who base their vote on that are really too stupid to vote. Explains a lot about 2016.

I understood that a disproportionate number of blacks don’t vote. Blacks tend towards Democrat. I need more than this back of the envelope nonsense.

This is true. We saw the results in 2008 and 2012 when the Black community came out in huge numbers to vote. Also in 2020 in Georgia.