this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2024
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Voting is about picking your opponents, not your teammates.
That is very sad
Is it?
I figure it’s just how democracy has to work. Governance is too complicated to just set it and forget it every 2-4 years.
Even if you somehow elect an ideal candidate, you’re still going to disagree at some point during their term.
There are plenty of no-win scenarios, opportunities to trade a short-term loss for a long-term win, etc. where you might agree on goals but not tactics and you end up having to petition/protest them.
And that’s in the ideal case.
You might as well assume that whoever ends up in The Room Where It Happens, they’re going to sit down on the opposite side of the table from you — not next to you.
I guess that’s kinda cynical, but I really don’t mean it to be. I think it’s just a more healthy way to frame participatory democracy. Your job is not done at the ballot box. That’s just to set the parameters for the real work.
It all comes down to the biggest pain of current elections: strategic voting. If there was an ideal candidate you wouldnt vote for him because you d vote less bad so that more bad does not claim the throne. There are numerous systems which solve this problem but somehow both less bad and more bad dont have any reason to establish them. Of course there are many other faults with current voting systems and especially US system. If you want a proof that the system is fucked and needs to be abolished look at 1992 usa elections - not only did 19% of votes equate to 0(!) spots in the house or senate, there is a reasonable arguement to be made that the fact that Ross Perot entered the election has changed its outcome (spoiler effect). It is sad that US elections have reached an equlibrium where there are only two possible candidates who dont even have to try. After all "47% of the people will vote for the candidate no matter what" (intentional misquote)