this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2024
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People will, in a single breath, tell people to exercise their right to vote in democracy and also that voting for the person/party that best represents them is wrong if it's not a Big Party.
The issue in the US is that it IS against your political interests to vote for anyone but the least bad option.
The first past the post system simply doesn't allow for a diverse political landscape.
Maybe it's a garbage system concocted by literal slave masters?
Thanks for your input, but it is not a question about who benefits or what a person aught to do, but a simple logical conclusion:
For simplicities’ sake, let's say there are 10 people voting in an election with 2 parties. Each party has 4 unwavering loyalists and the remaining 2 people's votes depend on current events/issues. The two parties mainly take turns in government due to these swing voters.
Now enter a third party. Party 3 addresses issues that are somewhat relevant to voters of party 2 and mostly uninteresting to voters of party 1. In the next election, some voters will most likely drift from party 2 to party 3:
Splitting votes between too somewhat similar parties guarantees a win for the opposite party on the spectrum. Coalitions are not possible under first past the post, so party 2 and 3 teaming up to dethrone party 1 is not an option. This continues until either another party on the opposite end of the spectrum joins the race and diminishes the votes for party 1 or one of party 2 or 3 absorbs the other.
Therefore, it is in the voter's best interest to vote strategically against what they don't want and not for what they do want.
Usually in a democracy the people are represented by parties which they align most with. In my country I can vote for one of seven, which get proportionally represented by a number of seats in parliament. The winning party rarely has more than 50% of the vote, if they do, all the losing parties will become the opposition, and if they don't they have to combine with another party to have at least 50% of the votes. This assures that the winning party or coalition still has to negotiate their position and decisions every single day. If one party would want the power the current administration in the US has they would probably need 80 or 90% of the votes.
Is it complicated? Yes. Does it make sure the people are represented? Also yes.
In the US if a state votes 51% one way, 100% of the electoral votes go to that party, causing a reality where a party could get less than a majority vote and still win. This alone is proof that the people are not fairly represented and isn't a fair democracy. In local elections you'll have a much more nuanced choice but at a federal level it's antiquated to say the least.
I will say that in a fair democracy, you should vote for your representative, in the US you have no such choice. Be it by living in one state counts as more than another, or the fact that a third party has little to no representation post election.
Just as a side note, those models are not invulnerable to manipulation. In my country it's the same, but the central government is ruling from one of the flimsiest coalition governments, with the same lack of power that goes along that dumbasses still claim they are solely responsible for. The opposition claims they 'won' because they got more votes than any other party (which should have also made it easier for them to form their coalition and they weren't able to) and now it is getting so bad and stupid (and troll factory brigaded) that people getting convinced by the rhetoric are trying to pass off the US electoral system as a success story.
It provides more representation, but it does not provide infallibility. I think we have the technology today to do considerably better than what we had several centuries back - in fact, to a large extent we could be voting ourselves on key issues instead of letting it fall back to representatives and false promises if we wanted to. The biggest problem isn't that people in a democracy aren't on equal grounds when grasping different issues and yet they can be radicalized to vote out of rhetoric more than those who would and should be more informed. I think we could have better democracies if we shifted to meritocracies, where you could vote on issues only if you certify you were more informed and the history, reality, and minutiae that govern those issues through exams. But that would also create a system that could be gamed.
Any system can be corrupt, and in democracies it's not just the political candidates but society as a whole when it becomes complacent, ignorant, yet loud and willing to break the system for those that manipulate then into doing it.
Yea, and I would never claim it's perfect, there are no perfect systems. But one of the most powerful nations being that vulnerable to manipulation is something to witness.
Yeah, that's right. You have the freedom to make bad choices and the government can't stop you. But other people can still make fun of you. People calling you dumb because of your bad decisions isn't a violation of your rights.
Voting in your best interests is dumb, and people should mock you for it. Got it.
It doesn't matter who you vote for, just go vote.
Yeah it does. Don't vote for Nazis
Corrected. Your vote doesn't count if you vote for Nazis. Don't be a literal Hitler.