this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2024
999 points (97.1% liked)

politics

19120 readers
2769 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 36 points 10 months ago (7 children)

Ah yes, because it's not about doing what is right, it's about political gain. Fuck america so so much.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago

In theory the two are supposed to be aligned. Political will is supposed to go up when the politicians do what's right and down when they do wrong. That's what is going on here but I agree that they aren't usually aligned.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Voters don't reward doing the right thing at the wrong time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

On top of the answer you have already received (people forget by the time election rolls around), I'll be extra pessimistic and say that majority of Americans publicly support progressive policies, but may in private and in the ballot box lean more conservative. If you know you sound like a monster, you might say the nice things in public, but then when not accountable for their image in the ballot box... well...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You might have a point if the poll was asking people about race or any other sensitive topic, but people will not dress up their opinions if they don't think they'll get attacked for them. Nobody has their job threatened if they advocate for private health insurance companies.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Sure, not all progressive policies have this phenomenon, but for some, even in a relatively private but not actually private or anonymous context being asked about some policies may elicit a different reaction.

All of the cited policies in that article has a counterpoint that may drive different anonymous private behavior.

They will mean either taxes go up or companies that you buy from may have to spend more money. So it's incredibly selfish to declare that people shouldn't have a livable wage, shouldn't have access to workable income when accommodating a newborn, shouldn't have access to higher education. However, in the ballot box someone might be very selfish "I make more than minimum wage, so I don't care, but I do care that it might raise prices, I am not about to have a kid, so happy to screw over those that are for the sake of the companies saving money, I have health insurance and so I don't care if someone else can't realistically have it/afford it".

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

People argue against a livable wage all the time, though. They just say that those jobs "were never meant to be a career", that it's "supposed to be for kids earning extra spending cash", that "if people want to make good money they need to develop skills". They'll tell you that if we interfere in the "free market", it will wreck the economy, and we'll all be starving. They're thrilled to tell you how they, or their parents, made sure to be in a good financial position before having kids, and if people have kids who can't afford the costs including time off to be good parents, that's because those people are irresponsible. And on down the line. They'll shame you for "demanding free stuff", and walk away feeling smugly superior.

It's just fundamentally not how human psychology works to publicly acknowledge what you think is good, and then privately work against it. People who do the worst and most selfish things always have a justification for it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Some people will happily express that sentiment.

Others might be more reserved...

At least that's the a way I can reconcile all these countless articles that repeatedly show that like 70-80% of people support key policies of the democrat platform, and yet the elections seem to break almost even between republican and democrat. Districting shenanigans and the electoral college can account for some oddities, but the senate keeps being roughly a tie and even the popular vote for president is much closer than all this data suggests it should be.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

The Senate is affected by the OG of gerrymandering, giving an enormously greater weight to votes in less populous states.

Most people are not as informed as you. They aren't analyzing their views on specific issues and voting for the candidates most in alignment with that. They're voting based on single hot-button issues like abortion or gun control. They're voting based on the way they feel about a politician. They're scared of terminology made up to scare them, seeing the Democrats as representing "cultural Marxism" and "critical race theory". They are in an information bubble that builds a worldview which is complete, compelling, but incorrect, and their votes reflect that.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

The election cycle.

It doesn't matter if people support it if they don't remember it well enough to come out to vote when it matters. You see this with Biden already, people completely missing the effort they have made for tons of work that people support.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

Yet republican voters are far more dedicated to voting because the republican party makes bold promises and pushes to do them. Even if it's as stupid as a border wall, they'll make that promise and actually get funding for it and build at least part of it. Democrats, though, "it's not feasible", "it's not possible", "we can't do that", "it's not realistic". If democrats would show that they at least try, voters would try. No, forgiving a few billion in student loans here or there after letting the problem build up to 1.7 trillion dollars isn't enough effort. What if instead they said "we will eliminate student loan debt completely" and then work on it, instead of hitting up low-hanging fruit like enforcing existing student loan forgiveness programs that forgive after 10+ years of interest payments?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (2 children)

It's about doing what is right, but waiting until it's most politically beneficial before doing it

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Not really. I highly doubt it will be rescheduled prior to election when they are just talking about it now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Liberal cope. Maybe in 2028, maybe in 2032, certainly he/she will need to utilize this card in 2036? Wait wait but what if they wanted to pull that shit in 2040?.. Fuck

[–] Habahnow 11 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Lol he's actually taken steps to reschedule it, I know you probably wish we were in a dictatorship where Biden could just say, "weed is now legal, Trump will now be put in jail, and top republicans are to be killed" but we don't live in that world thankfully. He started the process to reschedule marijuana in 2022, with the last update being from the DEA on December 2023 being that they are reviewing whether to reschedule marijuana and what to reschedule it as. I assume if Biden just signed an executive order to change it, it would have been held up in the courts and probably overturned because of not going through a formal process ( imagine if Biden could just unilaterally make fentanyl street legal).

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Genuinely cute you think Biden of all people would even reclassify let alone decriminalize 🤣

[–] Habahnow 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That's literally the process he's going to now. Not to mention it's actually beneficial for him politically. It's pretty sad how little you know about politics, yet you feel the need to discuss it.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago

Lip service works wonders on the libs it seems

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago

I mean, democracy is supposed to align those two needs.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That's kind of inevitable, and not such a bad thing. The president is one person. One person shouldn't be deciding what is right arbitrarily. For the president to be looking at what the people want, that's a good thing. Now, our democratic systems are deeply flawed, so that "what the people want" and "what improves electoral chances" are not as closely tied as they should be, but that's another matter.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Yeah it's basically baked into the system. Politicians will be politicians and there are other checks and balances like the vote that are supposed to keep them reigned in. Not excusing bad behavior on the part of politicans, but as voters we could excercise more control over them if we were more educated and organized. There are too many crappy politicians that aren't afraid for their jobs.

This is obviously simplifying and ignores other urgent problems like gerrymandering, vote suppression, and money in politics.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

It's not even what's right in full. Rescheduling helps get us towards legalization someday but rescheduling probably also means people are still going to be sitting in jail for possession until well after 2028.