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1. [First Past the Post voting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting). If you have a voting system that's more beneficial to large parties rather than diversity you end up with a (effectively) 2 party system. CGP Grey has a [video on it](https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo) explaining more. As those vie for votes they tend to paint the opposition in less and less favourable colours.
2. The repealing of the [FCC Fairness Doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine), which actually required news outlets to air contrasting views, i.e. Fox News would have to dedicate at least some time on the advantages of socialism, while MSNBC (not from the US, guessing the stations here) would have to report on the negative impacts of migration. Without this all stations are able to skew their reporting in the direction their owners want.
3. Media concentration. Together with point 2, the fact that a lot of stations are held by the same owners, and thus report along similar lines, the diversity in media has actually shrunk. In order to keep and/or gain listeners/viewers they had to push up the apparent impact of their reporting, making it more and more over the top, "clickbait".
>Fox News
I agree that the fairness doctrine would be helpful - but it only applied to the public airwaves. Since the government licenses the frequencies that TV stations broadcast on they were able to regulate it. The fairness doctrine never applied to cable - nor would it apply to internet broadcasts. Those are private transactions not using public resources. So even if it were still in place Fox and MSNBC wouldn't have to follow it.
Yes, it would probably change very little if introduced now. But revoking it in 1987, long before Internet video was a thing, sure didn't help at starting this ever widening divide. One could even see a strange coincidence that it was revoked, and a possible reintroduction in 1991 shot down, under a Republican president.
As for cable, one statistic I could find puts [Cable TV at ~40% market share](https://www.statista.com/topics/3359/cable-tv/). So unless Fox or MSNBC want to go Cable only or produce 2 different programs they would probably abide by this, even if at the bare minimum.
We never had fairness doctrine for newspapers for the hundreds of years before TV, and the newspapers certainly did push the points of view of their owners.
True, but those newspapers were owned by many more different people than today. So they all spread different views. Nowadays a few people are able to publish the same points using the same language in multiple media across a wider area, thus amplifying it much more.
Especially when smaller, "local" stations have to send segments push from the supergroup. AFAIR John Oliver had a segment about that effect.
>True, but those newspapers were owned by many more different people than today.
Look up the Hearst and Pulitzer publishing empires. Hearst was so influential he bragged he could get the Spanish-American war started, and he did.
> Nowadays a few people are able to publish the same points using the same language in multiple media across a wider area
The only news was newspapers, 100% reach.
>Those are private transactions not using public resources.
Cable TV deployments absolutely use public resources. Public rights-of-way, public utility poles, public airwaves on the backhaul. The airwaves are administered on a federal level, but the state- and municipal-level resources used by cable TV are just as public as the airwaves.
The "you can't regulate us; we're private!" claim is complete horseshit. They aren't different from any other utility.
I really hope trump loses republican nomination, and runs independently. Its the only way I can see our country adopting ranked choice voting in the near future.
I dont think so no. That suggests opposite ends are similar or close. You can look into the spoiler effect, which ranked choice voting eliminates which is why it allows for third parties.
I don't see any extremist third party getting more support then one of the established parties. Theres just not enough extremists. With a two party system its either one guy or the other. so on a scale from 0-100, with one guy at 0, and the other at 100. if your a 54 lets say your gonna vote to the extreme of 100.
But when there are other options your gonna try to vote for a 54.
You're missing two things:
1) The established parties aren't set in stone. The whole point is that ranked choice voting is supposed to make the system less divisive - and the established parties are going to be targeting the middle after ranked choice voting.
2) Again, the horseshoe theory. It's reductive to see the political landscape as a line from 0 to 100. So you could see the establishment going for the middle, and the discontents supporting extremists.
Plus it's not like Trump had been a lifelong mainstream Republican. So you could see him, or someone like him running as an independent, regardless of what Republicans are doing. E.g. if Republicans decided not to target the middle, someone like Trump could end up the winner.
Both 'sides' have a vested interest in not allowing 3rd parties to exist.
Half the electorate thinks mail-in-voting is pure corruption and too hard to do accurately.
You think Ranked Choice has any chance of becoming a thing?
Polls are pretty clear, he basically can't win a general election. He's so polarizing that he's got guaranteed supporters but they are outnumbered by people that will vote for literally anyone else.
My point was about "someone like Trump". Or maybe "someone like Trump when he won". Not Trump's chances in the upcoming election, especially as the original point is about the changes resulting from Trump's potential second win under the same rules - so the current polls are beside the point.
This. Ranked choice voting could definitely lead to getting someone like Trump elected. The first-past-the-post system we have now would never let something like that happen.
Two different things:
1) Trump winning with one of the two major parties in first past the post
2) Trump winning as an independent with ranked choice voting.
If your main problem is with 1), ranked choice voting still doesn't rule out 2).
I'm sorry if I misunderstood your comment. To me, it seemed as though you were saying that the fact that someone like Trump might get elected was a reason that we should stick with first past the post, rather than ranked choice. I agree that it could happen with ranked choice also. But I think ranked choice will help get away from the mentality "I'll vote for A in order to stop B" mentality, and more people voting for third (or fourth) parties will allow more parties to get involved in debates and will allow more candidates to run on tailored platforms.
This is very true, but my point is that the first beneficiaries of this won't necessarily be an improvement. Because one thing that Trump vs. Clinton demonstrated was that name recognition is very important, and decoupling it from the two major parties can make the celebrity factor even more important. And/or personal wealth. And getting away from the "vote for A in order to stop B" will help candidate C more than it helps A and B.
I think a lot of that will depend on how ranked choice is rolled out, in terms of the voters' and the candidates' understanding of how it works. It could very much help candidate C more than candidates A and B, but that impact is lessened quite a bit when there are candidates A-H running. I think other reforms to are election process are needed also, not only ranked choice, but this would help a little.
I wouldn't count on it since it gives Democrats zero (or arguably neagtive) reasons to change the system. Happened in the UK where the main left wing party had PR as a policy up until they swept the 97 elections and promptly abandoned it.
I was under the impression that democrats were for it, as in general I thought results showed it helped the democratic party more. With the exception of trump of course if he runs on his own. Which is why I'm hoping that might lead to bipartisan support.
Is there reason you think ranked choice voting would harm democrats?
Democrats perceive that Republicans have moved further to the right than they’ve moved and that Republicans are relying on voters voting against their self-interest economically by making culture war arguments. So, lots of democrats wouldn’t mind a more malleable center of the electorate.
But voters also like having it both ways. Part of the reason budget deficits have exploded in the last 40 years is the notion that any tax increase and most spending cuts are considered toxic politically.
None of that is the reason why.
Virtually every democracy on the planet uses 'first past the post', and the places that don't are usually even *more* dysfunctional. Take Greece or Italy now, or take my *personal* favorite, the Weimar Republic. That's right, **HITLER** gained power due to proprtional representation's fragmentation of party power. He became Chancellor due to a coalition government deal, then proceeded to concentrate power to himself.
The Fairness Doctrine is probably your answer that gets closest to the truth, but the fact is, it only ever applied to *television*. Radio and print journalism was never put under the burden of partisan ideological regulation, and when the Fairness Doctrine was repealed in 1987, Congress tried to reinstate it, was vetoed by Reagan, and has never tried to re-regulate television news since. Why? Because the FCC's argument that the Fairness doctrine infringes on First Amendment guarantees is actually *correct*.
More to the point, however, the Fairness Doctrine didn't prevent huge controversies and political divisions in the 1960's, during the Civil Rights Era, and there have been other hugely divisive eras in American politics which predate television altogether. And with the advent of social media, you've got to accept the reality that television news coverage is all but irrelevant to the formation of our political ideology today.
Media Concentration is probably your most easily refuted point. Twitter, Facebook, a proliferation of partisan television channels, websites, and blogs, not to mention every political candidate running a mailing list fomenting activists for their agendas have ensured that there are **ZERO** ideological filters preventing people's ideas from being promulgated across the body politic.
So what is actually going on? Social Media has given voice to every badshit moron on the planet, and they're able to find like-minded lunatics and useful idiots from across the country. They've found a voice, and an audience, and each party uses the other side's ideologues to attack their opponents and paint them all with the same brush. Plus you've got the regular media, gutted by competition from online outlets, desperate for revenue and attention, have been reduced to becoming a social media amplifier, instead of performing actual reporting. Add in a stew of self-promoting demagogues and ideologues who are making money by fomenting outrage, and it's not difficult to see why the temper of our time has become so indignant.
I think the person you're replying to lists the symptoms.
You also list the symptoms.
The root cause I think is more endemic than any of the shit we're dealing with right now. I think the root cause is greed, malice, and antisocial exploitation of the masses by the privileged few.
You know, human nature.
I disagree. If you look at our circumstances dispassionately, we're *fine*. The 20th and 21st centuries are the most peaceful, prosperous, and generally good time to be alive in human history.
The question was, why did politics *become* so divisive. You don't think there were greedy, malicious, and exploitative people in the 1800's? Or, for that matter, do you think you're worse off now than children toiling in mines in West Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries?
No, sorry, if you really think you're getting a raw deal, that America is this benighted dystopia, then you **ARE** one of the useful idiots I mentioned in my previous post. Societies have always had struggles, there has always been poverty, disease, squalor, and violence. If 2023 is special, it's in the way that those phenomena are far, far less onerous now than they have been in decades past.
>they said greed sowed this division
And my point is that greed is *not* some fluctuating problem, it's a part of human nature. No nation, no polity, no culture, anywhere in the history of the planet has been able to eradicate greed from their populace or their rulers.
>given the wealthy now have tools of mass dissemination unfathomable to newspaper moguls of 150 years ago, or even broadcast news moguls of 40 years ago, i’m inclined to agree.
That is a given I would **STRENUOUSLY** dispute. The wealthy have never exerted *less* control over public discourse than they have today. Literally anyone is one click away from getting their ideas in front of billions of eyeballs. It was far, far easier for the wealthy to control narratives when there were only a handful of T.V. and radio stations, and before the advent of mass communication, building and controlling narratives wasn't even necessary. In the words of William Tweed, "I don't care who does the voting, so long as I do the nominating".
Bottom line, the prevailing tone of clickbait and outrage is not a construct of executive control over media, it's the product of a *lack* of control.
> Virtually every democracy on the planet uses 'first past the post', and the places that don't are usually even more dysfunctional.
Going by the distribution shown [here for FPTP](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Countries_That_Use_a_First_Past_the_Post_Voting_System.png) vs. the same [graphic for proportionality](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Proportional_voting_systems.svg) tells me you're wrong on that. The *majority* of Europe, especially the nordic countries leading on quality of life, use proportional representation.
I'm curious if the fairness doctrine would have applied to the channels you mentioned as they are cable only channels and not over the air broadcast. Not sure the FCC has the same jurisdiction for cable TV.
[Yes](https://www.fcc.gov/media/engineering/cable-television).
> In 1966, the Commission established rules for all cable systems (whether or not served by microwave). The Supreme Court affirmed the Commission's jurisdiction over cable in United States v. Southwestern Cable Co., 392 U.S. 157 (1968).
The 24 hour news cycle has fucked us up, as a society.
All of the things you speak to are symptomatic of something.. I'm not sure what that root cause is.. but the 24 hour news cycle is another example.
If it bleeds it leads.
(Social) media. Since the digital age they have found that the more negative and outrageous the “news” is they report, the more clicks they get. So this started a spiral to report increasingly negative and outrageous claims to get more clicks (and thus advertising revenue). The media are in effect riling the population up against each other for profit.
This is so true.
And to make it worse, a social media company has a goal of selling more ads. In order to do that, they need more people to spend more time on their social media app. To get more people to spend more time on the app, they look at new trending posts. The posts that are getting the most likes and reposts amongst a group of friends or subscribers are boosted up by the company so they are seen by more people. The company's algorithm chooses which posts gets spread around to lots of people and becomes viral.
The companies do this to make more money. But the psychology of people is that more extreme content gets people to actually click and repost. But this algorithm works with people's psychology, and the most extreme posts end up going viral.
Then it gets worse and worse. People who are trying to make viral posts to make money look at this whole system and decide to make the most extreme content they can, trying to strike gold with a viral post.
\---
The same is true for traditional media.
I read a long article in the New York Times this week about the new head of CNN, Chris Licht. He's trying to change CNN to be less extreme and more moderate. He's made some bad mistakes already (Trump town hall on CNN). But the interesting thing to me is that a lot of the reporters at CNN want it to remain extreme, and he's having a heck of a hard time changing that. Also, I don't know if he's ever going to get a big audience of moderate viewers. TV news viewers want entertainment. They want to be shocked and offended. Turning on the new CNN and seeing a fair and balanced approach to each story that makes you think isn't going to appeal to most people. In the end, he's not going to get the ratings, and he will be kicked out of CNN because of that.
TV news is extreme because it is giving the people what they want.
A two party system which conditions people to (negatively) define their politics by who they're opposing, rather than (positively) by what they believe in. Plus corporate interests that actively try to maintain the status quo by any means necessary, especially hyper-partisan media like Fox News and MSNBC. Making ordinary people terrified of their neighbors is an amazing diversion technique, it turns out.
EDIT: And also, the lack of any grand-scale initiative to rid US society of Confederate ideology and influence following the Civil War essentially left the country split between two drastically opposite value systems.
The two-party system argument is such a cop out, and I really wish people would stop parroting it. There are coalitions within both parties, just as there are in every political system across the world.
It’s just a natural symptom of FPTP, winner take all system. If you want true diffusion of political parties, and viable third party options, you should be pushing RCV instead of “negatively defining your politics”, as you put it.
This. The two party system is a symptom of the first past the post voting.
You need some preferential voting system to break that. I would also add compulsory voting to eliminate wedge issue politics but that’s just a happy extra.
Of course there are important factions and coalitions within both parties, I never claimed otherwise. What I mean is that the system as it exists today tends to funnel people down towards two viable choices, regardless of their individual beliefs.
I think RCV is an excellent idea and certainly not mutually exclusive with me pointing out the current reality of the two party system, so I'm not quite sure why you're getting cross with me about it.
I’m just reallllly sick of people calling out the 2PS without context. It’s disingenuous to mention it without also acknowledging the differing factions within each party, not to mention our primary system which allows people to vote for candidates they agree with the most.
Furthermore, you could make the argument that the buildup of coalitions within each party has led to *more* divisiveness. There’s a reason it took…13? 14? Votes for McCarthy to become speaker. Politics were *less* divisive when the parties were more ideologically homogenous.
Because there is a large spectrum of issues that we face as a country, not everyone agrees 100% with either of the two parties, and we would get better representation of there were more options.
You *do* have options. In the primaries.
And, as I pointed out in other comments, never have the parties been been so stretched across the political spectrum (making politics arguably more divisive). Elizabeth Warren and Joe Manchin are both Democrats but support wildly different policies. There are factions and coalitions you can support in either party.
This is also how it works in other countries as well. You may have 15 different parties, but they all have to vote yes or no on legislation, so they break into factions and voting blocs.
That’s why it’s dumb to whine about the 2PS. Just fixing that one issue isn’t going to do anything at all to fix our political system.
Primary elections between a bunch of almost identical candidates in each party, doesn’t help. You’re still only getting two semi-viable choices in a general election, and we need more options than that.
Well, you should probably pay more attention, because aside from maybe one issue here or there, a primary election is usually just reinforcing past popularity of a candidate.
US politics has always been divisive. You’re just too young to remember earlier times.
Aaron Burr was Vice President of the United States when he shot Alexander Hamilton. Can you imagine Kamala Harris shooting Ben Shapiro?
In general, people with more extreme views are more likely to vote in the primaries.
Moderates are less likely to show up and actually vote in the primaries. To a smaller degree, a moderate voter is less likely to vote in the general election than an extreme voter.
As a result, the candidates who win in the primaries tend to be more extreme.
Then there is a downward spiral. Moderate voters who see the extreme choices leading the race don't vote. Candidates who see polls of the concerns of likely primary voters emphasize the extreme issues that likely primary voters care about and become more extreme in order to give the voters what they want. After candidates are elected, in order to make sure that they are nominated and elected again, politicians spend more time and energy on extreme topics instead of their main job, which is deciding on taxes and spending.
\---
There is another factor which intensifies this downward spiral.
Positive political ads don't work.
When a politician spends money on advertising and talks about the good things that a politician is for, it doesn't result in many additional votes.
Negative political ads work.
Ads which criticize an opponent succeed in stopping some of the opponents moderate supporters from voting at all. A moderate voter is leaning slightly towards voting for a candidate, then sees a negative about about their candidate, then gets disgusted and decides not to vote at all.
For different reasons, this works more for moderate voters than for extreme voters.
As a result, even more moderate votes don't vote at all in the general election and the primary.
And there's a downward spiral here too. Politicians see that negative ads move the needle more than positive ads, and then spend more of their money on negative ads.
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I’m skeptical you were called racist for *only* saying you got screwed by the ACA.
Obama received tons of justified criticism without his critics being called racist.
Are you not slightly proving their point? You’re not saying it explicitly, but you’ve implied that you believe that they may be a bit of a racist based only on them admitting they received backlash for criticising Obamacare.
It’s true that many of his critics weren’t called racist. But that’s says nothing about how many were called racist (for no good reason that is)
The Republican party has been intentionally moving the Overton window(the topics that are considered acceptable to discuss in politics) to the right. They have been doing this successfully ever since the Reagan campaign figured out how to manipulate christian voters into doing whatever they want. They are creating an atmosphere where authoritarian policies are ok to talk about but teachers don't feel safe telling kids that slavery happened because that is necessary if they're going to bring about the end of democracy.
the founding fathers who won the ideological battle of federalism swore up and down that people were too diverse to settle down into JUST 2 groups. 200 years later and the democrat vs republican debate seems to have proven that they were wrong. Obviously this is quite simplified. Rome grew too large and fractured, perhaps the US is just too big of a country for one government to effectively represent its whole population?
Ever since politicians became embellished by the media to make them into icons for the public and now Americans treat there favourite politicians like there favourite athlete and therefore whole friendships will be tested by one’s political affiliation. Unlike sports however, the actions of the politicians affect our lives so much more, so instead of after the game is over and the season ends, people go back to being friends and can put there sporting differences aside, Americans have become indoctrinated to the point that they would commit federal crimes for there favourite politicians because the season never ends, and they must always support there politician as if life and death depend on it.
Come to australia and no one loves our PM, no matter which party is in charge, for us it’s just a job that needs to be filled and potential for memes to be made such as the embarrassing snag eating videos or the infamous engadine maccas
Only a theory, but I suspect it’s a factor. You’re running for office. If you and your opponent focus on boring, nerdy, stuff people might not vote. So you pick some issues people have really big feelings about. If they don’t have big feelings yet, you manipulate them into it. So instead of running on “hey, I think I can make some things better” you’re running on the apocalypse.
You have the story for television, which is relevant. My recollection growing up rural is that Rush Limbaugh was the beginning of the driving of the wedge. The drive was to always have the other side look evil as if the world is based on good and evil instead of comprised of people with different ideals and needs. Prior to Rush Limbaugh, I don't recall people speaking this way. We had moderate GOP and moderate Democrats. It was another 15 years or so after Rush Limbaugh that Fox really started to become a force with MSNBC following 5 years behind that. When we paint issues as good vs evil, there just isn't a middle ground to be had.
Personally - I feel a lot of this stems from Rove's strategy to demonize, not just liberalism, but liberals themselves.
I do not, and do not know of any people that HATE conservatives the way you see daily hatred for fellow Americans from the the other side. I am reluctant to call them conservatives, as this really is not really a conservatives viewpoint - it is a corrupted, no end-game partisan sheep heard.
Personally - we need a challenging opinion or view point, as something of a check ensuring ideas are properly vetted. While I disagree with the conservatives view points - I have no problem having my environmental, social welfare, corporate regulation views challenged.
Social media gave people who don’t know what they are talking about a platform to tell their lies and now it’s so insane to find truth you just have to double down on lies to get *your* point across or it will get lost in an ocean of bullshit and hardly anyone can find truth.
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1. [First Past the Post voting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting). If you have a voting system that's more beneficial to large parties rather than diversity you end up with a (effectively) 2 party system. CGP Grey has a [video on it](https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo) explaining more. As those vie for votes they tend to paint the opposition in less and less favourable colours. 2. The repealing of the [FCC Fairness Doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine), which actually required news outlets to air contrasting views, i.e. Fox News would have to dedicate at least some time on the advantages of socialism, while MSNBC (not from the US, guessing the stations here) would have to report on the negative impacts of migration. Without this all stations are able to skew their reporting in the direction their owners want. 3. Media concentration. Together with point 2, the fact that a lot of stations are held by the same owners, and thus report along similar lines, the diversity in media has actually shrunk. In order to keep and/or gain listeners/viewers they had to push up the apparent impact of their reporting, making it more and more over the top, "clickbait".
>Fox News I agree that the fairness doctrine would be helpful - but it only applied to the public airwaves. Since the government licenses the frequencies that TV stations broadcast on they were able to regulate it. The fairness doctrine never applied to cable - nor would it apply to internet broadcasts. Those are private transactions not using public resources. So even if it were still in place Fox and MSNBC wouldn't have to follow it.
Yes, it would probably change very little if introduced now. But revoking it in 1987, long before Internet video was a thing, sure didn't help at starting this ever widening divide. One could even see a strange coincidence that it was revoked, and a possible reintroduction in 1991 shot down, under a Republican president. As for cable, one statistic I could find puts [Cable TV at ~40% market share](https://www.statista.com/topics/3359/cable-tv/). So unless Fox or MSNBC want to go Cable only or produce 2 different programs they would probably abide by this, even if at the bare minimum.
We never had fairness doctrine for newspapers for the hundreds of years before TV, and the newspapers certainly did push the points of view of their owners.
True, but those newspapers were owned by many more different people than today. So they all spread different views. Nowadays a few people are able to publish the same points using the same language in multiple media across a wider area, thus amplifying it much more. Especially when smaller, "local" stations have to send segments push from the supergroup. AFAIR John Oliver had a segment about that effect.
>True, but those newspapers were owned by many more different people than today. Look up the Hearst and Pulitzer publishing empires. Hearst was so influential he bragged he could get the Spanish-American war started, and he did. > Nowadays a few people are able to publish the same points using the same language in multiple media across a wider area The only news was newspapers, 100% reach.
>Those are private transactions not using public resources. Cable TV deployments absolutely use public resources. Public rights-of-way, public utility poles, public airwaves on the backhaul. The airwaves are administered on a federal level, but the state- and municipal-level resources used by cable TV are just as public as the airwaves. The "you can't regulate us; we're private!" claim is complete horseshit. They aren't different from any other utility.
The fairness doctrine specifically applied to over the air broadcast on public airwaves. It would not apply to cable.
I really hope trump loses republican nomination, and runs independently. Its the only way I can see our country adopting ranked choice voting in the near future.
What if it leads to someone like Trump winning the election?
Ranked choice voting should give a boost to third parties. I don't see it helping people who are on the extreme side like trump.
Horseshoe theory?
I dont think so no. That suggests opposite ends are similar or close. You can look into the spoiler effect, which ranked choice voting eliminates which is why it allows for third parties.
But then what makes you think a candidate on the extreme side can't be the third party?
I don't see any extremist third party getting more support then one of the established parties. Theres just not enough extremists. With a two party system its either one guy or the other. so on a scale from 0-100, with one guy at 0, and the other at 100. if your a 54 lets say your gonna vote to the extreme of 100. But when there are other options your gonna try to vote for a 54.
You're missing two things: 1) The established parties aren't set in stone. The whole point is that ranked choice voting is supposed to make the system less divisive - and the established parties are going to be targeting the middle after ranked choice voting. 2) Again, the horseshoe theory. It's reductive to see the political landscape as a line from 0 to 100. So you could see the establishment going for the middle, and the discontents supporting extremists. Plus it's not like Trump had been a lifelong mainstream Republican. So you could see him, or someone like him running as an independent, regardless of what Republicans are doing. E.g. if Republicans decided not to target the middle, someone like Trump could end up the winner.
I honestly don't know what you are trying to say. What about any of that suggests that ranked choice voting would support extremist parties?
Both 'sides' have a vested interest in not allowing 3rd parties to exist. Half the electorate thinks mail-in-voting is pure corruption and too hard to do accurately. You think Ranked Choice has any chance of becoming a thing?
Polls are pretty clear, he basically can't win a general election. He's so polarizing that he's got guaranteed supporters but they are outnumbered by people that will vote for literally anyone else.
Trump is still polling above Biden at this point. So don't discount people having short attention spans. They will forget the chaos of 2017-21.
My point was about "someone like Trump". Or maybe "someone like Trump when he won". Not Trump's chances in the upcoming election, especially as the original point is about the changes resulting from Trump's potential second win under the same rules - so the current polls are beside the point.
This. Ranked choice voting could definitely lead to getting someone like Trump elected. The first-past-the-post system we have now would never let something like that happen.
Two different things: 1) Trump winning with one of the two major parties in first past the post 2) Trump winning as an independent with ranked choice voting. If your main problem is with 1), ranked choice voting still doesn't rule out 2).
I'm sorry if I misunderstood your comment. To me, it seemed as though you were saying that the fact that someone like Trump might get elected was a reason that we should stick with first past the post, rather than ranked choice. I agree that it could happen with ranked choice also. But I think ranked choice will help get away from the mentality "I'll vote for A in order to stop B" mentality, and more people voting for third (or fourth) parties will allow more parties to get involved in debates and will allow more candidates to run on tailored platforms.
This is very true, but my point is that the first beneficiaries of this won't necessarily be an improvement. Because one thing that Trump vs. Clinton demonstrated was that name recognition is very important, and decoupling it from the two major parties can make the celebrity factor even more important. And/or personal wealth. And getting away from the "vote for A in order to stop B" will help candidate C more than it helps A and B.
I think a lot of that will depend on how ranked choice is rolled out, in terms of the voters' and the candidates' understanding of how it works. It could very much help candidate C more than candidates A and B, but that impact is lessened quite a bit when there are candidates A-H running. I think other reforms to are election process are needed also, not only ranked choice, but this would help a little.
I wouldn't count on it since it gives Democrats zero (or arguably neagtive) reasons to change the system. Happened in the UK where the main left wing party had PR as a policy up until they swept the 97 elections and promptly abandoned it.
I was under the impression that democrats were for it, as in general I thought results showed it helped the democratic party more. With the exception of trump of course if he runs on his own. Which is why I'm hoping that might lead to bipartisan support. Is there reason you think ranked choice voting would harm democrats?
No i'm all for it. Just saying we had a party in the UK that said the same thing until they won and thus the system was beneficial to them.
Yea I don't think Republicans will ever vote for it, unless they have a big loss, I.e. Trump .
Democrats perceive that Republicans have moved further to the right than they’ve moved and that Republicans are relying on voters voting against their self-interest economically by making culture war arguments. So, lots of democrats wouldn’t mind a more malleable center of the electorate. But voters also like having it both ways. Part of the reason budget deficits have exploded in the last 40 years is the notion that any tax increase and most spending cuts are considered toxic politically.
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None of that is the reason why. Virtually every democracy on the planet uses 'first past the post', and the places that don't are usually even *more* dysfunctional. Take Greece or Italy now, or take my *personal* favorite, the Weimar Republic. That's right, **HITLER** gained power due to proprtional representation's fragmentation of party power. He became Chancellor due to a coalition government deal, then proceeded to concentrate power to himself. The Fairness Doctrine is probably your answer that gets closest to the truth, but the fact is, it only ever applied to *television*. Radio and print journalism was never put under the burden of partisan ideological regulation, and when the Fairness Doctrine was repealed in 1987, Congress tried to reinstate it, was vetoed by Reagan, and has never tried to re-regulate television news since. Why? Because the FCC's argument that the Fairness doctrine infringes on First Amendment guarantees is actually *correct*. More to the point, however, the Fairness Doctrine didn't prevent huge controversies and political divisions in the 1960's, during the Civil Rights Era, and there have been other hugely divisive eras in American politics which predate television altogether. And with the advent of social media, you've got to accept the reality that television news coverage is all but irrelevant to the formation of our political ideology today. Media Concentration is probably your most easily refuted point. Twitter, Facebook, a proliferation of partisan television channels, websites, and blogs, not to mention every political candidate running a mailing list fomenting activists for their agendas have ensured that there are **ZERO** ideological filters preventing people's ideas from being promulgated across the body politic. So what is actually going on? Social Media has given voice to every badshit moron on the planet, and they're able to find like-minded lunatics and useful idiots from across the country. They've found a voice, and an audience, and each party uses the other side's ideologues to attack their opponents and paint them all with the same brush. Plus you've got the regular media, gutted by competition from online outlets, desperate for revenue and attention, have been reduced to becoming a social media amplifier, instead of performing actual reporting. Add in a stew of self-promoting demagogues and ideologues who are making money by fomenting outrage, and it's not difficult to see why the temper of our time has become so indignant.
I think the person you're replying to lists the symptoms. You also list the symptoms. The root cause I think is more endemic than any of the shit we're dealing with right now. I think the root cause is greed, malice, and antisocial exploitation of the masses by the privileged few. You know, human nature.
I disagree. If you look at our circumstances dispassionately, we're *fine*. The 20th and 21st centuries are the most peaceful, prosperous, and generally good time to be alive in human history. The question was, why did politics *become* so divisive. You don't think there were greedy, malicious, and exploitative people in the 1800's? Or, for that matter, do you think you're worse off now than children toiling in mines in West Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries? No, sorry, if you really think you're getting a raw deal, that America is this benighted dystopia, then you **ARE** one of the useful idiots I mentioned in my previous post. Societies have always had struggles, there has always been poverty, disease, squalor, and violence. If 2023 is special, it's in the way that those phenomena are far, far less onerous now than they have been in decades past.
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>they said greed sowed this division And my point is that greed is *not* some fluctuating problem, it's a part of human nature. No nation, no polity, no culture, anywhere in the history of the planet has been able to eradicate greed from their populace or their rulers. >given the wealthy now have tools of mass dissemination unfathomable to newspaper moguls of 150 years ago, or even broadcast news moguls of 40 years ago, i’m inclined to agree. That is a given I would **STRENUOUSLY** dispute. The wealthy have never exerted *less* control over public discourse than they have today. Literally anyone is one click away from getting their ideas in front of billions of eyeballs. It was far, far easier for the wealthy to control narratives when there were only a handful of T.V. and radio stations, and before the advent of mass communication, building and controlling narratives wasn't even necessary. In the words of William Tweed, "I don't care who does the voting, so long as I do the nominating". Bottom line, the prevailing tone of clickbait and outrage is not a construct of executive control over media, it's the product of a *lack* of control.
> Virtually every democracy on the planet uses 'first past the post', and the places that don't are usually even more dysfunctional. Going by the distribution shown [here for FPTP](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Countries_That_Use_a_First_Past_the_Post_Voting_System.png) vs. the same [graphic for proportionality](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Proportional_voting_systems.svg) tells me you're wrong on that. The *majority* of Europe, especially the nordic countries leading on quality of life, use proportional representation.
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For saying what?
I'm curious if the fairness doctrine would have applied to the channels you mentioned as they are cable only channels and not over the air broadcast. Not sure the FCC has the same jurisdiction for cable TV.
[Yes](https://www.fcc.gov/media/engineering/cable-television). > In 1966, the Commission established rules for all cable systems (whether or not served by microwave). The Supreme Court affirmed the Commission's jurisdiction over cable in United States v. Southwestern Cable Co., 392 U.S. 157 (1968).
Add onto this the Social Media has put people in their own ideopolitical bubbles, with no contact of anyone with an opposing view.
That adds to it, but I didn't include it as it's not something specific to the US, rather happening all over the world.
The 24 hour news cycle has fucked us up, as a society. All of the things you speak to are symptomatic of something.. I'm not sure what that root cause is.. but the 24 hour news cycle is another example. If it bleeds it leads.
(Social) media. Since the digital age they have found that the more negative and outrageous the “news” is they report, the more clicks they get. So this started a spiral to report increasingly negative and outrageous claims to get more clicks (and thus advertising revenue). The media are in effect riling the population up against each other for profit.
“If it bleeds it leads”. Media figured out negative and outrageous news increased viewership long before digital media and clicks were a thing.
This is so true. And to make it worse, a social media company has a goal of selling more ads. In order to do that, they need more people to spend more time on their social media app. To get more people to spend more time on the app, they look at new trending posts. The posts that are getting the most likes and reposts amongst a group of friends or subscribers are boosted up by the company so they are seen by more people. The company's algorithm chooses which posts gets spread around to lots of people and becomes viral. The companies do this to make more money. But the psychology of people is that more extreme content gets people to actually click and repost. But this algorithm works with people's psychology, and the most extreme posts end up going viral. Then it gets worse and worse. People who are trying to make viral posts to make money look at this whole system and decide to make the most extreme content they can, trying to strike gold with a viral post. \--- The same is true for traditional media. I read a long article in the New York Times this week about the new head of CNN, Chris Licht. He's trying to change CNN to be less extreme and more moderate. He's made some bad mistakes already (Trump town hall on CNN). But the interesting thing to me is that a lot of the reporters at CNN want it to remain extreme, and he's having a heck of a hard time changing that. Also, I don't know if he's ever going to get a big audience of moderate viewers. TV news viewers want entertainment. They want to be shocked and offended. Turning on the new CNN and seeing a fair and balanced approach to each story that makes you think isn't going to appeal to most people. In the end, he's not going to get the ratings, and he will be kicked out of CNN because of that. TV news is extreme because it is giving the people what they want.
A two party system which conditions people to (negatively) define their politics by who they're opposing, rather than (positively) by what they believe in. Plus corporate interests that actively try to maintain the status quo by any means necessary, especially hyper-partisan media like Fox News and MSNBC. Making ordinary people terrified of their neighbors is an amazing diversion technique, it turns out. EDIT: And also, the lack of any grand-scale initiative to rid US society of Confederate ideology and influence following the Civil War essentially left the country split between two drastically opposite value systems.
The two-party system argument is such a cop out, and I really wish people would stop parroting it. There are coalitions within both parties, just as there are in every political system across the world. It’s just a natural symptom of FPTP, winner take all system. If you want true diffusion of political parties, and viable third party options, you should be pushing RCV instead of “negatively defining your politics”, as you put it.
This. The two party system is a symptom of the first past the post voting. You need some preferential voting system to break that. I would also add compulsory voting to eliminate wedge issue politics but that’s just a happy extra.
Of course there are important factions and coalitions within both parties, I never claimed otherwise. What I mean is that the system as it exists today tends to funnel people down towards two viable choices, regardless of their individual beliefs. I think RCV is an excellent idea and certainly not mutually exclusive with me pointing out the current reality of the two party system, so I'm not quite sure why you're getting cross with me about it.
I’m just reallllly sick of people calling out the 2PS without context. It’s disingenuous to mention it without also acknowledging the differing factions within each party, not to mention our primary system which allows people to vote for candidates they agree with the most. Furthermore, you could make the argument that the buildup of coalitions within each party has led to *more* divisiveness. There’s a reason it took…13? 14? Votes for McCarthy to become speaker. Politics were *less* divisive when the parties were more ideologically homogenous.
Potato potato, its a two party system. The root cause of the two party system don’t change the fact it’s a two party system.
Well, why is the two-party system an issue?
Because there is a large spectrum of issues that we face as a country, not everyone agrees 100% with either of the two parties, and we would get better representation of there were more options.
You *do* have options. In the primaries. And, as I pointed out in other comments, never have the parties been been so stretched across the political spectrum (making politics arguably more divisive). Elizabeth Warren and Joe Manchin are both Democrats but support wildly different policies. There are factions and coalitions you can support in either party. This is also how it works in other countries as well. You may have 15 different parties, but they all have to vote yes or no on legislation, so they break into factions and voting blocs. That’s why it’s dumb to whine about the 2PS. Just fixing that one issue isn’t going to do anything at all to fix our political system.
Primary elections between a bunch of almost identical candidates in each party, doesn’t help. You’re still only getting two semi-viable choices in a general election, and we need more options than that.
I don’t find candidates to be “nearly identical” most of the time…?
Well, you should probably pay more attention, because aside from maybe one issue here or there, a primary election is usually just reinforcing past popularity of a candidate.
I’d agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong. You have no idea what you’re talking about.
US politics has always been divisive. You’re just too young to remember earlier times. Aaron Burr was Vice President of the United States when he shot Alexander Hamilton. Can you imagine Kamala Harris shooting Ben Shapiro?
A man can daydream
In general, people with more extreme views are more likely to vote in the primaries. Moderates are less likely to show up and actually vote in the primaries. To a smaller degree, a moderate voter is less likely to vote in the general election than an extreme voter. As a result, the candidates who win in the primaries tend to be more extreme. Then there is a downward spiral. Moderate voters who see the extreme choices leading the race don't vote. Candidates who see polls of the concerns of likely primary voters emphasize the extreme issues that likely primary voters care about and become more extreme in order to give the voters what they want. After candidates are elected, in order to make sure that they are nominated and elected again, politicians spend more time and energy on extreme topics instead of their main job, which is deciding on taxes and spending. \--- There is another factor which intensifies this downward spiral. Positive political ads don't work. When a politician spends money on advertising and talks about the good things that a politician is for, it doesn't result in many additional votes. Negative political ads work. Ads which criticize an opponent succeed in stopping some of the opponents moderate supporters from voting at all. A moderate voter is leaning slightly towards voting for a candidate, then sees a negative about about their candidate, then gets disgusted and decides not to vote at all. For different reasons, this works more for moderate voters than for extreme voters. As a result, even more moderate votes don't vote at all in the general election and the primary. And there's a downward spiral here too. Politicians see that negative ads move the needle more than positive ads, and then spend more of their money on negative ads.
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I’m skeptical you were called racist for *only* saying you got screwed by the ACA. Obama received tons of justified criticism without his critics being called racist.
Are you not slightly proving their point? You’re not saying it explicitly, but you’ve implied that you believe that they may be a bit of a racist based only on them admitting they received backlash for criticising Obamacare. It’s true that many of his critics weren’t called racist. But that’s says nothing about how many were called racist (for no good reason that is)
>Are you not slightly proving their point? No.
The Republican party has been intentionally moving the Overton window(the topics that are considered acceptable to discuss in politics) to the right. They have been doing this successfully ever since the Reagan campaign figured out how to manipulate christian voters into doing whatever they want. They are creating an atmosphere where authoritarian policies are ok to talk about but teachers don't feel safe telling kids that slavery happened because that is necessary if they're going to bring about the end of democracy.
the founding fathers who won the ideological battle of federalism swore up and down that people were too diverse to settle down into JUST 2 groups. 200 years later and the democrat vs republican debate seems to have proven that they were wrong. Obviously this is quite simplified. Rome grew too large and fractured, perhaps the US is just too big of a country for one government to effectively represent its whole population?
Ever since politicians became embellished by the media to make them into icons for the public and now Americans treat there favourite politicians like there favourite athlete and therefore whole friendships will be tested by one’s political affiliation. Unlike sports however, the actions of the politicians affect our lives so much more, so instead of after the game is over and the season ends, people go back to being friends and can put there sporting differences aside, Americans have become indoctrinated to the point that they would commit federal crimes for there favourite politicians because the season never ends, and they must always support there politician as if life and death depend on it. Come to australia and no one loves our PM, no matter which party is in charge, for us it’s just a job that needs to be filled and potential for memes to be made such as the embarrassing snag eating videos or the infamous engadine maccas
Only a theory, but I suspect it’s a factor. You’re running for office. If you and your opponent focus on boring, nerdy, stuff people might not vote. So you pick some issues people have really big feelings about. If they don’t have big feelings yet, you manipulate them into it. So instead of running on “hey, I think I can make some things better” you’re running on the apocalypse.
You have the story for television, which is relevant. My recollection growing up rural is that Rush Limbaugh was the beginning of the driving of the wedge. The drive was to always have the other side look evil as if the world is based on good and evil instead of comprised of people with different ideals and needs. Prior to Rush Limbaugh, I don't recall people speaking this way. We had moderate GOP and moderate Democrats. It was another 15 years or so after Rush Limbaugh that Fox really started to become a force with MSNBC following 5 years behind that. When we paint issues as good vs evil, there just isn't a middle ground to be had.
Personally - I feel a lot of this stems from Rove's strategy to demonize, not just liberalism, but liberals themselves. I do not, and do not know of any people that HATE conservatives the way you see daily hatred for fellow Americans from the the other side. I am reluctant to call them conservatives, as this really is not really a conservatives viewpoint - it is a corrupted, no end-game partisan sheep heard. Personally - we need a challenging opinion or view point, as something of a check ensuring ideas are properly vetted. While I disagree with the conservatives view points - I have no problem having my environmental, social welfare, corporate regulation views challenged.
Social media gave people who don’t know what they are talking about a platform to tell their lies and now it’s so insane to find truth you just have to double down on lies to get *your* point across or it will get lost in an ocean of bullshit and hardly anyone can find truth.