Won is doing literally all of the work in this article. Using Won like Democrats did a single thing to encourage us to actively vote for them is just fabricating reality.
Agreed. Highly engaged voters voted for Democrats because Trump/MAGA threaten the very fabric of democracy.
We were the forest voting for the ax because thier opponent was a chainsaw in a toupee.
I mean, they won a few disenfranchised conservatives I guess. Maybe they’ll win a few more when they lose next time, assuming there is a next time.
They just need to find the right combination of vulnerable minorities to abandon, and then maybe they’ll finally get the coveted GWB and Romney endorsements! Then Republicans will HAVE to vote for them!
Unfortunately “highly engaged voters” aren’t a large segment of the population. If you want to win elections, you have to cater to the voters who only hear the occasional sound bite and then just make a decision based on vibes and/or what their friends and chosen media propaganda factory tell them.
No, it’s not an ideal world, but it’s the world we live in, and it’s been that way for a long time — more than long enough that the DNC should have gotten it’s act together by now. And yet… here we are again…
Things like this are what make me struggle with the question of whether or not some sort of voting license would be a bad thing.
It would, of course, unequivocally be a bad thing. But would it be worse than this? I don’t know anymore. On one hand, every living human deserves a free and fair voice in the choice of their governmental representatives. On the other hand, maybe you should have to prove you know what you’re voting for before you’re allowed to vote. Because a popular vote decided primarily by “vibes” from criminally underinformed voters is not something that any republic is able to survive long term.
I don’t think this would have the effect that you want in practice. One of the biggest obstacles Democrats face is getting their own voters to care enough to vote. Republicans, despite being less popular as a percentage of Americans, don’t struggle nearly as much getting their supporters to the polls.
Adding additional barriers to voting will decrease voter turnout across the board, and this will absolutely hurt Democrats more than it will hurt Republicans.
That’s kind of my point though. The large majority of active voters in America don’t have a damn clue what they’re actually voting for. Many democrats don’t vote, but those who do generally do so because they’re informed and invested in politics. Most Republicans vote, largely because their pastor tells them to and tells them who to choose.
If voters were required to have an informed opinion in order to vote, I bet you’d see a significant change in those percentages.
But none of this is practical anyway, it’s a bad solution to a bad problem. It’s basically unenforceable and any way that it does get enforced is going to be a net loss of rights and representation. I don’t like this idea. I just have a hard time coming up with alternatives at this time. It is clear to me that the situation we have now is not tenable. I just don’t know where to go from here, and it seems nobody else does either.
Reinvesting in education is really the only way America is ever going to solve the foundational issues with its democracy. Unfortunately, education is now one of the most highly-politicized topics in American culture, so… yeah, not looking great.
The folks with brains voted blue. The dumbasses voted for Trump.
I strongly dislike democrats, for the record. I’m independent, and I really think democrats are shit. But I voted for Kamala.
The folks with brains voted blue. The dumbasses voted for Trump.
It’s a mystery why politics is so polarized these days…
Trump is terrible, but many people voted for him because they saw something in him that they wanted or needed. It was most likely based on lies but it’s what they needed. Any alternative, if it hopes to win, must address the same needs.
Maybe if Democrats didn’t keep lying to us about our material conditions the last 4 years and telling us we are not struggling, the public wouldn’t have to look somewhere else.
It’s a mystery why politics is so polarized these days…
Oh please, they’ve been calling liberals America hating baby killers for decades.
Nah dog they voted for trump because team sports. He is their tiny brains highschool football team. The pastor wouldn’t let them go to prom if trump didn’t win. Also no amount of reaching across the aisle will win one vote, they literally vote against their best interests because it feels good.
i mean, making bad decisions because you fell for a lie is pretty much my definition of dumb.
Voting for the people actively funding genocide and thinking that they were the best choice is exactly my definition of dumb.
Yeah, I agree, that’s why I didn’t vote for Trump.
Best doesn’t mean good.
In a system that mathematically converts third choices into one of the original two options, you go with the better one of the two. Knowing about the shitshow that is first past the post voting changes tactics dramatically without changing values.
Oh hey, the perfect comment.
yeah, the lies are blatantly obvious to anyone that has actually followed and understood politics since before Trump. the longer you look at it the more obvious and undeniable the bad faith obstruction by the Republicans is. the only people who understand that and support them genuinely believe they’d be better off without the government telling them what not to do, or are full Christofascist warriors that want to create Gideon or whatever.
Sounds like the hot-potato-voter-shame-game is making the rounds again. If only the DNC put in half as much work getting elected as they do shifting blame, or its true-believers held the DNC half as accountable as the country’s voters.
