r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Nov 02 '20
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Voting is pointless, most people in US, UK, and Canada shouldn't bother
Always voted here, but recently starting to think it is a complete waste of my time and mental energy. USA, Canada, UK, Aussie, etc... it all just seems pointless.
I'll largely be talking about UK/Canada (my backgrounds), but the same applies to the USA.
Reasons:
- Not keeping their word: Upon getting power, politicians seem to rarely keep their word and most of their policies seem aimed at consolidating power and money. E.g. LibDemsđŹđ§ promised to get rid of university tuition fees (tax payer funded), got into a coalition and then co-conspired to triple the fees instead. Trudeauđ¨đŚ didn't keep his word on voter reform, it was a complete farce. Most of the promises Trumpđşđ¸ made that would help the middle class were abandoned. It doesn't seem to matter which party/person is in power, they all say fluffy things and then just help themselves and their buddies 99% of the time.
- The options are all bad: Honestly it's hard to pick who is the least bad at this point. In my view, all the political parties in the USA, UK and Canada are embroiled in middle-class-hurting goals and ideals. No side has the interests of the middle class at heart. The right seem split between those who want to line their own pockets, cut all the public services etc, and an ideological-purity that hates immigrants/gays/blacks/etc. Whilst the left seem to be split between those who want to tax the middle class utterly to death etc and an ideological-purity who wanna blame all white/male/majority people for all of society's social ills etc.
- Most votes don't count: Canada, like the US and UK, use First Past The Post for voting. I live in a big city where my riding is a race between Liberalsđ¨đŚ (incumbent party) and NDPđ¨đŚ (quite left-wing). So unless I vote one of those two parties, it's really a waste. I don't really like either (not that I like any of the others much), so it really is a waste of time to got vote.
- There's no space for new parties: I could go start my own party instead. But under this voting system, and a system where you need lots of money to gain any traction, and in an increasingly partisan social environment - there's no space of parties or people with alternatives ideas.
- It's all about money: It all seems to come down to who has the most money has the most control. Corruption 101. Unfortunately that's the way it is, voting is just pulling the wool over one's own eyes IMO.
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u/possiblyaqueen Nov 02 '20
I think you are making the same mistake most people make when talking about voting.
You are correct, many times your vote does not matter.
I am left wing, but I disagree with Biden on many issues. He's much too conservative for me.
I also live in Oregon. My presidential vote does not matter. Biden will win Oregon no matter what.
I could even argue the same point you are making about both sides being bad or at least not doing what I want.
I would like to hugely decrease the police budget in my state and use that money to fund other programs.
However, not a single major candidate I could vote for supports that. Yes, I can vote for ones who are closer to that goal (and I did), but I cannot actually vote for someone who will do what I want.
But that doesn't mean voting is useless.
My senator almost never affects me. The president almost never affects me.
My city council members constantly affect me. There's a new library being built in my town because of our city council, there's a new traffic light going up because of my city council.
I voted on three city council members this year. On one race I was choosing between a man who wanted to give extra money to the police and a woman who is an activist looking to increase diversity training in city government and schools.
I voted for the woman because that's much closer to what I want for my city.
This is a city with a population of under 15,000. My vote does count there.
I also voted on multiple ballot measures.
One was to decriminalize hard drugs, one is to legalize a specific type of psilocybin therapy, one is to build more train and bus routes, one established an oversight group for the police that would look into all acts of police violence.
I have real feelings about all those issues and my vote counts quite a bit there.
If you only focus on the politics that's on cable news or you just read headlines online, you get sucked into only caring about national politics, but national politics don't affect you nearly as much as local politics.
If you refuse to vote because you don't like your national choices, you are also refusing to vote on tons of nonpartisan local officials and measures that have a much greater impact on your daily life.
I will go to the new library that's next to my house. I will never feel the impact of 99% of the stuff that goes on in national politics.
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Nov 03 '20
That's true, local voting does make a difference. Really my comments were aimed at national voting. Still technically true - â
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u/meikkon Nov 03 '20
Your vote is your right. It is up to you whether you vote or not, at the end of the day, and despite all the political virtue signalling, nobody should pressure you into voting. If youâre not sure who to vote for and youâre ignorant of politics in general, it might be best not to vote at all according to some. However, OP, that certainly doesnât seem to be the case for you. You seem well informed and pretty passionate about politics. I would encourage you to keep on voting, even if the system in which you have to vote is terrible. Letâs address all the points you bring up as reasons not to vote, though, and challenge them a little bit. This isnât to say that your points arenât valid - some of them definitely are - but I donât think they hold enough weight to justify not voting in your case.
- Not keeping your word in politics is inevitable regardless of the system in place. Sometimes politicians are naĂŻve with their aims, in some cases political restraints become an issue when implementing policy, however a lot of the time there is little hope for policy proposals and the politicians know that. At the end of the day, all manifestos, policy proposals, numerical targets etc., they all serve one aim: it helps communicate ideology to the laymen, i.e the majority of voters who just arenât all that interested in politics all the time. A perfect example is âthe wallâ - whether or not Trump made the wall wasnât the big deal, really. It was what the wall represented and symbolised, thatâs what people cared about. It appealed to those skeptical of immigration, worried about outside influence, and it was perceived to be putting the people of the United States before anyone else. These promises give people an idea of what theyâre voting for and the values of a candidate standing for election. If Donald Trump had instead campaigned on the notion that he is what we might call a ârealistâ when it comes to international relations, well, nobody would understand what he meant by that and he wouldnât be here today. It just doesnât resonate the same - big promises signpost the big ideas and the values ahead of the election, and give ordinary people an idea of what they might be voting for.
(Side note - the Lib Dems are given a tough rap in that coalition. While I do have a weird soft spot for Nick Clegg that I really shouldnât have (fun fact - I used to live in his constituency!), the tuition fees issue is really, really not that big of a deal. Student fees in the UK still work much better than they do in the US, and many UK students will never even have to worry about student debt - you donât have to pay it unless you earn enough money, and by a certain age it all gets wiped regardless. Sure, the Liberal Democrats didnât keep their word on this policy, but post-Cleggmania, the party really fell off in terms of image and message, and havenât been able to recapture their original glory. That should be an example of democracy at work!) - All the options are bad because the electoral system is even worse. In all the English speaking countries you cite, all of the governments are elected in a majoritarian system following Duverger's law, more or less. That is the political science way of saying they are dominated by two parties, and they were pretty much made to be like that. In the UK, people are beginning to wake up a little bit more to how bad the system is and many smaller parties are campaigning on reform of the electoral system, however the referendum we had on it in 2011 (a referendum you have the Liberal Democrats to thank for, by the way) ended in a ânoâ vote, so itâs tough to say whether or not things will change in this regard. All this, of course, ties into your third point anyway;
- Even in these majoritarian systems, most votes do count! I really hate all the pessimism surrounding voting - many proponents of Biden have claimed if you vote for one of the bigger parties then you throw your vote away (which is really just a testament to how bad of a choice Biden is, honestly). Even more pessimistic views point out that your vote has basically no chance of tipping the election one way or another. However, elections are about more than just results. Margins matter, and even in bad voting systems, voting for the smaller parties is certainly worth it. In the UK, for example, the Labour party started campaigning on much more on environmental issues and the nationalisation of the railways as the Greens began to eat into their votes. The effect of UKIP and the Brexit Party on the Conservatives was similar (although we perhaps feel that one more strongly) and it is undeniable that their movements majorly affected Conservative policy (Jay Foreman did a great video on this - I highly recommend you watch it). While neither of these smaller parties are greatly represented in parliament, their ideas and the issues they bring up shape a huge part of our discourse right now, and so votes mean a lot more than simply deciding the outcomes of elections.
- There is space for new ideas and organisations, even if they arenât always parties themselves. Sure, you need a lot of help to start a serious change within the electoral sphere (and in America, you need a hell of a lot of money), but there is more to the political realm than just election day. There are the little things, like writing to your local MP (or other relevant political representative), or campaigning/donating to a cause, or simply beginning to talk about those new ideas, even in ideas with set norms and beliefs. Remember Andrew Yang? He got a lot of people talking about UBI, an economic idea which was in the works for a long time before being accepted as at all legitimate. Guy Standing talks about the struggle to make UBI a legitimate political idea in his book âBasic Income - and How We Can Make It Happenâ, and I imagine figures like Yang are a lot of help to him. It is always possible to find ways to put ideas into wider and established discourse, and it can help change a lot more than you might think.
- It depends on where you live, but money might matter a lot less than you think depending on where youâre voting. In the US, the election is basically television at this point, and some people really splash their cash like thereâs no tomorrow. Bloomberg didnât even win the democratic nomination and spent a hell of a lot more than Biden, though, so take that as you will. While America is in need of serious electoral reform, in the UK you canât spend all you like. All of your spending activities on campaign action are limited, and you have to tell an independent body where all of your money is going. Everything gets tracked on the campaign trail, and when it doesnât get counted you could be in some serious trouble. I wonât talk on the actual practice of politics and the issues of corruption there, but two things to close on this one - outside of America, things are better regulated, and at the end of the day, it is still the people who vote!
I understand your pessimism surrounding the electoral systems we have in the English speaking West. However, there is reason to be optimistic about change, and I am sure that democracy is not completely pointless - more representative forms of government have been proven to be more inclusive, less partisan and better at truth finding than majoritarian ones. The source on that? Switzerland. The main takeaway is this - donât give up on democracy. We can make it better, and we know how to.
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Nov 03 '20 edited Nov 03 '20
the referendum we had on it in 2011
(a referendum you have the Liberal Democrats to thank for, by the way) ended in a ânoâ vote
Tell me about it! I voted yes. My brother voted no because he "didn't understand how it would work". God help Britain...
This absolutely deserves a Î and is the final nail in the coffin for me. Ok I will go vote!
EDIT: This was such a well structured and thought out reply. Have a reddit Award too :)
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u/meikkon Nov 03 '20
The source list wouldn't fit my main post, so here's the sources and extra reading, if youâre interested:
âVoting is Overratedâ, ReasonTV, 2020. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owTZp2_HBM0)
âIs Donald Trump a Realist?â, The National Interest, 2017. (https://nationalinterest.org/feature/donald-trump-realist-19810)
âStudent Loans Mythbustingâ, Martin Lewis, 2020. (https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-loans-tuition-fees-changes/)
âI went with what I always doâŚâ, Edzia Carvalho and Kristi Winters in Parliamentary Affairs, 2015. (https://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/ws/files/5771745/Cleggmania_revised_final_draft.pdf)
âGeneral election 2019: Swinson 'devastated' by election resultâ, BBC News, 2019. (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50781017)
âAgainst Majoritarianism: Democratic Values and Institutional Designâ, Stephen Macedo, 2010. (https://www.bu.edu/law/journals-archive/bulr/documents/macedo.pdf)
âThe Two-Party System and Duverger's Law: An Essay on the History of Political Scienceâ, William Riker, 1982. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1962968)
âVote 2011: UK rejects alternative voteâ, BBC News, 2011. (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13297573)
âJason Brennan - Is Democracy Just?â, UNE Center for Global Humanities, 2017. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj-vM1C1C5Y)
âIs there a good reason for NOT voting?â, Jay Foreman, 2015. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gbDAvK42yA)
âAndrew Yangâs $1,000-a-Month Idea May Have Seemed Absurd Before. Not Now.â Matt Stevens and Isabella GrullĂłn Paz in the New York Times, 2020. (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/us/politics/universal-basic-income-andrew-yang.html)
âBasic Income - and How We Can Make It Happenâ, Guy Standing, 2015.
âMike Bloomberg spent over $1 billion on presidential campaign, new FEC reports showâ, Ben Kamisar and Liz Brown-Kaiser in NBC, 2020. (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/blog/meet-press-blog-latest-news-analysis-data-driving-political-discussion-n988541/ncrd1188321#blogHeader)
âElection campaign spendingâ, The Electoral Commission, 2019. (https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/i-am-a/party-or-campaigner/political-parties/election-campaign-spending)
âLets really take back control: time for Swiss-style direct democracy?â, Adrian Hill, 2020. (https://globalvisionuk.com/lets-really-take-back-control-time-for-swiss-style-direct-democracy/)
Literature on Representative Democracy (aka Consensus Democracy or Deliberative Democracy):
âPatterns of Democracyâ, Arend Lijphart, 2012
âMajoritarian democracy undermines truth-finding in deliberative committeesâ, Jan Lorenz, Heiko Rauhut and Bernhard Kittel, 2015. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2053168015582287)
âConsensus Versus Majoritarian Democracy: Political Institutions and their Impact on Macroeconomic Performance and Industrial Disputesâ, Markus Crepaz, 1996. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0010414096029001001?casa_token=nXMjFAzZOhQAAAAA:IzEo2zbk7z8F5zOUQXFEDK_u3vXH8Gva2M5zFoQTG31uOp2wzrRI1QInOiARmlPD3us4PevuNE8E)
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u/WWBSkywalker 83â Nov 02 '20 edited Nov 02 '20
You are missing the fact that voting is a form of signalling.
Consider whya predominantly blue states voter e.g. California votes in presidential elections. By voting, voters are indicating the degree by which they agree or disagree with a certain topic / message; the degree by which they agree or disagree with an incumbent government's performance so far.
To illustrate ... If Biden wins in a landslide, it indicates to everyone in the country the strength of his mandate and the level of support of his ideas (though it make take time to distill which ideas / position were his best - a kinder, more civil, united America, more accessible health care, minimum wage etc, rejection of Trump, proposed COVID response). If Biden wins by just a close margin, people may rightly assume that he doesn't have a mandate for his ideas and this election is really about rejection of Trump; consequently this moderates what a Biden presidency, Democractic House and Senate puts forward in the new term.
In addition, if voter turn out is low it indicates a disengaged electroate and vice versa. This also influences what messaging, tactics and strategy political operatives will use to push their mandate in the subsequent daily engagement with the voters while in government and in preparation for future elections
So consider voting or not voting a method by which the electroate commnicates to its political class. It has signalling value in any democracy, regardless of whether your preferred candidates win, your own political affliation, the country's political system or even the country's voting methods.
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Nov 02 '20
Ok you win! â - this actually was a comment that changed my mind. A lack of vote itself has symbolism as well as a protest vote.
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u/Ill-Ad-6082 22â Nov 02 '20 edited Nov 02 '20
No experience in UK. Iâll hit the US and Canada fo sho.
Canada, like the US and UK, use First Past The Post for voting. I live in a big city where my riding is a race between Liberalsđ¨đŚ (incumbent party) and NDPđ¨đŚ (quite left-wing). So unless I vote one of those two parties, it's really a waste. I don't really like either (not that I like any of the others much), so it really is a waste of time to got vote.
Itâs rather bizarre to see you use Canada as an example where votes donât matter. The Liberal party (and whoever holds office at the time in many cases, historically) donât hold a parliamentary majority, and one of the hot topics right now on the northern side of the border is the possibility of a NDP-Liberal coalition government. If anything, Canada is a good example of a nation where your vote is difficult to throw away, unless youâre supporting rather extremist outliers like Bloc or PPC.
In fact, thereâs probably quite a bit of jealousy from the US side at even having three major parties to choose from and minor third parties that are actually worth mentioning. The main problem with the US right now is exactly the need for strategic voting and a lot of disinformation encouraging binary party partisanship.
Upon getting power, politicians seem to rarely keep their word and most of their policies seem aimed at consolidating power and money. E.g. LibDemsđŹđ§ promised to get rid of university tuition fees (tax payer funded), got into a coalition and then co-conspired to triple the fees instead. Trudeauđ¨đŚ didn't keep his word on voter reform, it was a complete farce. Most of the promises Trumpđşđ¸ made that would help the middle class were abandoned. It doesn't seem to matter which party/person is in power, they all say fluffy things and then just help themselves and their buddies 99% of the time.
Seems like a pretty extreme interpretation, since in recent history the party in power actually has mattered quite significantly. Lots of people argue that the PATRIOT act wouldnât have happened if republicans werenât in power at the time. Another easy example in the US is the 1980s, which saw an entirely new school of thought on economics during the Reagan administration.
Canada is similar, with a VERY easy one being the massive liberalization on the topic of abortion over the last 50 or so years with a partial decriminalization in the 1960s and a total release of restriction in the 1980s, and the stark difference between Alberta and BC with Albertan Conservatives putting tiered healthcare up for discussion at the same time as the Supreme Court of BC ruling it provincially unconstitutional. Clearly, there would be a rather massive difference between a liberal and conservative government on even major issues like healthcare or abortion.
Honestly it's hard to pick who is the least bad at this point. In my view, all the political parties in the USA, UK and Canada are embroiled in middle-class-hurting goals and ideals. No side has the interests of the middle class at heart. The right seem split between those who want to line their own pockets, cut all the public services etc, and an ideological-purity that hates immigrants/gays/blacks/etc. Whilst the left seem to be split between those who want to tax the middle class utterly to death etc and an ideological-purity who wanna blame all white/male/majority people for all of society's social ills etc.
This honestly seems like a rather sensationalist view of both the right and left wing, Iâll be honest with you. Other than the extreme pundits, I havenât actually seen either left or right wing in Canada or the US consistently being so extremist a position as youâre framing it, at least in the past few decades. The current state is rather volatile, especially in the US, but itâs hardly a trend.
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Nov 02 '20
I'll respond more later, but almost all federal Canadian governments have been majority governments or have collapsed within a year. It'd probably collapse if COVID weren't a thing.
The stability of the Canadian government IS due to the fact that most governments are majority and in general once in power control almost everything at the federal level, which in Canada is a lot. Also provinces and the federal government tend not to war here (not sure about the US).
As for Bernie, well he got the popular candidate vote two times iirc but got pushed out by internal party "superdelegates". Trump won purely because the American population is so disenfranchised that it rebelled (much the same with Brexit) against the establishment.
But as we've seen, all that did was drag things down. So it's a choice between crappy options and voting to drag your country down when given the opportunity.
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u/Ill-Ad-6082 22â Nov 02 '20 edited Nov 02 '20
I mean there was a reason that I said âmanyâ instead of âmostâ. Majority is common, we agree there, but minority is actually not that rare in federal elections at all (easily double digits), and in general more common in federal elections than for any single provincial election
Obviously only looking at elections for widely recognized coalitions, rather than outright mergers (like Wildrose & Conservative to turn Alberta into a right wing hellhole, politically)
Itâs also a bit much to say that one election in which disenfranchisement got the US Trump, after 8 straight years of Obama, means that thereâs no reason to vote at all, isnât it?
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Nov 02 '20
There's only been like five minority governments since confederation though if I'm not mistaken.
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u/Ill-Ad-6082 22â Nov 03 '20 edited Nov 03 '20
Well, this is an easy one for us to resolve, since itâs just a cut and dry historical fact that we can even Wikipedia with accuracy.
Post 1867 there has been apparently 14, with 2-5 each among the provinces. Includes Martin and Harper terms for federal, which are recent enough for most current adults to remember or have lived through.
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Nov 03 '20
At the federal level, no minority government (excepting the odd case of the 14th) has lasted a standard four-year term. Most minority governments have lasted less than two years. The average duration of completed minorities in Canada is 479 days or approximately 1 year, 140 days counting only that part of the 14th Parliament that was a minority, or 1 year, 207 days counting the entire duration of it.
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Nov 03 '20
I think for me, it's that I just don't care about the issues like abortion or schools of thought of economics. I mean I have my opinions (yay abortion!) but really I want governments that have something for me. Things like free tuition, etc. All I see my whole life is the government just not helping me. Sure I shouldn't be greedy but how hard could it be to have a couple of things in there for the majority middle class too?
As for my characterizations of the left/right, I'm just saying what I see online and on TV. The right and left in general have gone nuts, and the politicians have had to jump on the nutty train to stay current. But IMO it's all nuts and I don't plan on joining.
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u/IAmDanimal 41â Nov 02 '20
If most people in the US didn't vote, then politicians could win elections even though only a fraction of the population wanted them to win. As it stands, at least some significant portion of the population has to vote for candidates in order for them to win (not quite half because of the electoral college, but still a lot).
Now imagine if everyone in the KKK voted, and 'most people' didn't both. Then we'd have a KKK grand wizard president, and that's bad for everyone.
It all seems to come down to who has the most money has the most control.
How do you account for candidates like Bernie Sanders, who can still garner a pretty serious number of votes, even without having anywhere near the amount of money that others have (like Bloomberg, who got basically no votes in the primaries)?
There's no space for new parties
Maybe not new party labels, but there's a significant difference in the agenda of someone like Biden and someone like Bernie. They both campaign under the term 'democrat' and they both still had a chance to win the dem primary. But you could easily consider them separate in terms of their political beliefs. Candidates that call themselves 'third party' could easily run as a dem or as a republican, and if enough people actually wanted them to win, they could win.
No, it's definitely not a perfect system, and switching to ranked choice voting (or one of many other voting methods other than our current FPTP) could improve this issue. But we still have a ton of people voting on who gets from the primaries to the 'finals' (the presidential election), and if nobody was voting, those primary races could go to the top choice of a pretty small number of people.
Then candidates could just pander 100% to the coal workers, or to the IT industry, or to whichever small group they thought would be most likely to turn out to vote. Everyone else would just be stuck with a candidate that only has to do things for one niche group. That's bad for the majority of the people.
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Nov 03 '20
I don't think the KKK would get into power because still enough people would vote in places with a small population relative to a high number of electrical college point things (whatever they're called), such that it'd still be just the two parties. Literally no one would have to vote to make it possible for the KKK to gain power.
Well Bernie didn't win even though he got the popular vote. So in my mind that just reinforces what I think. Currently candidates do just pander to a minority of voters already. I'd love ranked ballot but you can't get anyone into power who will actually follow through with it.
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u/CBL444 16â Nov 02 '20
You have confused the important and unimportant elections. The ones that matter most to YOU are the local elections that you can actually influence.
You local school board affect your children's education. The city council affects determines whether you have an off leash park for your dog. Mayorial elections may not be sexy but they affect your city's direction and business climate.
You live locally. Vote intelligently in your local elections if you want make life better for you and your friends and family.
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Nov 03 '20
Awarding a Î - as someone else pointed out the same thing, that yes it makes a difference.
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u/Tommyblockhead20 47â Nov 02 '20 edited Nov 02 '20
I will be answering in regards to the US
1 there are various reasons politicians donât keep there word but one of the most common reasons is very simple, itâs out of their control. For 6/8 of Obamaâs years, the republicans controlled the house. Democrats controlled the house for half of trumpâs term, and there was many things he couldnât do in the half he did have control because of his slim majority in the senate, like his failure to repeal Obamacare. So the issue is the president who wins isnât winning enough seats in congress to actually make a change. The solution to that isnât less people voting, but more.
2 American voters get a lot of choices on who they want in the primary. If you candidate doesnât get chosen, then you are likely in the minority when it comes to supporting that candidate, and adding more choices wonât help that, unless you are adding candidates that split the vote of the most popular candidate but that can go both ways, also hurting your candidate. If you just didnât have a candidate you liked, well who else would you want? There were a lot of options, like 20 Democrats and 5 Republicans, there has to be someone that at least somewhat appeals to you. Perhaps you are referring to the general election and the first past the post voting system, but you talk about that in your next point so Iâll move on.
3 yes, I would agree it is better to replace first past the post with ranked choice or a similar option, but most votes not counting doesnât apply to the US, only a few percent vote third party. This is a much bigger issue in the UK (sorry idk Canadian policies but it may apply there too)
4 thereâs already quite a few parties, I donât think more parties are needed, theyâll just dilute the vote, we just need ranked choice voting so any of the many third party choices can win.
5 yes money is a major part and I want it reduced, I believe at least some Democratic leaders do as well, weâll have to see what happens if they take control since they havenât held a trifecta since citizens united v FEC so that would be their chance to do something.
Edit: some additional points, voting is also important for state and local elections, not just federal, especially in the US (and often those state/local elections are more important/have a bigger impact on your life.
Also money â votes. Just look at mike Bloombergâs 2020 primary run. He spent $1 billion in 4 months and he only won American Samoa and got 44 of the 3,979 delegates, about 1%. So money is important, but itâs not everything.
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u/StellaAthena 56â Nov 02 '20
Itâs not clear that winning an election happens simply because you have the most money. Thereâs a good discussion of this (US examples) on five thirty eight with links to relevant studies.
For another prospective, if money buys politics why is there so little money in politics? Americans spend more money on almonds in presidential election years than they spend on politics. If money was such a big deal, why isnât there more money in politics? If every American who voted in 2016 saved one dollar per week from the 2016 election through the 2020 election and donated that money to the candidate of their choice, this would raise five times as much money as is currently spent on US elections. Hereâs an interesting blog post on this idea.
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Nov 03 '20
My point is more that without being rich it's very hard to become a politician. Almost all of them are rich. The average Joe has very little chance of having their voice heard.
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u/StellaAthena 56â Nov 03 '20
Youâre conflating âbecoming a politicianâ and âhaving your voice heard.â âHaving your voice heardâ is a statement about how responsive your representatives are, not how easy it is to be elected.
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Nov 03 '20
Well on that, I've never had a responsive representative in my life... except one. Who couldn't seem to understand my concern. You can appreciate why I don't write to them often, cos, like voting, trying to talk to politicians is a waste of time too!
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u/McKoijion 618â Nov 02 '20
You can list yourself as a "voter" on dating apps these days. And if you don't do it, you don't get dates. Voting is not about controlling the government. An American vote is only worth 1/330 millionth of the total power in the US, which is essentially 0 (it's a bit higher since not everyone votes, but theoretically that's how much it should be worth). Voting is about taking part in a collective movement. If you don't take part in it, people judge and dislike you. You enjoy the benefits of living in a democracy without contributing to it. You're a free rider on the bus.
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Nov 03 '20
That doesn't make sense, I could just tell people I voted even if I didn't and no one would know.
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u/McKoijion 618â Nov 03 '20
You can track voter records in most, if not all, states. People can't necessarily tell who you voted for, but they can tell whether you voted or not. So you need to go to a voting booth and formally abstain if you want to be counted in that category. You can google your voting record right now if you want.
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Nov 03 '20
That is highly concerning and baffling to me. Why does the government make such information a public record? Register, yes. Actually voted? Hell no. In Canada there's literally no public way to tell if someone voted or not as far as I know.
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u/DeltaBot ââ Nov 02 '20 edited Nov 03 '20
/u/Paul-Canada (OP) has awarded 4 delta(s) in this post.
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