I’m still not sure if enough Americans fully understand how hard it is for the rest of us to continually see polls showing “how unpopular Trump is” when he’s still ridiculously and shockingly more popular than he should be in any sane nation.
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@BrentToderian Trump is bad, but what is scary is the absolute capture of the establishment/oligarchs in the US have over the media. The way large companies, tech and otherwise, are bending the knee. But this is small compared with how effective they are consolidating power over media. Bari Weiss controlling CBS is a good example of this. But also the takeover of tiktok, twitter, the gutting of PBS, the control over small local outlets by Sinclair etc.
The thing about how "popular" Trump is says less about the...lets call it 'insanity' of Americans, and more about the level at which the establishment is capitulating and the amount of control that establishment has over the media diet of the average American.
I don't know how you fix this. But even aside from that, it's at the point where the Trump supporters are basically brainwashed to the level of a cult member, and I don't know what you do in a situation where there are 30 million people in a cult.
@danbrotherston @BrentToderian There isn't going to be a quick fix. The tax code, the electoral system incl Citizens United, and concentrated media ownership all contribute.
Ranked choice (proportional voting) leads to more consensual, less polarised politics. There's a compact to adopt this nationally when a majority of states have voted for it. Many have already. A better, less divided, future may not be so far off.
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R ActivityRelay shared this topic
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@danbrotherston @BrentToderian There isn't going to be a quick fix. The tax code, the electoral system incl Citizens United, and concentrated media ownership all contribute.
Ranked choice (proportional voting) leads to more consensual, less polarised politics. There's a compact to adopt this nationally when a majority of states have voted for it. Many have already. A better, less divided, future may not be so far off.
@samueljohnson @danbrotherston @BrentToderian ranked choice is more of a stall tactic than it is a solution. STAR voting is more representative in both the proportional or single-winner forms, without the surprise results like half of the mayoral elections that have used RCV (IRV). Watch how the establishment keeps proposing IRV as soon as Approval or STAR gain grassroots momentum. Meanwhile IRV gets banned and repealed because it's just multiple rounds of our broken choose-only-one method.
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@samueljohnson @danbrotherston @BrentToderian ranked choice is more of a stall tactic than it is a solution. STAR voting is more representative in both the proportional or single-winner forms, without the surprise results like half of the mayoral elections that have used RCV (IRV). Watch how the establishment keeps proposing IRV as soon as Approval or STAR gain grassroots momentum. Meanwhile IRV gets banned and repealed because it's just multiple rounds of our broken choose-only-one method.
@enobacon @danbrotherston @BrentToderian I am not familiar with STAR voting. I live now in Ireland which uses PR with STV (single transferrable vote) in multi-seat constituencies. The Irish feel about it the way the NRA do about guns. And the UK's electoral reform society leads field trips to Ireland every time there is an election to educate people about it. Without mechanical linkage as in party list systems it ends up with parties having seat shares approximating their total vote shares.
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@enobacon @danbrotherston @BrentToderian I am not familiar with STAR voting. I live now in Ireland which uses PR with STV (single transferrable vote) in multi-seat constituencies. The Irish feel about it the way the NRA do about guns. And the UK's electoral reform society leads field trips to Ireland every time there is an election to educate people about it. Without mechanical linkage as in party list systems it ends up with parties having seat shares approximating their total vote shares.
@samueljohnson @danbrotherston @BrentToderian STV is not a terrible method until it's reduced to the single-winner form, IRV. Portland has adopted both in its new system, & thus has at least one or two more conservative seats on council than a survey of the voters would, thanks to splitting by several progressive candidates, just as we frequently had done in primaries. And dodged a bullet in the mayors race with IRV. It's chaotic to count only first-ranked votes while eliminating 2nd choices
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@BrentToderian It's much harder here. Knowing that our parents and siblings and cousins and friends are still supporting him, no matter what we say and no matter what he does.
These are people we love. And they talk about us like we are the problem. Like we are the ones who don't understand what's going on. Like we don't understand what's right and moral.
I move between fury, tears, and exhaustion.
I still have to apologize for us: I'm so sorry.
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@BrentToderian
The majority do not understand.@SnowyCA @BrentToderian I think the majority DO understand, but it's a disturbingly slim majority.
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I’m still not sure if enough Americans fully understand how hard it is for the rest of us to continually see polls showing “how unpopular Trump is” when he’s still ridiculously and shockingly more popular than he should be in any sane nation.
@BrentToderian Ultimately it matters most to us since we're living under his presidency. We're sort of busy living under fascism and i can't say, especially as a transgender American i spend much time thinking about how outsiders see polls.
We've got bigger problems than others pondering polls.
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@danbrotherston @BrentToderian There isn't going to be a quick fix. The tax code, the electoral system incl Citizens United, and concentrated media ownership all contribute.
Ranked choice (proportional voting) leads to more consensual, less polarised politics. There's a compact to adopt this nationally when a majority of states have voted for it. Many have already. A better, less divided, future may not be so far off.
@samueljohnson @BrentToderian I certainly agree that improving electoral systems would improve things.
The problem is that there are no rational actors, all people work with the information they have, and the wealthy oligarchs have gained control over a huge fraction of the information people have access to.
You can pick any electoral system, Trumps till beats Kamal in 2024.
And yeah, as @enobacon says, ranked choice doesn't actually do much. In fact, plenty of US elections already use ranked choice.
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@BrentToderian It's much harder here. Knowing that our parents and siblings and cousins and friends are still supporting him, no matter what we say and no matter what he does.
These are people we love. And they talk about us like we are the problem. Like we are the ones who don't understand what's going on. Like we don't understand what's right and moral.
I move between fury, tears, and exhaustion.
I still have to apologize for us: I'm so sorry.
If they can justify locking up almost 4000 kids in concentration camps and think that's ok, they're not worth knowing. I don't even argue with them anymore, I just cut them off. Fascists.
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@BrentToderian It's much harder here. Knowing that our parents and siblings and cousins and friends are still supporting him, no matter what we say and no matter what he does.
These are people we love. And they talk about us like we are the problem. Like we are the ones who don't understand what's going on. Like we don't understand what's right and moral.
I move between fury, tears, and exhaustion.
I still have to apologize for us: I'm so sorry.
My heart breaks for you. For whatever solace it's worth, hopefully you know this - also from PNW.
