Ranked-choice voting is hardly the kind of radical change that you’re talking about here.
I am really curious about the logic behind this statement because, damn, that’s really quite sweeping.
I don’t think that you can break the duopoly without getting rid of gerrymandering first. Elections first need to be competitive to make a difference.
Why would a third or fourth party do that instead of creating more deadlock to get their own agenda through?
There’s also a very real scenario where a far right win could end any chance of democratic reforms, strip the rights of millions of people, and send the world chugging into the worst possible climate change scenarios. And by very real I mean “they are trying for it now”. I don’t understand how you’re weighting these odds to treat what a third party might do as more real.
Nobody is saying voting Democratic is going to fix anything, you know. We badly need to do other things besides voting for that. But if the fascists get in we won’t have the chance – and you really seem bent on ignoring that point.
True. Like I said- RCV is a first step, not an end goal. I think we could probably spend a good while debating where eliminating gerrymandering falls in the process order. I’m convinced A would lead to B on that, but I’m totally open to the possibilities.
It is. But probably best split off to another thread. The shortest form I can articulate is this: How do you maintain a government that the majority of citizens have no faith in? Especially when that lack of faith is for a large part clearly and visibly justified?
Because there’s a very different dynamic between “we’re allies now who have to support each other no matter what” versus “we’re all willing to cooperate on this specific thing”. That is also a whole other conversation- But again, it’s a step away from two-wolves-and-a-sheep straight democracy towards consensus governance.
That’s the problem. As long as they’re holding the line instead of fixing the underlying problems, they aren’t stopping that fascist victory, just delaying it. And the longer those problems fester, the worse the fallout will be when that happens.
Nobody has said otherwise – heck, I specifically said we need more changes beyond voting Democratic in the same post you are quoting! What we have said is that if the fascist victory happens now, there will not be any chance to fix anything. You keep ignoring that point everyone is making, and instead talking about preparing for better futures with vague structural hopes* while ignoring that absolute prerequisite for any of them. It is not convincing.
*Believe it or not, other countries have problems with the far right despite having multi-party systems. It’s not a magic bullet, and yet you’re talking about it as if it were all that mattered for the future. It doesn’t make sense.
Should be titled Why progressives need to abandon trans people.
Fuck you Matthew Yglesias
Republicans seem to depolarize more than Democrats.
I wonder how much of that is due to certain voters aligning with a political party or candidate because they have internalized that affiliation as part of their self-identity instead of voting a certain way because they actually care about policy.
The whole article is written in bad faith. All of his examples of progress gained in decades past through compromise involved gains in rights. Somehow he’s trying to use that to justify compromise on regression of rights. Which makes his arguement, essentially, in favor of some kind of progressive fascism.
That is a thing that simply does not exist. Progressive fascists are fascists, period.
Anyone who is willing to sacrifice the rights of anyone else isn’t a progressive, no matter what they call themselves.
But I feel like we knew that many times over. It’s so frustrating that “has been wrong all the time, for decades” somehow isn’t incompatible with being a voice people promote.
Matt’s a senior fellow here:
That anyone lets him say to have a voice from supposedly inside the progressive camp is puzzling.
I feel angrier and stupider for having read that…
Also, did you see this comment (one of the first ones):
The rejection of compromise is also driven by creeping Niemöllerism, too – after all, first they came for [tiny marginal group] and then they came for me. This engenders the attitude that you must respond to any threat, of any severity, to any member of your coalition as a maximal threat to the entire coalition. Indeed – you are weak and naive to respond with less than maximum force to any threat. For “they” are implacably evil, and they treat compromise only as a means to total victory.
Are there enemies who are implacably evil, and cannot be appeased? Yes; Hitler was one, and Putin is now another.
But Niemöller’s dictum is a catastrophic model for domestic politics, where the median US voter is more likely to respond to uncompromising purity with thermostatic rejection. Furthermore, strategies and attitudes inspired by Niemöller’s dictum make you look, to your opponents and neutral onlookers, exactly like the kind of implacable enemy with whom there can be no compromise. So they’re going to Niemöller you just like you Niemöller them, and then politics has been replaced by warfare.
It’s a stirring quotation, but a horrible model for being an effective agent in a democracy.
The - hey - they’re not coming for me crowd.
Well, sure, who wants another asshole?
I’m reading through the rest of that now… it’s quite fucked up, some of the things people are saying…
The whole notion that we should not care about basic rights for a tiny minority is enraging… Because the Niemoeller poem is true… but hey, that’s just nazi Germany… it can’t happen here, right? /s
Make society better for everyone, or wait until the Nazis are back.
Except, aren’t they the…
Don’t mind me, I think I was having a ridiculous moment of clarity.
OK, then how 'bout
You don’t like Niemöller, how about a good ol’ Unknown?
