Not everyone should vote. If your views are substantially outside the mainstream there is no point in voting.
The US is an Oligarchy. Some people are really angry right now, because their stawperson didn't get elected. But they weren't angry for the past eight years of domestic spying, predator drones and kill lists. This anger only helps solidify the rule of the elite, because it keeps Americans fighting each other, and not the war industry or the banks or various other entities that can basically get their laws passed no matter who is elected.
http://fightthefuture.org/articles/the-fallout-of-american-a...
I really like the EFF, and I'm glad they're fighting for our rights to speech and privacy, no matter which party is in office.
Side note: As an Australian, it absolutely blows my mind that voting is not compulsory in more countries. I have no idea why voting isn't compulsory, like taxes.
Do you have any insight as to why this is? Do people just not mark more than one or two preferences, given that they have more choices? I understand the "big" parties work hard to get there, and they'll work even in the limits of a system to stay on top.
I also had Australians tell me about the "top" and "bottom" of the ballot. The bottom can have a long scrolling amount of entries, and Australians who care will go to various websites where they can input their issues, get a list of which MPs agree, print out this list and take it into a voting booth to see which parties they should vote for. O_o I've been told most Australians only fill out the top.
So what ends up happening is instead of a diversified senate with plenty of conflicting opinions and a broad knowledge base acting as the gatekeepers of whatever ridiculous legislation the lower house can dream up, we end up with the two major parties controlling the whole senate.
And whenever that's not the case (which sometimes happens due to the preferential voting) the media runs a huge billion dollar campaign about how the entire country is going to stagnate into a giant flaming pile of shit unless one of the major parties gets a majority in the senate and is allowed to push all their horseshit through unopposed. Then next election the uneducated masses vote against their best interests in droves once again.
The system is fucked. I don't see an easy solution, it's not like forcing below the line voting would be any better because then all the braindead racist bigots like Pauline Hanson would be voted in in a landslide due to sheer media coverage and we'd lose any lesser named senators that managed to grab an infinitesimal piece of power by aligning themselves with a major party.
Maybe if someone has a good solution they could enlighten me, I'd love to hear it.
EDIT: I should mention, if you elect to vote below the line you have to literally number every senate candidate, which is generally 50-100 boxes. The system itself is imposing a huge barrier to the average person placing an educated vote.
"Barry because he something about climate change once." If you willfully ignore everything that has happened, then perhaps you're not impressed or don't see drastic differences.
"How do you talk people down after spending a year telling them Hitler was coming to power?" Which is of course not in the least bit realistic.
Sure, one can create strawmen all day, and use those strawmen to push whatever argument they want, but nobody is the wiser for it. If you actually try to look at the world with as clear eyes as possible, rather than through the most rosy-colored or other filtered view, you will have a better chance of getting through days without them being hard and also of convincing people of your points of view.
And it's not a mainstream perspective, it is at best a hyperbole of people saying hyperbolic things.
Two hyperboles don't make a right.
2. https://www.salon.com/2016/12/20/14-signs-show-trumps-politi...
3. https://newrepublic.com/minutes/124205/yes-donald-trump-fasc...
4. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/11/foul-stenc...
5. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=http://www.forbe...
6. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/america...
2. No mention of Hitler. A point by point comparison to a historical and previous description of fascism.
3. Not Hitler, talks about conservatism and totalitarianism.
4. No mention of Hitler anywhere.
5. " I am not suggesting that what is happening in the United States replicates in every sense what happened in Italy and Germany. "
6. "The Republican presidential candidate is not a Fascist, but his campaign bears notable similarities to the reign of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini."
Compare these viewpoints to the claim of "But people really were saying Trump is literally Hitler."
Edit: I should also say that I don't doubt you could come up with something somewhere where somebody claimed that Trump is "literally Hitler." However, it is not a prevalent or even mainstream viewpoint. Even calling Trump a fascist, and defending it based on evidence, is a pretty extreme and rare viewpoint.
"How do you talk people down after spending a year telling them Hitler was coming to power?" vs. "How do you talk people down after spending a year telling them a fascist was coming to power?" isn't a very meaningful distinction to me in that context. Your mileage may vary. Many mainstream outlets have expressed that opinion for a long time, and it's a point of view I've seen defended here on HN many times in political threads. I don't think it's a fringe viewpoint at all.
The "literally Hitler" smear is an attempt to distinguish that careful, and important distinction, so that the entire thought can be dismissed as ridiculous.
Looking at each of those articles where they say "not hitler, but he still is making noises like he'll be bad," do you think that needs to be walked back? Were they ignoring reality, or facing an unpleasant reality?
"Literally Hitler" is not a thoughtful, fair, or even useful characterization of these viewpoints.
This story in particular is a very clear indicator of what Obama has been the whole time - a mere salesperson for the oligarchy. The standard backstop excuse, that he "needs to compromise to get anything done", doesn't work when it's his last days of office! But the sunk cost fallacy is a powerful thing that causes people to overjustify their choices.
They're receptive when the criticism is leveled at the "other team", but given an opportunity to vote for "their team" they'll fall right into line. This time it happened with Trump voters, because "the media establishment HATES him". So they're all convinced he will actually change things in their interest - nevermind the Obama they've been hating on for the past 8 years ran on the exact same message! The best I've been able to do is to preemptively ask them to try to evaluate his actions on whether they're actually disrupting the status quo we all hate so much, or just pandering to polarizing surface issues while leaving the fundamental corruption intact. But I don't have hope that a year from now they will remember such criticism as being from an a priori perspective rather than simply shoring up their defensive ranks over the moral panic du jour.
Voting pragmatically in local elections likely still makes sense even for people with extreme views. A few of the races are likely to be close and have candidates with disparate viewpoints.
People don't pay attention to what mayors actually do, plus a terrible mayor can live off the planning of the previous administration for most of their term in office (and thereby take credit for things they didn't touch).
If you are actually confused about my meaning I'd be glad to explain further.
The problem with a two party system dominated by a president is that many important issues bundled together. Democrats let me down on privacy, but the new Vice President's signature policy focus is persecuting gay families like mine.
I just want to say that we can vote even while agitating within our own parties and social groups for improvements on privacy.
There's still a big reason to vote: pick the candidate with the least amount of problems that has a chance of winning. But I do agree that voting is usually too-little-too-late if you don't already have the majority of voters knowing about your cause.
But in the US, there's also the question in which state you live in. For example, there's no point voting Republican in California, nor Democrat in Texas.
I live in Ithaca, NY. That means we have a very, very liberal municipal government, gerrymandered-to-shit knucklehead (mostly) Republican legislative representation in Albany and DC, and a moderately liberal governor (Cuomo). These layers matter.
But if you don't mind tyranny then by all means don't vote.
Voting outside the mainstream over time (for some definition of "substantially outside") can normalize and legitimize viewpoints that would otherwise be regarded as fringe forever. We've seen that with the Green party here in Canada.
That said, I agree (if you think this) that the fetishization of voting for the sake of voting is pretty naive.
What's the scale of the timeframe we're talking about here? Doesn't seem like the Green Party in the US has a chance of getting normalized on a scale of 2 generations (~50 yrs), based on the past history of voting.
Having people vote based on the idea that at some point in the future, possibly not in their lifetime, their viewpoint may (or may not) become mainstream/legitimate is absurd. People are not that far forward thinkers.
That's funny. Reminded me of this: https://twitter.com/sinderbrand/status/819315489021325312
That is the point. Vote is increasingly becoming deselect method (Govt that is least bad) than select.
(In addition, imagine an interest group instituting a "we'll pay your poll tax for you!" campaign, but only in counties carefully selected for demographics.)
There's also the problem that many jurisdictions have 2+ elections each year. A federal poll tax would create quite a bit of room for local poll taxes that would be that much more abusive.
Tangential, but this is a great example of a fabricated wedge issue in American politics. The solution is so simple, just issue everyone a free national ID card. Passports should be free too and could also double for this purpose. Then the Republicans can stop complaining about voter fraud and Democrats can stop complaining about voter disenfranchisement (the latter of these I am legitimately concerned about, I just wish someone would actually follow through and do something about it).
Also, it's ridiculous that there isn't a national holiday at least on the day of the presidential elections.
Predictably, nonwhite voters tended to be failed.
But I agree with the other commenter, selecting the questions in a fair way would be challenging.
One possible sequence:
1) Trump fever sweeps Rs to power in 38 state legislatures two years from now.
2) Those legislatures pander to morons by passing a Constitutional Amendment barring those without physician-issued certificates of femininity from women's restrooms.
3) Millions of Californians take to the streets in protest for weeks at a time, unable to accept life under what comes to be called "wrong-partheid".
4) Desperate business owners cast about for some way to get everyone back to work, and hit upon secession. A plebiscite is called, and with 90% of California citizens voting, every county except Modoc and Lassen vote to secede. Those counties petition Oregon for admission, but are turned down and have to join Nevada instead. Then Las Vegas has a vote to secede from Nevada, but last-minute distributions of maps illustrating where the water comes from cause secession to fail.
At this point, Trump could send in the Army to enforce the Union, but I really hope he doesn't. If he did, many soldiers would refuse the order, and many generals would push for some other solution. Perhaps California will bribe Trump with some real estate deals. They can write it into their new constitution to make sure it's legal.
After that I would hope for many more secessions. This nation needs to be drastically shrunken to put all the lobbyists out of business.