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Comment by patagonia | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately the laws and regulations in place facilitating this trend are put in place, for the most part, by elected representatives. For one thing, we need to change “first past the post” election results to decrease the polarizing results that have been shaping our politics as of late. I’m just saying, this isn’t a conspiracy by one party or group. To an extent, it’s the country we voted for.

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I donate to http://www.fairvote.org .

If anyone knows of other activist groups supporting better voting systems, I'd like to know about them.

I don't know a better one but I'm sad to see the organization doesn't support leveling seats for volume positions (i.e. house members & senators) there are some complex voting systems that appear to be theoretically more representative than IRV but for single position elections (governor, president, DA, etc...) IRV seems like a good balance between complexity and fairness.

Your solution doesn't have much to do with your problem. In general, the Republican party treats lowering taxes on the rich as a major policy goal. On the other hand, the Democratic party doesn't, and politicians and activists on the left side of that party tend to favor increased taxes on the rich.

The problem isn't polarization: the problem is that the wrong pole is getting elected.

This is a strange take when the wealthy actively conspire through bought-and-sold politicians to discredit, undermine, and destroy labor organization, the only thing in history with a proven track record of winning concessions for workers(in aggregate).

Maybe there’s not a “conspiracy,” but there’s certainly a class war.

I agree class issues are at play. But our “class system” is not determined by blood lines. The constituents of a a given class are fluid. Which leads me to believe it is a combination of human nature and relative participation of the various classes. Blaming “the rich” when voting turnout is so low and election participation is low is a non starter for me.

Social mobility exists but is low in the US and has been on the decline. There's no hard and fast rules on class in the US but for all practical purposes most people are going to be the same class as their parents

same class as their parents

Or maybe worse, if they are from middle class or lower.

I worked for a couple of NY financial services firms and saw first hand how easy it was to get internships, interviews and jobs for kids with connected parents while the rest of them struggled.

I think the worst result of this is, people might (maybe they already have?) just stop trying. Very few people are gonna put up with years and years of crap just to get ahead a little bit, most people aren't just built that way.

It's hard for working-class people to get away from their jobs to vote.

Its the law that you must be given time away from your job to vote.

Laws designed to protect workers are pretty rarely enforced, or only through costly legal proceedings that most working class people can’t afford.

Labor disputes are handled through state and federal labor relations boards. You file a complaint, an investigation is started, and eventually a ruling is made. Lawyers are not a requirement but the employer will probably send one anyway.

>Labor disputes are handled through state and federal labor relations boards.

...which are toothless, especially in Republican-controlled states.

Not in every state. https://aflcio.org/2016/11/5/know-your-rights-state-laws-emp...

And good luck proving that you were let go from your job because you went to vote.

Voting is also only the last step in a representative democracy, and is the only free one. They don't have the time or money to fund the preceeding steps.

Which is necessary to avoid having to vote for one of two shitty options.

>Blaming “the rich” when voting turnout is so low and election participation is low is a non starter for me.

A big part of the Republican electoral strategy is disenfranchising working-class voters through any number of tactics, especially those subcategories of working-class people who they expect won’t vote for them. And that doesn’t even begin to address the structural and intentional hurdles to working class people’s participation in American democracy, from disenfranchisement via mass incarceration to fear of losing their jobs if they leave to vote.

> Blaming “the rich” when voting turnout is so low

Depressing turnout by demoralizing constituencies that lean to the other side and, particularly on one side, outright voter suppression, is something that the rich (both independently and acting through the major parties) fund lavishly, so why wouldn't they get blame when turnout is low?

Most people who choose not to vote aren't being systematically repressed. They're just too indifferent and/or lazy to participate.

We've had 5 occasions where the president lost the popular vote but won't the election and 2 of them were in the past 18 years. Do you think most people look at that situation and go "if only I had voted, then things would be different". Between that and a few court rulings that have turned the major elections into an event only the rich and their friends can partake in, I don't see how it's not people bring systematically repressed

That the popular vote isn't who wins is a feature. It helps prevent the tyranny of the majority. Of course if you are in the majority that lost you hate it, while the minority like it.

Tyranny of minority isn't better than tyranny of the majority.

> That the popular vote isn't who wins is a feature. It helps prevent the tyranny of the majority

No, it doesn't. It lowers the threshold for dictating policy, and biases it to particular interests; that makes tyranny of those interests more likely, including when they command a bare majority (or even large minority) of support.

You don't fight tyranny of the majority by unequal representation; you fight tyranny of the majority with constitutional limits on what government can do at all, or by requirements for supermajorities or (as some state constitutions do) multiple time-separated votes (or both!) for particular kinds of action.

Gerrymandering is anti-democratic.

Crafting campaign finance laws in such a way that those with more wealth can disproportionally affect election outcomes is anti-democratic.

Voter suppression/disenfranchisement in the form of impediments to voter registration, voter ID laws, felon disenfranchisement, misinformation about voting process/procedures, closure of DMV offices, etc. are all anti-democratic tactics used by political parties to reduce/refuse voting access by constituents.

If a party can make voting inconvenient/inaccessible to a targeted population they can win electoral outcomes that do not match constituency desires.

Voter suppression is real. Voter suppression works.

It is true that multiple parties (which first past the post prevents) would make forming coalitions around issues like this easier.

Saying "this isn’t a conspiracy by one party or group" is pretty silly though. The economic policies advocated for and enacted by the two parties point in completely opposite directions.

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