Wouldn't you chose the anti establishment candidate at that point? Yea, he'll probably be just as shitty, but at least there's a chance? I'm against Trump but I'm not surprised at all that large swathes of America voted for him. You can't tell people to follow a system that garuntees their life will be worse in the future and be surprised when they lash out for any sort of improvement
It's entirely a PR thing, which is something we talk about every day on HN. Your actual plan, while somewhat important, is dwarfed by how much people like and believe you. And the credibility of HRC regarding the welfare of people who hate the establishment was low to begin with and collapsed over the length of the election, mostly due to self-inflicted wounds, but also due to Trump being somewhat savvy in that regard.
It is absurd that we have Trump as president but it's not all that surprising. People shocked by it need to visit the Southeast a bit more and drive around towns.
When Obamacare forced us to drop our healthcare and family doctor, when we were giving up on finding a job because the Obama administration was anti-business, we decided we didn't want any more of the Democratic planning. Choosing a successful business mogul who has had some experience with failure, who has rough edges, who rewards loyalty, and who appreciates "common" people, was only surprising to the uncommon people.
>Say you have the establishment candidate says "tough shit" and you believe them because they are reliable.
Even though I think the Democrats have more to offer, say, the rural communities in WI, than the Republicans, they cannot change the demographic and technological forces that are at the root of such voters disillusionment. The Democrats, for better or worse, attempt to stay tethered to objective reality.
Trump came along with grandiose promises of restoring the status of rural and working class Americans, and (apparently) some voters were so frustrated and angry that they voted for this imbecile.
Whenever I see “man on the street” style reporting on Trump voters, the voters themselves come across as imbeciles. I’ve seriously wondered if this was some kind of editorializing (maybe unconscious) by liberal news editors to make Trump voters look bad.
Really,they got nothing from Trump. Set aside all the culture war baggage, and the core argument of substance that Trump voters offer is that Trump is somehow going to “bring (good) jobs back.”
In reality, Trump has been a political wrecking ball, and is riding in the success of all the workers who actually keep America functioning. (In government and private sector.)
He had made everything worse that he gets his hands on.
Like half the population in the US, I keep wondering when Trump voters will wake up to see the naked buffoon, stomping on everyone he can as he fights for survival. I’m worried now they won’t, and we will see more people succumb to totalistic conspiracy mongering. (Like the Qanon fiasco.)
In the meantime, elite workers with the opportunity to exploit the system to their own benefit, will simply continue to do so.
When has politics ever been about logic?
I'm not saying that he is, but historically there are lots of examples of very rich and powerful people that have been anti-establishment and had fights with the regular elites or the state, etc.
If Hillary had won, then the elites would be thinking that all is well and that the system works. Trump is a loud and clear message that things are not well and they need to change. Communicating that message is totally worth 4 years of bad political leadership.
Senators are a very integral and powerful part of our current government, and have a far larger per pound effect than food on the politcal environment.
Your argument seems quite disingenuous.
The result is clear: politics in The Netherlands are a factor less toxic than in the UK. This is because there is actually a chance to choose the party who represent you. They don't? Small parties are still an option. In the end a coalition is created and all of the crazy ideas (muslim ban, communism) are quickly lost in the first round..
So far I've voted for VVD (Republican/Tory), D66 (Democrats/Libdems) and Green (doesn't exist in UK/US; the one party who get results on climate change).
So basically full proportional representation would be the best single change you could make in the US and UK systems.
For a smaller change to the rules (but still a big impact), consider approval voting or range voting.
Range voting works like judging figure skating in the Olympics: every voter can give scores between eg 0 to 100 to the candidates, the candidate with the highest average score wins the district.
The first time, it lead to a million dead Iraqis, the second time we are living through right now.
That's b.s. vote shaming. If you lose it's because you failed to convince enough voters in enough places to make you win.
> usually you don't see third party conservative alternatives. and the small third parties don't get any political power in the us system.
Libertarians are considered by many to be closer to conservatives than liberals and even with terrible candidates like Gary Johnson they got three times as many votes as the Green party in 2016.
Gary Johnson Libertarian 4,489,341 3.28%
Jill Stein Green 1,457,218 1.07%Republicans don't bitch that Libertarians exist. For example, if you take the logical conclusion that if all Green voters voted Democrat and all Libertarian voters voted Republican in the last presidential election, then Trump would have won the popular vote.
Democrats don't get to have it both ways.
green party voters are generally thought to be very democratic if they weren't green. i've voted for green party candidates myself, otherwise i'm very likely to vote dem. libertairan voters seem to be more mixed between dem and r but lean r. Here's a washington post article that considers this issue. There are many other articles that looked into it and came to similar results, that green party voting cost hrc. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/green-party-votes-ma...
Even if you want to quibble with a particular article's analysis, with our system it's clear that in close races not voting for a primary party (d or r) could cost them the election.
It was a culture shock coming here: suddenly politics matter, your vote matters. There is actual reasonable debate about the issues. Not the strawman stuff you see in the UK/US. There is a natural limit to the toxicity in politics; if you want to take part in ruling the country you have to be reasonable..