The Democrats need to wake up and stop pandering to their extremes | Hacker News Reader

The Democrats need to wake up and stop pandering to their extremes

economist.com

22 pointsruneks43 comments

The problem with politics is that it’s rarely made of binary issues, and yet the voting experience so often is. But the democratic process of the US (and to some extent the UK) is that inevitably two parties will appear, and this sort of forces this broad-church experience, smushing it all into one “left and right” axis [0].

Even if we smush things onto an axis, the Overton window of people’s views [1] can probably be approximated as a bell curve, and so it stands to reason that the Republicans, too, are full of extremes, and also full of moderates. Both parties would benefit from the clarity of being split up, I think; it’s just genuinely unclear how the process could be changed.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

The simple solution is voting system reform. The two party system is a symptom of first-past-the-post voting. Switch to plurality voting and suddenly the quality of representation skyrockets. The system isn't designed to maximize equitable representation and is very resistant to change.

But things that the two-parties agree on (to not implement) will have very little political willpower to implement. And a system that gives more power to parties that are not the two-parties is such a thing.

That's the "resistant to change" part. NH has the highest number of state reps per capita and three plurality bills were shot down this year by an overwhelming majority. From the richest superdelegate to the smallest fry: every politician toes the line right now.

https://www.concordmonitor.com/Should-NH-adopt-ranked-choice...

That is often repeated, but not based on facts. Several nations have FPTP voting and more than two parties, including Canada and the UK.

Canada is very rapidly heading towards a two-party system. The Greens barely count as a party, the NDP have joined forces with the Liberals, the Conservative-Reform Alliance Party is desperately trying to subsume the breakaway PPC Party, and the Bloc is specific to one province.

Every election boils down to a choice between two parties: Liberal and Conservative. When the Conservatives are too socially regressive (“barbaric cultural practices hotline”, Pierre Poilievre) many NDP voters hold their nose and vote Liberal.

If the Conservatices continue down their current path, Canada will inevitably become a strictly two-party country: the NDP will cease to exist as an alternative.

Im not sure every governments voting system is comparable. THe nature of the parties certainly plays a factor. American R and D parties are so heavily polarized and unable to work together, and the existing voting system does not provide a path out of that. Yes other countries have other parties, but other systemic issues affect how viable they are.

Even if they don’t, the TV broadcast of presidential debates is a duopoly. If they were required to have five candidates, then perhaps the US would have better executive branch

You described exactly how the process could be changed: the way in which we largely elect officials in the US is First Past the Post, which intrinsically favors coalescing into monolithic entities. To change this, you must change how we elect officials; the fracturing of the parties would follow. While it's not exactly as simple as that, it's probably the single largest step that can be taken. There are some other glaring issues that come to mind, though.

Unfortunately a lot of systems have been built up to largely favor maintaining power with the two major parties in the US. The third largest party, the Libertarian Party, still does not earn enough votes to earn federal funding. They also do not poll high enough to enter the national conversation through televised debates based on the rules set by a bipartisan (emphasis on bipartisan, not nonpartisan) committee.

The most successful Libertarian candidate has been Gary Johnson, who, coincidentally, went viral for his, "What's Aleppo?" response on mainstream media, and still was well off the threshold for federal funding. The most successful third party candidate in history was arguably Ross Perot, who was high profile, covered by the media, and was able to participate in the televised debates. He shot past the threshold for funding but ultimately the Reform Party has never been able to repeat the success they had with its founder, probably because they aren't billionaires that can bypass the enormous brick wall that is mainstream media.

The fallacy here is, that “The Democrats” need to “wake up” at all. The establishment is doing GREAT!

The point of politics in a democratic system is to get as much power as possible, with as little investment and as little of the accrued power wasted on “the people” while holding it to assure a reelection.

They've managed to design a system where most of "the peoples" time, effort, and focus is spent on issues that both have no effect on the rich and powerful, and who's messaging was designed in such a way as to prevent any real movement from a stalemate (while expending massive amounts of energy of "the people" fighting each other).

So, the problem isn't with X political class. It's with "the people" who still believe in the fairy tale of democracy.

Does not mean that democracy isn't a great system with a great opportunity (i.e. realistic chance for "the people" to increase their quality of life). It just means that to exploit that opportunity, we're going to have to start understanding and playing the system correctly.

Pot meet kettle. The right has seen recent success because they have less infighting and are more welcoming of their extremes. The left can't even agree on what they consider progressive.

The ratchet effect is real. Republicans move the country further and further right, even when it takes an attempted coup or risks a Constitutional crisis, and Democrats block counter-movement to the left at every opportunity.

It's because we don't have a true left in the apparatus of power in the US, even though the actual population tends towards the left. The Democrats aren't leftists, they're center-right at best, basically Conservatives minus the Evangelical Christian veneer, strongly pro-military, pro-capitalism, pro-status quo. The few actual leftists like AOC and Bernie are allowed to piss and moan about things but never to do anything to risk upsetting the apple cart.

I'm not convinced it is real, because that's the same story the right has been telling about the left since Bill Clinton. Slippery Slope! Overton Window! Ratchet Effect! I've been hearing those rants for more than 30 years, though that repeated complaint has recently come in to fashion on the left among the young.

Repetition makes something seem true, but it does not truth make.

What's strange about this is that this goes against a preliminary game theory/optimisation analysis of how the system should work.

Hotellings Law (https://www.uh.edu/engines/epi2692.htm) means that when there are two competitors on a spectrum, they will move closer and closer to one another to be as competitive as possible. Even passing beyond the other until they are both either side of the center.

You have two ice cream trucks on a 1D beach.

|-----1-----------2-|

Ice cream truck 2 captures all the business on its right, and 1 captures all the business (more) on it's left. Then they split the central. area 50:50.

|-----12------------|

Now 2 moves all the way to be next to 1, and takes all the central space (including what it used to have on the right.

|------21------------|

1 now comes to the side the grab almost all of the right hand side, surrendering the less valuable left.

|-------12-----------|

|--------21----------|

They'll now work back and forth until they're either side of the middle.

This is what you might imagine political parties would do and what they do in some countries. Something is stopping this happening in US politics and I would hazard a guess it's be because of a. primaries (were votes aren't evenly distributed along a 1D spectrum) and b. social cues (people are in politics for more than just winning votes).

Political engagement and voter turnout are at an all-time high. Gerrymandering being pushed to its limit and the nature of the senate are making political representation backslide. There's nothing to be gained by oversimplifying.

It's because this law doesn't apply to politics. The dynamics of our squishy human brains and its reliance on heuristics and in-group/out-group identities result in an inverse Hotellings law where in a political contest with two competitors, they will move farther apart so as to better differentiate the groups and define their boundaries.

I think you'll find that this is actually the case of US politics once you look beyond the surface. Most Americans differ very little from each other on politics.

You be in the tent, pissing out; or outside the tent in the rain.

Democrats are having "purity spiral" fights over who gets thrown out of the tent, for a while now. Very little "we can work together on $A despite disagreeing on $B"

Republicans are picking up people just because they're the alternative, not because they articulate or exemplify principles.

> Democrats are having "purity spiral" fights over who gets thrown out of the tent, for a while now.

Dude, they haven’t even gotten rid of Sinema or Manchin, and those two have done nothing but grind the Democrats plans to a halt. If they can’t even get rid of their right fringe, these purity spirals can’t be very effective.

The thing with Sinema and Manchin is that the alternative to them isn't a non-obstructionist Democrat, it's a Republican. "Getting rid" of them would do nothing to help Dems.

It wouldn't, and that's why they're still there—but if the Democrats were in the middle of a "purity spiral", they'd be gone. Instead they're in the middle of "we've got these people constantly blocking us but they're slightly better than the alternative spiral". In other words, spinning in circles going nowhere.

Republicans have centrists too, that isn't unique to one party. Representatives will generally take on the ideological positions of those they represent, and the fact is West Virginia is nothing like California so we shouldn't expect the representatives to be the same ideologically.

I agree with everything you're saying, but I think it means the idea that Democrats are in the midst of a purity spiral is bunk.

>right fringe

That moment when your party has moved so far to the left that left of center democrats are now considered right wing extremists for derailing your agenda.

The democrats own plans and piss poor economy management stalled themselves. If your party’s agenda can’t even unify your own party, let alone attract some bi-partisan support, it might be time to soften the agenda a bit and start doing some things widen your support.

They’re the right fringe of the Democrats, regardless of where they are on an absolute scale.

> let alone attract some bi-partisan support

Hah! Ha ha ha ha hah hah! Ah hah hah ha ha ha ha ha hah hah ha

> Hah! Ha ha ha ha hah hah! Ah hah hah ha ha ha ha ha hah hah ha

“That…is why you fail” - Yoda

Thanks, Lucy—I’m sure you won’t pull away the football this time.

Sometimes you just need to be creative in how you approach…

https://youtu.be/fkxFzkykAd4

Quite a few of the hispanic side of my family (Catholic) have been openly talking about having jumped ship away from the Democrats. I think there are principles involved, even if people on the left don't understand or agree with them.

After the 2020 election, a lot of attention went to the Latino-driven swing in south Florida toward Trump that probably gave him the state. But that was only a few points; Florida was and is a swing state.

Meanwhile, a massive shift to Trump occurred in the Texas border region in 2020. 90% Hispanic counties that had voted Democratic for 150 years saw 30 points' worth of movement. It received little attention because Trump would have won Texas with or without the swing, but if this and Florida are any augurs of Latino sentiment nationwide ...

who has been thrown out of Democratic leadership? As far as I understand, they are explicitly NOT doing that and instead capitulating and backing candidates and judges who are further right than mainstream dems. Meanwhile in Idaho the extreme right is chasing anyone who isn't a white nationalist out of office, so i guess we have that to look forward to from other Republican strongholds.

For me it's Game Over for the Republican Party. It was bad enough when they were the party of obstruction. Now they're the party of insurrection. It's not the Democratic Party who needs to wakeup, it's ignorant Americans who don't know Duverger's Law who need to wake up.

Duverger's Law - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law

You are optimistic. Perhaps it could be if the economy wasn’t mismanaged into the ground the last 18 months.

Jan 6 doesnt mean as much to the voting public as the prices at the pump and the grocery stores. TBH the only people I know paying any level of attention to all that Jan 6 stuff are the people who would never vote Republican anyway.

A long time ago the republicans where less conservative and more progressive that the democrats. Now both seem to run a contest of who is the most conservative, least progressive and most racist of them all.

gee i wonder why https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

Democrats

can someone tell me if this article is going to tell me for the hundredth time that the left is to blame for everything despite having no tangible power? if the answer is yes I won't bother finding a way past the paywall.

> that the left is to blame for everything despite having no tangible power?

Control of both houses and the executive branch, but can’t implement their stated agenda because it’s unpalatable to members within their own party. Yeah I’d say they are to blame.

hey bud the Democratic party is not what i mean by "The Left". Most leftists see the Dems as centrists. center-left at best

All the opinions, topics and policies summarized under the term "clownworld" (some call it far right dogwhistle) are already leading to a massive, conservative backlash. Coupled with economic struggle for the dying middle class this is a disaster.

Dying middle class?

Opinion online seems to oscillate between "the middle class is changing" and "the middle class is dying". I consider the second to be true. Primarily driven by the housing cost crisis with more and more people staying rent slaves til death. Due to the mixed sentiment one could argue forever for both directions.

There is a third online opinion on that with a significant following:

https://www.aei.org/economics/the-us-middle-class-is-disappe...

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