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Comment by bboygravity | Hacker News Reader

You're missing the point that left/right/democrat/republican religions are a divide and conquer strategy to distract from the realization that there is no democracy.

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Looking from outside as a non-American, I feel that Democrats and Republicans are really first and foremost sports clubs. Any actual political leanings are mostly based on what is most likely to keep support of their existing fans, and secondarily a matter of inertia.

And nowhere in these splits - neither in Democrat/Republican, nor in left/right - is there any notion of actually looking at the problem and trying to find an actual, effective, efficient solution, that maximizes the desired impact and minimizes undesired second-order effects.

That is exactly how it works, just none of the constituents think that's how it works on their team, so we're in this sort of stasis. The unsolved and repeatedly retrodden problems are called wedge issues and they're key to these teams staying in power collectively.

I recall the mid-Obama years where I had a lot of acquaintances (now almost equally split between "left" and "right") who didn't see a lot of difference between Bush and Obama on a great many issues. They were sick of foreign wars, the military-security state, unfettered corporate abuses, and the elision of many issues that impacted Americans from any public discussion on either side of the aisle.

The prospect of a (Jeb) Bush vs. (Hillary) Clinton race seemed emblematic of a government that was a democracy in form, but not in practice. And then along came Trump who nicely put everyone I know (myself included) in either pro-Trump or anti-Trump camps.

Some people don't understand it, but when you actually talk to people, you find that at least a pretty substantial portion are very aware of it but don't feel empowered to do anything that can change it.

All forms of change that aren't voting are either de jure or de facto illegal. Sure, you can march... on a route cleared with the authorities... with a permit 90 days in advance... as long as absolutely nothing untoward happens within two blocks.

When you ignore domestic politics entirely I can see how it would look that way.

But there is a very real difference in policy between rural Alabama and Chicago. In no small part because of different parties exercising control in those localities.

> But there is a very real difference in policy between rural Alabama and Chicago.

I believe this difference exist. But I attribute it mostly to "rural" vs. "urban" part - and for far enough places, also to difference in cultures between the two locations. Rural Alabama has a different lifestyle, different market, different pressing problems than urban Chicago, different individual needs - which may result in people in those two locations overall promoting opposite policies.

How well these differences overlap with with Dem/Rep or left/right belief clusters is, I think, mostly incidental.

I think that what you said about the causes of difference is true, but that doesn't mean the party affiliation of urban vs rural voters is incidental.

The parties, to the degree they do differ, do position themselves on opposite sides of the urban vs rural divide.

https://engaging-data.com/election-population-density/

Uh, no? Left and right are generalized terms used to describe political philosophies. Democrat and republican are terms used to describe political parties- those parties don't fully overlap with left and right, and in fact the parties have completely changed their overlap over time.

We (Americans) live in a representative democracy (for choosing public officials) and that democracy gives a great deal of influence and power to capitalists/industrialists (the "racket"), which has been absolutely successful in establishing and maintaining the existence and wealth of the country.

If you want to argue there is no democracy, find another person to argue with; my premise begins with the US being a representative democracy.

It is a representative Democracy. I vote directly for all of my representatives. Anyone arguing it's not is moving goalposts or arguing No True Scotsman.

For semantic clarity: are you saying that it ticks the boxes for being a "representative democracy", but not extending the meaning of the word representative to encompass representative of the will of the constituents?

> Anyone arguing it's not is moving goalposts or arguing No True Scotsman.

With this be considered rhetoric?

I have a government that I choose through voting. It's not complicated.

Do you choose the candidates? Do you influence what they actually work on once in office with your votes? Do our elected officials generally prioritize the needs of those who cast votes for them or those who bankrolled their campaigns? Who btw bankrolled the campaigns? Is your vote nearly as powerful as their dollars?

If you avoid answering questions about your theories it can certainly appear to be not complicated, but whether it actually is is another matter.

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