[1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/
[2] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/theme-a-new...
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Or the commissioners that are appointed by the democratically elected heads of the member state governments?
You will never get an answer from them. But we should keep asking it anyway.
I always wondered if they live on the EU and are genuinely too stupid to understand how the bloc their country joined works or, most likely, live outside of it and the idea of the EU as a political entity offends their sensibilities or heighten their anxiety.
The head of the EU, who was nominated by the Austrian Government (and the other 26 governments) and elected by the MEPs in parliament (who were directly elected) decided on his portfolio.
Compare this to the US system, where the head of the US executive is elected by electors who themselves are directly elected. That head then appoints whoever they want.
If you were to make the US reflect the EU, you would have
1) Senate nominates the president (one vote per state)
2) Congress votes for the president
3) Senate provides the people to be secretaries
4) President selects from that list and chooses which person gets head of State, head of Treasury, etc
This would give more power to the states and less to the federal level, which itself is something many in the US want. Doesn't make it undemocratic.
Appointed, so, not elected. Thanks for answering.
The democratic process needs a revamp but it shouldn’t be driven by the general populations attention span.
Regarding your specific point about using recent context to inform political opinions, if you spend any amount of time listening to the opinions of people online you'll find that not only do they fail to accurately recall past events, but they don't bother to research what actually happened, and when they do they fail at anything but the most superficial political analysis.
Where's your "factual basis" for such assertions?
> Regarding your specific point about using recent context to inform political opinions, if you spend any amount of time listening to the opinions of people online you'll find that not only do they fail to accurately recall past events, but they don't bother to research what actually happened, and when they do they fail at anything but the most superficial political analysis.
1) People regularly online are a rather specific group
2) People sharing their opinions online are a very specific group
3) Basing your views on society at large on opinions of those groups is a risky strategy, especially given how easy it has become to spread propaganda online
Anyway as for my optimism, it's based on actually interacting with people directly. Having discussions with them. Talking to them about what they believe, and why. They're usually a lot more complex and intelligent than those various descriptors used above.
(a) limited in number due to the nature of your interaction with them
(b) will express themselves differently, due to the nature of interaction. (Just like people expressing themselves online act differently.)
(c) are probably also a very specific group or bubble, which is simply the people you get to interact with. Which _might_ be more varied than the other person online, but might also be less varied. Really depends on how you pick the people you interact with.
(d) Anecdote of one person N=1 is not really a good factual basis for other people.
So if you want to show how your view is more based on evidence, then you will have to do better than anecdote and no links to statistics or cases we can peruse.
It's harder to ask, "Why are people still voting for this despite it seemingly being against their interests"
But once you do start asking that question, you'll find "they're just stupid" isn't really the only answer. At least 1 other answer would be they're responding to politics of other parties failing them too.
Is it the most rational decision for those people? No, probably not, but ignoring their motivations and chalking it up to stupidity or whatnot is really not going to solve anything - and, in fact, is only going to push those people further into what they believe. You should consider whether that's what you want.
As to why they still vote like they do:
(1) Because every 4 years the mainstream party promise to solve some problems, netting votes of the young, gullible, or inexperienced voters.
(2) Promise pension increase, netting votes of the ever increasing amount of old people, most who don't care about who or what comes after them.
(3) People are too busy, burned out, or lazy (we still have it too good here, it seems), and cannot be arsed to inform themselves before elections. We also have tons of people, who are truly learning-resistant, right out of school or "university".
(4) People think, that SPD, CDU, Greens, etc. are the only way to stop AfD.
I think we are not very high on the democratic-ability scale. Yes, we vote every 4 years, but it is more like collectively we don't really care enough to inform ourselves properly and just check a few boxes, because we want to tell ourselves, that at least we did vote and that we are fine democratic citizen.
And look, I myself am not frequently reading all parties' positions. And I myself inform myself more shortly before an election, rather than all the time. But I do have a feeling for corruption and I don't always forget scandals that happen, when the next engagement-optimized news headline comes in. I still remember Rezo's "Zerstoerung der CDU" video. I remember reading those abgeordnetenwatch newsletters about the lobby register. Or the foodwatch newsletters about Kloeckner and the Lebensmittelampel. That's why I will not vote for mainstream-promise-a-lot-but-no-delivery parties and retired people clubs. And what more I do, is to use the Wahlomat, and actually check which party's position aligns most with my own.
I don't do too much either, but most people do way less to inform themselves. They just check a box out of habit. Why they vote for CDU/SPD? Because that's what they always did. It's real friggin dumb.
The attention span of the general public _shouldn't_ matter. That's why we elect politicians.
If legislative processes are so drawn out and complex that no more than a handful of ordinary citizens could keep track of them, the advantage that paid lobbyists have over the public is enormous
It would work if we could elect politicians who were both competent and trustworthy.
Of course that would require successfully electing people who are competent about a broad range of issues, able to see through well funded and clever lobbying, unblinded by ideology, and able to resist pressure.
No matter who's in charge, no matter the election results, no matter the protests - the same style of legislation is pushed.
and once something's in it is almost impossible to remove.