this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
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GenZedong
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The funniest part here is that these kinds of articles sowing mistrust in the electoral process are doing far more damage than China could ever hope to achieve. Both liberal and conservative media continue to fuel the idea that elections are rigged and that the other side is cheating to win. US is now at a point where large portions of the public think that elections are unfair and if their party doesn't win that must be because the other side cheated or some foreign actor interfered in the elections.
Democracy is fundamentally a social contract that people choose to abide by. People have to believe that the system is fundamentally fair, and when their side loses then they have to accept that as a democratic choice. However, once the trust in the system is broken then there is no reason to respect election results. At that point people see the winner as an illegitimate tyrant that rules over them. The country ends up in a very volatile territory once the idea that the system is rigged starts to take hold.
Something that's darkly amusing about that, living here, is that the election results are almost a 50/50 split every time on the national level, and sometimes even when one candidate has more than the other guy, the other guy wins anyway. So, even if everyone had faith in the system and that the numbers are accurate (which politicians do cheat, so they really aren't), that still means that: a) roughly half the country is going to be against the winner and support any effort to undermine them, and b) even getting a majority doesn't really mean much if the Electoral College can just support the other candidate.
But yeah, I just gotta keep voting Blue for that harm reduction they can't deliver on, while living in a state that's consistently 2/3 Republican in every election, and which passes laws that make it difficult to vote for anything else.
I'm not bitter in the slightest.
The fact that the system is very obviously broken from the perspective of a working class person is definitely a big factor. I think most people realize that US isn't a genuine democracy, and this is one of the reasons there's prevalent voter apathy. Deep down, people understand that this is all just a circus to make them feel that they have a voice.
It's the same where I am. If you asked almost anyone I grew up with about voting, the only reason they wouldn't laugh at you is because they've been taught to be polite. There isn't anyone to vote for who would represent them, and they know it.
The stats are roughly the same throughout the west: ⅓ red, ⅓ blue, ⅓ nobody. This makes it look like roughly 50:50 support for one party over the other. That apathetic third is mostly people who are ignored by every other official metric.
What's really happening is ⅓ are bigoted reactionaries, ½ of the second ⅓ think the 'progressive' side will make things better (or not), and the rest is ⅓ who don't vote and ⅙ who only vote as harm reduction without much hope or faith of getting it.
Which means ½ the population is unconvinced by liberal electoralism. And the reactionary ⅓ are often people with no other way of expressing their alienation or frustration other than voting for the colour that promised to oppress the people they've been told are the problem.
As soon as any revolutionary party gains traction and wins over the apathetic third and the harm reduction sixth, it's game over. A not insignificant chunk of the reactionary third will jump ship as they see it as a route to actually fixing the things they're concerned about.
The tiny minority that has faith in liberal electoralism (😂—sorry, I can't help but laugh) will take their historic place of irrelevancy. They only think they're relevant now because they bootlick for and support a system in which the people they vote for already hold all the power.
Let's hope that you're right and these stories increase the ranks of the apathetic. It'll mean less work for the socialists, later.
Exactly this. Unfortunately, nearly every American I've met - even the left-leaning - is convinced that, in spite of its flaws, the US is still the safest/best place to be. They're so disillusioned with the American government and society, but still fervently believe every other system and place is worse (except the Nordic model). And they'll believe me if I tell them why whatever they do support isn't as good as they think, but they take serious convincing to even entertain the idea that China isn't as bad as they think. Us Americans have been hardwired to be distrustful of any good thing, to a fault, and it's really sad when you think about it. It's just bizarre we can be so anti-government as a country and still blindly do exactly what the government wants.
American exceptionalism is a hell of a drug.
Most effective, most efficient propaganda system in human history at work
I was bitter so I moved to a liberal city in an liberal state and now politics is interesting again. Lol
I've considered trying to move to Massachusetts someday. Maybe not Boston, because living in cities always seems like a hassle to my small town ass, but somewhere near it.
The Bush admin's promise "they'll greet us as liberators" turned out to be about american voters
Especially the Democrats, weirdly enough. When he was in power, they basically considered him a dumb redneck (who grew up in New England and went to Yale), and they were constantly bemoaning the fact that his stupidity and his rhetoric were alienating important American allies. Now Bush seems to have gone through a Marvel-esque redemption arc, and the east coast establishment simply loves him -- he's the grand old senior statesman of our time. Simply not being Donald Trump is apparently the bar we've established for wise statecraft.
Seeing the Starbucks-drinking libs go from "Bush is the worst president in the history of America," and "He's a right-wing extremist who needs to be assassinated" to "let's applaud this loveable old man who made some mistakes, but was basically a welfare state leftist all along" has been pretty surreal.
Yea, I was dumbstruck when a family member said that Bush is cleaning up his legacy by saying Trump is mean. They used to hate George Bush and the Iraq War, now they just wanna see “Drumpf” behind bars and couldn’t care less about other Republicans