~~Hunter S. Thompson
Was he right?
In light of recent low performance of both parties, has voting become a meaningless choice?
“If they wanted us to vote, they would have given us candidates.”
Which may just be the Master Plan all along.
Hunter S. was a demigod of sorts… but he’s wrong.
The phrase “If voting could change the system, it’d be illegal” is defeatist nonsense. Neve more untrue than it is right now, when communications are rapidly making us all closer together.
Kucinich was once asked if he was electable. He responded “I am if you vote for me.”
Allowing a two party system to continue is our choice, not a divine imperative. If we vote for third parties, they become viable. It’s as simple as that.
What he misses is that people vote less because so many big issues have been decided. We no longer have a vast urban/rural divide, a huge northern/southern divide, a huge states/federal divide, a huge business/labor divide, a huge black/white divide. In fact, the history of America is one of slowly decreasing tensions. Almost all our debates today are about matters of degree, and not over a terribly huge range. Should federal taxes be decreased somewhat or increased somewhat? Should we intervene often abroad of little? Should homosexuals be allowed to marry or just cohabitate?
We build these up into huge displays of political windbaggery, but compared to the furor past matters were, I’m not sure it’s that important. It’s a big deal but most of this will not grandly affect the future of the Republic. And I think most people know this, and a lot of them care less. We find fewer answers because we have fewer questions. Our old answers, even if not perfect, have few ways to improve. There’s no frontier, no great opportunity to change the defining nature of American life, and no real need to.
I grant that there are some people out there who believe Al Gore and George Bush are the Ford and Chevy of candidates in 2000. I think there’s a lot of people who now see a hell of a big difference between Ford and Chevy.
It’s easy to be very cynical about politicians who, by their nature need to appeal to many people. One can read the platforms of the Republicans and Democrats and see a bunch of platitudes that make them sound alike – “we need a strong national defense, eliminate deficits and promote economic growth.” When when we get down to brass tacks, one party wants to continually cut taxes, the other wants more social spending, and one party wants to declare Iraq a great success, while the other sees it as a gigantic mess.
But in the end, debating that notion is like trying to explain to a grouchy old man why Pink Floyd is different from Metallica: to him, it’s all noise no matter what anybody says.
Voting only matters at the local level where no one pays attention. It seems like our interest in our representatives is inversely proportionally to our ability to influence them. We know who our President is, we know who our Senators are, sometimes we know who our Congressman is, and the lower the office the less likely we are to know who that person is. We get so worked up about foreign policy and don’t pay attention to the redistricting of our neighborhood.
As is the notion of trying to explain subtle differences in policy to most of the young…whos political acumen appears to be limited to shouting “Save the planet” and “No blood for oil”. Anything deeper than that is viewed as a tiresome strain on brain cells better used for texting.
Actualy, Evil One, I’d say that youth is not actually all that interested in sloganeering.
My argument would be that they saw how the once-rebellious youth of the 60’s devolved (as was pretty much inevitable) on the one hand into mindless slogans on the one hand, exemplified by the idiots who protest and often riot for no sane reason every time the WTO meets, apparently because they’re rich white babies incapable of comprehending what the WTO is or does. Noam Chomsky is a fun example.
And on the other hand, you have men like Ted “you don’t understand - that’s where I sail!” Kennedy, who are the epitomy of establishment canidates. They’re machine politicians who own the process - and ideology long ago left the bench for power. You also find people like Trent Lott here; I’m hardly under any delusions it’s a leftist problem.
In contrast to both, there’s a new-er crop of not-exactly conservative but not really libertarian canidates and not quite liberal in both centrist Democrat and centrist Republican camps. They tend to be younger (but are not always), use both new media and old-media, are less interested in pork and causing big media troubles for the sake of politics. I think they just find their elders in politics vaguely disgusting, sort of like how you icky find that one uncle with the greazy hair who weights 600 pounds and eats a gallon of Haagen-Daas every night and dominates every conversation.
Well, for starters I’d question what you mean by “recent.” I wouldn’t argue that there are no differences between the two parties, but even if there are options, my problem these days is that I don’t see them as the right options.
Two parties are all you need to have a working democracy. As long as you have two choices, then both parties are forced to compete for your vote. Even if they’re both just trying to be the lesser of two evils, as long as they both keep trying to outdo the other they’ve got to raise themselves to some level of relative competance.
As for the issues, a lot of people with a cause don’t really like democracy. They don’t want a government that listens to the majority; they want a government that listens to them. If the majority of people were really in favor of balanced budgets and environmental regulation and cutting government spending and legalizing marijuana, then politicians would do these things. But the majority of us say we want something in theory and then we vote for the people who give us what we really want in practice.
As long as voters are brainwashed by both parties to think that a candidate who expresses his own honest views is either a radical or a nutcase and therefore unelectable Thompson will have been corect. If we could somehow eliminate private financing of elections, removing some of the capacity to attack instead of propose, without eliminating all viable and credible candidates it might be possible to make voting a worthwhile choice. The internet may ultimately allow this to come to pass.
Go Kucinich!
I think many people assume money talks in politics, but I think this isn’t the case. I recall one study (explained in Freakonomics?) which noted that even vast sums of money only apparently altered election results by fractional amounts - and that difference didn’t take into account the fact that popular canidates were more likely to get donations in the first place. I am concerned by bundling allegations from Hillary Clinton’s campaign, but I suspect that fundraising is more important for “remember this canidate!” than “vote for me!”
Let people give to those they like. The alternative is to let the government decide who can run and who gets money, and ironically asserts that money IS the deciding factor, so that no one can get more of it.
Attack ads have a long history in every democracy. Modern times are, if anything, far more civil about such things. John Adams was seriously attacked as a traitor trying to sell his country out to the British and establish a monarchy. Abraham Lincoln and his policies were attacked with ads using such blatant racism that the ads themselves turned off voters, and this was the 1860’s, when blacks were often still prohibited from serving in the Army!
What’s the context of the HST quotation in the OP? Here’s the end of a very long essay by The Good Doctor–published in Rolling Stone–October, 2004.
Of course, we didn’t wash those crooked warmongers out of the White House. Hunter S Thompson killed himself the following February.
Forget the parties, it the drawing of voting districts that has the most dramatic effect on voting results. And the result is that the incumbant wins.
The supporters of Dennis Kucinich and Tom Tancredo don’t like to admit this but more people want Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney. So unless you change the rules of democracy you’re never going to see people like Kucinich or Tancredo elected to the Presidency.
The supporters of any candidate don’t like to admit that their candidate is not leading in the polls, why single out Kucinich and Tancredo? And changing the rules of the democracy is exactly what I am suggesting. Eliminate lobbyists and private funding of elections. Give every viable candidate the same amount of money anf then let him/her decide if s/he wants to spend it attacking opponents or proposing new ideas or the implementation of old ideas in a better way. It would work like fantasy football. If you burn through all of your money before the New Hampshire primary is over you probably aren’t going to win. OTOH you are not spending all of your time raising money from people and corporations that will ultimately want favors down the line just so you can outspend your opponent. Incumbents already have an extraordinary advantage in every race, letting them raise an infinite amount of money to spend on exploiting that advantage is not good for democracy. (Not incidentally it would also allow businesses and corporations to make far better use of stockholder’s money.) (IMHO.)
Lastly, let’s start decreasing the amount of television and radio stations and newspapers that one organization can own instead of increasing it. The best story I have read on Kucinich during the entire race thus far is from the Manchester Union-Leader, maybe the most conservative newspaper in the country. Alright, the guy is not leading in the polls but given his anti-war position, which was virtually unique at the start but which is now the majority view he deserves more attention than he has gotten. Maybe I would not care for his views if I knew more about them but limiting the race to Obama and Clinton as the MSM seems to be doing ensures business as usual.
I mentioned Kucinich because you had. I added Tancredo to give an example from the right to balance an example from the left.
No, you’re talking changing the procedures which wouldn’t help you anyway. The rule of democracy is the person who gets the most votes wins. And that’s the thing you’d need to change to get Kucinich elected.
Because the reason people like Hillary Clinton and George Bush get elected is because more people vote for them. So it doesn’t matter how you change the procedures, Dennis Kucinich is never going to get the most votes unless you rig the system. There’s no little minor glitch that can be fixed and suddenly tens of millions of voters will realize that Kucinich is the candidate they actually wanted to vote for all along.
Why? To be cruelly blunt, Kucinich hasn’t got a chance of being nominated or elected. So why are his views important or newsworthy? I have political views but that doesn’t mean the press has to report them or I have to be invited to the debates.
People want what they’re told to want.
It’s actually not.
The only way a third party can become viable in a first-past-the-post system without strong regional politics is if it manages to split the two prevailing coalitions. The last time this well and truly occurred was just before the Civil War. Bloodshed ensued.
The Republican and Democrat parties have realigned significantly since then to prevent this split from happening again. William Jennings Bryan couldn’t split the coalition with his brand of populism: Kucinich (or others) definitely can’t with theirs. American populism has been and will always fail dramatically.
Unfortunately, I do not think any of the front-running Democratic candidates will be able to split the right-wing coalition either, although I think the time was never riper for it.
People typically express preferences over outcomes when they vote, not ideology. They prefer a second best alternative to a worst alternative if they think the chance of their favorite alternative winning is nonexistent. The utility of voting varies directly with the likelihood that the invidual’s vote makes a difference. Most people are not particularly gratified by voting for lost causes or being complicit in the election of their least favorite alternatives.
So fine, electing third parties are as simple as voting for them. But if those third parties don’t truly represent the preferences of the median voter, why should anyone vote for them at all?
OK, but don’t forget the Electoral College.