Suppose you could go into the settings of the U.S. electorate (or whichever other nation’s voting base that you want to change, assuming it lies on a left-right spectrum), kind of like a computer’s program.
Right now, America’s electorate could be described as slightly left-leaning overall - maybe something like 55% liberal and 45% conservative. If you could have it any way you wanted, what would the mix look like?
Would you want it to be 0% conservatives and 100% liberals? 10% conservative and 90% liberal? 30-70? Etc.
Ditto the other way as well - I know conservatives are a minority on the Dope, but if it were up to you, would you want a 100% conservative and 0% liberal voting electorate in the USA? 70-30?
How about: Ideally, it would have a sufficiently large liberal majority that the distortions introduced by the electoral system don’t result in conservatives taking control of the executive and the legislature despite a majority of voters having voted against them.
I’d prefer an equalizer instead. Conservatism isn’t all one thing, and for that matter, there’s a huge spread of daylight between what is considered “Conservative” and what MAGA stands for.
For example, I think a somewhat more “Conservative” budgeting arrangement is a good thing! Just that I’d (absent the war in the Ukraine) demand deeper cuts in military spending for example, while working hard on social and infrastructure demands. Or raising taxes on the wealthy so we’re not running a deficit. Etc.
So let’s turn down the Christian Nationalism to say… 5%. Let’s turn down Gun Nuttery (I’m not for removing the 2nd amendment personally, but you can do a LOT with well regulated) down to a similar 5%. Turn up empathy for others to say… 70% - humans do seem to need a degree of enlightened self interest before they destroy themselves after all. And on and on and on.
If I had to only go for a % Democratic and % MAGA or Republican, with no fine tuning… I’d say 70/30. Heck our 55/45 would work if it weren’t for our electoral college, gerrymandering and the like. At some level, I even kind of -like- the thought of some states being able to concentrate the national deplorable percentage, because it can show how badly they fail and are actually dependent upon the rest, but that wasn’t part of the OP.
So, again, overall 70/30. I think it’s good to have some roadblocks in the way of excess enthusiasm, and sometimes a conservative POV makes us more deliberate… but there’s a huge difference between deliberate and obstructionist, which is all we’ve gotten out of the Republicans for the last decade or two.
I believe we are. And despite the Overton window being dragged right, and the various complaints that the board eschews conservative thought, that many of us here are of similar minds. Yes, we all have our personal prized goals that we want moved ahead, but we’re as a whole more centrist than extremist, at least, in MOST fields - and accepting there are outliers on the extremes (and Non-American POV’s that consider even our leftists deeply conservative for that matter!)
It’s just that largely the former Conservatives have jumped off into counterfactual, persecution complexes - somehow treating others equally doesn’t mean you’re devalued, unless you never actually valued equality at all.
Anyway, a loyal opposition that is rational and can address facts is useful - one that is neither is NOT, especially when it wields disproportionate power due to our historical system.
Thr first important thing is: reduce the number of reactionaries so they remain out of power. If there was danger of the far left taking power, I would say the same about them, but there is no such danger.
The other important thing is that the percentages change over time so as to cause rotation in office, with a more left party sometimes in power, and a more right one sometimes in power. Otherwise you will have sustained one party rule, which is highly dangerous whomever is in charge.
In the ideal electorate “conservatism” - which in American political language is just a euphemism for “radical reactionary” - wouldn’t even exist much less be a significant force. It is a purely malignant and destructive force.
I’d make it about half-and-half liberal (akaactual conservatives) and half various types of leftist.
The ideal electorate is one where the average (not the majority) constituent’s interests match that of their representative. Which usually means the electorate needs multiple representatives.
I’d be fascinated to hear the procedures and methodology the posters who have proposed their ideal ideological mix would deploy on their electors to ensure they stay true to type.
“Sorry Sir, we appreciate that aging has changed your perspective on healthcare, but we have now too many of that thinking in these here parts. So you are going to need to sell up and shift states, or make a statutory declaration that you will never vote again. I know this sounds harsh but across the state line why they just shoot people who have discordant views.”
I care less about whether they’re liberal or conservative than about whether they’re reality-based. That’s a bar a sizable portion of the country is currently failing to clear.
It could be described that way, if you categorize the middle as “left” and the far-far-right as “right”.
These two previous responses anticipate my own. I am extremely left-progressive-whatever by American standards, but I have absolutely no interest in trying to pre-emptively prescribe a consensus of political ideology that favors my preferred outcomes. If I say I want 75% of the population to believe as I do, I’m implicitly creating a permanent minority of unhappy people. If I prevent that unhappiness by imposing 100% alignment with my ideology, then I destroy the diversity of thought that keeps my camp honest.
Therefore, if I have absolute control over these hypothetical “sliders,” then I crank up empathy and critical thinking, and let everything else fall as it may. I will trust that the combination of minimizing blind selfishness and purely reactionary short-sightedness will sufficiently serve to quash the anger and tribalism that are so threatening to civilized government, without the need to require allegiance to some superficial political checklist.
Yes, this. When you say “Conservative”, you have to define what that means. If the US could form a party equivalent to the old Canadian Progressive Conservative party, that would be a very different entity from the MAGA Monstrosity that the GOP is today.
MAGA should be at 0%. No one should support that racist, regressive, traitorous pile of garbage. They’re actively trying to destroy the things that actually made the US worth supporting.
Some more reasonable “conservative” party? They should have a large enough percentage that, if they actually have some good ideas, they’d actually have a shot at forming the government, without having to cheat.
It all depends on definitions. I don’t really think Trump and his supporters can be reasonably defined as “conservative” unless conservative means to support Trump. It’s become a team name, not a useful descriptor. Tons of people with genuinely conservative views oppose Trump.
I need an Operational Definition of “conservative”. If you mean Trump/maga, the percentage would be zero. If you mean intelligent/loyal like, for example, Reagan or William F. Buckley, Jr, then 40% to keep some kind of balance. I’d, like 40%, 40%, and 20% swing voters. It would keep both parties on their toes and keep them from getting too crazy.
This, but throwing in “well educated”. It’s a hallmark of “conservatives” aka radical reactionaries that they both lack empathy and are factually wrong about essentially everything they believe. Not simply morally wrong, but with beliefs that contradict both reality and are internally inconsistent. Increase people’s minimum empathy, education, empathy and rationality enough and it wouldn’t be possible for people to be that kind of reactionary anymore. Not because smart people are innately good, but because conservative beliefs are just that detached from both reality and logic. And as they say, “the cruelty is the point”; and the cure for cruelty is empathy.
It wouldn’t make people perfect or agree with each other on everything, but it would put a floor on how malignant they can get and how far they can detach themselves from rationality or reality. There’s a big difference between disagreeing with other people and disagreeing with objective reality, much less outright logical contradictions.
In my opinion the middle moves to tend to maintain a 50-50 split. It’s a point of natural stability of a unified nation. However recently I feel as if we are testing the limits of this natural stability and have split with one side wanting to return to that point of natural stability and the other wanting a high level of reform which would basically end the old system.
So under normal conditions a 50-50 split would tend to be maintained (Note this 50-50 means power wielded, not necessarily popular support i.e. the electoral collage), as the center would hopefully move to the left.
Under the current situation with MAGA, as I don’t care to have a king, or expand presidential powers anywhere near the level that Trump seemed to wield illegally. Ideally the number would be approaching zero.
I’d be OK with 25% conservatives and 25% progressives, leaving 48% centrists, given that the center is gradually shifting left over time. The other 2% could be Greens, libertarians, MAGAites and other assorted nutcases, who could provide entertainment value and occasional nuggets worthy of at least brief consideration.
It could be described as such, but it hasn’t been working out that way in practice.
But in terms of what the ideal electorate would look like, I’d think that maybe a continuum of voters evenly distributed from one pole to the other would look ideal. Barring that, 1/3 conservative, 1/3 centrist, 1/3 liberal, and for any of them, ALL would be working in good faith for the good of the country/state and putting it first above party.
My thinking is that the best governance is going to come out of the give and take of politics from both sides of the spectrum, assuming that both sides are in good faith and working toward the same goals.
(that’s where it fails today; there’s a lot of bad faith and putting party/ideology ahead of the country/states)
