# Is it just the US, or is politics hopeless everywhere?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-the-us-or-is-politics-hopeless-everywhere/558604>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [October 28, 2010, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-the-us-or-is-politics-hopeless-everywhere/558604 "2010-10-28T01:17:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\
**Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-the-us-or-is-politics-hopeless-everywhere/558604/21 "2010-10-28T19:07:07Z")

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I don’t think politics is any more hopeless in the US than it was in 1800 (see: Jefferson’s underhanded campaigning). IMO the “hopeless” feeling that people get is this: almost every major policy, whether it be abortion, guns, environment, taxes, etc., will be opposed by roughly 40% of the population or more. That means that a lot of people are down on the direction of the government no matter what it’s doing. It’s the price we pay for plurality.

Everybody’s happy when the government is doing what _they_ think is important and they (generally) don’t care what form it takes. When the government is doing something they don’t like, then it needs to be “fixed”.

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**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\
**Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-the-us-or-is-politics-hopeless-everywhere/558604/22 "2010-10-28T19:24:52Z")

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Except that “40% of the population opposes everything!” problem only applies to problems where the citizenry is actually divided. There’s a whole host of issues where there is overwhelming consensus. The reason you never hear anything about these issues is _because_ there’s consensus. The issues with consensus are settled issues, nobody argues about them.

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**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\
**Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-the-us-or-is-politics-hopeless-everywhere/558604/23 "2010-10-28T23:02:52Z")

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I think you’ll have a hard time coming up with much of a list of topics that have a huge consensus. Even on topics that everybody thinks they agree on get muddy in the implementations. Take censorship, for example; you’d probably get a large majority who are against it. But conservatives don’t want smut on TV or in school libraries, and liberals don’t want commentators talking about how they’re afraid if Muslims.

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**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\
**Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-just-the-us-or-is-politics-hopeless-everywhere/558604/24 "2010-10-28T23:11:53Z")

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> [@Deeg](#):
>
> I think you’ll have a hard time coming up with much of a list of topics that have a huge consensus. Even on topics that everybody thinks they agree on get muddy in the implementations. Take censorship, for example; you’d probably get a large majority who are against it. But conservatives don’t want smut on TV or in school libraries, and liberals don’t want commentators talking about how they’re afraid if Muslims.

The fact that only one of those examples is actual censorship illustrates how complex the problem is.

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