That’s not what the quote I responded to said.
That is also not what the quote I responded to said.
And since you finally got an answer that satisfied you, and I accidentally posted this before finishing, that’s as much as I’m going to bother with.
Why do you think you have to be the sole deciding factor in an election? Does your vote only matter if there’s a dead tie, and yours is the last vote counted? That’d be an egotistical way of viewing elections. But that’s not the point of voting. The point of voting is to have a say. Yes, you and a few squillion other people. You’re part of something big and important, and your vote counts as much as Trump’s or Bill Gates’.
I think you main problem is that through depression or life circumstances or an incomplete understanding of politics, you’ve adopted a defeatist viewpoint. Your reasoning is akin to, “Why should I be alive since I don’t really matter and am going to die anyway?” I sure hope you don’t feel that way.
Yes, the wealthy have too much influence, but they do NOT control everything. Last year I met a woman at my (cheap) salon who was a new state legislator. She couldn’t afford to go to a fancy salon or live in the capital, yet she still got elected, one of many women who ran for office because they were determined to make a difference, who started local and used that start to move up, politically. You know what the difference is between them and you? They didn’t toss up their hands and say, “Nothing I can do about anything!”
And those rich people in Congress? They still only get elected if people vote for them. And how do you know whether to vote for them or not unless you stay informed? We’re their bosses, not vice-versa. I email my reps regularly. They won’t get my vote if they don’t vote the way I want them to.
As a citizen, you have responsibilities, including the obligation to learn more about the political system, to stay informed, and to stand up for what’s right. Don’t shrug them off.
How do you slice an onion? Is it wrong if chef 1 does it one way and chef 2 does it another?
If you’ve got two competent chefs, that they might do things in a slightly different way isn’t really all that important.
And if the question isn’t how to slice an onion, it’s an election for who should be one of several dozen people to sit on a committee to decide onion-slicing-norms for kitchens and not an election for who is God-Emperor of all kitchens, everwhere, empowered to murder all who disobey - well then, I’d say that the rule still stands. They should have the competencies for the office - they should be a professional chef or able to communicate and learn from them, effectively - but more importantly they should be inquisitive and reasonable. They should be curious about the different styles of slicing and create rules that reasonably allow for those, but which restrict the methods that are dangerous and provably-harmful.
To be sure. Ergo, the need for you to stay above politics and come into the matter with honest dispassion and inquisitiveness. Sure, you’re going to fail on some of the choices but - again - we’re electing members of panels who will have limited powers, checked and balanced by the powers of other panels, groups, and individuals and not electing God Emperors.
Do your honest best, one day every two years, and then move on and live your life without letting others rope you into factionalism and nonsense.
Checking what you know about the subjects and trying to form an opinion is liable to cause more problems than cure it. If you’re a professional macroeconomist who is qualified to give guidance to legislators and the President, then it may be reasonable to grade someone on that basis but, even then, you’re really just grading them on whether they agree with your view - which could come down to partisan affiliation - and not on whether they’re a person who will perform due diligence.
Or even, say, that you are a macroeconomist and a politician has gone against your economic advice and now you’re questioning whether to vote for them? Say, for example, that your economic view is that free trade is always the most economically sound option. But the politician talked to the military, as well, and determined that some countries are national security threats and will use any revenue to develop WMD and finance terrorism. The politician decided to ignore your economic advice, on the basis of other information.
Evaluating whether a person will switch their view on topics comes from investigating their history and how they behaved in their previous life, not from looking over a list of their policy positions - and certainly not by comparing their policy positions to your own, nor to the policy positions that you gained through quick, online cramming off CNN/Fox.
Again, you’re electing discrete members of panels, under checks and balances, not God Emperors.
Elect smart, reasonable, inquisitive folk and trust the system. Some will do differently than you expect - and that’s okay. Either the system will correct for it or there’s a good reason that they did differently than you and your internet research made you expect. As a non-expert, you shouldn’t expect them to do what you think they should do.
Trying to game the system creates a large enough body of corrupt liars who will say what you want them to say, in the pursuit of power, that you end up eventually overpowering the checks and balances and the meaninglessness of each elected representative’s individual votes with a coordinated and politically motivated group of people charged to execute a system that has no outside defender.
No rule, no Constitutional clause, and no law has any defense if all of the people at the top are not trustworthy. Systems only protect you if the people operating those systems can safely be entrusted with it. Putting in people who agree with you, because they say that they agree with you, is not the process that you use to find reliable operators of the system.
If you’re not at the table, you are most certainly on the menu.
Like a lot of people (including myself, at times) you abuse the word literally. It’s not literally true that you cannot do anything as individual to affect the wider political trajectory of this country. What IS literally true is that as non-wealthy, non-well-connected individual you can do very, very little to affect the wider political trajectory of your country. As you correctly state larger changes come from the efforts of groups. However since groups are made up of individuals when you refuse to do your part to even a minimal degree (vote, at the very least), you are metaphorically pissing on the group 
.
If you’re fine with that, you’re fine with that and no more need be said. But don’t delude yourself that a refusal to participate as a cog in the machine might not result in the machine breaking down in the end.
Yeah, this.
I’ve personally changed my own mind on who I vote for in the last ten years, because the (Canadian) party I used to support have gone almost as insane as the GOP. So I know it can happen. It just has to happen enough.
But it won’t happen at all if the people who might care about it just give up.
There’s also the issue of how much time and energy it would actually take you to be engaged with some minimal amount of constructive political action, versus the amount of time and energy you spend rationalizing and justifying why you refuse to be engaged with even a minimal amount of constructive political action.
I sympathize with the OP saying that they’re “tired” with respect to the current difficult political situation. But you know what’s the most tiring part of a difficult situation? The effort of avoiding it rather than confronting it.
I find a lot of agreement with the OP - and this from a guy whose undergrad and much of grad studies was in political science. The kind of geeks whose idea of fun was to have election night parties? Now, well, I vote, and perform the rest of what I consider to be my civic duties - but over the past 20 years I have been intentionally progressively decreasing the attention I have spent on specific political issues/races.
At my point in life (presently 61), I am pretty comfortable with my general approach towards the vast majority of social issues. Such a general predisposition is generally sufficient for nearly all situations. IME my spending a great amount of time becoming expert on any particular issue has minimal if any effect other than increasing my stress and frustration. Speaking with likeminded folk is pretty much ineffectual preaching to the choir, and speaking with differently minded folk is most likely to be ineffective - and runs the risk of incurring rancor/ending friendships.
My focus is on my home and those closest to me. Every increment by which I expand my focus beyond these 4 walls decreases the chances of my having an effect - and increases the chances of me experiencing frustration and distress.
So my choice is to simply try to live what I believe to be the best sort of life I can. Set a good example as it were - in case anyone were noticing. And being comfortable within my own self - as the Bhuddists say - that I am not being a part of the problem.
And no reason to limit it to politics. How about pollution, energy consumption, etc. ad infinitum? My extreme efforts are but a meaningless drop in the bucket compared to larger actors. But still, I find comfort in trying to lead what I consider to be a good life.
At the risk of hijacking the discussion, this is EXACTLY the attitude that has given us the anti-vax movement (not the COVID anti-vax, the “why risk Autism for my little snookums” anti-vax). “My one child not vaccinated won’t cause an epidemic.” = “My one vote doesn’t matter.” You’re probably right - your one child/vote won’t affect things, but how many other people are making the same decision, and now we have regular measles outbreaks in the United States.
I think very few politicians actually want to “exercise control” over anything. Most just want to see their face on TV and have people talk about them and otherwise enjoy the perks that come with holding a prestigious public position. The only “control” politicians really want is to influence their constituents to keep voting for them. Other than that, I think most politicians couldn’t give a crap about what people do.
That’s why so much of politics seems to be about abstract ideological bullshit that people feel insanely intense about, yet seems to matter so little in the grand scheme of day to day life.
That’s a very important thing to remember. Politicians don’t just appear in their congressional offices, they came from somewhere.
When John Boehner first joined his local HOA, he didn’t have his eyes set on the House Speaker position, but that’s the path that it eventually took him to. You never know what local politician that you support getting into that lowly position will one day be an influential member of the national body politic.
That said, I don’t think that most people need to care about politics as much as some of us here on a board with a forum dedicated to discussing politics do. At that point, it’s more recreational than actually constructive, and that’s fine too. But such discussions do hone our abilities to persuade when engaged in real life, and could make a difference. If I convince a few people to vote for my candidate, then that makes more of a difference than just showing up and putting a check next to their name.
The focus always tends to be on the presidency, with a little bit left over for national congressional seats. IMHO, the focus needs to be bottom up. Worry about your mayor, your city council, your school board, your trustees, even your HOA members. That’s where your voice is heard, that’s what impacts your day to day life, and that’s where the candidates for higher offices ultimately come from.
Now, obviously on an internationally accessible board like this one, local politics generates less discussion, as I don’t really know or care much about your dog catcher, and you probably don’t know or care much about mine. But that doesn’t mean that discussions on strategies for local politics can’t still be a benefit to all participants.
The other reason to care about politics is to care enough to at least do due diligence that you are basing your voting decisions on actual facts. So much of the click-bait headlines are misleading, and some sources intentionally so. A low information voter is easily led into voting against their own best interests simply because they don’t know any better. Soundbites and slogans can be powerful motivators if someone is not well grounded in the nuance behind those bits.
Many people are not reachable, and so there is little point to doing so. But many are reachable, and so you should.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time going door to door for candidates for local elections. I convinced people to vote for my candidate that weren’t planning on voting, and I’ve convinced people to vote for my candidate who were planning on voting for the incumbent becuase that’s who they knew, the name they recognized.
I have no illusions that if I show up at a house with Trump banners waving from the ramparts that I’m gonna get them to vote for Biden, and they probably won’t vote for my local candidate either, but that’s not who I am out beating the streets to find. I’m looking for the low information voter that hasn’t put much thought into it, who only really is exposed to a couple hours of news a week, if that.
And if I can convince them to come out and vote for my candidate for city council, then getting them to vote for my preference for state or national congress, governor or president becomes much more feasible.
Do you know how many people voted in the election for your local city councilor? Do you really think that a million changed votes in that election wouldn’t make a difference?
My candidate won the last election by 37 votes out of a few thousand cast. Every vote in that election mattered.
Every year, and often twice.
Local elections are often held in off years, and the primary process is every bit as important as the general election.
Right, when the levee breaks, whether you show up to fill sandbags probably won’t make a difference. But it certainly makes a difference if every individual makes that same choice.
You’ve been modded before for crossing the line into attacking posters outside of the Pit. You need to refrain from this activity going forward. This is a formal warning.
And on a message board, yet.
I’d like to congratulate @SmartBulbInc on exhibiting the rare phenomenon of changing one’s mind, in public, and saying so, in public, at the time.
Entirely true. What if the subject isn’t slicing an onion, but whether some people get any dinner? Is competence at plating the only issue that’s relevant, and what’s put on whose plate considered inconsequential?
It’s not entirely clear to me whether you’re arguing that stance and voting record on issues should be entirely irrelevant to how one decides to vote; that people should vote for candidates who intend to put in place policies they vehemently disagree with, and who have a good chance of succeeding; and furthermore that voters shouldn’t even bother to find out if this is true.
I’m entirely sure that, say, Joe Biden knows more than I do about military technology and about negotiating international relations; and has far more access to information about national military abilities. If Biden says we should, say, give Ukraine these weapons and not those weapons, or give them weapons but not troops, or meet with Putin, or not meet with Putin, or send negotiators loudly in public or quietly as secretly as legally possible – yeah, he is (I hope) competent to have an opinion on that, and I’m not.
But if Biden announced that we should instead help Russia because of course any country strong enough to do so was entitled to take over its neighbors – I’d sure as hell be entitled to have an opinion on that.
As I’m entitled to have one on, for some instances, whether gay people, or Muslims and animists and atheists, etc., should be treated as full citizens; or whether children should be taught actual science in school, including how to use scientific method; or whether we should pay serious attention to climate change, even if I don’t know whether a carbon tax is a useful way to do so.
That system is currently critically endangered.
And assuming that it doesn’t matter what any specific member of those panels does or tries to do, under the assumption that the others will keep them under control, is massively dangerous. Checks and balances are far better than not having checks and balances; but they’re in no way a guarantee, either that they’ll actually be brought into play, or that they’ll work.
Not if that’s the only criteria that’s used, no. It needs to be combined with attempting to find reliable people.
But there reliability can’t be the only factor. Back in 1991, David Duke, a known Nazi, was running for governor of Louisiana. His opponent had spent time in federal prison, having been convicted of corruption. People were going around with bumper stickers saying “Vote for the crook, it’s important.” They were right.
Arguably true – but they get used by the ones who do want control.
You don’t think it matters in the grand scheme of day to day life whether people can get married or even choose who to have/not have sex with, whether they have to be unwillingly pregnant, whether they get shot by police or in a war or by random shooters, whether they’ve got any place to live, whether the place they’re trying to live is on fire or underwater or alternating between the two, whether their parent or partner or child died unnecessarily of a plague?
I don’t think any of that is “abstract ideological bullshit”; and I don’t know in what world you’re following political news.
You can’t change the world
But you can change the facts
And when you change the facts
You change points of view
If you change points of view
You may change a vote
And when you change a vote
You may change the world
That’s not really what I meant, but I didn’t explain my position very well. Because obviously the results of these policies do impact people day to day.
Politicians seem to enact policies not based on any discernable benefit to people’s lives but based on pandering to an uninformed and often uneducated populaces ideological beliefs.
Case in point, why should anyone who isn’t gay care whether gay people get married? Doesn’t impact straight marriage.
Honestly, I almost wish more people didn’t care about politics so leaders could focus on stuff like fixing roads and making the trains work on time. But then some idiots glom onto some stupid idea that fixing potholes is socialist work of the devil and it becomes politicized.
I totally understand this perspective. I have to wonder, though, how much of that result we could capture if we truly worked the money out of politics (ie, serious campaign finance and lobbying reform).
Not that it has any likelihood of happening, but – as a thought experiment – what if politicians had to spend more time thoughtfully crafting and explaining their positions to their constituents and less time dialing for dollars ?
[and now … back to reality]
That requires their constituents actually understanding the issues.
Probably also a reason why local politics is both very boring and yet very contentious. People might not understand global warming or LGBT issues. They understand a water main on their street broke or some developer wants to put up a high rise next door.
I mean I had to explain to my idiotic, elderly mother in law and her sister how Stonewall Jackson and Andrew Jackson aren’t the same person. Doesn’t prevent them from having very outdated and offensive views on race.