this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2024
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United States | News & Politics
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RCV is starting to get some traction in places. What we have to do is continue supporting that and not let the detractors shit on it.
Even if it passes, i wouldn't be very hopeful. Look at Europe, all those countries have better and more democratic election system than USA, but there are fascists on the rise in each of them and shit like in France and Poland happen more and more. Also what's the use of having more parties if they still all represent the same influence groups (for example in Poland we currently have 17 parties and 42 independents on 460 seats in sejm, but you won't find anyone outside of neoliberal status quo).
FPTP Britain says Good Morning 👋
Yeah i'm pretty torn on how democratic is UK, not only they do have FPTP but it's also A FUCKING MONARCHY.
Way out is realisation that they spent last centuries or at least decades on trying to stop being Europe in every sense. If they could they would probably do it even geographically, rowing their island to physically join USA.
Right!
You can't just focus on the bad and ignore everything that's good about these countries. Give us universal healthcare; give us socialized higher education; give us universal basic income; do away with for profit prisons and replace them with a system focused on rehabilitation.
So yeah, right wing idealism is on the rise but that's a global trend. These countries, in general, are light years ahead of the US.
You can't just pray that into existence. In Europe, social safety nets are eroding, because they originated as concessions to prevent revolution.
?????????? Universal healthcare in all European countries is in the process of being dismantled, UBI is existing only in your fantasies, for profit prisons are talked here and there and if you think current ones are rehabilitating anyone you need to look closer.
Also where did i even say they are exactly the same or worse as USA (maybe in the same place where you seen implemented UBI?), and why you derail topic from specifically electoral system into general "badness"?
It's also been outlawed in certain states. Many of those same states have outlawed voter led initiatives, meaning they have no recourse to change to rcv without changing the majority of their states legislators with people that support it and will pass it. You're talking over a lifetime of change necessary to undo that damage. That still is hoping that dems will actually vote against their own best interests once in majority control....
Still more likely than a socialist being elected though :(
The socialist threat forces Democrats to support RCV.
Like all meaningful change, you have to convince enough people to get involved and to do so more often and consistently than every four years at the Presidential general election. It's this belief that the change is going to come from the parties that is the core problem. Everyone complains about having to vote for the lesser of two evils, but then they do it and go back to sleep for another four years. At best, they just gripe about the government never acknowledging that they are responsible.
Ah, one big prayer will get us RCV now? That's a new one. If the parties don't want it, you're not getting it.
Then we vote them out
It's also not like local or even state level RCV would realistically be sufficient for these whole sets of overarching problems that the US struggles with. You're not locally voting for RCV and then gaining the ability to vote for a party that will actually give you healthcare, will connect your city with others via rail to help rework infrastructure, will solve your housing problems and your homelessness, and they probably won't be solving unemployment. You can maybe vaguely hope that the existence of such a party would put pressure on the federal government to ask "why can't you do this", but that would only happen at the state level with one of the states that actually matter, like california or new york or texas, and good luck getting any of those places to go in for RCV considering how strangleheld they are.
The most you could hope RCV to improve is maybe to make it so you can get someone that's willing to make your ISP give you free shit, or establish a free ISP, and also maybe to give your town a bunch of roundabouts, and maybe approve some missing middle housing which will probably skyrocket housing prices in the surrounding areas since it won't really be doing anything to solve the problem at a national level. Which isn't nothing, right, but that's kinda boof.
No one is saying rcv is a silver bullet. It's malignant that you would suggest it even is. It's the first step in a long list of reforms that need to happen, tool.