Maybe they ought to? There’s quite a lot of potential votes out there. Also want to add that I always vote, and politicians never consider my opinion anyway.
Reliable demographics or voting blocks get preferential treatment over fair-weather voters. If you want to know why even the GOP won’t overtly kill social security or medicare (unless they include a way to keep current recipients on benefits), it’s because old people vote very reliably. Though with the modern day cultists this isn’t as true anymore since MAGAs will happily let the GOP take everything from them if they think it will hurt their perceived political enemies.
This is just useful expenditure of political capital. As a politician you want to stick your neck out for groups that are definitely showing up.
Seems like a good way to ensure you have low turnout elections, with only die-hard party-heads participating. That way, elections are won or lost on how jazzed up you can get your base, and you never have to attract anyone new. That sounds bad enough, but I think who the politicians actually listen to are their donors. Anytime there is a conflict between what the donors want, and what the constituency wants… voters can get fucked.
It’s not die hards as you put it. They are swing voters. Every one counts double because you get a vote and take one away from the other party. Elections are won from the centre.
I mean they do, insofar as it might be easier to convert someone not voting into someone voting for them than it is to convert someone voting for their opponent.
That’s why you vote uncommitted. There’s no way to ignore that message or use any of their usual excuses.
But the Democrats understand what they need to do in order to win election, they’re just so latched to the corporate tit that they won’t do it. Think they can get a few more gulps of that sweet lobby money before things get “serious”. The pigs are too busy feeding to give a fuck about our democracy collapsing.
Protest voting would be aimed at reforming a democratic party that’s unfit to confront fascism. It’s a legitimate strategy whether you agree with it or not.
Another Biden term will not do anything to mitigate Democratic complicity with fascism. Establishment dems are quite literally worse than useless.
Honestly as much as the lifetime appointment wasn’t the worst idea the drafters had in terms of something for long term stability when the positions in every other branch have varying degrees of volatility, not having some process baked into the Constitution to deal with bad actors in the judiciary was a gross oversight.
The Constitution seems to have been written with the idea that politicians will have good intentions. The checks and balances seem to be just to enforce compromise and prevent a single bad actor.
It doesn’t have any protections about and entire political party colluding to grab power. I don’t know how we fix this without amendments or a brand new constitution
If by “the military,” you mean the well-regulated militia (every able-bodied adult male) exercising their 2nd Amendment rights, then sure.
‘Cause otherwise you could only be talking about the Navy, as (from the founding fathers’ perspective) a permanent standing army was very explicitly and intentionally Not A Thing. (That’s why the Constitution limits for appropriating money to raise and support an army to a term of two years or less.)
All democratic government relies on some amount of good faith. Many of the rules are set up to be guidelines for resolving disputes in a civilized manner, and preventing any single bad actor.
The place where this was most respected was in the transfer of power between presidencies.
That goodwill benefits everyone. If you break it, all hell comes loose. It’s why the Dems have worked so hard to stick to the good faith, even though the other party clearly hasn’t.
It’s why the Dems have worked so hard to stick to the good faith, even though the other party clearly hasn’t.
I’m not so sure the reason is quite so principled. I’m more inclined to believe the explanation in this video starting at about the 6:40 mark: the difficulty building a coalition in the Democratic Party (and especially the conflicting aims of Democratic voters and Democratic donors) causes the party to avoid policy and focus on process instead.
And at the time people involved generally did. The only reason we perceive things differently these days is because we expect different outcomes easing a system designed for something else. Our system of government initially was drafted to protect the rights of white land owning males. And it still does this really well. We’ve scaffolded a lot of other things on top of that trying to make it more Equitable for everyone else. But it can’t seem to stop giving preferential treatment to White land owning males.
The thing is the founders knew that they were going to be ignorant about the future. The further out you try to speculate the more wrong you’ll be. They knew that they wouldn’t be able to understand the needs of future generations. They expected things to change. They also expected the Constitution to be heavily amended or completely written every few decades. Instead the status quo has largely ignored their wishes instead deifying them and their original creation as perfect and infallible.
not having some process baked into the Constitution to deal with bad actors in the judiciary was a gross oversight.
They can be impeached. That requires both houses of Congress to be on board with it though, and most people wanting a solution to that problem currently don’t want a solution that requires both houses of Congress or a supermajority of state legislatures to be on board because that’s not a kind of support they can get. the only other way to remove a justice from SCOTUS is one casket at a time.
The framers of the constitution. But to be fair, back then they did not expect people to live this long. If anything, blame science. It’s all their fault!
Get these fairy-tale-believing cunts out of government.
I will do my part by not voting in protest! That will surely work! (/s)
Politicians famously consider the opinions of people who don’t vote. /s
Maybe they ought to? There’s quite a lot of potential votes out there. Also want to add that I always vote, and politicians never consider my opinion anyway.
Reliable demographics or voting blocks get preferential treatment over fair-weather voters. If you want to know why even the GOP won’t overtly kill social security or medicare (unless they include a way to keep current recipients on benefits), it’s because old people vote very reliably. Though with the modern day cultists this isn’t as true anymore since MAGAs will happily let the GOP take everything from them if they think it will hurt their perceived political enemies.
This is just useful expenditure of political capital. As a politician you want to stick your neck out for groups that are definitely showing up.
Seems like a good way to ensure you have low turnout elections, with only die-hard party-heads participating. That way, elections are won or lost on how jazzed up you can get your base, and you never have to attract anyone new. That sounds bad enough, but I think who the politicians actually listen to are their donors. Anytime there is a conflict between what the donors want, and what the constituency wants… voters can get fucked.
Believe it or not, there are people in the center that switch votes. That’s who they go after.
Still the same small pool of voters.
It’s not die hards as you put it. They are swing voters. Every one counts double because you get a vote and take one away from the other party. Elections are won from the centre.
I mean they do, insofar as it might be easier to convert someone not voting into someone voting for them than it is to convert someone voting for their opponent.
That’s why you vote uncommitted. There’s no way to ignore that message or use any of their usual excuses.
But the Democrats understand what they need to do in order to win election, they’re just so latched to the corporate tit that they won’t do it. Think they can get a few more gulps of that sweet lobby money before things get “serious”. The pigs are too busy feeding to give a fuck about our democracy collapsing.
Protest voting would be aimed at reforming a democratic party that’s unfit to confront fascism. It’s a legitimate strategy whether you agree with it or not.
Another Biden term will not do anything to mitigate Democratic complicity with fascism. Establishment dems are quite literally worse than useless.
Except it doesn’t reform. You win elections from the center, so if Dems lose they go further to the center. Because those are the voters that exist.
No-voting accomplishes literally nothing. It never has and it never will. In reality, it’s counter productive every time.
Whose idea was it to appoint Supreme Court justices for life? That seems like asking for trouble.
Blame the conservatives for abusing the system.
Honestly as much as the lifetime appointment wasn’t the worst idea the drafters had in terms of something for long term stability when the positions in every other branch have varying degrees of volatility, not having some process baked into the Constitution to deal with bad actors in the judiciary was a gross oversight.
The Constitution seems to have been written with the idea that politicians will have good intentions. The checks and balances seem to be just to enforce compromise and prevent a single bad actor.
It doesn’t have any protections about and entire political party colluding to grab power. I don’t know how we fix this without amendments or a brand new constitution
There is. The Military. Its why they swear to the constitutio to protect against all threats foreign and domestic. not a person.
Now, The real question is, how to deal with it if the Military is at best indifferent, or at worst, complicit, and either way refusing to act.
Which should also help shine a worrying light on why the right never wanted the military to investigate and purge white supremacists/fascists/etc
If by “the military,” you mean the well-regulated militia (every able-bodied adult male) exercising their 2nd Amendment rights, then sure.
‘Cause otherwise you could only be talking about the Navy, as (from the founding fathers’ perspective) a permanent standing army was very explicitly and intentionally Not A Thing. (That’s why the Constitution limits for appropriating money to raise and support an army to a term of two years or less.)
All democratic government relies on some amount of good faith. Many of the rules are set up to be guidelines for resolving disputes in a civilized manner, and preventing any single bad actor.
The place where this was most respected was in the transfer of power between presidencies.
That goodwill benefits everyone. If you break it, all hell comes loose. It’s why the Dems have worked so hard to stick to the good faith, even though the other party clearly hasn’t.
I’m not so sure the reason is quite so principled. I’m more inclined to believe the explanation in this video starting at about the 6:40 mark: the difficulty building a coalition in the Democratic Party (and especially the conflicting aims of Democratic voters and Democratic donors) causes the party to avoid policy and focus on process instead.
And at the time people involved generally did. The only reason we perceive things differently these days is because we expect different outcomes easing a system designed for something else. Our system of government initially was drafted to protect the rights of white land owning males. And it still does this really well. We’ve scaffolded a lot of other things on top of that trying to make it more Equitable for everyone else. But it can’t seem to stop giving preferential treatment to White land owning males.
The thing is the founders knew that they were going to be ignorant about the future. The further out you try to speculate the more wrong you’ll be. They knew that they wouldn’t be able to understand the needs of future generations. They expected things to change. They also expected the Constitution to be heavily amended or completely written every few decades. Instead the status quo has largely ignored their wishes instead deifying them and their original creation as perfect and infallible.
Originalism is fairly new i thought? But your explanation makes sense.
I suppose I was a bit small in the scope of what were dealing with today and entire party willing to disregard democracy to accumulate power.
There is a process. They can be impeached just like the President.
It’s more than just the Judicial branch that’s broken.
They can be impeached. That requires both houses of Congress to be on board with it though, and most people wanting a solution to that problem currently don’t want a solution that requires both houses of Congress or a supermajority of state legislatures to be on board because that’s not a kind of support they can get. the only other way to remove a justice from SCOTUS is one casket at a time.
There’s a funny thing about lifetime appointments.
You can end them whenever you want.
Especially religious ones. Maybe we should have religious tests, just not the way xtianists want them.
The framers of the constitution. But to be fair, back then they did not expect people to live this long. If anything, blame science. It’s all their fault!