The irony of this interaction is this is the first time I saw a democrat disagree with me and not throw a fit and get toxic and start blocking. It actually had me sitting here second guessing if there might be a few good ones.... then she blocked me... The irony is she would have done more to change my mind otherwise and threw away any positive effect she had in the end.
QT: https://qoto.org/@freemo/112910978727352492
π³π±
@freemo@qoto.org
@freemo Lol, what? I disagree with you all the time. And I've been a registered member of the party since January 7th 2021.
(Also, she makes good points)
Thats fair, in fact I had suspected when I wrote that you'd fall into the one exception I can actually think of outside of personal friends.
But I was mostly thinking in terms of strangers rather than people i had met and intracted with before discussing politics.
@freemo Yeah, also I think we've had that exact same argument you linked above before π
@louis ITs a fairly common argument when people come in with the two-party nonsense
bonifartius πΌπ
@freemo @louis believe me, it's a common argument here in germany with more than 5 parties having a substantial vote. if you vote for something else you are "throwing your vote away".
regarding people throwing a fit:
i think what happens is that people identify very strongly with certain parties that criticizing these parties is an attack at their ego. i believe that this happens more for progressive parties, as those often use emotional arguments (like "end of democracy"). at least much more often than conservatives.
@bonifartius @freemo Here in the US, our system is literally built in such a way that there can only really ever be two competitive parties at any given time. Those parties can change, but it usually requires some sort of cataclysm first.
So, voting outside of those two parties really, truly is nothing but performative.
If someone is committed to voting the opposite party as mine: Fine, we disagree, no problem.
If someone is committed to voting third party, my only response is: What the fuck?
@louis @freemo
well, if everyone votes in a two party system because they think others do as well, it likely will stay a two party system :)
i believe voting like this does act against the idea of democracy. the idea was to vote for things people personally want - not making a game theory problem out of it.
@bonifartius @freemo It's not a problem of wishful thinking; it's a problem of constitutional reform.
Our system is built to incentivize coalition building until only two parties remain. Those coalitions regularly shift, but there will only ever be two without a change to the system itself.
Except the two party system is still an illusion. When support for the three parties is 34%, 34%, 32% then the actual vote will result in 51%, 48% and 1%.. but the second the "real" support passes that threshold you will see an immediate and shart ~50% flip in votes. In other words, the system appears to be two party but it still ultimately will follow the underlying "real support", thus there is no two party system, not really.
This is why every time the parties have switched the new dominant party had ~1% voting support the previous year despite a sudden shift.. this happened 7 out of the 8 times a party has switched.
The 3% to majority shift has happened virtually overnight "smoothly" in most past elections. In fact, I am unaware of any blood shed... People just eventually say enough and once support passes the threshold it flips. In almost every case though its largely bloodless and organic as far as I know.
@freemo @bonifartius Right, and that's consistent with what I said earlier:
> our system is literally built in such a way that there can only really ever be two competitive parties at any given time. Those parties can change, but it usually requires some sort of cataclysm first.
But the piece you're missing is that there's no path to a smooth transition from 3% to 32%. Those shifts are almost always abrupt, and they are often not bloodless.