US President Joe Biden has said he is not confident there will be a peaceful transition of power if Donald Trump loses the presidential election in November.
"[Trump] means what he says, we don’t take him seriously. He means it, all this stuff about ‘if we lose it will be a bloodbath’.”
Mr Trump’s comment that it would “be a bloodbath for the country” if he loses the election, made as he was talking about the auto industry in March, triggered a wave of criticism.
The Trump campaign, however, said the comment was specifically about the auto industry and had been deliberately taken out of context. It sent a fundraising email which said Trump’s political opponents and others had been “viciously” misquoting him.
If your point now is that ranked choice voting would increase voting turnout, thus reducing the chance of Balkanization — I understand I guess. But RC isn’t going to fix the fact only 1 candidate is going to win, and doesn’t guarantee some better percentage breakdown in representation. Like you should maybe clarifying why the Republicans are balkanizing specifically, because even Musk would argue it’s a problem of Democrats. I just dont really understand what youre getting at
Um, where do you know in Western Politics that there’s more than one winner in an election?
But the opposite if FPTP is using a representative set. Like if youre american you must see that “constantly pushing for centrism” only pushes you rightward when Republicans push so hard for their policies
Like if youre american you must see that “constantly pushing for centrism” only pushes you rightward when Republicans push so hard for their policies
Your initial misunderstanding is that you’re only thinking within the acceptable terms. Two things I think you might want to consider.
First you’ve alluded to it multiple times which is the Overton Window. Which is shifting, but not only to the right in American politics. If you read the links I posted earlier, political violence in America is becoming more acceptable to the left as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
The other is that there is such a thing as manufactured consent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
You’ve also referenced that there’s lobbying and wealthy interest that gain undue power in a political system through what amounts to corruption but is called lobbying and regulatory capture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
The best bet to defeat all of these. Believe it or not is ranked choice voting. Be prepared though, what follows is a special interest fire hose.
A primer on what it could start as in the US https://www.npr.org/2023/12/13/1214199019/ranked-choice-voting-explainer
How it can make lasting change https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/12/politics/ranked-choice-voting-ctzn/index.html
How it leads to more moderate candidates https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-08-02/ranked-choice-voting-can-result-in-more-moderate-candidates
And finally if you have the bandwidth for it a very wonky deep dive into plurality politics and their historical outcomes, and how the wealthy often fight them. https://brill.com/view/journals/copr/14/4/article-p416_416.xml
That’s the whole point of people wanting ranked choice, then they can make their voice heard by voting for more progressive candidates while not having to worry that they’re voting for someone who can’t win and are therefore technically supporting the party they don’t want to win. The more votes third party candidates get, the more seriously they get taken even if they don’t win. You can’t do that with a two party system.
All the people who you’re worried about voting for the “crazies” are already voting for the crazies, you’re not going to get current moderates or progressives all of a sudden voting for the crazies because there are more options of crazy so I’m not sure what you’re worried about.
