And his opposition party would do that, plus vastly expand offshore drilling, plus scrap every cent of federal spending intended to reduce carbon emissions. The political situation in the US is not and has never been compatible with combating climate change.
You should be happy with your representation, not forced to rationalize how they're less awful than the alternative. The argument against this is itself also disingenuous. It generally entails suggesting that if you vote e.g. Green (if they happen to be who you would be happy with) then "the other side" will win, so you must vote for somebody you don't like.
That outcome is indeed reasonable to expect, but what matters is what happens next. If e.g. the DNC did start losing elections because environmentally minded individuals started voting Green, they're not just going to shrug and keep losing every election. Instead, it would force them to genuinely shift their platform to regain these votes.
The whole lesser of two evils nonsense is just a remarkably effective 'social exploit' to get tens of millions of people to vote not only for people they don't like, but even against their own self interest - in a democracy, in the age of the internet.
If most people in your community you are opposed to what you want, you're not going to be happy with your representation and are going to have to make do with the less awful alternative.
This applies especially for the Green platform - if you're going to advocate for people to meaningfully limit their consumption now in favor of the future of the planet, in a winner-takes-all election system you're not going to get any representation because no politician can gain your vote without losing more votes from the people around you.
Currently 94% of those on the left, 83% of those on the center, and 45% on the right would be willing to make "some" or "a lot" of changes to work against climate change [1]. Politicians aren't choosing not to act for the sake of votes, they're choosing not to act precisely because they no longer have to worry about votes. Just demonize the other side endlessly and people will clearly turn out en masse. The politicians get their votes and corporate dollars, corporations get their perpetuated status quo, and society gets ever more polarized.
People do say they're willing to make "some" changes, however they overwhelmingly vote against any specific meaningful changes that affect them. For most (though not all) those survey answers are empty words for feel-good political posturing that don't match their actual actions afterwards. For morally-loaded things like this one, it's worthless asking people about what they "would" do, you have to measure what they actually do.
For example, when fuel costs rise sufficiently that people would actually have to reduce driving instead of just paying more (to a MUCH smaller extent that would be required to make a dent in climate change, i.e. where MUCH larger price increases would be needed to reduce consumption) people will literally riot to get tax adjustments or subsidies to keep consuming fuel in the previous rates - e.g. last year's protests in Argentina, Peru, Haiti; earlier Gilets Jaunes riots; and in places where the politicians can afford it, they just concede that without a fight because that gets them votes - e.g. California gas tax rebate.
Sure, people will say anything while its just talk, and they will agree (grumpily!) to meaningless changes like paper straws, however, when the push comes to shove and it would actually result in some significant reduction of consumption by the masses, those people will not only vote against that but actually fight tooth and nail to prevent any such measures from being enacted.
Do a survey on whether people are willing to have a carbon tax that's high enough to actually reduce their consumption, where they would sometimes not drive somewhere or not buy something because it's too expensive due to its effect on the climate - you won't get many positive answers. People would be willing to take "some action" like this survey https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/americans... which determined that ~$15/month would be the limit for most, i.e. a token amount that "takes some action" but does not actually require to change behavior and reduce consumption.
I don't disagree, but I'd emphasize that there are countless things states could do that don't directly affect the consumer. For instance net metering - if you generate 5kWh (probably through something like solar) you get compensated for 5kWh. It's a simple, fair, and great way to encourage people to adopt technologies like solar. It helps the systems rapidly pay for themselves, motivates utility companies to pursue technologies requisite to widespread clean energy use (like energy storage methods), encourages people to use electric vehicles with "free gas", and more. There are also the immense benefits in terms of system integrity and more that decentralized energy production can offer.
But some places like California are now actively working against this. The argument is that electric retail rates charged to consumers are dramatically higher than the real cost of that energy, so it's not fair for utilities to have to pay retail rates to consumers who contribute to the grid. So the new policy being pushed through will have you receive credit for a tiny fraction of the retail rate for energy you generate. And now all those benefits get reversed.
Actions like this aren't being taken because of voters, to say the least. The reality is that at all levels of politics, corporations are kings and voters are peasants. The irony is that the peasants, exactly like in times of yore, absolutely have the ability to change this - but cannot organize themselves efficiently enough to do so. Even when all it would take in modern times is ticking a different checkbox.
> started voting Green, they're not just going to shrug and keep losing every election. Instead, it would force them to genuinely shift their platform to regain these votes.
Yes, in the limited sense that this is a massive known problem with the USA's electoral system, and better democracies than the United States have been formed since then that are less vulnerable to the spoiler effects that resulted in the USA's pathological two party system. Here in Belgium, you can vote for greens, socialists, (thinly veiled) nazis... and they might gain a seat or two in the legislative bodies.
thanks for the reply, i suppose my question was not specific enough.... i agree that without the spoiler effect (first past the post system) 3rd party voting would be an option...
what i was curious though was in the u.s context (where there is spoiler effect) has it been known historically to work?
It's tough to look to historic examples because the polarization in current times is unlike any other time in modern history. In the past people were much more inclined to swap between parties, depending upon the merit of the respective candidates. For instance in 1984 Reagan would take 28% of the liberal vote [1], and win 49 states. He nearly took all 50, but lost his opponent's home state by a 0.18% margin.
In that sort of situation you have the same effect as a strong third party. Politicians had to concern themselves with the interests of voters, or they could actually lose them. Now all they need to do is simply show up on the ballot, and spend the rest of their time making sure people hate and fear "the other side" enough. Accountability is being effectively minimized through this, and civil society destroyed in the process.
This style of politicking is not new, and has countless historic examples demonstrating where it leads. The interests of the voter no longer mattering is but scratching the surface.
> Now all they need to do is simply show up on the ballot, and spend the rest of their time making sure people hate and fear "the other side" enough.
yea, i feel like in some way gerrymandering is a big component in this?
like if you dont ever need to actually need to convince voters in other parties and just appeal to people in your safe district.... doesn't that invite/encourage partisanship even more?
I think a lot of it probably stems from our specific voting system. Gerrymandering is only possible in a system without any sort of proportional representation. And it's these same systems which also tend to lend themselves towards "strategic voting" which motivates to vote for people they don't like, or even against their own self interest.
But this is something I don't tend really think about especially much simply because changing this would require both parties to cooperate to make major constitutional changes, that would result in both those parties losing power. The odds of this happening are probably literally zero. By contrast people dropping strategic voting is something that is at least viable to imagine, and could reasonably be expected to help move things in a positive direction. Thanks to the fact elections are basically 50/50 electorally, it doesn't even have to be many people to have a really meaningful impact.
> Gerrymandering is only possible in a system without any sort of proportional representation.
interesting, so gerrymandering being a second-order effect and the main cause being first-past-the-post/non-proportional representation... interesting.
> You should be happy with your representation, not forced to rationalize how they're less awful than the alternative.
Welcome to politics. The hard fact is that the Republican right-wing of the US is the roadblock to the US tackling emissions and climate change. The reality is that if the Democrats don't appease the center-right of the US with low gas prices and other climate change causing policies, the Republicans will win the votes and usher in an even worse destructive policy. The Democrats are trying to make as much progress as they can without losing the ball; pulling towards what you want while Republicans are pulling the opposite. If you don't balance as much as you can, it gets worse. Such is uninformed democracy.
But even that’s broken, as it may be true of one issue, but most people care about more than one thing and the US system doesn’t really allow for that. It’s a pretty crude democracy by current standards.
Wouldn't it be good if neither party did stupid crap like that? We've lost our minds at this stage.
The only hopes younger people have is technology and the fact a lot of older politicians support base is dying faster than it can be replaced, so hopefully some newer blood in politics is on the horizon to make some smarter choices.
People have been saying this for three generations now. And each new generation of rulers is more radically anti-human and pro-exploitation than the last. I hope you're ready for plan B.
What do you mean new generations? The people leading congress right now were also working in congress with JFK! Multiple generations of Americans have basically ignored political participation.
> The people leading congress right now were also working in congress with JFK!
JFK was last in Congress in 63 years ago, and last alive 60 years ago; the longest serving member of Congress served for 59 years and retired in 2019.
Chuck Schumer was first elected to Congress in 1980, Mitch McConnell in 1984, Kevin McCarthy in 2006, and Hakeem Jeffries in 2012. Only one of them was even in Congress within 20 years of Kennedy’s assassination, much less all of them being in Congress with him.
