the dems seem as helpless to run this geriatric conservative as the gop are to prevent an actual fascist dictator wannabe from successfully running for office.
how can both these massive parties suck so fucking hard
They did vote in the primaries in 2020. The DNC made it clear that they will not allow anyone but their ordained candidate by having everyone but Biden drop out when he couldn't break 3rd place. Then clearer by literally forcing Biden-only ballots in 4 states and counting...
(This gets even more embarrassing when you realize that while the two groups are about the same size of the electorate, the elderly are less likely to vote Democratic, so as a share of potential Democratic voters the 65+ is beating the brakes off the under 30s.)
I couldn't believe people using the South Carolina primary as the reason Biden should be the candidate. Since when do we let red states decide who the Democratic candidate should be?
South Carolina is generally seen to matter to Dems as it's a pretty decent cross section of the Democratic coalition as well as folks they need to woo in competitive states (Colorado, the midwest nowadays, Georgia, North Carolina etc.)
The idea wasn't that Biden would carry South Carolina for the Dems but that a candidate who wins there has the demographic support crucial to the Democratic route to the presidency.
For Biden in particular, it was seen as proof that despite being whiter than the driven snow, he could still motivate Black voters (and honestly, that kind of worked out, Georgia was won in large part because Biden racked up absurd totals among Black voters in Clayton, Fulton and DeKalb) while still appealing to more moderate, working class white voters to win back the rust belt states Clinton lost in 2016.
We obviously don't know how things would have gone with another candidate but the demographic success that Biden enjoyed in S.C was pretty much the success that kept trump out of office this term.
They way to fix things is voting reform. But it can't be just any reform.
We have to ditch Ordinal voting systems. Every single one of them leads to some degree of two party dominance, with voters having to prioritize strategy over their own needs, because not doing so means they will be actively punished.
Cardinal systems are the only way to escape. Strategic voting becomes less necessary and less impactful.
My current favorite system is STAR. It takes all the great ideas of the best cardinal voting system (Score) and adds in an automatic runoff that greatly reduces the impact of clone candidate attacks.
Approval voting guarantees the election of greatest possible consensus winners, when it ask voters "which alternatives do you consent to?"
Approval would vastly improve things, but has some drawbacks. Score is like Approval, but a bit more so, and then STAR takes Score and adds to it again to be an even better system.
The systems above all break two party dominance, or rather they make it impossible to enforce two party dominance. Ordinal systems on the other hand, all fall victim to Arrow's theorem, and thus reinforce two-party dominance.
So unanimous consensus? As in, something akin to expecting the tooth fairy to come wipe for you? There's no such system.
The closest thing is called Approval, and even with that system, there will be people who go away unhappy. Just far fewer of them than under any other voting system,
Perfect consensus only happen if there are dozens or even hundreds of people running for office, and only then if the voters have perfect knowledge of every candidate.
That's the key difference. A tiny group of people can reach consensus, a large group literally cannot. Not when electing a representative, or even setting policy through direct voting.
I never said this nor do I believe it. But engaging in doomscrolling and screaming into the void is not going to do much so I'm looking for ideas. Yes they are all way too old, there's no denying that. The question is: now what?
The Democrats are generally a fairly ineffective ally on good days. The Republicans are an effective enemy every day. It's not an equivocation to say those are both crappy options.
indeed. what we really need to do is political action outside of just voting, because voting for genocide joe or donald "hitler" trump isn't gonna work very well
Because the electorate is doing little to nothing at the local scale to change voting methodology. Until that happens in a broad fashion, the two parties will continue to be a problem.
Edit: you can downvote all you want, it doesn't change reality.