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The politicization of society is damaging liberal democracy

thomasprosser.substack.com

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Re: The politicization of society is damaging liberal democracy

#41

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

JamesBarney wrote: post #37
0xcde4c3db wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of voters who are registered independent/unaffiliated, but most of them still lean strongly toward one of the major parties. The number of consistent swing/split voters is much smaller. Most analysis/commentary I've seen says that partisan differences in turnout are a much bigger factor in winning elections than appealing to the center.

> Most analysis/commentary I've seen says that partisan differences in turnout are a much bigger factor in winning elections than appealing to the center. I've heard a lot of people say this, I've never seen any good data on this. Every analysis I've seen that compared how moderate and more extreme candidates did compared to the president consistently showed the moderates did better than the extreme. I'd be curious t…

I shouldn't have phrased it as "appealing to the center", but rather something like "appealing to true independents" or "appealing to swing voters". There is significant ideological breadth within the parties, and it's clear that appealing to more center-leaning voters can be a winning strategy, but that's less because there's a big chunk of the electorate composed of nonpartisan centrists and more because the most extreme candidates also tend to polarize and demotivate parts of their own party coalition while unifying and motivating the opposing party. Swing voters are far from nonexistent, it's just that their numbers are small compared to partisan (again: not necessarily registered party-affiliated) voters unless you define "swing voter" incredibly broadly [1]. Capturing their votes is clearly good for a campaign, but only if it can be in a way that is also sensitive to their partisan voters.

[1] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/just-how-many-swing-vot...

Re: The politicization of society is damaging liberal democracy

#42

Post by tharne »

0xcde4c3db wrote: post #25
tharne wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the US had an equivalent of lib dems and/or proportional representation and/or ranked choice, would it still be so polarised I don't think this would be a panacea, but it would definitely help things quite a bit. The largest voting block in the U.S. isn't Democrats or Republicans, but voters that have chosen not to be affiliated with either party.

There are plenty of voters who are registered independent/unaffiliated, but most of them still lean strongly toward one of the major parties. The number of consistent swing/split voters is much smaller. Most analysis/commentary I've seen says that partisan differences in turnout are a much bigger factor in winning elections than appealing to the center.

> There are plenty of voters who are registered independent/unaffiliated, but most of them still lean strongly toward one of the major parties

Just because a person consistently votes for one party does not mean they like that party or agree with its platform. In many cases, they consistently vote for the same party because they see it as the least worst option.

Re: The politicization of society is damaging liberal democracy

#43

Post by sobkas »

rayiner wrote: post #14

A lot of well meaning people are seriously damaging the country by injecting politics into spheres that the public broadly needs to perceive as “neutral” such as law and medicine. This is usually accompanied by efforts to reframe contentious policy debates as “non-political.” Which of course makes no sense because lots of things that aren’t political in the abstract quickly become political when it comes to people ad…

> A lot of well meaning people are seriously damaging the country by injecting politics into spheres that the public broadly needs to perceive as “neutral” such as law and medicine. This is usually accompanied by efforts to reframe contentious policy debates as “non-political.” Which of course makes no sense because lots of things that aren’t political in the abstract quickly become political when it comes to people advancing specific remedies or ways of restructuring society.

And there are people who pretend that progressive changes to society are inherently political, and also imply/openly advocate that conservative keeping of status quo isn't. Just because status quo benefits them doesn't mean that keeping it, is rational non-political option.

Re: The politicization of society is damaging liberal democracy

#44

Post by sobkas »

nathias wrote: post #3
Khelavaster wrote: post #2

[flagged]

Yes, because they are liberal only by name not concept. Liberalism is based on tolerance and civil society as the space of freedom.

> Yes, because they are liberal only by name not concept. Liberalism is based on tolerance and civil society as the space of freedom.

Liberalism is no more. It was replaced by neoliberalism. Under it you have as many liberties as you can afford to buy and/or defend.

Re: The politicization of society is damaging liberal democracy

#45

Post by kodyo »

mcphage wrote: post #15

> When public firework displays take positions on controversial issues, they provoke partisan reactions, poisoning debate further and turning aggrieved groups away from public spaces. Is support for Ukraine a controversial issue in the UK? In the US, support for Ukraine is pretty widespread.

Support of the Ukraine is synonymous with supporting NATO’s war. There should never have been a war, and there should have been a cease fire by now.

Does that opinion make me anti-Ukraine?

Re: The politicization of society is damaging liberal democracy

#46

Post by kodyo »

tharne wrote: post #4

The sad part of all of this is that the folks pushing the polarization in the U.S., the Trumpy right, and the progressive left, represent an extreme minority of the population. If either of these two groups had an any level of self awareness, they'd realize that no one wants them around.

Beyond that, a growing number of us have realized that democracy is incompatible with freedom.

Once you accept that, the absurdity of politicians claiming to speak for large swaths of your country is just comical.

Downvoters are free to explain why unimpressive people have any say over how you think or how you should behave.

Re: The politicization of society is damaging liberal democracy

#47

Post by kodyo »

tharne wrote: post #42
0xcde4c3db wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of voters who are registered independent/unaffiliated, but most of them still lean strongly toward one of the major parties. The number of consistent swing/split voters is much smaller. Most analysis/commentary I've seen says that partisan differences in turnout are a much bigger factor in winning elections than appealing to the center.

> There are plenty of voters who are registered independent/unaffiliated, but most of them still lean strongly toward one of the major parties Just because a person consistently votes for one party does not mean they like that party or agree with its platform. In many cases, they consistently vote for the same party because they see it as the least worst option.

Or they vote in self defense because the other gang intends to behave in a way they find depraved.

It’s gross.

Re: The politicization of society is damaging liberal democracy

#48

Post by kodyo »

rayiner wrote: post #14

A lot of well meaning people are seriously damaging the country by injecting politics into spheres that the public broadly needs to perceive as “neutral” such as law and medicine. This is usually accompanied by efforts to reframe contentious policy debates as “non-political.” Which of course makes no sense because lots of things that aren’t political in the abstract quickly become political when it comes to people ad…

Why do you think they’re well-meaning?

Re: The politicization of society is damaging liberal democracy

#49

Post by AnimalMuppet »

prohobo wrote: post #33
rayiner wrote: post #14

A lot of well meaning people are seriously damaging the country by injecting politics into spheres that the public broadly needs to perceive as “neutral” such as law and medicine. This is usually accompanied by efforts to reframe contentious policy debates as “non-political.” Which of course makes no sense because lots of things that aren’t political in the abstract quickly become political when it comes to people ad…

This happened with an open-source video game I wanted to contribute to, of all things... I thought I'd found a welcoming community that was interested in building something cool, and I could learn some C# while contributing to something really unique and creative. That turned out to be sort of right, but the senior maintainers decided that it's also cool to shove their politics down everyone else's throats and ban an…

> To stop this pathological politicization you have to create an environment of security.

But in your example, the problem was the person in charge. If it's your community, then by all means, create the right environment. But if it's a situation like your example, then what? You, the random newcomer, can't really alter the environment very much. You can stay and accept it, or you can leave, but the environment is already problematic. Now what? How can you un-politicize such a community, when you aren't the leader?

Re: The politicization of society is damaging liberal democracy

#50

Post by AnimalMuppet »

kodyo wrote: post #46
tharne wrote: post #4

The sad part of all of this is that the folks pushing the polarization in the U.S., the Trumpy right, and the progressive left, represent an extreme minority of the population. If either of these two groups had an any level of self awareness, they'd realize that no one wants them around.

Beyond that, a growing number of us have realized that democracy is incompatible with freedom. Once you accept that, the absurdity of politicians claiming to speak for large swaths of your country is just comical. Downvoters are free to explain why unimpressive people have any say over how you think or how you should behave.

> Beyond that, a growing number of us have realized that democracy is incompatible with freedom.

That's an interesting mindset, in theory, but not very grounded in reality. Being a democracy is no guarantee of freedom, but it has let more people live in more freedom than any other system. (The great danger is that tyrants convert democracies into pseudo-democracies, keeping the trappings while removing the freedom, and that makes democracies look bad to those who are unaware.)

Seriously, if you've got a system that leads to more freedom, put in into practice somewhere, and show us how it works in the real world. If you can consistently deliver for several decades, we might start to listen.

> Once you accept that, the absurdity of politicians claiming to speak for large swaths of your country is just comical.

Politicians speak, not for the population, not even for everyone who voted for them, but for everyone who agrees with the politician on that particular point.

> Downvoters are free to explain why unimpressive people have any say over how you think or how you should behave.

I'm having a hard time understanding what you're trying to say here. But it sounds like you're saying that, in a democracy, "unimpressive people" have a say because they get to vote. Well, I don't know anybody who lets voters decide how they think. How they behave? Well, votes lead to laws, so, yeah. But in a non-democracy, someone was still going to be making the laws, and almost certainly that would be someone who is not you. So it seems to me that you're always going to have other people having a say over how you should behave. (And, in a non-democracy, they can be a lot more serious having say over how you think, too.)

The phrase "unimpressive people" I find a bit disturbing. It sounds like you're looking down on them, that there's some contempt there. Frankly, that does not make your position more persuasive.

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