271–280 of 1001 posts
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> The participation rate has always been low in rich western countries. The general election in 2022 had 84,2% of eligible voters in Sweden.
Italy had 64% for the parliamentary elections in 2022, which is the lowest ever but it's pretty far from 30%.
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The majority that did vote, voted for this. The participation rate has always been low in rich western countries. Given the standards of media literacy and civics education, there's no evidence that a higher participation rate would have changed the outcome.
There’s also no evidence that increased turnout would have had the same result. What seems to be overlooked in these conversations is the skill with which American voters have been disenfranchised by partisan forces. It’s easy to blame people for not voting if you ignore the real difficulties in actually casting a vote for many Americans.
This has been the pattern for awhile now. The pool of politically unengaged people are especially Trumpy compared to regular voters: https://abcnews.go.com/538/vote-back-trump/story?id=10909062...
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I know that Harris put up zero fight about it. I infer that she believed it to be legitimate. That's not definitive, to be sure. But it's sufficient for me to believe that we did this to ourselves. Now all we can do is figure out how we're going to get through it.
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I mean yes? Democracy is a pretty poor model for governance. IMO peak enlightenment happened circa the 17th or 18th century when classical liberalism decided government should be based on individual liberties and anything outside of that is decided democratically not because it is a good system but because votes are roughly a tally of who would win if we all pull knives on each other because we didn't like the vote.
Democracy is not 2 parties doing voter suppression and gerrymandering as a filter to pass the result to an electoral college. The US system was never designed to be fair to individuals in the first place, pointing at it as a failure of democracy is IMHO pulling the actual issues under the rug.
“Gerrymandering” also has no effect on Presidential elections. And in 2024, Republicans won a larger share of the House popular vote than their share of House seats.
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The majority that did vote, voted for this. The participation rate has always been low in rich western countries. Given the standards of media literacy and civics education, there's no evidence that a higher participation rate would have changed the outcome.
> The participation rate has always been low in rich western countries. Australia has entered the chat.
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Aren't you making their point though? The ADL and other Jewish organizations have pointed out that aside from articles about Israel that articles about or mention Jewish topics generally have been editing with disinformation or that made Jews out to be the aggressors. I agree with you that in order to believe in the ideals of liberal democracy that we must have a core belief in truth. And it's absolutely true that th…
I agree 100%. It's exhausting fighting against antisemitic bias, and it feels like it's everywhere these days. My problem with Ed Martin is that what he is doing is clearly wrong. Hannah Arendt wrote a book about people like him.
Serious question, after the past few months, how can anyone deny that America is heading in a totalitarian direction? Those of you who believe that all of the many actions that have happened in the past few weeks are "okay", please explain your perspective without resorting to "whataboutism" or cherry picking only one or two of the things that have occurred lately. Because from what I'm sitting, this is not behavior…
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https://commonslibrary.org/authoritarianism-how-you-know-it-...
What are the Top 10 Elements of the Authoritarian Playbook?
1. Divide and rule: Foment mistrust and fear in the population.
2. Spread lies and conspiracies: Undermine the public’s belief in truth.
3. Destroy checks and balances: Quietly use legal or pseudo-legal rationales to gut institutions, weaken opposition, and/or declare national emergencies to seize unconstitutional powers.
4. Demonize opponents and independent media: Undermine the public’s trust in those actors and institutions that hold the state accountable.
5. Undermine civil and political rights for the unaligned: Actively suppress free speech, the right to assembly and protest and the rights of women and minority groups.
6. Blame minorities, immigrants, and “outsiders” for a country’s problems: Exploit national humiliation while promising to restore national glory.
7. Reward loyalists and punish defectors: Make in-group members fearful to voice dissension.
8. Encourage or condone violence to advance political goals: Dehumanize opposition and/or out-groups to justify violence against them.
9. Organize mass rallies to keep supporters mobilized against made-up threats: Use fearmongering and hate speech to consolidate in-group identity and solidarity.
10. Make people feel like they are powerless to change things: Solutions will only come from the top.
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Less than 30% of voter age Americans voted for this
The majority that did vote, voted for this. The participation rate has always been low in rich western countries. Given the standards of media literacy and civics education, there's no evidence that a higher participation rate would have changed the outcome.
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The majority that did vote, voted for this. The participation rate has always been low in rich western countries. Given the standards of media literacy and civics education, there's no evidence that a higher participation rate would have changed the outcome.
> The participation rate has always been low in rich western countries. Australia has entered the chat.
https://results.aec.gov.au/27966/website/HouseInformalByStat...
This article contains a fun breakdown of the types of informal votes including a category for "the usual anatomical drawings" (0.7% of informal votes):
https://www.crikey.com.au/2025/04/22/2025-federal-election-p...
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RT is not legit. It is Russian propaganda. When those people participated they were collaborators.
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It is important to point out that Russian propaganda is actually excellent propaganda. However, their message is the at the very bottom:
There is no truth, up is down, nothing matters, the invader is the victim, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_propaganda_in_the_Russia...