200
Reaching across the aisle
(lemmy.world)
Democratic political strategy
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2024
200 points (93.9% liked)
Political Memes
5524 readers
507 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Frankly the people are the ones moving further to the right because the state does not educate them and regulate corporate power, transforming the public into a myopic panicked herd.
That's actually false. When it comes to policy preferences, the actual electorate swings pretty far left compared to the right wing and far right parties they can choose between. Universal health care, parental leave, paid sick leave, higher minimum wage all enjoy broad and firm popular support, and neither party is even talking about this.
!! yea
always important to remember that the electorate’s preference in policy has only a loose relationship to who they vote for. this air gap is where most elections are fought, where strong messaging tightens the gap and messaging failures loosen it. the 2024 presidential election had a hella loose connection between party and people.
That connection is much less loose if you consider how right wing the democrats have gotten over the years. And beyond that, note that a big part of Harris' loss is that her republican light "I'm basically Nikki Haley" campaign mainly reflects itself in people not voting for her. The statistics you mention (or the polls you base your comment on, not sure where it's coming from) are presumably talking about voters, not the electorate. Harris' inability to mobilize her base is the problem here, not republicans voting republican.
nope. the electorate, when polled, shows popular support for progressive policies, and this is true even outside of exit polls.
not really sure what the rest of your comment is trying to say so i will leave it at clarifying that misconception. feel free to clarify if you are interested in further discussion i’m just a bit confused sorry.
Ah I think I understand what you're trying to say, and I think I'm in agreement. So indeed the electorate is economically progressive, but there is no party on the ballot which represents progressive policies, and hence, by definition, one's policy preferences have a very loose relationship who you vote for.
yup you got it :)
If you read this study, it mentions people are prone to affective polarization, that is a state of mind that is in itself extreme and it's related to people being myopic, that is governed by strong emotions such as panic instead of choosing rationally.
I'll be honest, I didn't read the whole thing. But I did try to find a section supporting what you say, and sure, it talks about affective polarization, but it doesn't show anywhere that this leads to people voting irrationally in the sense of voting against their own material interests, as far as I can see. Is there any section you're referring to specifically?
Basically, economic inequality leads to elite polarization (at the congress level) that limits the political agenda to policies that do not benefit the public, so that the public can only vote against its interest. This leads to more economic inequality and so forth. There are more layers to it, such as economic inequality creating elites in the private sector and leaving politics to incompetent people that are manipulated by the business elite. My initial description is somewhat simplistic, but essentially the public is cut off from the elite due to economic inequality, leading to political polarization as the only differentiating factor in policy, so that the public can only vote against its interest.