They want him to change NOW. Not six months from now after he’s elected. NOW. The electoral threat is meant to cause current changes.
Threatening to vote against a politician is really the only leverage voters have, and it’s not like they just wait until the week of an election to demand things. “If you don’t do this, I won’t vote for you” is a standard template for demanding action.
well, howabout this: we’ll join in all the foot-stomping and loud sighing up until the election. If we can get some concessions through it - great! All for it.
But we vote Biden in November. Because if you want to drive the election like an asshole and steer it into the ditch so trump gets in - Yeah, no. Not just no, but HELL no.
How is this even a question? Do you even know what you’re talking about? Have you ever even voted before? Honestly the cavalier attitude to trump getting in is batshit insanity. I hope y’all are just stoned as fuck.
Sure, that seems pretty reasonable to me. It’ll notably look exactly like what you’re exasperated about though. “We’re definitely going to vote for you but we’re angry” is shorthand for “ignore me”.
Only if the whole “representative” part of democracy is a sham and a joke. I don’t think it is.
It’s weak, yes, in some ways broken, constantly under siege, in actual existential danger at the present time - but it’s real and the best version we’ve come up with yet in the history of the world. And it wasn’t easy to get here.
It’s representative because the representatives need their constituents’ votes to stay in power. It may not be a spoken exchange, but that’s exactly the exchange that takes place with every call. That’s not a sham, that’s exactly what makes it a democracy. The idea that elected officials broadly act out of the goodness of their hearts is describing a benevolent aristocracy. Also a fantasy.
And they do things for their constituents because otherwise they will lose votes. Which you seem to think would only occur if the democracy was a joke rather than the very core of the system.
Not “only” because they’d lose votes, but yes that is a feature of the representative system. What is it you think I’m saying about it? I think you’re saying representative democracy is bad because the representatives need votes to be in office . . . ?
It’ll notably look exactly like what you’re exasperated about though. “We’re definitely going to vote for you but we’re angry” is shorthand for “ignore me”.
Only if the whole “representative” part of democracy is a sham and a joke. I don’t think it is.
This sounds like you believe telling a representative that your vote is assured but your angry with their choice will get them to take your concerns seriously unless the “representative” part is a sham, but there’s no inherent expectation of goodness in a representative democracy. If they don’t want to do something and you (and all your allies) tell them “we want you to change your position, but we’re going to vote for you regardless of what you do”, you’ve told them all they need to know, because ignoring you won’t cost them any votes and presumably the other choice either will or is just what they’d like to do.
“Representative” democracy just means we hand over immediate power to the people we vote for to do the day to day governing. It doesn’t mean they actually innately represent their constituents nor does it involve just guessing who’d be best every four years and then sitting back and hoping it goes well.
Politicians ignore their constituents all the time. I’m glad that Biden doesn’t give a fuck that some pro-life zealots are big mad that he doesn’t ban abortion. He knows they have almost no chance of voting for him and it would lose him a bunch of his actual voters. But if we all got together and said “hey Joe, don’t worry about what we want on abortion, we’re 100% with you regardless”, he might start thinking about softening his stance on abortion bans to pick up a few more votes from the zealots. You can leave the threat to not vote for them unsaid, but the threat is what gets them to change their stance, and if you preemptively rule out ever taking away the thing they want in the transaction, they have no reason to do so.
Votes in exchange for policy is the whole deal. There’s no requirement in a functioning democratic system for the representatives to just do stuff out of innate goodness.
They want him to change NOW. Not six months from now after he’s elected. NOW. The electoral threat is meant to cause current changes.
Threatening to vote against a politician is really the only leverage voters have, and it’s not like they just wait until the week of an election to demand things. “If you don’t do this, I won’t vote for you” is a standard template for demanding action.
well, howabout this: we’ll join in all the foot-stomping and loud sighing up until the election. If we can get some concessions through it - great! All for it.
But we vote Biden in November. Because if you want to drive the election like an asshole and steer it into the ditch so trump gets in - Yeah, no. Not just no, but HELL no.
How is this even a question? Do you even know what you’re talking about? Have you ever even voted before? Honestly the cavalier attitude to trump getting in is batshit insanity. I hope y’all are just stoned as fuck.
Sure, that seems pretty reasonable to me. It’ll notably look exactly like what you’re exasperated about though. “We’re definitely going to vote for you but we’re angry” is shorthand for “ignore me”.
Only if the whole “representative” part of democracy is a sham and a joke. I don’t think it is.
It’s weak, yes, in some ways broken, constantly under siege, in actual existential danger at the present time - but it’s real and the best version we’ve come up with yet in the history of the world. And it wasn’t easy to get here.
It’s representative because the representatives need their constituents’ votes to stay in power. It may not be a spoken exchange, but that’s exactly the exchange that takes place with every call. That’s not a sham, that’s exactly what makes it a democracy. The idea that elected officials broadly act out of the goodness of their hearts is describing a benevolent aristocracy. Also a fantasy.
. . . ? Sorry, it’s representative but only because politicians need votes?
Not sure what the point is there.
And they do things for their constituents because otherwise they will lose votes. Which you seem to think would only occur if the democracy was a joke rather than the very core of the system.
Not “only” because they’d lose votes, but yes that is a feature of the representative system. What is it you think I’m saying about it? I think you’re saying representative democracy is bad because the representatives need votes to be in office . . . ?
This sounds like you believe telling a representative that your vote is assured but your angry with their choice will get them to take your concerns seriously unless the “representative” part is a sham, but there’s no inherent expectation of goodness in a representative democracy. If they don’t want to do something and you (and all your allies) tell them “we want you to change your position, but we’re going to vote for you regardless of what you do”, you’ve told them all they need to know, because ignoring you won’t cost them any votes and presumably the other choice either will or is just what they’d like to do.
“Representative” democracy just means we hand over immediate power to the people we vote for to do the day to day governing. It doesn’t mean they actually innately represent their constituents nor does it involve just guessing who’d be best every four years and then sitting back and hoping it goes well.
Politicians ignore their constituents all the time. I’m glad that Biden doesn’t give a fuck that some pro-life zealots are big mad that he doesn’t ban abortion. He knows they have almost no chance of voting for him and it would lose him a bunch of his actual voters. But if we all got together and said “hey Joe, don’t worry about what we want on abortion, we’re 100% with you regardless”, he might start thinking about softening his stance on abortion bans to pick up a few more votes from the zealots. You can leave the threat to not vote for them unsaid, but the threat is what gets them to change their stance, and if you preemptively rule out ever taking away the thing they want in the transaction, they have no reason to do so.
Votes in exchange for policy is the whole deal. There’s no requirement in a functioning democratic system for the representatives to just do stuff out of innate goodness.