I have a headache so please do me the favor of reading through the links before asking questions, though by the time I check back in I’ll probably be in a better mood to chat.
Those are great concepts, but I’ll ask again, what’s your suggestion for what we do about it?
Listing ideas isn’t anything at all the same as implementing actionable change.
And hey, I’m not trying to argue, I fucking hate the system the way it is and desperately want to see us make some progress in our fight to change it or tear it down so a better one can be built in its place… But I never actually see that. I see a lot of theory, a lot of smart concepts, a whole fuck ton of unproductive disparaging… but I keep waiting for somebody to talk about real world actionable plans. I’m not being insincere, I hope you or anyone does have a viable actionable plan. God that would be incredible.
But until then, I can’t help but feel like these defeatist memes do nothing but further enable the system by disenfranchising and disinteresting noticeably specific demographics that might be likely to vote comparative left, serving mostly only to stifle what little incremental progress we could accomplish in the big races and ensuring these same people don’t get interested or involved enough to be active in the early stages of the process where the choices of actual consequence can be made.
Imo, apathy and enlightened centrism aren’t neutral positions, they’re right-enabling positions, as is the “leftist purity” bullshit position that prioritizes personal uncompromising “integrity” of position at the expense of real world harm reduction.
Join up with the Center for Election Science and volunteer to switch your local elections to approval! Typically this is done through a referendum, like was done in Fargo and St. Louis.
The hardest part is building the organization to collect signatures and run the referendum campaign. But, success breeds success, so you running a successful local campaign (like Fargo and St. Louis) will make it easier to turn around and get neighboring areas to switch, which will make it easier to run a state-level campaign to switch.
As for proportional representation, I don’t know of any US organizations working on it at the moment, and I’m like you, I want actionable change. If you’re willing to spin up a whole political machine on your own, go for it, but I suggest working on furthering the established approval momentum and worrying about proportional representation later.
Great question!
Approval Voting
Proportional Representation, which can be anything from party list to multi-winner districts using Sequential Proportional Approval Voting
I have a headache so please do me the favor of reading through the links before asking questions, though by the time I check back in I’ll probably be in a better mood to chat.
Those are great concepts, but I’ll ask again, what’s your suggestion for what we do about it?
Listing ideas isn’t anything at all the same as implementing actionable change.
And hey, I’m not trying to argue, I fucking hate the system the way it is and desperately want to see us make some progress in our fight to change it or tear it down so a better one can be built in its place… But I never actually see that. I see a lot of theory, a lot of smart concepts, a whole fuck ton of unproductive disparaging… but I keep waiting for somebody to talk about real world actionable plans. I’m not being insincere, I hope you or anyone does have a viable actionable plan. God that would be incredible.
But until then, I can’t help but feel like these defeatist memes do nothing but further enable the system by disenfranchising and disinteresting noticeably specific demographics that might be likely to vote comparative left, serving mostly only to stifle what little incremental progress we could accomplish in the big races and ensuring these same people don’t get interested or involved enough to be active in the early stages of the process where the choices of actual consequence can be made.
Imo, apathy and enlightened centrism aren’t neutral positions, they’re right-enabling positions, as is the “leftist purity” bullshit position that prioritizes personal uncompromising “integrity” of position at the expense of real world harm reduction.
Join up with the Center for Election Science and volunteer to switch your local elections to approval! Typically this is done through a referendum, like was done in Fargo and St. Louis.
The hardest part is building the organization to collect signatures and run the referendum campaign. But, success breeds success, so you running a successful local campaign (like Fargo and St. Louis) will make it easier to turn around and get neighboring areas to switch, which will make it easier to run a state-level campaign to switch.
As for proportional representation, I don’t know of any US organizations working on it at the moment, and I’m like you, I want actionable change. If you’re willing to spin up a whole political machine on your own, go for it, but I suggest working on furthering the established approval momentum and worrying about proportional representation later.