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[-] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 51 points 9 months ago

This is what we're doing

Young people have not been as enthusiastic supporters of the Biden administration [even] before President Biden was elected. So what's different about Gen Z generation in particular, who's known to be politically active, also very diverse and caring about a variety of social issues, is that when they're disappointed in what the government is doing or what the leaders are showing them, they're willing to take the issue in their own hand and try to intervene, try to get involved sometimes by speaking up by their vote.

But by and large, they have voted more than other generations have as youth, regardless of how disappointed they say they are in the government. So if the past couple of elections' trends hold, young people have been disappointed in the government and their elected leaders, but they voted.

[Bolding added]

[-] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 6 points 9 months ago

Wait, we're not supposed to be disappointed in our government? Could have fooled me.

[-] LordOfTheChia@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

The big thing is that movements start from local political offices and can grow from there.

It can start with representatives, the rare senator, or even taking over of a party at the state level:

https://apnews.com/article/nevada-bernie-sanders-las-vegas-harry-reid-6f834efcd0dcc3644ce2365447aabab0

Participate in local elections, back primary candidates. Once the numbers are there at the nationwide level, we can push for a more representative electoral system.

We can push system that uses ranked choice voting like Alaska did. We can also increase the size of the house of representatives to better match the idea of representation the founding fathers had for us. It's been nearly a 100 years that the house was capped at 435

The founding fathers had envisioned a house that grew with the size of the country:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Apportionment_Amendment

This laid the intent that we have 1 rep per 30,000 people and increase the constituents per rep by 10,000 each time the house reached another 100 seats.

Or in other words, the max constituents represented by each rep in the house should be:

30,000 + RoundedDown(Number of house seats/100)*10,000

So at 400+ seats (1 rep per 70,000) would make sense for a country of 28 million. Really, with the wording of the amendment and understanding that the examples lay out a mathematical formula for expanding the house indefinitely (but with more people per rep as it goes up) we would have over a 1,000 reps! In fact, some quick math shows that per the original intents, we would have 1700 reps with at most 200,000 constituents each. This would hold until our population reaches 340 million when we'd switch to 1800 reps and a cap per rep of 210,000.

There's a current "Uncap the House" movement, however, I'm unsure of how much momentum they've been gaining.

To see how the number of constituents has grown per member over the years:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_apportionment#Number_of_members

In other words, we're being shorted almost 1300 reps!

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[-] samus12345@lemmy.world 22 points 9 months ago

both parties ultimately stand for the same values

This is an extremely privileged take. Yes, both parties support corporations and capitalism. However, one party also supports the eradication of people they don't like. This is a very significant difference.

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[-] DarkGamer@kbin.social 20 points 9 months ago

Both parties stand for the same values? Lol, what?

[-] rikudou 7 points 9 months ago

You know, the values of keeping rich people rich and poor people poor.

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[-] cynar@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

America has a right wing party, and a party of hyper right wing nutcases.

Unfortunately it's a flaw in FPTP voting systems. The biggest thing that would help (in any country with FPTP) would be to move to almost any other sort of voting. Ranked choice would be the least disruptive, in the short term, but still allow for long term corrections to function.

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[-] fidodo@lemmy.world 14 points 9 months ago

More important than the president or Congress, remember that you're also voting for a ticket to the supreme Court, and that vote really really fucking matters.

[-] AngelJamie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 9 months ago
[-] flames5123@lemmy.world 9 points 9 months ago

Voting takes like 10 minutes

100% false. In the 2020 election in Mississippi, I had to wait in line for 2 hours. My wife had to call into the vet clinic she worked at to make sure she could to take a 3 hour lunch to vote even though it was 2 miles from where she worked. It was so disorganized and so slow.

I’m so glad I vote via mail now in Washington.

[-] LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee 5 points 9 months ago

It was so ~~disorganized~~sabotaged and so slow.

FTFY

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[-] wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago

ifunny? What is this, 2006?

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[-] CouncilOfFriends@slrpnk.net 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

10 minutes might be the average, as even my backwards Republican controlled state has moved to vote by mail. I get the ballot, do a quick internet search on people or issues I don't understand, and move on with my day in less time than that typically. As a bonus, mail ballots are far easier to audit and recount than those ridiculous electronic voting machines which print the voter's choices next to the non-human readable QR code which is actually used for counting.

I don't have experience in states which put up barriers or hours of waiting in line for in-person and mail voting, and I admire those who put up with that shit

[-] Turun@feddit.de 7 points 9 months ago

If voting prevents literal murder then both parties obviously don't stand for the same values.

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[-] Aceticon@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

It's deeply ironic the use of an Icelandic singer in a meme to justify participating in the performance of the Theatre Of The Vote in the, unlike in Iceland, far from Democratic American Duopoly system.

Unironic would be to use Putin or some well known Russian figure.

[-] amazing_stories@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

Also, she's an anarchist so I'm not entirely sure this is even the kind of advice she would give.

[-] barsoap@lemm.ee 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Now you've made me curious. The depths of the interwebs reveal that she says she casts an empty ballot, no reasoning given. Iceland doesn't have compulsory voting.

Staying in Iceland: Jón Gnarr is also an anarchist and ran for office. Then, I'm an anarchist and the opposite of anti-electoral, if nothing else it's necessary to combat depoliticisation and protect liberal democracy as the stopgap measure it is. Fascists won't stop voting to try and capture the state least you can do is cancel out their vote by voting non-fascist.

I'm not even sure there's many anti-electoral anarchists around, actually arguing against voting instead of simply personally not voting (which lots of people do for various reasons), practically all the arguments you hear from that side is egg-headed theoretical moralising without reference to praxis.

[-] 3rdwrldbathhaus@lemm.ee 4 points 9 months ago

I love björk so much she's so awesome

[-] synapse1278@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

I would like to remind all EU citizens we are voting for the parlament in June. Make sure you are properly registered to vote !

[-] RealFknNito@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

Man, this is drenched in Anarchy overtones. If voting can help groups not get murdered how is it not also able to fight fascism and capitalist oppression? Seems like the latter would include the former in it.

Oh right, it's a meme, not an actual thought out take. Damn it.

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[-] Pratai@lemmy.ca 2 points 9 months ago

I’m so glad to be seeing a lot more of this type of content lately. It gives me hope that logic and reason can play a bigger role here on lemmy moving forward.

Was getting a bit bummed that it seemed to be a far leftist tankie haven.

[-] Tinidril@midwest.social 3 points 9 months ago

It's way out of proportion to the tiny percentage of the politically active left that doesn't vote or doesn't vote Democratic. It's a feel-good virtue-signaling that does nothing but validate the lame excuses the establishment uses every time they lose to a fascist.

Despite the noise you see online (from people who's mind you won't change) leftists overwhelmingly hold their noses and pull the Democrat lever every 4 years. We don't need to be reminded of how much it sucks every damn day.

It's the ordinary non-policy-wonks that stay home on election day, and it's pathetic Democrats that make that happen. Sane Americans have checked out of the process because they don't see the point and have better things to do. They also aren't here to be preached at.

You don't need the left to show up to vote. We already do that. You need us donating to campaigns, passing out flyers, making phone calls, and countering the endless flow of bullshit from the right, and all the other things that you aren't doing because you are here feeling good about preaching to the choir.

The Democrats have my vote, but I can't stomach doing the establishment's work anymore. Just once I would like to be able to confront a rightist and not have them be able to counter with accusations of elitism and corruption that are absolutely true. Just once I would like to explain to someone how the Democrats actually will help them figure out how to get out from under a mountain of debt. I just don't have whatever it takes to advance campaigns of grift, elitist bluster, and empty promises.

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[-] LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 9 months ago

Idk why you're equating far leftists and marxist-leninists. Lemmy will have a political bias depending on what your instance is. But the majority of Lemmy has had in the past, continues to have in the present, and for the foreseeable future will have a leftist bias. The software is made by leftists and has strong ties to the self hosted and GNU communities, which themselves are heavily associated with leftists and leftist politics.

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[-] Sunfoil@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

Ah the ol' revolution larp. Classic.

[-] Linkerbaan@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

Reminder that voting for Biden or Trump means you endorse genocide 😎

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this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
435 points (89.5% liked)

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