The majority ‘other’

DLaurent

Well-known member
Politics is nasty at the moment, I don’t think there’s any denying it. People are losing friends because of which side of politics they’re on. Problem is I’ve found, other than my facebook feed which is majority left wing, other forums I’ve posted on are majority right wing. They seem to have the majority too if you go by election results.

By majority right wing I mean a different demographic, old white men and for all means well intentioned, love their country, but are massive Tory supporters with the whole weight of recent results behind them. They love Britain in the same way misguided supporters of previous fascist parties might have been good people. BLM are denounced. The police and military are loved.

This generally seems to be majority of US and UK politics now.
 

linebaugh

Well-known member
Elections are a tricky gauge. Majority of the U.S. seems to be 'center left' by all metrics except election results.
 

luka

Well-known member
Lots of very right wing people on here too. We've got a mix. Some fascists, some alt right, some neocons, some neoliberals, all sorts really. We mostly gave up arguing about it years ago though.
 

luka

Well-known member
I guess when you've been hammering someone with your best arguments and insults for over a decade and they haven't changed their position you realise it's a bit of a waste of time
 

linebaugh

Well-known member
Why doesn't that translate to elections?
Plenty of disjunction between the voting demographic and the general public. Also of note that the center left did win the popular vote in 2016, just failed to have their candidate elected.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Why doesn't that translate to elections?
for presidential elections specifically, the way the Electoral College is set up has much to do with it

which falls under the general umbrella of "disjunction between voting demographic and general public" @Linebaugh mentions

important distinction tho - unlike other elements of that disjunction the Electoral College is neither illegal (voter suppression, gerrymandering) nor informal (apathy, disaffection) but deliberately built into the Constitution as one of its numerous checks on popular democracy. the founders were kinda obsessively afraid of mob rule and had little faith in "the people's" ability for self-government.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
as far as non-national elections, depends on the demographics of the state/district/city but also there's a reason the GOP has been aggressively gerrymandering and pushing various voter suppression - i.e. strict ID requirements, bullshit emphasis on voter fraud as a serious problem, etc - strategies the last decade plus - the Republicans know very well that they're on the wrong side of demographics and that the problem will only increase going forward. they're in an inescapable bind - they either change their platform and alienate their aging white base, or they stick with it and kill their chances of expanding that base. the last few years of increasing political confusion - Bernie/Trump overlap, alt-everything, etc - may make that less clear than it was an election cycle or two ago but it still seems basically true.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
as far as the UK, I'm less clear but I assume you'd have to look at granular demographics for parliamentary elections

for a straight up popular vote like Brexit you have to either look at malign influences (Cambridge Analytica etc) and/or accept it as a reflection of long-standing tradition of British Euroskepticism, disaffection with the effects of globalization, etc that doesn't line up along a neat right-left axis
 
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