A lot has been said about how shocking and awful the results are, and I do agree with them. I definitely do not condone any of the far-right parties, their representatives, or their policies.
But what hasn’t been said (and might be a bit controversial) is the fact that liberal parties are the biggest problem that the world is facing right now. It’s the parties that pretend to be an opposition force, but in reality they just keep shitting on voters, making broken promises, and saying “it’ll be better next time, just one more term!” They keep trying to convince people that the system works and that iterative changes will make things better. But in reality, things have actually been getting worse for 10, 15, maybe even 20 years… (the exact number depends on where you live and what you do for a living).
After a while, people stop believing in those broken promises. And the longer they refuse to put up any real opposition, the more and more they empower the far right.
In Canada, Trudeau needs to implement proportional representation NOW. If he doesn’t want to do that, he might as well just come out and endorse Poilievre, because he damn well knows what will happen if he doesn’t give people a real alternative (even he can’t pretend it’s any other way at this point). And no, ranked choice voting is not the answer here.
In the US, I have to be honest: it’s not a country anymore. It’s several countries, all jammed into one, and half of whom hate each other with no limit. And to be honest, this is how it’s supposed to work!!! This is how the constitution is framed! Federal government is supposed to be weak and state governments are supposed to fill that void, but the States refuse to actually work that way and keep looking to control a Federal government in a way that they’ll never be able to.
The USA really ought to break into constituent countries. The West Coast is a country. The Northeast is at least one country, maybe 3-4. And you can slice up the red states however you like - I honestly don’t care. Maybe this way, they can finally actually get shit done in a way that starts making people happy, because there’s far too much animosity between different and disparate parts of the “country” in its current form. It’s definitely not going to come from the Federal government.
I know that none of these things are going to happen, so things will just continue getting worse and worse over the next decade or two. Fair warning to everyone: we’re not even close to rock bottom yet.
OMG this. The worst thing too is that liberal parties block actual left parties (helped by our first-past-the-post voting system) that want to do more than incremental change while empowering the far right. Ultimately a lot of elite liberals would rather the far right win than a genuine left party. One of the MSNBC talking heads accidentally let that slip when he said he’d sooner vote for Trump than Bernie Sanders before being forced to retract by one of the other hosts.
A lot has been said about how shocking and awful the results are, and I do agree with them. I definitely do not condone any of the far-right parties, their representatives, or their policies.
But what hasn’t been said (and might be a bit controversial) is the fact that liberal parties are the biggest problem that the world is facing right now. It’s the parties that pretend to be an opposition force, but in reality they just keep shitting on voters, making broken promises, and saying “it’ll be better next time, just one more term!” They keep trying to convince people that the system works and that iterative changes will make things better. But in reality, things have actually been getting worse for 10, 15, maybe even 20 years… (the exact number depends on where you live and what you do for a living).
After a while, people stop believing in those broken promises. And the longer they refuse to put up any real opposition, the more and more they empower the far right.
In Canada, Trudeau needs to implement proportional representation NOW. If he doesn’t want to do that, he might as well just come out and endorse Poilievre, because he damn well knows what will happen if he doesn’t give people a real alternative (even he can’t pretend it’s any other way at this point). And no, ranked choice voting is not the answer here.
In the US, I have to be honest: it’s not a country anymore. It’s several countries, all jammed into one, and half of whom hate each other with no limit. And to be honest, this is how it’s supposed to work!!! This is how the constitution is framed! Federal government is supposed to be weak and state governments are supposed to fill that void, but the States refuse to actually work that way and keep looking to control a Federal government in a way that they’ll never be able to.
The USA really ought to break into constituent countries. The West Coast is a country. The Northeast is at least one country, maybe 3-4. And you can slice up the red states however you like - I honestly don’t care. Maybe this way, they can finally actually get shit done in a way that starts making people happy, because there’s far too much animosity between different and disparate parts of the “country” in its current form. It’s definitely not going to come from the Federal government.
I know that none of these things are going to happen, so things will just continue getting worse and worse over the next decade or two. Fair warning to everyone: we’re not even close to rock bottom yet.
OMG this. The worst thing too is that liberal parties block actual left parties (helped by our first-past-the-post voting system) that want to do more than incremental change while empowering the far right. Ultimately a lot of elite liberals would rather the far right win than a genuine left party. One of the MSNBC talking heads accidentally let that slip when he said he’d sooner vote for Trump than Bernie Sanders before being forced to retract by one of the other hosts.