Upvoted for suggesting that the oligarchy is solely responsible for the state of American politics, downvoted for pointing out that this means the voters aren’t.
Never change, Lemmy~<3.
No leopards here.
It’s almost like the internet is more than one person.
And has more than 2 opinions
And I’m three of them!
counting upvotes in the comments section of a lemmy post is usually a pointless exercise
I’m not tying my self-esteem to meaningless numbers, I’m being amused by the wildly divergent response to similar comments in the same community.
you can do it for whatever reason you want
Complaining about downvotes gathers more downvotes regardless of the validity of the original statement
I’m not complaining about the downvotes, I’m amused by their lack of consistency.
I don’t understand. The complaint here is that you got a single downvote on one comment but not another? That seems pretty normal. Unless you’re asking us to help keep equivalent the number of downvotes on the 2 comments?
I’m remarking on the consistent inconsistency of political opinions regarding the culpability of American voters for the American state.
It’s extremely normal, and that’s fucked up.
Am I reading this right? You wrote both comments, screenshot them and reposted your own comments?
Both comments share the same opinion, but stating it in terms of the lack of agency of American voters earns downotes while the version that emphasises the culpability of the oligarchy gets the opposite.
Was your goal to prove random people on the internet are inconsistent? Even i could have told you that.
My goal was to share my amusement with this inconsistency.
Hence the whole, “Never change, Lemmy”.
Guess I don’t share in the amusement.
I guess I’m just easily amused.
Where is the dichotomy? Both statements in the image are consistent with each other
If we’re talking about the votes, different people could have voted on different messages.
The statements are consistent, but the responses to them are not.
I find it amusing that there are still people who want to hold the voting public accountable in this, the most heavily propagandized country on earth.
I find it amusing that there are still people who want to hold the voting public accountable in this, the most heavily propagandized country on earth.
You mean holding voters accountable for their vote?
Precisely.
We don’t even have accountability for elected officials and their sponsors, but we have to hold the poorly-educated and wildly propagandized voting base responsible for choices that were made for them?
No, this is obviously more propaganda meant to insulate the ruling class. Keeping us poors at each other’s throats so we don’t notice that wealth concentration in the USA has gotten worse than it was in France before the revolution.
. . but we have to hold the poorly-educated and wildly propagandized voting base responsible for choices that were made for them?
I hold anyone who voted responsible for their vote - that’s their choice. If they were hoodwinked, hornswaggled, tricked, swindled, and brainwashed - or if they’re clearly understanding exactly what they’re voting for. It’s their muscles that pull the lever, so to speak, and it’s not forced on them. They own it.
Keeping us poors at each other’s throats so we don’t notice that wealth concentration in the USA has gotten worse than it was in France before the revolution.
That’s true. But a poor “christian” nazi who loves Trump is still an asshole who should be metaphorically pelted with rocks and garbage for what they’ve done. A young idealist who doesn’t know shit and therefore chose not to vote should own that too.
Those weren’t choices made for them. They spent the last several years loudly breaking all the norms and social contracts for trump or whoever was telling them to hurt others. Fox News didn’t make them. ExxonMobil didn’t make them. Facebook didn’t make them. They all helped, but that’s a different argument entirely.
I hold anyone who voted responsible for their vote - that’s their choice.
You’ve got your concept of voting turned the wrong way around. The point of elections is not for the people to decide who their leaders are, that’s the process by which elections achieve their actual purpose, to legitimize the State’s claim on the right to rule the people.
If they were hoodwinked, hornswaggled, tricked, swindled, and brainwashed - or if they’re clearly understanding exactly what they’re voting for. It’s their muscles that pull the lever, so to speak, and it’s not forced on them. They own it.
Own what? 1/165,000,000th of the collective responsibility for the choices of the person they elected?
Or is it that elected leaders are actually responsible for their own actions?
You don’t get to have it both ways.
Those weren’t choices made for them.
By this logic, one could also blame Harris voters for their failure to elect Harris, and that’s the fatal crux of the argument.
Collective responsibility is always going to be a ethical nightmare because the responsibility is never actually collective. Individuals in positions of power made all the choices that narrowed the Overton Window to two bad candidates, which they then offer to the electorate so that they can avoid being blamed for the outcome.
So-called “Democracy” is the wool that’s been pulled over our eyes to keep us from seeing what’s really going on and sending all our former presidents to the Hague about it.
Own what? 1/165,000,000th of the collective responsibility for the choices of the person they elected?
Or is it that elected leaders are actually responsible for their own actions?
You don’t get to have it both ways.
The voter is responsible for their vote. The elected leader should be held accountable by law, by society, and by the voters. All three failed here.
Those weren’t choices made for them.
By this logic, one could also blame Harris voters for their failure to elect Harris, and that’s the fatal crux of the argument.
Dude, back up off the pipe. No it doesn’t.
A voter chooses. That’s the entirety of the argument. If the person they voted for turns out to be a psychic space monkey from Alderaan here to create a new religion which wasn’t known to them, well - okay that was unexpected, but the voter is only responsible for voting for them. If the person they voted for turns out to be a demented rapist hell-bent on stealing money and corrupting government for his own power AND THAT IS WELL-DOCUMENTED AND EXPLAINED BEFORE THE ELECTION, then they’re onboard with that. If they’re too stupid to understand that, well, okay everyone gets a second chance. Oh wait this was the second chance. Well, they’re fucked then.
Collective responsibility is always going to be a ethical nightmare because the responsibility is never actually collective.
What collective? No one’s saying trump voters should go to prison for selling secrets to the Saudis. No one’s saying the Jill Stein dipshits should be excommunicated from the . . well, actually that might be a good . . no, no they’re not saying that. Your logic is broken here - it’s not holding the voter to account for what the elected leader does. It’s holding them to account for giving the leader the vote. It’s entirely different.
Individuals in positions of power made all the choices that narrowed the Overton Window to two bad candidates . . .
I disagree entirely. One of them was a good candidate. Lots of them were good. They were defeated by a minority of racist “christians” and a ton of pithed idiots who refused to vote on “principle”. And now we’re all fucked.
The voter is responsible for their vote.
Votes themselves are meaningless without context, and their context is defined by the actions the elected person makes. You can try to ascribe responsibility by claiming that those actions are taken with the assumed blessing of the voting public, but only if you decide that the person taking those actions isn’t fully responsible for them.
The elected leader should be held accountable by law, by society, and by the voters. All three failed here.
At the risk of sounding cliche, you’re using the word “should” to paper over the entire reality of the American political system.
It’d be nice if we had real government accountability, but you have to be clear-eyed and admit that the only people our politicians can be reigned-in by are billionaires, their lobbyists, and their media. The law doesn’t constrain them, “society” already elevated them to their unaccountable position, and the voters are trapped in a two-party system that limits the available choices to only those politicians who are already part of this system.
A voter chooses. That’s the entirety of the argument.
You’re ignoring a key aspect of voting in America, a voter can only choose between the two candidates they are offered. We don’t even have “none of the above” as an option.
Therefore, the choice made by the voter isn’t really a choice at all. One either supports the system as it currently exists in the hope that the government will wear their preferred face for the next 4 years, or doesn’t. The real choices; who gets to represent the party, what policies should they support, which issues get focused on and which get ignored, are all made by party leadership long before the primaries.
it’s not holding the voter to account for what the elected leader does. It’s holding them to account for giving the leader the vote. It’s entirely different.
I’m unclear as to the functional difference between these two perspectives. Blaming voters for the decisions made on their behalf and blaming them for enabling the person who made those decisions are the same thing.
One of them was a good candidate.
If they were a good candidate, why did they lose?
They were defeated by a minority of racist “christians” and a ton of pithed idiots who refused to vote on “principle”.
Then you should either admit that what is “good” in America is defined by racists and idiots (and therefore that our Democracy is working as intended), or admit that the “Democratic” process is fundamentally broken (and therefore blaming the voters for the outcome of the election is about as useful as blaming water for being wet).
