[Politics] Is democracy in crisis?

[Rdodge30]

In more news, whilst we are on the subject of politicians who will say anything to stay in power:

Sir Keir Starmer will reduce carbon emissions in the UK by 81%

Regardless of your personal political affiliation….. who read that and actually believed it?

 

[Zeberdi]

Most of what I see I would describe as challenging rather than attacking as you put it.

A bit of robust debate never hurt anyone and I am not really sure I agree that it is this (or when it spills over to mudslinging and attacking) that was the reason for Trump's victory.

The notion of am electorate fed up with politics and looking for a champion to smash the system is a much sounder hypothesis in my opinion.

Pussy footing around and pretending that having an opinion that immigrants are eating pets because your cult leader has told you this is the case, because he is 'close enough to the truth' is valid, isn't going to make any difference either way.

You are again missing the point I made and seem to be again making my posts out to be a criticism of you personally even though I said it wasn’t.

You or any of us are not going to change the minds of people like CD by constantly trolling him and telling him he is speaking ‘bullshit’ any more than Harris could have changed the minds of MAGA. He is not listening nor is anyone else! Frankly if someone was to constantly attack me or call me a liar, I probably wouldn’t listen either.

I am just saying there are more effective ways of encouraging people to see your political POV than to troll them online/or make constant attacks on them in the MSM. That is a general observation NOT a criticism of you.

Harris lost votes and more importantly audiences with all the mud slinging and verbal attacks on Trump when what swing voters really wanted to hear was what her policies were and how she would improve their livelihoods.

Same on NSC - many people say they have been turned off political threads because they find them a toxic binfest when people start attacking each other rather than debating the issues sensibly.

When both sides to political debate have valid points, those points often don’t reach the moderates, swing voters we want to reach because they have simply tuned out of the debate, fed up with the toxicity of public political discourse.

Moderate voters in the US are also fed up with entrenched and polarised politicians unable to reach across the aisle or work together in Congress to the point, little gets done unless one party has the majority of both the House and Senate..

You and I disagree on quite a lot I think but I have no wish to get into a protracted argument so I‘ll leave it there and bid you good day.

 

[beorhthelm]

In more news, whilst we are on the subject of politicians who will say anything to stay in power:

Sir Keir Starmer will reduce carbon emissions in the UK by 81%

Regardless of your personal political affiliation….. who read that and actually believed it?

unless there's a secret plan for huge nuclear roll out, along with state funding for new electric boilers and cars, dont see that's remotely achievable. i dont believe we'll achieve 81% reduction in carbon from electricity generation, before even thinking about heating and transport. the politicans seem to be good at making these targets and not so go at how we get there.

 

[dsr-burnley]

unless there's a secret plan for huge nuclear roll out, along with state funding for new electric boilers and cars, dont see that's remotely achievable. i dont believe we'll achieve 81% reduction in carbon from electricity generation, before even thinking about heating and transport. the politicans seem to be good at making these targets and not so go at how we get there.

Remember that if we stop using gas-powered electricity produced in this country and replace it with gas-powered electricity produced abroad, that counts as a reduction in emissions for political purposes. Ditto steel - steel produced in China and shipped across the world is much better for the statistics than steel produced here. They will have other tricks like that to cook the books.

(Before anyone comments, yes, the Tories had exactly the same mindset. Little interest in reducing the planet's emissions, lots of interest in making the figures look good.)

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

Most of what I see I would describe as challenging rather than attacking as you put it.

A bit of robust debate never hurt anyone and I am not really sure I agree that it is this (or when it spills over to mudslinging and attacking) that was the reason for Trump's victory.

The notion of am electorate fed up with politics and looking for a champion to smash the system is a much sounder hypothesis in my opinion.

Pussy footing around and pretending that having an opinion that immigrants are eating pets because your cult leader has told you this is the case, because he is 'close enough to the truth' is valid, isn't going to make any difference either way.

It's an interesting debate and I agree with both your points and Zeberdis, to be honest. Falsehoods should be challenged and not accepted, yes, but merely laughing at them and pointing out they are false isn't enough.

Take the eating pets thing. We all laughed at him when he said that in the debate, memes were made and it becomes a joke. But in the final reckoning immigration was important in people's votes and people who cared about that voted overwhelmingly for Trump. He may have used a falsehood to make the point, and that falsehood was challenged vigorously but where was the counterpoint from Harris about what she would do about illegal immigration? Her best answer would be to doubt the veracity of the pet eating, sure, but then address it properly, to acknowledge uncontrolled immigration caused problems and say what she would do. She should have taken the issue seriously rather than just laugh at Trump.

 

[BadFish]

It's an interesting debate and I agree with both your points and Zeberdis, to be honest. Falsehoods should be challenged and not accepted, yes, but merely laughing at them and pointing out they are false isn't enough.

Take the eating pets thing. We all laughed at him when he said that in the debate, memes were made and it becomes a joke. But in the final reckoning immigration was important in people's votes and people who cared about that voted overwhelmingly for Trump. He may have used a falsehood to make the point, and that falsehood was challenged vigorously but where was the counterpoint from Harris about what she would do about illegal immigration? Her best answer would be to doubt the veracity of the pet eating, but to acknowledge uncontrolled immigration caised problems and say what she would do. She should have taken the issue seriously rather than just laugh at Trump.

I agree, she should have done more. For me though this isn't about people laughing at his bullshit and calling it out. It is more to do with her failing to get her message across about the issues her opponent is bullshit ting about.

 

[FatSuperman]

During his campaign he said he wouldn’t get into bed with the Tories. He did.

His main, constantly repeated number one policy promise was to freeze tuition fees - he didn’t. He grabbed power, then tripled them.

This betrayal to the people who got him into power (the student vote) not only led to a Tory majority at the next possible opportunity, and led to Lib Dem’s worst ever electoral performance, but also directly cost me personally more money than any government ever has or ever will. He lied.

He got a whiff of power, and showed his true colours.

Certainly true, but I think that is because he was weak and sacrificed it for 'the greater good of maintaining power'. But interesting nobody seems to blame the Tories, who clearly pushed all of that and used the Lib Dems as the fall guy. It was the COALITION that tripled fees, not Nick Clegg. The Tories knew it would ruin the Lib Dems for a couple of decades. A job well done they'd say.

 

[HalfaSeatOn]

To be honest, I think the left/right divide IS being broken, and will take a while to settle into a new normal, hence the election results we're seeing.

We still have a system of wealthy and workers, but who they vote for has changed. The left used to be the party of subsidising factories and keeping mines open, now it is the right's policy so the workers have shifted right. The middle classes in the suburbs used to associate themselves with the wealthy and vote right, now they find themselves more aligned with the left on social issues and have shifted that way.

What I think you have is a broken link between economic policies and social policies of each party, with people being dragged one way on (a) and the other way on (b) and that is putting a strain on two-party democracy with people not entirely sure which way to go. Yes to PR, I guess, although when you're electing a president that's not an option. I think a lot of Trump voters held their noses on things like abortion, reasoning there wasn't much he (nor Harris) could do individually about that, and went with the economic promises.

Final point - it is all about promises. The worlds not in a great place so people want things to change and vote for the guy who says he will deliver change. Anyone saying we're going to continue on the same path and that's the best option might well be right but ain't going to win. This is a step on the classic route of societal collapse.

Agree that the left/right divide is being broken. I came across the term ‘diagonalists’ a while back which highlighted the coming together of disparate groupings. Plenty on it on t’Internet.

 

[BadFish]

Agree that the left/right divide is being broken. I came across the term ‘diagonalists’ a while back which highlighted the coming together of disparate groupings. Plenty on it on t’Internet.

In the Assault on Truth Peter Oborne talked about the fact that it was always the left that wanted to bring down the system with the right seeing it as the pillars of democracy etc. Now we see the right, for the first time wanting to smash the system.

 

[Zeberdi]

It's an interesting debate and I agree with both your points and Zeberdis, to be honest. Falsehoods should be challenged and not accepted, yes, but merely laughing at them and pointing out they are false isn't enough.

Take the eating pets thing. We all laughed at him when he said that in the debate, memes were made and it becomes a joke. But in the final reckoning immigration was important in people's votes and people who cared about that voted overwhelmingly for Trump. He may have used a falsehood to make the point, and that falsehood was challenged vigorously but where was the counterpoint from Harris about what she would do about illegal immigration? Her best answer would be to doubt the veracity of the pet eating, sure, but then address it properly, to acknowledge uncontrolled immigration caused problems and say what she would do. She should have taken the issue seriously rather than just laugh at Trump.

Quite.

Campaign time that would have imo been better spent convincing swing voters that Harris’s policy on immigration, the economy and healthcare was a better solution to the one the Republicans were offering.

Trump basically didn’t have to justify any of his ‘bullshit’ to win the election he just had to dominate the media attention with parodies of himself and others and post outrageous comments on social media to swamp out any noise the Dems were making about policy. People obliged by responding to him on his terms until the main discussion points became eating dogs and invasion of the South by Mexicans and Latino murders and thieves etc

 

[jcdenton08]

Certainly true, but I think that is because he was weak and sacrificed it for 'the greater good of maintaining power'. But interesting nobody seems to blame the Tories, who clearly pushed all of that and used the Lib Dems as the fall guy. It was the COALITION that tripled fees, not Nick Clegg. The Tories knew it would ruin the Lib Dems for a couple of decades. A job well done they'd say.

Oh I blame the Tories hugely. It was their policy, not the Libs, we all understand that I think.

Nonetheless, nothing in your post actually changes any of the facts, which are:

1. Lib Dem’s main election promise - freeze tuition fees. This was their key policy for winning votes from young people and academia.

2. They subsequently win votes from young people and academia, which gives them a chance to make demands when forming a coalition, with offers from Labour and Tories on the table.

3. They then choose the Tories to form a coalition with, despite Labour ceding the election reform policy as a sweetener, knowing the Tories are hell-bent on reforming tuition fees, without any exemptions or backstops in place to delay their implementation of the policy.

4. Clegg is offered Deputy PM and jumps at the chance of being in power, subsequently abandoning their key election pledge in return for 4 years as a glorified understudy who never goes on stage.

5. Coalition government, supported by Lib Dem’s, reform tuition fees.

6. Young, student and academia vote goes to Labour. Lib Dem’s suffer biggest election loss in their history and their lowest approval ratings in peacetime.

7. Clegg himself loses seat and exits politics in disgrace.

 

[Crawley Dingo]

If Biden got 81m and Harris 72m - that's 9m difference. Not 25%?

Taking an average of this century.

 

[Bodian]

Don't know about democracy - but a free media seems to be under threat.

Trump and allies are waging campaign against media to stifle dissent – experts

Lawsuits against Iowa paper and settlement with ABC signal beginning of aggressive legal action to silence critics

www.theguardian.com

 

[rogersix]

I am not a communications expert but I would guess that how people learnt of that story and believed it might give some idea of how to fight back. The people who believe these things are unlikely to get their news from normal sources, so maybe truth tellers must infiltrate those sources? It is people like you and me that know it is a pack of lies, the sort of people who get their news from normal sources. Those that believe it get their "news" from all sort of dodgy sources on the internet I guess and stopped watching traditional, normal news channels years ago.
All I do know is that branding people as stupid and being incredulous at what they vote for isn't working as a strategy to beat them. There have been too many "odd" election results now to believe things are not going to change without a radical rethink from those that keep losing.

Edit: It would help if governments kept their promises too btw.

another approach is to give up, let the lunatics take over the asylum, allow the whole shithouse go up in flames, and then the simpletons will learn the hard way

 

[tedebear]

Democracy will always be under threat from corruption and collusion.

 

[Crawley Dingo]

Don't know about democracy - but a free media seems to be under threat.

Trump and allies are waging campaign against media to stifle dissent – experts

Lawsuits against Iowa paper and settlement with ABC signal beginning of aggressive legal action to silence critics

www.theguardian.com

if you read a credible source you will find out he is suing for Libel, and poll rigging. This is why the Guardian left X, it didn't like being fact checked.

 

[Bodian]

if you read a credible source you will find out he is suing for Libel, and poll rigging. This is why the Guardian left X, it didn't like being fact checked.

He's suing for libel, yes. The poll rigging is just a rubbish argument - the paper just published a poll that turned out to be wrong; if anything it may have actually helped Trump by getting his voters out. It's just media intimidation and SLAPPs

Facts are not checked on X. Musk promotes all sorts of misinformation unchecked.

 

[Blue3]

We are living through a huge moment of uncertainty and change as the world adjusts from Capitalism as the dominant economic system to something else

 

[drew]

another approach is to give up, let the lunatics take over the asylum, allow the whole shithouse go up in flames, and then the simpletons will learn the hard way

Sounds like the 1930s!

 

[Weststander]

We are living through a huge moment of uncertainty and change as the world adjusts from Capitalism as the dominant economic system to something else

Capitalism is very alive and kicking, on steroids. From China, Russia, to the US, a lot of people are getting ever wealthier, whilst the top half below that eg in the UK and EU are sitting pretty.