Crucial observation from Rachel Cohen over at the new place - and it points to a larger problem: In the mainstream political discourse, especially in mainstream media coverage, terms like “moderate” and “extreme” have absolutely no substantive definition, which makes it easy for conservatives to constantly drag their meaning rightward.
In this way, what was widely regarded as “extreme” just a little while ago becomes “moderate” as soon as rightwingers move to an even more radical position. It’s a mechanism that constantly normalizes and legitimizes extremist views and policies at a remarkable speed.
A similarly apologist sleight of hand is often deployed to provide cover for the Republican Party in general: If extremism is not defined by its ideological/political substance, but as “something fringe,” then the minute it becomes GOP mainstream, it ceases to be regarded as extremism.
Just like that, not only do extremist ideas and policies get automatically legitimized - by definition, the Republican Party, regardless of how substantively extreme, also gets treated as “normal” simply because it ain’t fringe, because it’s supported by almost half the county.
In the U.S., compulsory voting with no other mitigating measure in place would simply be one more means of persecuting the poor, who are more likely than other groups to eschew voting.
(There's no guarantee at all that those folks are Centrist either.)
I don't support it. I also think that not bothering to place non-voters anywhere in this equation when they're as big a bloc as either major party means that its conclusions are inherently suspect.
Personally, I’d much rather see election reforms like ranked-choice voting, abolishing the electoral system, a publicly shared pool of campaign finance, and legislatively breaking up the duopoly of parties.
I compltagree about non-voters and believe that we should work on that problem with the above techniques, but also by adding options for abstention and no-confidence or, even better, by embracing a more referendum based voting procedure.
@KashifShah@xenophora Ours is mostly a preferential system, except for the senate which is proportional for each state. Your electoral college really makes me wonder…
Yup. If we start from the POV that a refusal to vote is in a sense a vote of no confidence, perhaps that would break open the mental block so many people and institutions seem to have about it...
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