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Comment by swed420 | Hacker News Reader

Voters aren't given meaningful choices. It's just subjective "lesser of two evils" in a race to the bottom (except for elites, who win no matter which fake party is in power).

Democracy is illusory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniparty

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I wouldn't say democracy I'd illusory. I'd say it has to be fought for repeatedly to keep it, and we've done a poor job of fighting for it at least in my lifetime.

There's nothing an actively-aiming-to-harm-others-for-their-own-gain person loves more than someone else deciding to stop trying because it's 'rigged.' The assholes are internally motivated to continue to being assholes. That takes continual active resistance.

Health access, for instance, improved as a result of one set of votes. Lifetime maxes are gone. There is improved access to non-employee plans.

It didn't stop inflation of health plan costs or medical treatment in general. One might think that means its worth voting for people pledging to make further large-scale changes to address those things.

And meanwhile, the assholes have been campaigning on the opposite for more than a decade: try to make the access worse again by trying rhetorical tricks to say that the one caused vs failed to fix the other. That'll let some rich people get even richer.

That's a real difference for many millions of people.

Neither party is perfect. Welcome to adulthood. Shitty compromises are generally all you get.

By all means, work on structural things to encourage more parties to exist and flourish.

Just also pay attention to the active battles.

> someone else deciding to stop trying because it's 'rigged.'

Nobody here is suggesting this.

The 'both sides are the same' actually is though. They never encourage 'take this behavior, vote this person' just 'both sides are the same' 'it's pointless' 'voting doesn't matter' 'voters have no impact'.

Claiming that both parties have more in common than they're given credit for is very different from throwing ones hands in the air and giving up on voting.

I personally see our two parties today and fighting for the same principles while landing on different specific policies. That doesn't mean I don't vote.

> The 'both sides are the same'

Nowhere in my comments or link does it say that. You're attempting a strawman and failing.

I don't think you can seriously say that there are no meaningful differences between the two major parties. Just compare Biden and Trump 2. You might not like either choice, but their policy platforms are in fact very different, and both are popular among large segments of the population. That's democracy in action.

In my opinion, we don't have a democracy problem, we have an education problem. Too many voters support policies that sound nice on paper but are disastrous when put into practice.

The two parties, including the most recent presidents, have disagreed on specific policy but not on direction. Both partied want more federal powers and authority. Both want to spend more than they make. Both believe in authoritarian type rule with "experts" at the top deciding what is best for all of us.

I agree that both parties like executive power, but that's because voters like it when it benefits "their side". If classical liberal ideas like fiscal responsibility and limited government were popular enough, the parties would scramble to nominate candidates who supported those policies. They care about winning elections.

It'd a bit of a vicious circle. Voters don't tend to pay much attention or understand, they hear sound bites that land well for them and their cheer for "their team."

I don't think many people even know what liberalism means today. It gets treated like a synonym for progressivism, which itself is poorly defined and used as a synonym for a DNC voter.

> Both believe in authoritarian type rule with "experts" at the top deciding what is best for all of us.

Nobody wants "experts" at any level of government.

The question that reveals your actual politics: where do want experts? I want them on staff or retainer, quickly accessible to representatives at every level of government.

Both parties absolutely want experts in charge and for the public to generally fall in line and not ask questions.

Did you not see how the entire pandemic response played out? There are still YouTube videos of a huge swath of politicians and media outlets telling people not to do their own research and to just listen to those in charge of the relevant federal agencies.

The pandemic is an excellent example of both parties prioritizing capital interests over human interests:

https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-co...

Lots of blood on their hands.

We also have a liars problem. Too many politicians feel free to tell blatant lies about what they have done, and what they intend to do. The voters don't punish politicians enough for lies.

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