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The Batlord · 07-27-2020, 07:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SoundgardenRocks

It's a good point. I've discussed this with multiple people in real life and they all claim - "Oh yeah, when I go and vote, I vote with the best information. I spend a lot of time researching to determine who I think is best". I'm always a little underwhelmed by this, and suffice it to say, I don't believe them.

I think most people (if I had to put a number on it, I'd say....85%), when they are in that voting booth, with no one watching, they vote with their feelings and with their emotions. Is that a bad thing? I don't know - I lean towards it not being a good thing, but then again, even if you know every single position and promise of a candidate, most of them don't come even moderately close to keeping those positions/promises (e.g. "Read my lips, no new taxes!" or "He kept us out of the war!" [Woodrow Wilson]). To Bat's point, media and propoganda play an outsized role in our elections.

I think it's more fundamental than just the specifics of modern society and voting culture. I don't think the last couple hundred years of democracy have done much to change how people relate to and interact with power and the establishment. People treat the presidency as much more important than Congress because deep down we're still just peasants looking for an authority figure to make all the decisions that we have no time, power, or inclination to make while we're either harvesting crops or managing our portfolios in much the same way that people have interacted with our leaders all throughout history. The novelty of democracy is almost just a gimmick so that the populace can puff out their chests and feel important even though they have no intention of actually being civically engaged in a way that would meaningfully transfer any power from the government to us.