LogFAQs > #935110895

YoukaiSlayer posted...

The electoral college system is obvious garbage but the presidential politics are only a portion of the issue. It's not like a moderate can actually get anything done anymore than an extreme candidate can once elected.

That's completely untrue. You're infinitely more likely to find common ground when you're closer to the center on a good many issues whereas an extreme stance often doesn't even get support within the individual's own party.

YoukaiSlayer posted...

What is even the point of a party system that allows such wild differences in opinion on policy?

Because you're never going to get everybody simpatico on everything. Instead they'll be together on some issues, apart on others.

YoukaiSlayer posted...

Then again the point of democracy is kinda vague to me. It should be obvious that a random citizen lacks the knowledge to make important political decisions.

That's why you have all kinds of democracies. In some systems, you might have individuals vote for a local politician who handles voting for higher-ranking politicians. The average person could therefore be reasonably informed when it comes to that one race and leave everything else in their hands.

However, as much as people fixate on national races, voters routinely choose candidates for lower posts where the only thing they know is the party affiliation and the candidate's name... and, in many of those cases, people aren't going to directly notice the impact anyway. Do you know the name of your city/town's Treasurer and City/Town Clerk? I've met both of the ones for my area, but I can't remember their names and -- despite having gone to the Clerk's office on a few occasions -- I'm honestly not sure how much difference it'd make if somebody else had got elected. There are a *lot* of low-information political decisions people routinely make that probably would be better handled by political appointment although, from a practical standpoint, it might come out the same. Doubly so when you get ridiculous public measures where voters are asked to consider measures that contain largely unrelated items, such as one to put in new sidewalks and demolish older state-owned buildings.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.