this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2023
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The problem is also thinking it's a one dimensional issue (left or right) when in reality you can pick and choosing different policies. In the US the two party system has cemented the notion that you have to pick red or blue. You end up vilifying the "others" instead of trying to find commonalities. Extremism is inevitable and corrodes society.
This is also the source of a lot of the "they are the same to me". The positions might be dissimilar but if someone considers both parties to be morally bankrupt and disinterested in serving the country then they're still not going to rally behind one of them.
Looking at not just the US (which stands out by being extremelly bad in that regard) but also at other countries with matemathically-rigged-for-power-duopoly voting systems (basically everything with Electoral Circles rather than Proportional Vote), I've conclude that the problem of modern self-proclaimed "democracies" is actually a lack of democracy.
The whole normalization of the two-sides falacy in political thinking (which justifies the very anti-democratic de facto power duopoly as "normal" by hyper-simplifying incredibly complex social and economic situations into a mere 2 and only 2 options) then fans into all manner of disfunctional (brainless, even) ways of looking at society's problems and how to manage a country, not to mention making politics a tribalist play (the whole "us vs them") rather than a hard-nosed rational analysis of problems and solutions and evaluation managerial capability.
Meanwhile the whole "choosing of the lesser evil" that's the main voting mode in such systems, leaves people displeased from the start (they're literally voting for a party they don't like, because the only other genuine option they have they dislike even more) and guarantees that things progressivelly get worse (because power just alternates between lesser evils, never actually getting better).