Americans talk so much about democracy, and this is how they treat their voters… Reading this thread just makes me sad.
Comment on Why am I seeing "plan your voting day strategy" so often?
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 1 week agoIt is Tuesday for some outdated reason that no longer matters and it is kept as a tradition because it conflicts with working days where minorities and other lower income folks will find it harderr to vote.
The lines are long in places where Republicans want to suppress the vote, by not providing enough staffing, minimizing voting stations, and throwing in other hurdles. They also oppose early voting snd mail in voting to make it harder for everyone to vote, because their angry voters are more likely to stick it out through those barriers.
I live in a Republican state that hasn’t gone Dem for president since Nixon, and of course I have never waited more than 5 minutes in line and started voting early when that option was added. I don’t vote Republican, but most of the people do so they haven’t gone as malicious on voter suppression like in the states that have a chance of going Dem.
TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
Bigfish@lemmynsfw.com 1 week ago
As an American: Me too 😮💨
Aceticon@lemmy.world 1 week ago
It’s a well known phenomenon that the more people self-compliment about some great quality they have, the less that is the case.
A similar thing seems to happen at a political level - the countries were politicians just harp on and on about how great their Democracy is (in the case of the US) or how old it is (in the case of the UK) have the most flawed Democracies (if they even count as Democracies given how far they stray from the “all votes are equal” criteria) whilst in the best Democracies out there (like The Netherlands where they have Proportional Vote) they never talk about how great a Democracy they are.
I believe it’s called Overcompensation.
TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
Makes you look at Democratic Republic of the Congo in a new way. If it’s in the name, it has to be important to them, right?
Aceticon@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Personally the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the one I find that really beats all others in this.
ardorhb@discuss.tchncs.de 1 week ago
Wouldn‘t it be the best thing to make election day a nation wide holiday? Could keep the tradition while also actually allowing people to vote. I doubt that productivity is high on these days nevertheless.
Has this ever been discussed?
thesohoriots@lemmy.world 1 week ago
National holidays don’t apply to private companies, apparently.
ardorhb@discuss.tchncs.de 1 week ago
Wait? What?
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Private companies are not obligated to provide any amount of leave, paid or unpaid as a general requirement.
The one requirement that I know of is allowing an employee two hours to vote on the one voting day every two years if necessary to make it to the polls. I am fairly certain this only applies if their shift is the entirety of the time the polls are open, and it is not required to be paid time.
thesohoriots@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Federal holidays can be observed by private companies, but then who will run the movie theaters on Christmas for us to go watch CGI robots fight each other? Or serve us fast food on Labor Day? Etc etc. It’s stupid.
GBU_28@lemm.ee 1 week ago
The trick is do you want ANYTHING open on the holiday? Grocery, train station, etc? In America, if anything is open, then the cats out of the bag
nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
Poor people voting isn’t good for profits and it’s literally that simple. Neither party care, a few progressive dems do, at least until aipac tries to get rid of them while the most powerful dems stand behind aipac.
stinerman@midwest.social 1 week ago
It has, but there are some people who do not like the idea that everyone can vote.
Also it being a holiday doesn’t mean everyone gets off work. There is no federal law that says your business can’t be open 365 days per year, nor is there any law that mandates paid time off.
illi@lemm.ee 1 week ago
How is thay even legal, wtf?
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Because the same party doing it is good at repeatedly testing the barriers to discrimination and dismantling laws against it.
Texas and some other states were not allowed to change voting practices without approval for years due to this kind of thing under the Voting Rights Act. Then SCOTUS overturrned that law…
apnews.com/…/voting-rights-act-supreme-court-blac…
hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 1 week ago
Thanks for the explanations. I think the Unites States should embrace being founded on the principles of democracy, and once being amongst the leading countries with that... And return to being a democracy.
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 1 week ago
The US was founded on wealthy white male landowners who mostly owned slaves being able to vote, just like their Greek and Roman inspirations.
Expending that concept to the general population took a couple nearly two centuries, and we still haven’t embraced it. We have sucked at being a democracy the whole time.
illi@lemm.ee 1 week ago
I’d expect some equality be ensuredon federal level for at least federal level stuff. Just… wow. I knew US was fucked up, but I somehow always learn there is yet another level to it
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 1 week ago
That’s what the Voting Rights Act was…
nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 week ago
I love seeing people realize the USA is only a Democray for a very specific group of people weather it’s concerning the Judges or the Election process. On top of that thanks to the electoral college if you dont live in a swing state you don’t really get a say. The election will boil down to a few hundred thousand people in a couple states just because of where they live.