Wait, did Trump win with 27% of votes!? How do you still use this system?
Comment on For my fellow Americans, when is enough enough?
Hildegarde@lemmy.world 1 month ago71 million in a country of 262 million adults. 27% voted for fascism. 74 million voted for trump in 2020. This wasn’t a shit towards fascism, but the opposition party utterly failing to win voters.
The country has never been majority rule. Every modern election has split the country in thirds, about a third votes one way, a third votes the other and a third choses not to vote.
Over 70% of voting aged americans did not vote for trump.
Goun@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
superkret@feddit.org 1 month ago
No, he got >50% of all votes that were cast. The voting system wasn’t the problem this time, the voters were.
Hildegarde@lemmy.world 1 month ago
If the voters are the problem every time, the problem probably isn’t the voters, it’s probably the system. The US always has bad turnout.
superkret@feddit.org 1 month ago
A turnout between 60 and 70% is actually pretty standard for a Western democracy without mandatory voting.
swordgeek@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
No, that’s a misleading number.
27% of the entire eligible population voted for him. Less than that voted for Harris. About 45% of eligible voters didn’t bother.
So Trump got more than 50% of the popular vote, as well as the majority of seats. First past the poll is a terrible system, but it’s not the system that’s at fault here, it’s the voters.
HawlSera@lemm.ee 1 month ago
HE won the fucking Popular vote!?!?!
glitchdx@lemmy.world 1 month ago
no, “didn’t vote” won the popular vote.
vanontom@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Likely, although all votes are not counted yet. All while getting fewer votes than previously, so he was very beatable. It seems people were just not excited to vote for Harris.
Coincidentally, a woman has never been elected POTUS, and she shifted right to embrace “former Republicans” while shrugging off progressives. Total coincidence.
thesohoriots@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Tradition dear boy
GBU_28@lemm.ee 1 month ago
This isn’t even a system issue (FPTP, electoral college).
What you’re remarking on is the need for mandatory voting and a federal holiday on voting day
swordgeek@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
Unless you make voting mandatory, that will always be the case. Regardless, the split amongst non-voters is statistically likely to be the same as the people who actually voted. Consider the election to be an information poll, with a sample size of ~65% of the entire eligible population.
So with updated numbers, Trump got 72.5M out of ~240M eligible voters, so yeah you could say that 70% of the population didn’t vote for him. But then to be clear, you should also look at Harris’s 68M votes, and say that 72% of the population didn’t vote for her.
The people who mark and deposit their ballots are the only measure we have of the nation’s opinion, and in that contest a majority of the votes went to Trump.
Shanedino@lemmy.world 1 month ago
If literally everyone is forced to vote things actually lean more left. The way you force people to vote though can affected different socioeconomic groups differently so can have a wide range of effects.
normal_user@lemmy.one 1 month ago
You solution to people not voting is not to appeal more to those people but to force them ? lol
That would not move anything to the left. Democrats would feel free to go as right as they want knowing that the are the only big party that is not the Republicans.
I can already see it, they would spend sooooo much money to make any actual left party unable to compete, then they would shift as much to the right as possible, and then loose.
Dragonstaff@leminal.space 1 month ago
This is meaningless though.
You said “a clear majority voted for Trump”. In fact: a majority of Americans didn’t vote for a fascist. That is a good thing.
Neither did a majority of Americans vote for a milquetoast centrist, but I don’t expect anyone to take a great deal of comfort or pain in that fact.
db2@lemmy.world 1 month ago
It’s disappeared ballots and a bought electoral college.
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 1 month ago
Not twenty million of them.
asdfasdfasdf@lemmy.world 1 month ago
We should give people tax breaks if they vote.
Hildegarde@lemmy.world 1 month ago
republicans do voter suppression and purge voter roles. victims of either of these practices would be punished with a larger tax burden. not ideal.
voting should be compulsory
superkret@feddit.org 1 month ago
And ~70% of eligible voters didn’t vote against Trump.