• livus@kbin.social
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    8 months ago

    I thought the whole point of having a democracy was people got to choose their leaders.

    If you’re saying leaders become too powerful to reject, that’s troubling.

    • FanciestPants@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      The people had the opportunity to choose during the primary whether they wanted to vote for someone else who holds mostly similar views (e.g. the same political party) to their own, or the person currently doing the job. There weren’t a lot of people from the same political party that offered themselves up as challengers to the person currently doing the job, for a variety of reasons. Our system heavily favors the person currently doing the job in our primary elections, but challenges have been made before, just not this time.

    • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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      8 months ago

      You get to choose, between the Republican nominee and the Democratic nominee.

      If you vote Libertarian, you are helping Biden by taking away a Trump vote.

      If you vote Green, you are helping Trump by taking away a Biden vote.

      • livus@kbin.social
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        8 months ago

        To clarify, the above wasn’t some kind of rhetorical question. I’m not American and am not asking for voting guidance.

        You seemed to be saying that once a politician gets to a position of power, voters are no longer allowed to try to influence their decisions around whether to run, be the nominee etc.

        That seems problematic to me, and against the basic principles of democracy, so I’m querying it.

        • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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          8 months ago

          Incumbent politicians have multiple advantages, but if you don’t want them then the choice is to vote for their opponent or not vote, which really is the same thing.

          • livus@kbin.social
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            8 months ago

            That seems really anti-democracy. If an incumbent performs poorly or breaks promises there should be mechanisms for people to ask to select another candidate to represent them.

            • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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              8 months ago

              There is, it’s called “voting”. But you aren’t just going to remove someone as a candidate because you don’t like them, that’s undemocratic.

              • livus@kbin.social
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                8 months ago

                But didn’t you just say they can’t vote for non-Biden democrats?

                I feel like either I completely misunderstood your initial comment about Presidents having so much power, or else you’re misunderstanding what I’m asking.

                • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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                  8 months ago

                  They can, it’s pointless, but they can. Nobody is going to sufficiently challenge the de facto leader of the party.

                  See all the primaries so far, on both sides.