Political radicals..

@Elessar literally.

@Elessar She came a bit more to earth, for as far as I've been folowing her.

That idea that you can just walk in parliament, call for a vote and push regulation through just because you hold a seat... that kinda went away after she found out that that's just not it works.

@Kwek00 Yeah, but I'm judging her by her centre-left ideals; also over here we have a majority party whose slogan was "we're gonna open the parliament like a tuna can", which of course hasn't happened (even figuratively) once they were faced with reality.

@Elessar When she went to parliament the first time, she wasn't really that "center-left". And you can find interviews on some of her toppics that are radical. She pretty much is a far-left person, she ain't part of that centrist social-democracy ideal.

But because she has to function in a faction now, it means she needs to make compromises. She has to play the game if she wants to get annything done, and radical ideas just don't do well in the big party that she belongs too. She also is beginning to understand that if she comes over as being to radical, that she actively hurts the weight that her party has, because democrats in districts that flip blue or red, depending on the climate of when the elections are being held, just can't back up radical ideas and loose their seats too republicans if their party comes over as being to radical.

Which is part of the issue that you find more delusional left wingers on the internet that supported AOC a couple of years ago, but today consider her a traitor because she plays more within the party lines.

@Kwek00 Oh, I've known her only after she took place in her party. Pretty much everyone goes through an extremization phase in young age, I haven't known many < 20-25 yo who were centrists, for instance. Once faced with reality the majority of them tends to become more and more moderate and prone to compromises/collaboration.

On the other hand, the fascist on the right is 46.. a bit old for saying it's just young-age immaturity and lack of experience with adults' world.

@Elessar I don't see all those fascists 😅
But if you talk about radicalisation on the right wing in the United States. Then I think you'll find radicals at a younger age too. Not al those peeps that walked to the capitol and lounged in some of the offices were above 35.

@Kwek00 Lucky, over here people in school at least when I attended divided between the anarchical, the far-left authoritarians, the far-right authoritarians/neo-fa and the apolitical who'd have gladly exterminated all the other three. 😬 Cringy times, thinking about it.

Yeah, yeah, young people tend to be fascinated by extremist positions in general in my experience, not necessarily only leftwing ones.

@Elessar It's just easier when you grow up in voting system that divides seats by proportionality. A political party in those systems has a more solid foundation for an identity. They aren't homogenous, but it's far from being comparible with a political party in a "first past the post" or "winner takes all" system. A lot of people that live in the latter, seem to think and reason in a way more binairy vieuw of the political spectrum.

@Kwek00 I noticed that too, yeah, with many over there going as far as confusing completely different ideals like neoliberalism and socialism because in a two party system they necessarily have to stand behind the same desk, when the other desk is occupied by the neo-fa.

Many here are advocating for an electoral system less proportional and more like theirs in order to prevent a random Renzi from causing the umpteenth govt. crisis, but imo. it'll get only worse if we do. Less representativeness and more extremism, in fact it's often populists/sovranists who want (and would benefit the most) from it.

@Elessar Honestly, both systems have pros and cons. But proportional systems are more prone to crisis situations. Coalition governements are more prone to falling apart... which is all pretty logical. But I don't think annyone can make a case for saying that anny of the systems are objectively better.

@Kwek00 It's a matter of personal preference, perhaps, I guess. Maybe historical bias, I don't know. Give me a govt. crisis over malignant stagnant binary super-parties.

@Elessar But a part of our governement crissis are caused by actors that are malignant in some way. It's the actor that at some point behaves in a certain way that we, according to our morality, label "malignant". I don't think it's inherent to anny of the 2 parties considering the diverse nature of those parties.

I don't think the parties are stagnant persé, but society as a whole seems to be. And that reflects itself in slow progress because there is still a need in this system to search for consensus. In a 2 party system btw, if the party was homogenous and more united, then it would be a lot easier in that system to pass legeslation then in one of ours, because one party can just get a majority on all toppics that doesn't need a excessive majority to pass legeslation. In theory, it should be able to work quicker if one party has the house and the senate.

@Kwek00 In a way, but such actors once generally perceived as malignant tend to lose relevance or at the very least chances of being in a majority coalition (and any coalition that would pick them up would risk losing votes over other coalitions/parties even in the very same political area/side). Think of Berlusconi here, or possibly Renzi being the next one - at most they can found new parties and/or put a dummy in the leadership of such parties - all actions that anyway lead to more mutability than an FPTP system would allow for (and still never gives them the percentages they'd hope to get, at most keep them afloat for a while). Also, with the fact that people express votes for single parties, with each of these parties usually focusing on a limited subset of each political side/area allows for much better representativeness. And the fact that if they go astray in their promises, they risk not being around at the next term, unlike a superparty that sooner or later will get re-elected (I don't think the American GOP is going to disappear, even after Trump, for saying).

About homogeneity, I suppose that applies to coalitions of ours as well, reason why I fear the rightwing is going to win at our next elections, and could do so even without its propaganda machine because the so called "left" is a messy aggregation of divisive forces.

@Elessar Depending on how big their voterbase is, people can loose relevance. And if their voterbase after a scandal diminishes significantly, then these politicians are ussually shred into little pieces by all the other pirahnas that want to recruit the voters for their own base.

However, if a figure comes into a scandal, and their voters don't turn on them. These people will still have a lot of power in the political arena. This isn't diffrent in anny of the voting systems. It just depends on what the voters do and how the voters react to information. In a proportional system, politicians that do all kinds of acts you might not agree with and are appalled about can still play the game for a long time as long as their voter base doesn't turn on them.

In the super party, these individuals still have to win their own district. If the district turns on them, they won't hold office. They first need to survive the primairies for the nominee to run against the other party. And then they have to run against the opposition. So even there, there are a lot of checks and balances. While in a proportional system, being on a list on place number 4 can still get you elected if enough people vote on the party list in that district.

Are you also going to talk about "the left" now... It's kinda normal that they don't like eachother, it's a big chunk of the spectrum. I thought we were trying to get away from these binairy ideas.