POTUS/General Election Thread 2020 + Aftermath

[spmetla]

How do you figure that this Pyrrhic victory for Democrats indicates a preference for centrist policy? You might as well argue that Biden's adoption of left policies helped him rather than not, since he ran so far ahead of more conservative Democrats.

After all this time, it should be abundantly clear that centrist approaches are inadequate to either the scale of our problems or even securing mere electoral success.

Furthermore, the idea too that ranked choice voting would lead to either a multi-party system or to Republican moderation is not supported. In almost all of the country except NY we have election results that are close to certifiable, and they have a story to tell...

My view is that the his siphoning off Republican votes that were variations of never-Trumpers and center-right voters gave him that edge. The ability of Trump to paint all Democrats as socialist/communist anarchists despite it being false was a way to motive his base. The more progressive wing of the Democratic party was of course not a big fan of Biden and would have preferred Warren or Sanders but thankfully turned out well as more of an anti-Trump vote than pro-Biden. Would Warren or Sanders have done better than Biden? It's possible but I honestly think that fewer Republicans would have voted for the Democratic ticket if either of them had the top billet, though we'll never know.

My support for Ranked Choice isn't with the illusion that it would result in large multi party systems like in continental Europe. I live in Hawaii and voting for anything other than Democrat is pretty much a protest vote beyond our county councilmembers and district representatives. I see it as more that it would allow for a third party option to not be a throw-away vote. I know plenty of people that prefer the Green Party or Libertarian policies and would like to vote for those but know that it's really just a throw away vote. Looking at the swing states that decided the election Jo Jorgensen seemed to have consistently gotten 1-1.5% of the vote which is about the margin that won it for Biden. If those voters could have had a second choice who knows how the election would have gone, perhaps it would have been solidly pro Trump or pro Biden. Ross Perot's run in 1992 is argued as one of the reasons Bush Sr lost and Clinton won.
Additionally there'd be more people that wouldn't mind voting for those third party options which would make them more viable and acceptable. If people could have a first choice candidate that might actually represent their ideals and then the compromise centrist candidate it is possible we'd get more voter turn out. I don't think this would make much of a difference for the POTOS position as it would likely remain R or D for the future but in the House and Senate and local legislatures third party options would be viable and possibly lead to no parties having a clear majority in the legislatures and having to form coalitions with all those ups and downs we see in Europe. Either way it'd likely stop the current trend of take power and dictate.

I agree a centrist approach will not resolve our issues alone, the solutions needed are usually 'extreme' but because of that it is difficult to actually get the majorities needed to implement them, not to mention if there are any downsides there's a reactionary movement to undo them completely. Radical change seems to not go over well in the US, even when it's absolutely necessary, incremental steps in the right direction seem to work well here though it's infuriatingly slow. The pendulum swing of each party gaining control and then dictating terms has made our domestic politics too partisan and our foreign policies fickle and unreliable.

I hope that Biden is able to get some Republican legislators to work with him on some of our pressing issues because if his turn in office is just years of filibusters and foot dragging until the mid-terms then I fear for the future of this nation.