Yep, Baker seems a reasonable guy. His 3:22 statement that 60% of those registered to vote in Massachusetts are registered as independents does say something. His comment 5:30-5:50 that people in general aren't as interested in politics as many themselves involved believe others are is something we have said here repeatedly. That fact i'd guess also would be one reason why so many are registered as independents. If you don't take much interest and are of the view all politicians are alike it makes sense you're gonna register as an independent.
In Australia there is no requirement to register at all. That on top of compulsory voting, which i am in favor of, creates a situation research suggests which goes somewhat to eliminating the extremes Baker talks about.
How preferential voting works in Australian elections "If America used Australia’s voting system, there’s no way Trump could win" [...] How Australia's compulsory voting saved it from Trumpism [...] Australia, which has had six prime ministers in eight years, is suffering from an increasing mistrust in politicians, in parties, even in democracy .. https://theconversation.com/australians-trust-in-politicians-and-democracy-hits-an-all-time-low-new-research-108161 . And in the next few months – the lead-up to a federal election – politics is set to become even more dispiriting.
Yet, according to Brett, Australia has a degree of inoculation from the polarisation infecting politics in the United States, the UK and much of Europe. Her new book, From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage, teases out the reasons – prosaic at one level, profound at another.
Australia is one of only 19 countries out of 166 electoral democracies where voting is compulsory, and one of only nine that enforce it. It is the only English-speaking country that compels its citizens to vote.
The impact is hard to overstate. In 2015, former US president Barack Obama praised Australia’s system, saying it would be “transformative” if everyone voted in the United States.
- Australia was born not on the battlefields but at the ballot box Judith Brett -
But Australia’s system is an electoral beacon for seemingly smaller reasons too. While Americans, Britons and Canadians vote during the week, Australians vote on Saturdays, making it easier for people to get to the polls. There’s a holiday atmosphere at booths, where community groups raise money by selling cupcakes, raffle tickets and “democracy sausages”. Specially-made stalls for secret voting are another Australian invention, and political parties have no role in running elections, which are left to non-partisan public servants – “something Americans can only dream of,” Brett says. [...] Today, more than 90% of those on the roll turn up. You don’t actually have to vote, but you have to attend a polling booth, even if you stuff a blank or spoiled ballot in the box.
Australia was an electoral innovator in many ways, but the historic disenfranchisement of Indigenous people is a “shameful story”, Brett says. When the 1902 federal Franchise Act came to be debated, the proposed law would have given “all adult persons” the right to vote in a national election, including Indigenous Australians as well as women – but the new government compromised to get the bill passed. The West Australian senator Alexander Matheson moved the amendment denying the vote to Indigenous people, saying, “Surely it is absolutely repugnant to the greater number of the people of the commonwealth that an Aboriginal man, or Aboriginal lubra or gin – a horrible, dirty, degraded creature – should have the same rights, simply by virtue of being 21 years of age, that we have, after some debate today, decided to give to your wives and daughters.”
It took until 1962 for Indigenous Australians in all states to get the right to vote in federal elections, and it was only after the election of the Hawke government in 1983 that they were required to enrol. The Franchise Act, Brett says, became another of the “infamous stepping stones of cruelty and shame” in the treatment of First Australians.
Compulsory voting keeps politics focused on the centre rather than the fringe of politics. To win elections, political parties have to appeal not just to their base but to the majority of people. Australia is also one of only a few countries with preferential voting, which means a voter ranks candidates in order of preference, compared with most countries where the candidate with the most votes wins. It ensures that those elected have the support of the majority of voters.
“It keeps the emotional temper of the conflict down,” says Brett. “That’s become more evident recently with the way politics has gone in the United States, where you’ve had issues around sexuality and race being used to motivate voters. If you need to get out the vote, you need to have things that people are going to feel passionate about, and that’s not necessarily such a good thing.”
Back to the ever-increasing Trump-accelerated extreme polarization in American politics.
Charlie Baker and the Rise of One-Party Rule The Massachusetts governor’s refusal to seek reelection is a dark omen for the future of America’s two-party system. By Kara Voght [...] At least once a week during the past two years, a flock of protesters could be found outside the seaside home of the Republican governor of Massachusetts, airing their grievances about the man they call “Char-lie Baker.” (It rhymes with pie—get it?) Two years of “Char-lie Baker” would be a lot for any person to take, especially when the clamor is coming from members of your own party.
The gatherings began in April 2020, when more than a dozen anti-lockdown demonstrators drove, horns blaring and Trump flags hoisted high, back and forth past the governor’s white Victorian. For months after, picketers convened on the grassy median on Baker’s street in Swampscott, wielding life-size cutouts of Donald Trump or, sometimes, Confederate flags. The organizer of the weekly visits accused Baker of being “in bed” with “the Chinese Communist Party and the Muslim Brotherhood.” Many of the protests attracted a police detail. On some occasions, officers erected barricades. The nearby elementary school canceled classes after Election Day 2020, citing an “abundance of caution.” [...] ... All but 12 states are under unified control of a single party, meaning that either Democrats or Republicans control both the governor’s mansion and the legislature. Baker’s departure practically guarantees that Massachusetts will join those ranks. The triumph of Baker’s right-wing critics is a precedent and a proof of concept. If a vocal base can, without a primary, deter popular moderates from running in races they could have won, competitive state-level elections are about to get even rarer. That’s great news for the party in power, but voters stand to lose. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/03/charlie-baker-massachusetts-governor-election/627157/
12yearplan, Many conservatives in the political arena use the term "political correctness" to bludgeon liberals they feel are being too sensitive about something. Brand and Peterson both are dismissive in that way. They both dismiss comments made simply be saying those positions are politically correct. In that way they are jumping on a conservative bandwagon. And i mean, like "woke" many conservatives use political correctness as an easy way to dismiss something that puts pressure on them. The Vox article below puts the position quite well.
"I never thought of it as conservative political correctness but sure a Bandwagon I suppose BUT"
The truth about "political correctness" is that it doesn't actually exist
By Amanda Taubamanda@vox.com Jan 28, 2015, 4:00pm EST
Jonathan Chait speaks at an event in 2012 (Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for New York Magazine)
Political correctness, in Chait's view, is a "system of left-wing ideological repression" that threatens the "bedrock liberal ideal" of a "free political marketplace where we can reason together as individuals." He writes, "While politically less threatening than conservatism (the far right still commands far more power in American life), the p.c. left is actually more philosophically threatening. It is an undemocratic creed."
But political correctness isn't a "creed" at all. Rather it's a sort of catch-all term we apply to people who ask for more sensitivity to a particular cause than we're willing to give — a way to dismiss issues as frivolous in order to justify ignoring them. Worse, the charge of "political correctness" is often used by those in a position of privilege to silence debates raised by marginalized people — to say that their concerns don't deserve to be voiced, much less addressed.
That's a much bigger threat to the "free political marketplace" that Chait is so eager to protect.
"Politically correct" is a term we use to dismiss ideas that make us uncomfortable
First things first: there's no such thing as "political correctness." The term's in wide use, certainly, but has no actual fixed or specific meaning. What defines it is not what it describes but how it's used: as a way to dismiss a concern or demand as a frivolous grievance rather than a real issue.
Chait identifies a long list of disputes that he describes as examples of "p.c." demands that are hurting mainstream liberalism. But calling these concerns "political correctness" is another way of saying that they aren't important enough to be addressed on their merits. And all that really means is that they're not important to Jonathan Chait.
An example from outside of Chait's article makes it easy to see how that technique works in practice. I, personally, think that the name of the Washington Redskins is racist and hurtful to Native Americans, and should be changed. So if someone asks me what I think of the debate about the team, that's what I say. By contrast, Virginia legislator Del Jackson Miller likes the name and wants the team to keep it. But rather than making an argument on the merits of the name, he referred .. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-sports-bog/wp/2014/06/27/virginia-delegate-says-redskins-controversy-is-political-correctness-on-steroids-in-overdrive/ .. to the entire debate as "political correctness on overdrive." In other words, he's saying, this is a false debate — just another example of "political correctness" — so I don't have to even acknowledge concerns about racism. (Miller, in fact, claimed that it was literally fake, an issue trumped up by a "rich member of the Oneida tribe.")
That's a failure of communication and, arguably, of basic respect. Miller isn't engaging with critics of the Redskins name by considering why they find it hurtful, and offering his basis for disagreement — he's dismissing the whole conversation as unworthy of discussion.
Likewise, Chait clearly believes that "microaggressions" aren't important enough to merit his concern, and that "trigger warnings" are a foolish request made by over-sensitive people. But he doesn't spend much time considering why the people who demand them might think they do matter. The open communication offered by platforms like Twitter has brought Chait into contact with ideas that he clearly finds weird and silly. But rather than considering their merits, or why they matter to the people who put them forward, he dismisses them as political correctness, and concludes that their very existence constitutes "ideological repression."
It's tempting to dismiss uncomfortable criticism
It's understandable that Chait, and the many others who agree with him, find it so upsetting to be on the receiving end of what he refers to as "P.C." criticism. These critiques basically accuse their targets of being oppressors, or perpetuating injustice, and that's a deeply hurtful accusation. Indeed, that kind of criticism hurts most if you are someone who cares about social justice, or do think that discrimination is harmful when it's implicit as well as when it's explicit.
But avoiding that discomfort by dismissing criticism as mere "political correctness" is no way to protect the marketplace of ideas whose fate so concerns Chait. At best, it replaces a relatively weak burden on free speech (Jonathan Chait has to listen to people scolding him on Twitter) with a similarly weak one (other people have to listen to Chait and his supporters scolding them for their "political correctness").
But the reality is that the burdens are not equal, because the arguments that get dismissed as mere "p.c." nonsense are overwhelmingly likely to be raised by people who are less privileged, and to concern issues that are outside the mainstream.
Look at Chait's own examples. Trans women who protest definitions of "women" as "people with vaginas" aren't merely bellyaching about terminology — they're people on the margins of a group making legitimate demands for inclusion. Women of color who point out the many ways in which white feminists overlook issues that affect minority women aren't engaging in race-based arguments just for the fun of it, they're pointing out that the feminist movement had promised to protect their interests, but was in fact ignoring them.
And while I personally don't think that trigger warnings [.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trauma_trigger ..] are a workable solution to the problem of trauma, and have not used them in my own writing or teaching, I think that our society does generally struggle to take women's safety into account, and I do not feel that shutting down that conversation is the appropriate solution to the problem of harassment of women.
Discrimination and safety are serious matters that actually do affect people's ability to participate in public discussion — yes, even more so than the degree to which people in positions of privilege have to hear arguments they dislike. Writing them off as frivolous disputes over what is or isn't "politically correct" makes those problems much harder to address.
There's a difference between pointing out real problems and "tone policing"
Take, for instance, a phenomenon that actually and demonstrably restricts the free exchange of ideas: the harassment of women online. It is a depressing fact of life that women who discuss controversial subjects publicly are often targeted by harassers who want to silence them. (As are many other groups, of course.) And yet, bizarrely, women's requests for safety online are often dismissed .. http://www.breitbart.com/london/2014/09/01/lying-greedy-promiscuous-feminist-bullies-are-tearing-the-video-game-industry-apart/ .. as "politically correct" threats to free speech, rather than as a way to promote it.
How dismissing problems as "political correctness" hinders efforts to solve them
But when women protest online harassment, their concerns are often dismissed as a politically-correct attempt to censor the views of people they disagree with. This dismissal is also often used to reject the premise that measures might be needed to make women safer.
During last year’s "Gamergate" campaign .. http://www.vox.com/2014/10/13/6970573/gamergate-misogyny , which involved large-scale campaigns of online threats and harassment directed against women, harassers referred to their targets as "SJWs" — short for "social justice warriors." Although Gamergate's core dispute nominally concerned the way that video games are reviewed (hence the name), it quickly became clear that the online "movement" was more alarmed about women gaining power within the gaming community. Describing women's goals as merely being about "social justice" was a way to dismiss their contributions, ideas, and even personal safety as superficial grievance politics.
Nor was that attitude limited to Gamergate. Blogger Andrew Sullivan .. http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/11/10/the-sjws-now-get-to-police-speech-on-twitter/ .. wasn't part of Gamergate, and says that he "actively support[s] suspending abusive, stalking tweeters or those threatening violence." But when Twitter announced its decision to partner with the nonprofit WAM (Women, Action, & the Media) in order to combat harassment online, Sullivan denounced the move, referring to women as social justice warriors and warning that they were going to have a "censorship field day," before dismissing WAM’s past work as crude "identity politics."
The phrase "politically correct" is a way to say an issue has no value
Chait's article does not mention Gamergate, and there's no reason to believe that he's anything other than appalled at online harassment. Likewise, Sullivan did not use the phrase "politically correct."
But their arguments are fundamentally the same: that marginalized people's demands for inclusion are just a bunch of annoying whining, and that efforts to address their concerns are unnecessary. They also betray the deeper concern: that listening to the demands of marginalized groups is dangerous, because doing so could potentially burden the lives, or at least change the speech, of more privileged people.
And you know what? They're probably right. Chait proudly praises the "historical record of American liberalism" for extending rights to "blacks, Jews, gays, and women," but Americans used to be able to refer to members of those groups as "coloreds," "kikes," and "fags," without fearing the consequences. But doing so now would result in serious social censure — exactly the kind of "coercion" that Chait looks upon and despairs in his article.
Likewise, it is possible that efforts to address online harassment will put some sort of burden on the Andrew Sullivans of this world. (Although at this point those efforts are so feeble that it's a little hard to imagine.) There is a legitimate argument to be had about how the "freedom" of social media platforms with few restrictions but lots of threats ought to be balanced against people's "freedom" to participate in online debates without having to fear for their lives or safety. But the way to deal with that is to actually have that argument, not to suggest that the people asking for protection are just trying to censor free speech.
That kind of offhand dismissal is a problem for the ideals Chait seeks to protect. Just ask Jonathan Chait:
-- Of course liberals are correct not only to oppose racism and sexism but to grasp (in a way conservatives generally do not) that these biases cast a nefarious and continuing shadow over nearly every facet of American life. Since race and gender biases are embedded in our social and familial habits, our economic patterns, and even our subconscious minds, they need to be fought with some level of consciousness. The mere absence of overt discrimination will not do. --
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