• wpb@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      I feel like you’re not quite getting the point. The only sway you have over politicians, is your vote. If you guarantee your vote to a party no matter what they do, you have entirely given up all of your political power.

      That’s the whole point of democracy. You withhold your vote from the candidates you do not believe in, or who have shown that they do not push for policies that would benefit you or yours. If a candidate does not have beliefs and policies that you believe in, you do not vote for them. And the rough idea is that this incentivizes politicians to adopt policies that people want. If you vote for a politician regardless of whether you believe in what they do, this incentive goes away. The politician will have your vote regardless of what they do, and so they are open to be incentivized in other ways, for example, donations from billionaires.

      If a politician adopts wildly unpopular positions, such as just doing genocide, and doing nothing in favor of worker’s rights, or doing nothing in favor of universal health care, and so on, and so forth, and they then lose a race, then it’s their fault for not adopting policies that more people can get behind, and not that of the people who didn’t vote for them. Because again, the whole point of democracy is to incentivize politicians to adopt popular positions, and the politician failed to do so.