> "socially progressive, economically middle of the road" political coalition that would win every election on HN is extremely unpopular in the real world.
... except Germany?
I think it's more popular on the ground than you'd think, but it's very unpopular in the media who like their politics to be professional wrestling.
A lot of people seem to think that Germany is "socially progressive, economically middle of the road" but that is not the case. Angela Merkel and her CDU/CSU party like to pretend and brand themselves as such, but they don't vote that way.
Also, Germans as a whole can be categorized as liberal regarding social policies but very conservative regarding economic ones.
However, the election last week was a big upset to her party and might finally lead to a new government coalition with the policies you mentioned.
That said, "grudgingly as socially progressive as the public demands we be, economically center-right" is pretty common in European politics; CDU/CSU are an example, as are FF and FG in Ireland.
That seems fine/palatable to me. And honestly, that's good leadership. Social policies should follow popular opinion and be flexible enough to shift ever few years. But economic policies may require unpopular actions to be taken.
The population may not want higher interest rates, or a trade deal that kills a local factory. But those things might be for the greater good of everyone.
My issue with this approach is that it tends to put off progress until there is _overwhelming_ public support. For instance, the 38th Amendment to the Irish Constitution, which liberalised divorce rules, received _82%_ of the public vote. That's particularly extreme, but the 34th and 36th amendment (equal marriage and abortion) received 62% and 67% respectively. All of these could have been introduced years earlier and passed with clear public support.
If you wait until you have no choice but to do something, you tend to delay doing things a very long time. And it bleeds over into timidity about making tough decisions; for instance the FF/FG coalition in Ireland has been unable to do anything about housing, because any actual action is going to annoy _somebody_.
> for instance the FF/FG coalition in Ireland has been unable to do anything about housing, because any actual action is going to annoy _somebody_
Ireland has a ridiculously high percentage of population dependent on government support for housing. This is in the form of assisted rent payments which in effect, sets a high floor for rent. People receiving support are competing in the same market for housing as pretty much all workers.
We don't build government housing anymore because we saw the actual disaster that became of that.
The far left parties have a 'housing for everyone' nonsense manifest which a) Ireland doesnt have the labour force for, b) tax payers subsiding shit wages c) Ireland already has high income tax and sales taxes.
At some point there has to be the realisation that life on the dole shouldn't equate to a middle class lifestyle without the stress or debt when those who should have a middle class lifestyle don't have one because they're being squeezed in every direction possible and still have to take on hundreds of thousands of debt for mediocre accommodation.
While I agree with pretty much none of that, it also entirely misses the point. The problem with housing in Ireland is, very simply, that there is _not enough of it_. This clearly needs to be fixed, whether by prodding the markets or changing the planning laws or direct social housing construction or all of the above. The coalition's approach has been to do ~nothing (the previous FG government did tinker rather timidly with the planning laws, at least, but it fell far short of the sort of action required).
Counterpoint: California voted against gay marriage once upon a time, and overwhelmingly so. The popular (lack of) support was overridden by judicial activism. The rest of the country followed.
I would not classify 7M votes for banning same sex marriage and 6.4M votes against banning same sex marriage with 80% registered voter participation rate to be overwhelming.
The voting age population was 26M in 2008, so even subtracting non US citizens and non CA residents, there were many millions of people who did not bother to vote, and I would bet that people who wanted to ban same sex marriage were more motivated to
vote than people who did not want to ban same sex marriage.
No, it is very unpopular in the US in those who regularly vote in primaries. The primary decides the race, for many, many elections. The presidential race is not exempt from this, either. To draw enough primary voters to make the ballot in one of the two major parties, candidates are, increasingly, needing to take extreme stances on most social and economic issues. (for example, look at how many people came out for Trump in the 2016 primary. In my parents' county in their Midwest state, the polling place literally ran out of republican ballots)
Pandering to the extremes, and the movement of many politicians toward extreme views is a symptom of the disease, not the disease itself.
This is part of the reason he and others will be pushing for structural changes, including open primaries, as central to the platform. Changing the mechanics of the elections is the only way to enable a return to centrism in the US.
> Changing the mechanics of the elections is the only way to enable a return to centrism in the US.
There is no centrism to return to. The post-WWII age of bipartisanship wasn't one of centrism, it was one where the party split didn't align with the ideological divide. It was jist as much a period of competing ideological extremes (and governing from ideological polarized positions, which is why it featured the US military being used to enforce the federal will against US state governments.)
Changing the mechanics of elections to artificially favor centrism is...opposed to the kind of changes that would expand the scope of meaningful choices and improve representation.
Americans feel unrepresented. This makes us despair and forces us into increasingly unpopular, existential crisis, that are good for no one.
I do not believe the problem is we aren't progressive enough. The problem is no one trusts the goverment. And no one trusts the goverment is because no one in goverment is accountable to the majority and no one governs the way we would like to be governed.
Frankly it's not about 'centrism'. It's about the fact the parties do NOT represent the diversity of opinion in America. there pro-choice republicans, pro-life democrats, republicans who like trans-rights, pro-capitalism democrats, pro-gun democrats, anti-trump Republicans ... But despite all this diversity of opinion, you have a system that forces binary choices between slates of options.
We are a very diverse country - ethnically, politically, socially. It's beautifully diverse. Among the most diverse in the world. I do not believe the current political system reflects that diversity accurately.
Which is why voter participation in America is low, and most elections across the country do not matter. This is wrong. Every district in America should be competitive.
... except Germany?
I think it's more popular on the ground than you'd think, but it's very unpopular in the media who like their politics to be professional wrestling.