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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 8th, 2023

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  • This won’t stop until we abolish first-past-the-post voting, and it’s really simple to explain why: First of all, incumbents have a huge advantage in name-recognition and fundraising. They have a big advantage in their party’s primary just based on that fact. But also, FPTP voting drives people to vote strategically, against the other party’s candidate rather than for their party’s candidate. In most circumstances the incumbent is the best shot at keeping the other party at bay. (And people definitely think this way. I recall well the interviews with Democratic primary voters in 2020 chose Biden over their preferred candidate because he was the most “electable.” Or the people who voted against Clinton in 2016, even though they claimed to dislike the guy they voted for.) Then, in the general election, well, obviously, FPTP means you can’t split the vote by voting for anybody other than your party’s geriatric candidate. Voilà! A gerontocracy.

    I mean, obviously, there are other factors (like the octogenarian incumbent has risen to be a real big-wig after decades in the political party structure), and replacing FPTP with a better voting system won’t fix this issue entirely. But it’s enough on its own to keep the gerontocracy going.