Thread: Do you think our choices in voting are rigged?

I never really looked at it until Trump won in the US but it seems like in places like the US, UK, and Canada... Voting is fixed. We get candidates who seem to be weeded out within the parties and then presented to us. I feel like in the US, both the Democrats and Republicans will throw people under the bus to ensure they get who they want in the lead for the final run.

Trump winning was not meant to happen and it is kind of obvious given how most people in politics are acting on both sides. I don't think they want outsiders running as he did. They want their own in power which is scary when you think about it.

Maybe I have my tin hat on a bit too tight but I can't help but feel something isn't right. I felt it for a long time.

It's perfectly normal that you have this impression of democrats and republicans simply negociating their share of the cake.
There are two major problems in the american politics that completely gridlocks your political panorama.
The first one is your election system. Indirect election is automatically killing the people's importance because why care about hundreds of millions of votes when your only need a hundred (or so, i don't know how many great electors you have) from the right people ? Your great electors aren't even forced to vote how their electors want them to, how do you want any shred of democracy to come out of that ? That's the main reason hearing the word <<democracy>> in an american's mouth always makes me laugh (no insult intended, it's just that many of them speak of what they have no clue of and even go as far as think they're the best at it).
Second one is bipartisanship. I mean how the fuck do you want them to be honest and opposed when all they have to do is strike a deal among themselves to get what they want ? American politics is already completely standardized when it comes to ideology, so you don't even have a real deep rivalry between your parties.
And then oyu only put two in place ? How do you want a politician to be honest (at all, first-hand, but let's skip that) when he only has one opponent who's not so different ? Of course they strike deals to get what they want, it's easier to talk than to fight.
It's like an oligopoly (just a few businesses holding a whole market), why compete when you can just negociate among you few to get even richer that you'd be in competition. No need to fight lowering prices, when everyone can agree to raise them with no backfiring whatsoever. And on the american politics market, you only have two businesses.
Your system is not the worst, Italy has, in my view, the worst political system ever.
And don't get me wrong, i'm not sayong french system is perfect, far from it, but at least we get a glimpse of what an ersatz of democracy is.
Sry if i sound rude/Blunt but i'm really excited to finally see an american question his country's regime.

I don't take offense to your opinion on this, we are in two different countries and experience two different kinds of life.

I think the locked in system we have is an issue. There are different political parties out there that we hardly ever hear about because of Republicans and Democrats basically taking full show of every election. I may be a conservative but that doesn't mean I like every Republican. I would like to hear more from people who are considering to be in the middle of the spectrum. I like progress based on science and history, knowing what does and does not work. Not flying all willy nilly and trying to tear everything down and start again like the Dems are doing or trying to force people back in time like some of the Reps do.

I think one of the main means to lessen the political gridlocking is to have an ideological mix.
I think one huge obstacle in the world, and especially in the US, is Mccartism and its derivatives.
It's not that communists are more right than others, it's just that the hole Cold War and Mccartist witch hunt pretty much killed in the womb the idea of political and economical alternatives. What's important here is to let ideas exist, at least as long as it doesn't come to nazism or the like (racial hate, genocide plans etc...).
That's why i think it's healthy to have both a communist, an extreme-right, a midleft, a midright, a hard right (etc...) and to not be stuck with only two parties because the most interesting debate can only come from people with radically different views. For exemple, a communist and a hard-right liberal can bring a lot more to the public debate than two communists (USSR) or two neo-liberals (USA) debating among themselves.
So yeah, the possibility of an alternative (in economy, social view, justice, national feel, dipomacy etc...) is crucial.
I think, for example, that's part of why many of my compatriots (and me) still have a big defiance towards both the US and Russia, this idea of not being doomed to stay under the domination of one or another (the idea of staying out of NATO by De Gaulle for example, in the name of national sovereignty, of being an independant country instead of just part of a east/west block, idea the next politicians betrayed because current political fad is submissiveness towards US).
Then again, my view.
Also everything i said about the US election system.

Someone mentioned that in the US, the killing off of the "far right" was a mistake because it kept the "far left" in check. Both extremes balanced each other out and everyone in the middle who wasn't extremist in their views was able to have more of a voice.

I don't know what will fix this at this point but people here need to be standing up for their freedoms, not demanding they be stripped away.