Impeachment hearings

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

So, you think Democratic voters are lazier when it comes to voting, but work harder than Republicans, who are lazier? Last time I checked Democratic voters know how to register to vote just as ably as Republicans, or do they not?

eta: This reminds me of this bit by (((this guy))):

https://youtu.be/rrBxZGWCdgs?t=92

eta2: Can black people use the Internet?

https://youtu.be/rrBxZGWCdgs?t=163

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

So, you think Democratic voters are lazier when it comes to voting, but work harder than Republicans, who are lazier? Last time I checked Democratic voters know how to register to vote just as ably as Republicans, or do they not?

NO, I reject the term "lazy" in this context. You also don't necessarily "work harder" if you happen to have a job that is harder to plan voting around.

People aren't either manically dedicated to voting or completely disinterested in it. People have varying levels of motive to vote, and the more friction there is in voting, the more people will drop off from doing so. There are all manner of things in life that are like this, so I imagine you have no problem conceptualizing it. Make people have to go down to the landfill to recycle, and they're gonna be less inclined to do so on average than if you pick up recycling from their house even if in the abstract they might agree that recycling is a good thing. Are they lazy? I don't think that's a fair description of what's going on there. Because of variation in motive, creating more friction changes behavior at the population level.

As it turns out, Democrats on average traditionally have been more marginal voters, meaning that factors that make it more inconvenient to vote are more likely to push them away. This is changing because Republicans are now pulling more effectively from the constituencies that drive this. So high turnout elections used to favor Democrats without question, but now the picture is much more complicated and can favor Republicans.

This is all beside the point in this case, which you glossed right over, because even if Democrats and Republicans were exactly equal in motivation to vote, if you specifically make it harder for people more likely to be Democrat to vote, that's going to disproportionately affect Democrats. That's why Republicans are so keen to engage in these type of voter purges.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

There's no way to quantify what you're asserting. You're just asserting it. How much more benevolent racism and sexism must we apply to Democrats before we can assess they're actually competent enough to register to vote, and then actually vote? Perhaps we should bring the voting booths to their living rooms and force them to vote because they're too disinterested otherwise?

EA's world:

Democrats vote less than Republicans.

2016 Reality:

3.6 million more Democrats voted for Hilldawg over the Trumptard.

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

I propose that we make voters pass a literacy test to vote. The state has a legitimate interest in having decision-makers have a basic education. I further propose we make it so the literacy questions cover passages that white people are more likely to be familiar with than black people.

Sound good? No?

Doc - Are you saying black people can't read?!?!! You're a racist!

I propose that we make people pay a small poll tax to vote. Nothing too large. It'll be an amount anyone can save for if they can afford any basic luxury in life. Voting operations aren't free, and this will encourage only people who are truly interested in voting to participate.

Sound good? No?

Doc - Are you saying black people don't care about democracy!? That they don't believe in civic responsibility?! You're racist!

Ah, playing, "you're the real racist" is fun.

[_EAllusion]

There's no way to quantify what you're asserting. You're just asserting it. How much more benevolent racism and sexism must we apply to Democrats before we can assess they're actually competent enough to register to vote, and then actually vote? Perhaps we should bring the voting booths to their living rooms and force them to vote because they're too disinterested otherwise?

- Doc

Uh,

1) scientists have used methods to give reasonable estimations of impact in quantifiable terms, and I linked an example just a few posts ago of them doing just that.

2) Even if (1) weren't true, you don't actually need to quantify the effect to have an understanding of trends.

Making it harder for a population to vote makes it less likely some members of that population will vote isn't exactly a tough concept to get, Doc.

EAllusion's world:

Democrats vote less than Republicans.

2016 Reality:

3.6 million more Democrats voted for Hilldawg over the Trumptard.

This is such a strawman version of what I just said that I refuse to believe you are this dumb.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

So, Republicans are smarter than Democrats because they can figure out how to find the dmv, get an id, register to vote, and use the internet better than Democrats despite being lazier than Democrats?

60 years of civil rights and Democrats are still flummoxed by voter laws. Huh.

Have you considered Democratic incompetence isn’t tied to the logistics of voting, but rather our messaging? Obama and subsequently many Democratic candidates have flipped red districts or swayed purple ones to go blue. Maybe we ought to field good candidates who resonate with the base instead of complaining about how we’re too stupid or tired to show up to vote?

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

Voter ID laws were developed by Republicans as a voter suppression tactic because it creates burdens on people without ID's to vote and it turns out "people without ID's" strongly lean Democratic in voting behavior. For some, it's a nuisance. For others, it's a serious roadblock. In either case, knock a % of them out of the voting pool, and you get a more Republican electorate. That was the intent and effect. Donald Trump won Wisconsin by a number of votes that is close to the estimated advantage Republicans got from suppressing Democratic votes with their ID law.

What's wild to me though is if you compare the relative cost of getting an ID - fees, if any, time costs, travel expenses, etc. - adjust for inflation, and compare against Jim Crow poll taxes, getting an ID is more expensive on average in areas where this has been instituted. We ended up bringing back worse poll taxes for a segment of the population, and a lot of people didn't even blink.

[_EAllusion]

So, Republicans are smarter than Democrats because they can figure out how to find the dmv, get an id, register to vote, and use the internet better than Democrats despite being lazier than Democrats?

Doing something that is easier for you doesn't make you "smarter" than someone else for having done it.

At no point did I say Republicans are "lazier than Democrats." I don't think voting motivation tells you anything about how lazy people are or are not in general. Pointing out that some jobs make it harder to plan voting around and Democrats (at least used to) disproportionately have those jobs does not assert that the people who don't have those jobs are lazier. Because you cannot engage the actual argument due to being wrong, you have to create these ridiculous straw men and go into attack mode. This is your MO.

60 years of civil rights and Democrats are still flummoxed by voter laws. Huh.

The neat thing here is your arguments double as a defense of Jim Crow voter suppression that was defeated in the Courts and with new laws, not with passive attacks on the suppressed for being lazy.

Have you considered Democratic incompetence isn’t tied to the logistics of voting, but rather our messaging? Obama and subsequently many Democratic candidates have flipped red districts or swayed purple ones to go blue. Maybe we ought to field good candidates who resonate with the base instead of complaining about how we’re too stupid or tired to show up to vote?

Have you considered that the causes of election outcomes are multivariate and Democrats failing to pursue an optimal electioneering strategy does not preclude Democratic votes being systemically suppressed by Republican laws?

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Of course. The irony I’m witnessing right now is someone like ajax thinks poor Democrats have too much time on their hands to vote because they’re on the dole, and you’re claiming, in effect, that those same people work too hard to vote, or they're too stupid, or some impossible metric that can’t be argued because Whites have masterminded some autistic standard that only they can figure out.

Give me a break.

How about Democrats front good candidates and policies, wage good campaigns, and then we chip away at the middle voters instead of acting like put upon victims who can’t seem to find the polling stations?

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

I'm a manically dedicated voter. I haven't missed a single election, however small, of any type in over a decade. I regard voting to affect outcomes as irrational. Not a single vote I cast had any meaningful impact on any election I participated in. The odds that my vote would make a decisive impact an election at the state or national level is so astronomically small that it would be as delusional as thinking you're gonna win the lottery after buying a ticket. No one in the history of the United States has individually tipped a Presidential election by voting, and it is far more likely that the US will dissolve than anyone ever will.

If I were looking to influence elections, the time I spend on voting probably could be better spent on some other campaign activity to generate more votes than my 1. It's actively counter-productive to my aims.

Looking down on people who don't vote because, for them, it's too much of hassle compared to what else they want to or must do as just "lazy" is, in addition to being wrongly reductive, is just mean-spirited condescension lacking self-awareness in my view.