According to a report, the global index for free and fair elections suffered the biggest decline on record in 2023, while disputed elections are becoming a global phenomenon.
A shrinking voter turnout globally and increasingly contested election results are posing a risk to the credibility of democracy, a new report revealed on Tuesday.
The report published by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) said that global voter turnout between 2008 and 2023 plunged by 10 percentage points, going from 65.2 to 55.5.
An interesting take. I assume most people on lemmy are more politically engaged than the average citizen. We can recognize political affiliation from a mile away, and we know (for the most part) what kind of person that makes someone.
Why do you think, after hundreds of years of modern politics, that the average person doesn’t recognize when an opportunistic piece of shit right-wing populist is speaking?
This is what gets me, in Ontario, we have a conservative government that publicly fails at doing literally everything, publicly wastes taxpayer money, everyone complains about them, and nobody voices their support. However, they’re poised to take a 3rd term with a majority government and they poll far and away better than any of the other parties that skew centrist or left of center. We have a rap sheet a mile long of on-brand conservative policies that everyone hates but can’t stop voting for.
People are stupid and easily manipulated, it’s that simple. I’m including you or I in this statement as well. We might happen to be paying more attention to politics, but we’re likely fooled or mislead in other areas of our lives without noticing.
No one has the bandwidth to pay attention to everything, so naturally some people autopilot on things they feel are too complicated or are uninteresting. When you autopilot then lots of things are taken at face value without critical thought, and without the historical knowledge to easily spot a trend or lie.
So yeah, were stupid and apathetic when viewed as a large group and that’s unfortunate. Advertising (propaganda) has been fine tuned over the last 70 some years to exploit our weaknesses exceptionally well. Things will have to get really bad and demand the average person’s attention before they will focus it.
At the same time, you have many people on Lemmy that parrot Putin’s line that every pro-democracy protest in the world is just some plot by the CIA and should be suppressed.
Hello there, fellow Ontarian!
In seriousness, Ford is a great example of my point because he talks to how people feel. It doesn’t matter that it’s bullshit at best or whitewashing of his latest grift at worst, he’s at least acknowledging enough voters’ concerns and fears, and while tossing a bauble here or there (eg, booze in corner stores, buck a beer) to look like he’s doing something for the common person.
His opposition doesn’t do this. Stiles gets ignored, and Crombie just seems like a weak Ford impersonator.
The polticial left needs to do better. Yes that would probably mean getting called socialist, but since that’ll happen anyway they may as well own it.