DL Open Thread Saturday, June 21, 2025
Is it war yet? More to the point, is it our war yet? Pundits are sucking their thumbs extra-hard trying to figure out if and when Trump will join the Israel-Iran missile-exchange program, but most fail to consider the question, “What would an unimaginative reality-show host do?” They’d do exactly what Trump is doing – string out the decision to keep the spotlight on himself as long as possible. Hence his declaration that he’d make a decision in the next two weeks, his go-to timeframe for things he never gets around to. Will he or won’t he? Stay tuned, suckers!
Speaking of thumbs, everyone thinks Democratic leaders are twiddling theirs, but let’s give credit where it’s due: They’re manufacturing excuses at a breakneck pace. Some people have even noticed their One Weird Trick for inaction: Whatever Trump-induced horror you’re asked about, say it’s just a distraction from what you proclaim the real problem, which is anything the reporter didn’t ask about.
What is it with undistinguished-or-worse ex-governors running for mayor? I thought it was strange when John Carney, who was merely ineffectual, did it. Now Andrew Cuomo, who actually had to resign the New York governorship in disgrace, is favored to win New York City’s mayoral primary on Tuesday. Cuomo’s race is more complicated than Carney’s – there are nine candidates, and the ballot employs ranked-choice voting – but I’d bet his name recognition carries the day.
Speaking of ranked-choice voting, why do progressives keep falling for the One Weird Trick fallacy? Consider this New York City mayoral primary. Voters have to rank nine candidates, so instead of just settling on who you want, you have to strategically rank the rest to your guy’s benefit. Here’s an article praising the glories of ranked-choice voting, the One Weird Trick that will salvage our flawed system. Hey, guess what, you utopia-addled dreamers? Most voters can’t be bothered to learn anything about any candidate, and now you want them to study up on nine of them, and to calculate who to rank last to best help their top choice? Yeah, right, that’ll work great, because American voters take the process soooooo seriously, and they’re so good at math.
We’re under an official Excessive Heat Watch through Wednesday. Today highs will approach 90°, but the humidity will make it feel worse, and temperatures of 100° are expected Monday and Tuesday. Stay hydrated out there.
The floor’s yours.
Flood the ZONE POLITICS seems to be getting out of hand. Statewide candidates that are failures seem to be ok for Mayor. Wilmington has a Mayor that FEDS took over his prisons twice mostly civil rights violations. But most of all it seems to be so easy to distract voters on important issues. The new Mayor is working on his 5th public taxpayer’s pension. With such a bad record in public office, the voters never examen their past performances. Sad, real sad.
Counterpoint re ranked-choice voting: Paul LePage.
Also, did you read the article you linked? It literally says it’s not that hard. If you can rank your favorite Marvel movies, you can do this. Put whoever you like most on top. You can leave the rest of the ballot blank if you want, or vote your other choices by vibes. There’s nothing else you can do that will affect your first choice.
If you have enough information to settle on who you want in a field of 9 candidates, you can surely rank at least a few of them by how much you like them.
Yes, strategic voting is harder in RCV. That’s the point. It also removes incentives to vote strategically, so most people just… won’t do that. They’ll vote their actual preferences. This is a good thing!
No, it’s not “one weird trick”. Nobody but you said that, or anything like that.
That’s just it: I can’t rank my favorite Marvel movies. I’ve never seen one, which would make me a lot like the uniformed voters who make up a large chunk of the electorate.
The solution to a nine-person primary being won by someone with a relatively small pluraity is simple and is the most frequently employed solution: The top two finishers have a run-off election. The knock on this is that participation is low; my response is, do you really want more people like me ranking the Marvel movies?
Yes, the article saying it’s not that hard is what got my hackles up. If you actually pay attention it’s harder. Which is why I put it in the one weird trick category. The arrangement of the deck chairs doesn’t seem all that important to me. YMMV.
Fair Vote, which supports RCV, has a lot of statistics regarding how it has played out in practice.
https://fairvote.org/resources/data-on-rcv/
And a study from the University of Chicago, which finds that the method favors centrist candidates.
https://effectivegov.uchicago.edu/primers/ranked-choice-voting
I’m sure you could rank songs, or restaurants, or cars you’ve owned, or any number of other things. My point was that ranking things ISN’T hard. Elementary school kids can do it. And at any rate, deciding on your favorite means evaluating all the alternatives, so even plurality voting involves some kind of ranking!
You guys can’t seem to stop yourselves from posting links that debunk your own claims. There’s a whole section in there on voter opinions of RCV, which look pretty positive. One highlight: “In 2024, Portland, OR voters preferred RCV to the previous voting method by more than a 2-to-1 margin (63%-28%). 91% of voters understood RCV.” There’s another whole section on effects on turnout, which, again, look positive. You’re gonna have to do a lot to convince me that more people vote when you make voting *harder*.
While I’m sure the University of Chicago study gets at the heart of your opposition, it just looks tautological to me. Yes, centrism is more popular than Progressivism or Trumpism. What a shocker! The solution is to move the Overton window so the policies you like are more centrist. You know, activism. Going out and convincing people. Same as it is in a plurality system. It goes a lot easier if you don’t treat them with contempt. [And once again, it doesn’t look like you read the link you posted: “RCV and the two-round runoff system (used in many cities and some states in the U.S.) should produce similar results in most circumstances.”]
So the organization pushing this idea agrees with you. Color me shocked. I posted it not to refute anything but to give people a full picture of the pros and cons.
You can’t seem to stop yourself from missing the point. The point was that it’s not much of an improvement, and a lot of energy is expended on it by people who think it is. You keep illustrating it.
Trump Says He Bombed Iran:
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/06/21/world/iran-israel-trump