I see lots of controversy over single issue voting. To me though it seems that single issue voting can be very effective as it consolidates voters into a coherent voting bloc capable of exerting significant political pressure.
For example the progun single issue voters seem to have done relatively well over the past 30 years. And often times to me it seems the opposition to those single issue voters is more to do with disagreeing with the political position in of itself than the single issue voting tactic.
What do you think? Why is there such controversy over single issue voting?
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I see lots of controversy over single issue voting. To me though it seems that single issue voting can be very effective as it consolidates voters into a coherent voting bloc capable of exerting significant political pressure.
For example the progun single issue voters seem to have done relatively well over the past 30 years. And often times to me it seems the opposition to those single issue voters is more to do with disagreeing with the political position in of itself than the single issue voting tactic.
What do you think? Why is there such controversy over single issue voting?
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I don’t think the path to victory is to find the single issue that everyone cares about, if that’s what you mean
I can’t fathom looking at life and thinking only one issue is important. Sure, some are more important than others, but life is complicated and built on many things. I don’t like trying to dumb everything down into simplistic black/white ideas. The world is very, very gray.
Because it is implicitly selfish.
“I don’t care what happens to the country as long as my hobby remains untouched” is a bat shit crazy way to vote.
Single issue voters are either ignorant or lazy people that don’t want to understand the complexity of the world. I despise them. Still, we need them just as much as any other voter so I agree that we need a strategy for it.
I guess it matters what that single issue is to some degree. Almost across the board I think it’s easy to say that being a single issue voter is pretty ridiculous and does not serve your interests well.
I have a friend who was a single issue voter regarding abortion. He simply would not vote for any candidate that was pro choice. And that meant he was voting for Republicans and his interest were not well served. Being blinded into a single issue meant that he voted for policies that almost certainly increased the amount of abortions and make the lives of children worse plus he ended up supporting a bunch of positions he doesn’t agree with
But now he is a single issue voter. The issue is democracy. That’s a legitimate issue that overrides any other policy desires one might have.
So I guess if you find a position extreme enough, being a single issue voter makes sense. But up until recently, it never has. Maybe if you go back far enough, you could argue with that being a single issue voter on the subject of abolition would make sense. Or women suffrage.
But it has to be something that big
Being single issue voter makes you very easy to manipulate. Too many people will sacrifice their health, their kids, and most of the economy just to ban abortion or get a tax cut.
Single issue voting only makes sense in proportional parliamentary systems where governments are often made up of coalitions.
In the US, it’s fine for primaries, but in the general elections it doesn’t make sense with our FPP system.
The biggest reason why it’s controversial is because people and their morality is usually skewed. A lot of times single issue voters don’t know how to read the room (this past election being an example).
Sure you can say you want a candidate against genocide, and it’s a noble stance no doubt, but if they’re giving you better avenues to home ownership, legislation and policies to help underprivileged or impoverished children, bodily autonomy for women etc.
It’s a hard choice, but that’s life sometimes. Sometimes people get the short end of the stick, but I would much rather have a little damage now and prevent massive damage in the future, because immediately after those 3-4 issues are taken care of, I can focus all my energy on that single issue, and now I don’t have to worried about giving up ground because my focus can remain on that singular issue.
If I don’t focus immediately on the fire in front of me, it can burn down my house. But If I care only about my house and not check for burning embers, not only can it reignite my house but can burn down the neighborhood.
That one issue can end up tremendously hurting others unintentionally. Sometimes hurting one to save many is the better option, I don’t like it and I would much rather not hurt anyone at all, but sometimes life doesn’t work that way.
If your single issue on abortion there isn’t a single person in these comments who would object.
I mean, is progun successful because it’s a single voter issue or are there other factors involved as well?
It’s stupid because it can lead to you voting for the “make the country worse pretty much across the board” party just because that party is marginally better on your pet issue, when it would be much better to vote for the “make the country better pretty much across the board” party that doesn’t care as much about your pet issue. Of course it depends on the issue and there are exceptions to this rule if the issue is important enough. Guns are not an exception to this, but maintaining democracy is.
Many of the things a candidate promises never happens. If that single issue, is one of the things that never happens, you voted for that person for nothing.
Because it so easily backfires I guess.
The Democrat single-issue vote was “fuck fascism”
The Republican single-issue vote was “own the libs”
One of those was a valid strategy. The other was a giving a hivemind, shaped like a 2yo with ODD who’s currently mid-tantrum, the nuclear football.
It’s a good way to manipulate people into voting for horrible things. Take most GOP candidates as examples. Many of them campaigned on ending abortion, but many laws they voted for were designed to allow the rich to absolutely fleece everyone else.
Because both the MAGA cult and the Blue No Matter Who cult can’t abide someone thinking an issue is so important that it overrides every other consideration, and which differs from their priorities. To these people, votes are owed, not earned.
It may bring political gains to parties, but I think it’s ultimately very bad for democracy. We have an authoritarian far right party in this country that gets a lot of people who maybe wouldn’t be for authoritarianism, but they’re so fixated on abortion or guns.
In theory could go the other way with the left as well, although that’s not likely in this country.
There isn’t really much controversy on the moderate and conservative side. The only time I’ve seen controversy is when I talk to those on the left. I always leave the conversation thinking that they want everything to be perfect or it has to be a packaged deal. Which doesn’t match up to reality for most voters.
If you’re suggesting that we should adopt the strategy on the left, I don’t think it would work. The right has Fox News. I’m not a political scientist or a historian, but I think Fox News has done more for the political right in this country than anything else because it provided an easily consumable unified voice for all right leaning Americans to listen to. They made it possible to convince people that the 2nd Amendment is more important than feeding their kids or that “preventing waste” is a more urgent concern than the government performing any of its expected and necessary functions.
The left has no unifying propaganda engine to draw us all together like that. We also, at least for now, tend to be less interested in conforming to the expectations of a mainstream identity, and more interested in loudly identifying with disparate sub-factions and ideologies. If you think about it, one of the most unpopular and immediately disqualifying statements you can make about yourself in some lefty circles is to say that you identify as a Democrat or a Liberal (cue the vampire hisses from the crowd). Obviously, some of us don’t care about labels (the oldest members of the left mostly DGAF), but which subgroup(s) you identify with is really important for some of us. Anyway, for the moment, the mainstream viewpoint is exactly what a lot of us don’t want to be associated with, so it would take a lot of effort and at least a decade of consistent and widespread propaganda to get the left to unify around almost anything, much less to vote on a handful of arbitrary issues and damn the consequences. Not even the right managed to pull it off in less than 10 years and they had churches and the heavy expectations of conformity that goes with it to help. I’m sure there are things that could get the left to work together in general but we’ll never be as conformist as the right, especially with the 2 party system working the way it does. As long as we only have 2 parties, one of them is going to end up as the island of misfit toys where all the non-conformists are uncomfortably shoved together so we can argue endlessly about everything.
I think single issue voting is fine and makes sense if you overwhelmingly care about a single issue. But I think most people care about multiple issues and basically just want better outcomes for people in this country.
It’s basically saying “I am extremely easy to manipulate,” and the voter can be convinced to support all kinds of horrible things as long as their one issue is given lip service.
It causes people to support all sorts of nonsense in exchange for their single issue, and it encourages people to think of politicians as “a la carte”. Stuff like “I voted for Trump because of guns, I didn’t support him for tariffs or deportations or abortion or DOGE! So don’t blame me for it!”, as if a ballot is itemized
Because I expect more.
“Imagine your anti-abortion then get fired from your govt job and then get deported to an El Salvadorian Concentration Camp because you protested getting fired. Was it really worth it?”
If you are a single issue voter, it would be better for the country if you didn’t vote at all.