I fully agree with him. I've long maintained that a healthy democracy requires the populace to be politically informed and active, regardless of stance or belief.

It is deeply disturbing that 100M+ Americans didn't vote in the most recent election. I bet a lot of those were people who, as Brecht points out, are proud of the fact that they hate politics and don't care about it. They always spout ignorant bullshit like "both parties are the same anyway" and they say that with a smug, holier-than-thou attitude, as if they've discovered some hidden insight. It really rustles my jimmies.

How do you feel about the people who voted contrary to your political choices? Do you view them with more or less disdain than you appear to have for those who sat this one out?

I can't speak for the parent, but in general I have a great deal more respect for people who vote for things I disagree with than people who share my values but can't be fucked doing anything to effect them.

That's interesting, do you still feel that way when they're voting in favor of things that have the potential to significantly degrade your quality of life?

I'm not the person you responded to, but here's my take.

I can respect someone I personally dislike. I can also respect someone who disagrees with me. I can even respect someone who makes my life harder, though I might dislike them for it.

But I lose respect for a person for many other things.

Once you tally up all of the factors, I do have trouble respecting most of the Trump voters I've personally encountered so far (not many) because I sensed too much intellectual laziness or cognitive dissonance.

Once you tally up all of the factors, I'm not sure that Trump voters come out ahead of non-voters in aggregate.

When it comes to issues I care about most (mass incarceration, surveillance, war, poverty, torture and corruption) both parties are effectively identical.

On a purely scientific level, US is about to run an experiment where they're handing power completely over to one side of the aisle for at least 2 full years after having a split government for the last 6. You're likely to get sufficient data during this period to make your determination whether your (IMHO ill-informed) opinion is indeed true.

I'm keeping an open mind, if it ends up as more of the same again I hope you will as well.

I think the transition Cabinet already shows that there is some difference. Clinton would not have dreamed of trying to abolish Social Security.

Currently I'm mostly keeping an open mouth watching the events that are unfolding in this timeline.

The place to change that is the primaries.

This thread could rapidly veer out of control, so rather than add my counterargument here, can I (as an ordinary user not affiliated with HN) suggest that we stop here, or at least hold ourselves to a minimum length and point/counterpoint format?

Particularly for local and state elections (where all of those issues besides war and torture will primarily be decided).

Only those holding an insufficient amount of nuance on these issues can honestly believe that.

Not true. Both final candidates supported and benefited from the causes of most of that list. They also mocked various Constitutional amendments. Tyrants that are just the same for that list and what supposedly empowers them.

So the end game for dang's experiment was "the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.”

I daresay not. The problem was that unless we're talking hardcore science/engineering, there is always a political shade to things that affect the real world. But as a non-american, I wouldn't have minded if the experiment continued since a lot of the political discourse here is extremely US-centric and repetitive.