“It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."

"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"

"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."

"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."

"I did," said Ford. "It is."

"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"

"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."

"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"

"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."

"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"

"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in."

I've voted in every election I've been eligible for, and that strategy hasn't exactly worked, so far. ("Voting" as a generic answer for "how do we effect change in government" is trite, oversimplistic, and doesn't actually answer the question.)

I don't think I've ever seen a referendum on military spending, much less specific policy, on any ballot.

You live in a country of 330 million, you didn't expect that you will be setting policy for all those people with your singular vote...did you?

It's pretty clear to me that they don't think that. They are illustrating that "go out and vote if you want to make things better" is useless advice because the majority of voters believe that radical change is unnecessary or impossible.

>They are illustrating that "go out and vote if you want to make things better" is useless advice

That strikes me as naive and juvenile. It's not useless advice, it just need to be properly contextualized. You're a sharing a nation with hundreds of millions of people, so you cannot expect that your fellow citizens all want the same thing you want. Yes voting is a method of change, but the effect of a singular vote is very small, especially for influencing federal policies.

At the local community or neighborhood level, a single dedicated person can actually make a big difference, but that also requires work, because changing minds takes time and effort.

This is also why federalism should be embraced by everyone. Limit the federal government as much as you can and leave the consequential decisions to states and communities. But local issues aren't sexy enough for many.

>They are illustrating that "go out and vote if you want to make things better" is useless advice because the majority of voters believe that radical change is unnecessary or impossible.

And yet that's exactly what the "disenfranchised, angry white rural male" bloc accomplished by voting for Trump, while their opponents mostly sat on their hands because they couldn't have Bernie. There are numerous examples in American politics where popular sentiment has led to radical shifts in policy.

It just happens that in recent history (probably since 9/11), the American public seems to want those shifts to move the country further and further right. Those people are getting what they voted for.

Voting is pretty much the bare minimum you can do to effect political change in a democracy.

There are plenty of other, ever more effective and synergistic ways, of being politically active:

- educating oneself about one's rights, politics and history, and opposing points of view

- making connections with others at all levels of society, business, and government

- raising awareness through talking to others, writing articles, or making videos

- participating in protests or boycotts

- encouraging others to vote

- volunteer to be an election monitor, to make sure elections are conducted fairly and are free from interference

- letter writing to elected officials

- donating to and/or volunteering for the causes, campaigns, and organizations you believe in

- organizing

- running for local office

People tend to get so laser-focused on voting that they forget that there are all sorts of other ways to get involved.

- creating your own party

- still getting nowhere

I don't know why I'm even writing this, I'm just really tired of seeing the political class being untouchable (and that's not exclusive to the US).

I remember a guy in my country doing all of what you wrote, getting as far as organizing a political party, which was promptly absorbed into one of the three biggest parties, never to be heard from again.

This isn't democracy. It's der'mocracy (my favorite Russian portmanteau, means shitocracy).

There are no guarantees in life.

I don't know what this one guy stood for, what he did right, or what he did wrong. He might have been completely incompetent, or maybe his ideas were so far out of the mainstream that he really stood no chance no matter how competent he was.

How many allies did he manage to get? How many people did he manage to reach? How long was he active for?

Also, we need to keep in mind that just because your party doesn't get elected that doesn't mean you've failed. Sometime showing the public that there's an alternative or moving the conversation to include your issue can effect change in the mainstream, which can be a victory in itself, even if your party does not achieve power.

But even if this one guy failed, that does not mean that becoming politically active in a democracy is useless for everyone and that everyone is doomed to fail. The point is to get lots of people involved. You can't do it all by yourself (or it wouldn't be a democracy).

That said, I agree that there are many faults in American democracy, and in other democracies all over the world. That doesn't mean we have to give up on democracy. They could be reformed to be more democratic, through democratic means. But people have to become more educated and more politically active. Simply casting a vote once every 4 years and digging our heads in the sand the rest of the time is not nearly enough.

> people have to become more educated and more politically active

That's the key point, there has to be a critical mass of people that want to be more educated and politically active. But there's not enough of them. And I don't know how to get more people involved.

The current system is better than anything else we've had, but it looks like people won't be interested in it until it's corrupted beyond repair, at which point they will resort to violence and rapid, hopefully not violent but definitely half-arsed, change. History repeating itself.

Unfortunately, I think that the best answer might be "vote for people who support your beliefs, even if/though they are guaranteed not to win, until one of the two major parties begins to adopt those people's positions in an attempt to attract your votes"

Unsatisfying answer and I'm not sure it's guaranteed or even likely to produce results in your lifetime but until we get rid of FPTP voting it's the only real answer

> I don't think I've ever seen a referendum on military spending, much less specific policy, on any ballot.

https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_republic

Tyranny of the stupefied majority. The media is now a tool for the select few to get the majority to vote the way they need them to.

(Wow, that's a badly worded sentence)