Re:Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health
by tomatocracy on Saturday November 07, 2020 @01:50PM
(#25017438)
Yes. This is the way that the public choice theory of government explains the success of special interest groups - an issue may have a majority of voters against it but if a small minority care enough about it to change their votes over it (whereas the majority who disagree are unlikely to do so because they don’t care enough about it), it can make sense for politicians to offer strong support to unpopular special interest positions.
I suppose there’s a sort of deranged case where every issue a politician supports falls into this category though it’s probably not the norm.
Re:Voters rejecting the war on drugs is a win for public health
by bnralt on Saturday November 07, 2020 @01:02PM
(#25016909)
I don't think many vote based on issues. A lot of the time, people seem to choose the candidate/community around the candidate first, then support whatever issues go with it. Even when people say they're really excited about particular policies, if you talk with them for a bit there's usually very little depth or understanding there.
It has long been my opinion that if people voted on individual issues instead of representatives, this would be a very different country because no politician's views match the majority of the populace. So people have to pick best-of-the-worst, a politician whose views match a handful of the issues they care about, which creates a mess overall.