Idk I think canada has a lot of that too. People rely on fox news type shows, facebook, and political advertisements to decide. We have a lot of the same absurd misinformation shit. People did literally believe the prime minister was the son of Fidel Castro, for example.

Even if they buy into "immigrants are stealing our jerbs" they have to pick which right wing party to vote for and leadership has kinda been a revolving door at both the federal and provincial levels in recent years. Not sure if it's the cause or effect?

Parties do spend a lot of time and money promoting the leaders. I don't want to pretend we're above that or anything lol. A hilarious example:

It didn't work lol, he's still a fucking nerd. After he lost the last election (both for the party and his own seat) he decided to try harder and moved to Alberta. I can't find the photo but apparently he showed up wearing the cowboy hat backwards and folks did not take kindly to that 🤡

I don't know much about the political climate in countries other than the US and canada but it would be interesting to know if the emphasis on the individual is so high.

I’ve never seen the level of willful ignorance that we have now! It’s a cult!

Moar leik how few people are allowed by the plutocracy to run in the rigged US elections

What if we had a king but used a different word" theory

I yapped about it too much over here but like...

If the president can do whatever he wants within the confines of his role

And there is no way for his party to hold him to account

And there isn't even an overall party platform so we can't even pretend there is a mandate

How is it not just choosing a new king every 4 years?

Down with the executive. I want a PM appointed by a parliament instead.

It's likely I'm not understanding your point so I would appreciate it if you could correct my interpretation..

I'm hearing that it's important to choose a leader because a party or movement without a leader could not communicate the platform effectively and would surely lose even if people agreed with them. I wasn't suggesting that within an electoral system a political party should not have a leader or at least a spokesperson.

I realize my example doesn't have the same meaning to people who are unfamiliar with other political systems but parties just yeet leaders and move on. I suppose there are structural differences that make that impossible in the states, like having the election for president being entirely separate from electing local representatives and that being party leader or even PM in canada doesn't require you to hold a seat. I also keep forgetting about primaries lol. Those are not a thing.

I was looking at US congressional election results to see if I could imagine a comparable scenario but I think the systems are too different..

In 2019 the new leader of the Conservative party lost the election. His party wasn't in power before, and they actually gained 26/343 seats but he had to step down as leader because his party was not happy with his gains. He's still in office and still a member of the party. He even served as interim leader again when the next guy got ousted.

The next election in 2021 had a new leader and they lost again but did not gain or lose any seats. His party was still mad but this time it was more about him not being right wing enough:

On January 31, 2022, Conservative Calgary Heritage MP Bob Benzen submitted a letter with signatures from 35 Conservative MPs calling for a leadership review on O'Toole's leadership to the Conservative caucus chair, Scott Reid. In the letter, Benzen criticized O'Toole's reversal on repealing Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's carbon tax and assault weapons ban.

He kept served the rest of this term but did not seek election.

I remember some of the discussion around Bidden stepping down from reflection and how it seemed to be portrayed as a weakness of the party or something that would doom the party. I also think about how the president can basically do whatever they want without needing to get buy in from the party, especially in the context of "blue no matter who" and the question of supporting Palestine in 2024. There is no party cohesion because there isn't a mechanism to have consequences for pissing off large sections of your party while you are in office. A more positive framing would be there is no mechanism to ensure the party leader is representing the wishes of the party, which is assumed to be the wishes of the public who elected them. If I understand correctly platforms are individual rather than party based as well that doesn't really help with a cohesive message either.

I think I now understand better why emphasis on the individual is so important in this system:

• A leader for a party (presidential candidate) is chosen shortly before the general election. They get no practical experience before hand because choosing a leader is part of the election process and cannot happen until then.
• They get the job, presumably based on the platform that won them the primary and was crafted by the party after the primaries.
• Once they are in office you better hope they toe the line because to question them would be to question the whole party even though the party has no say in how they conduct themselves.

In contrast, in other systems you don't need an election for the party to say "nah you don't represent us any more" and the person doesn't lose their seat/you don't topple the government. It's rare it happens to the sitting PM, but our last PM resigned from the job basically under duress because his own party was like "don't make us kick you out" and the opposition was like "don't make me trigger an election".

it's not a magic approach. The last PM broke his promise on electorial reform and his party did not care at all, but obviously they had vested interest in it not changing. But that was more about the public losing faith, not the party.

I still believe in the concept of unions. I want to see unions collectively take over means of production. I also agree they’ve been corrupted. Where things went wrong was an imposition of the manufactured cultural war by the neoliberal establishment. A blue-collar construction or factory worker with a high-school education doesn’t care about things like genderqueer rights. They also lean towards reactionary social beliefs.

Manufactuing a cultural war in the context of economic oppression creates an opportunity for right-wing movements to arise, who promise the world to blue-collar workers while appealing to their reactionary tendencies. The oppressors can conveniently scapegoat marginalized groups for the struggles of blue collar workers, when the real problem stems from the oligarchs.

I want to see all humans have equal right, but that can’t truly happen unless capitalism is put in check by workers and progressively eliminated.