Malazan Empire: Chance - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

You might be surprised how few people actually change their vote. The vast majority of people vote the same way they did last time around.

The idea of competing for a "middle" voter is not necessarily accurate. Modern political strategy often revolves more around trying to get the people who support you to come out and vote (/that the people who support the other candidate don't bother).

You also have things like demographic shifts, first time voters, and so on, so it's not only about mobilisation.

But the idea that the left needs to "win the centre" does not ring very true. It basically assumes left-leaning voters will still come out and vote rather than staying home.

Perceived centrist candidates like Clinton and Biden-Harris haven't exactly had a strong track record electorally. The right has clearly had more recent success trying to rally up the right-wing base instead of playing for the centre a la Romney or McCain. Clearly this election has been a disaster but it also goes to show just how badly you can govern before you get repudiated, and that's always likely to have some consequence (see also Liz Truss).

If you look at this result it's majorly driven by turnout.

This is not only the US either. If you look at the UK, where there is more party diversity, what you'll find is voters are largely switching within blocs -- say Labour to Greens or Reform to Conservative -- rather than between them.

I'd argue that the West is going to stay in an anti-establishment political zeitgeist for the foreseeable future, for genuine structural reasons. The middle in most places is adrift when it comes to really motivating a base and mostly seems to win gritted teeth "us or the far right" contests.

This isn't to say abandon rural voters or anything. But you probably won't win them by chasing the middle either.

Stopping the attacks on Iran and the insanity that is "negotiation" is hard with the general structure of Trump's executive actions (frequently illegal and dumb to boot) and the enthusiasm that the military leadership now has to go throw bombs at people. Cutting funding is a valid tactic, yet it is slow and creates a screaming group that js military aligned about how their needs aren't met. That's not an ethical problem, but it is a problem that would need vision and dedication to manage.

Chance, on 03 November 2026 - 08:53 PM, said:

Given how obvious this is, what has prevented it over the last fifty years or so?

Chance, on 03 November 2026 - 08:00 PM, said:

there's a growing polarization between cities that are becoming increasingly progressive, and rural/less economically developed areas, that are becoming more conservative/culturally backward, especially as the more progressive youths are moving out into said cities.

In places where electoral system is set up to favour the less populated areas, this leads to a significant rightward slide overall. The only real way to address this is to either reform the system, or pull up the backwaters.