Nobody ever criticises the UK/US electorate

[Sheeled]

Yes both UK & US electoral systems are dreadful and rarely fully representative of peoples views. But. Its all very well commentators constantly bemoaning useless or misguided politicians who entrench inequality and trash the planet.
But 77.3 million people left their homes and voted for this man, knowing very well from 2016-20 what he was. Margaret Thatcher sold off public housing, generating the housing crisis, was belligerent and xenophobic, trashed the old industrial cities. Millions in Britain worshipped her and voted for her and her spiritual successors including Blair, Cameron etc time and again. 52% of EU Referendum voters in 2016 went out and voted to leave the world's most successful free trade block. Nigel Farage says the most appalling things about other humans and is set to become Prime Minister. Millions and millions of voters are responsible for what has been done to both countries.

Very baffling assertion as people constantly criticise the electorate of both countries.

Yes, exactly. Both electorates are continually castigated for electing Trump and voting for Brexit, among other things.

Are you new to mumsnet? There are oodles of threads criticising the electorate on both sides of the pond.

People criticise the UK electorate every single day and always have done

Yawn

Some like to blame Boomers for MRs T, but the Boomers were young then and more voted for Labour/Liberal than Conservative. As for Tony B, the choice was yet more conservative rule.

Please link recent threads criticising the electorate, I have not seen any.

Search for my posts. I have been on plenty and am forever criticising the electorate for making stupid decisions.

I know I shouldn't indulge you, but here is a post from a few minutes ago.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/politics/5517932-are-we-all-looking-forward-to-david-lammy-becoming-pm?reply=151947407&utm_campaign=reply&utm_medium=share

I guess you weren't around during Brexit then.

There seems to be a big trend on this website to slagging others off, "you know fuck all.about politics" " I know i shouldn't indulge you but". It is as if there's a group of people looking for posts they can disagree with from the safety of their screens, working their dyspepsia out.

I read the 1st few pages of the Lammy thread and didn't see any mention of the culpability of the electorate

If you are unhappy with the results of elections in the UK & US, it's not so much "the culpability of the electorate" as to how the electoral system is arranged so that it doesn't represent the electorate in a fair manner. In the UK we have first past the post and the US has its ridiculous Electoral College; both don't always give a result that reflects "the will of the people".

Another 'people who don't vote the same way I do are stupid' thread.

It's so boring and, no, you're not a clever person if you vote for people who tell you that women can have penises.

I linked to a specific post. To make it clear, here it is:

Even if you take % of votes rather than FPTP seats as a metric and assume seats reflected this, there's still no getting away from the fact that millions of the UK electorate think the answer is one from: the 1950s Fantasists of Reform, the Tories who have completely destroyed public services, or Labour who are so scared of the electorate that they choose a stooge leader who said he thought Israel had the right to cut off electricity and water to Gaza, spent months sucking up to the appalling Trump and made a speech that sounded like Enoch Powell at his worst about the dangers of immigration.

Are you seriously saying you think you're more intelligent than most other people because you vote Green, SNP, PC or Lib Dem?

Can you not see a certain irony in all this?

NOT ONLY. they tear each other daily on social media, the various supporters - whole families have been torn apart over politics, especially in the USA

Ok who do you prefer, Polanski?

It is extremely depressing to read some of these posts. I did not on one single occasion write that I thought I was any more intelligent than those who think differently. It just seems now like there is this unbreachable chasm in society. I cannot imagine what it must feel like to be part of one of the political tribes who see their desires reflected in the electoral winners all the time. It is depressing beyond belief to feel constantly marginalised and see people on the one hand slag off all politicians, then make.choices that result in one of the same.

The reality is, if the most recent polls are reflected in a GE (which I realise is.not a given) the UK will have Nigel Farage as PM leading a Reform led government which will likely be the most right wing in power in living memory. It feels like both the US and UK are heading to some kind of political sundering. I just cannot see how it is possible to reconcile with others who think so differently. Look, maybe they are right and Farage/Reform would be brilliant for the country, but I don't want to be part of it and I don't feel like I have any place in that kind of country.

But you said that people who vote differently to you are wrong and significantly implied that they are or were so stupid that they deserve to be punished.

There was a poll out this weekend that found there's a huge split among wealth in the UK re how people vote.

Reform and Conservative are comfortably first and second for poorer people, while Labour poll in first place among the richest people in society.

Do you therefore think that poorer people are more likely to be stupid?

Why won't you say who you voted for?

I think the electorate gets quite the pasting regularly. Blaming the people for their own pain is easy.

Most of what has happened in both countries has had nothing to do with the elections - most of what Labour is doing right now is no where to be seen in their electoral promises. They didn't run on Digital IDs and handing over the digital infrastructure of the NHS, schools, the Met and more to American companies, but here we are.

Much of what Trump and the Republicans are doing wasn't in their promises either - he specifically ran on and bragged about not being a war president. He's a bit notorious for changing as the wind and those paying him blow. The Democrats failed to realise that just running on 'not Trump' wasn't going to be enough a second time.

Personally, I'm more concerned about the quality and integrity of the candidates that we're forced to pick between, that on both sides of the pond politics has developed more into voting to keep a group out than actually supporting the group one's voting for and the political parties know and play into this to the point of losing elections over it, and that a lot of the things that impact us in daily life are people we can't hold accountable through elections (I'm talking 'advisors' and lobbying corporations rather than the House of Lords, which has actually been the challenge to the government we've needed at times).

Sure, we can call a significant portion of the population of either country fools and say they're responsible, but I think that rhetoric is more smokescreen to ignore that our politicians are not and have not been listening to the public in a very long time. Those responsible are those they're listening to, the one's they're giving over large portions of the budget to, having policies written for - like the companies our government is selling our digital autonomy off to, leaving the UK is a far weaker position in actually making its own decisions. No amount of people voting for the "correct" party is going to change how much harder people have to work compared to corporate heads to be barely heard by our politicians.

There’s a famous poem about this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_L%C3%B6sung

bertholt Brecht. Suggesting dissolving the people and getting a different one.

I get the feeling that, even though we're all stupid if we don't vote the way she wants us to, we're not going to be told who the OP actually wants us to vote for

If Farage does become PM & form a government, he will be leading a country with a significant portion of people who.viscerally despise him & his policies. He and his supporters might want to believe that he represents all British people, but he does not.
Perhaps the answer is to split the UK into different countries Reformland & the rest, this doesn't seem likely

"There seems to be a big trend on this website to slagging others off, "you know fuck all.about politics"

Isn't that point directly contradicting the premise of your original post?