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(lemmy.nz)
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this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2026
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United States | News & Politics
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Sincere question because I've seen this sentiment on a few different topics recently: is the expectation for US politicians to follow popular sentiment? I understand the concept of representing your constituents but I have never taken that to mean making decisions based on the opinions of non experts.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding and what comments like this mean is that these things were not on the minds of the voters so politicians were not campaigning on it.
The job of a political representative is to represent their constituency. One should therefore expect them to pursue policy that is popular amongst their voterbase. This is not the case in the US however 1 2
What I am having trouble reconciling is how people can have this belief (that individual offices should be filled by people who are committed to enacting the will of their constituents) with the vote-blue-no-matter-who approach.
If there is no nationwide platform for the parties that all candidates are expected to uphold, and the expectation is that the people in office are supposed to carry out the will of their constituents, voting along party lines seems entirely meaningless.
(I am not seeking to understand why this arrangement makes sense overall. I know it doesn't and that the US electoral system even as designed originally was meant to make it impossible to represent local desires in favor of prioritizing preservation of the union. Nothing has changed. My question was meant to understand the perspective of the people who believe these two things can be true at the same time.)
You are correct, the idea that one should make no demands of the person representing oneself does make it so that person has no incentive to represent you, since they will be assured a more stable base of power if they appeal to other voters that do not support them unconditionally.
I think the reason people do the "blue no matter who" mindkilling cliché is twofold: They've fallen for the "just this once"/"most important election of all time" shtick that has been dragged out for at least four decades.
Secondly they believe in the personal project of the politician - ie. They think that the base desires of the politician is aligned with their own. This is delusional, unless one loves genocide, fascism and a merciless police state.
Does anybody know the names of the many many deaths under the drone king Obama or whoever?
No because they were Mexicans, Philippino or whatever.
Of course when they show up in white areas and even start killing white people the libs care, it's big news and the victims get a name. Poor Renee and Alex!
These are your voters and what that comment means.
A bunch of hypocrites