Do Policies Matter?

[Zardnaar]

6 days to Election here although the polls opened 8 days ago.

Election day will have more booths open than now.

Anyway way my belief is trickle down neo liberal doesn't work.

That basically means I have to vote for the Greens or Labour.

I'm not expecting miracles. Last election those two parties got 42% and used a third party to form the government.

Haven't really followed any policies. Most don't matter and what makes it had to be negotiated in coalition anyway.

 

[Angst]

Policies and the enforcement thereof through monopoly of violence shape our world significantly. As such, they matter. I'm not sure what you're asking here. Something matters, even if it's cruel. Maybe you can rephrase what your concern is? Just for me? (I'm not the smartest person in the world.) Is your question more whether we can expect to get the right people elected atm.? Because if so, I agree with what I think what you're trying to say, we're kind of in trouble.

Reason I entered the thread was indeed to go "Yes, policies matter, and due to us having a state, making the right policies is very important." This is actually a concern I have with some feminists today, because I think a lot of energy is spent on symptomatic treatment rather than solving core issues of what's preventing women from going forward in society. Sharing pictures of manspreading on instagram could maybe possibly solve manspreading, but it doesn't properly solve the actual structures that prevent women from proper public presence and happiness. That requires certain forms of legislation to actually reform the system. It also relates to activist consumption. It's all good that Beyoncé is now a feminist and minority acctivist, but she's part of an industry whose shareholders are connected to weapons manufacturing, something today that is very much connected to violence against or between minorities, for example. This isn't solved by selling CDs, but to make (or stop) certain policies that concerns the corporate structures and shape weapons consumption. Policies matter. Public opinion matters too, but in the end, changing someone's opinion will do far less than actually changing the behavior of the people with the monopoly on violence.

 

[Zardnaar]

Policies and the enforcement thereof through monopoly of violence shape our world significantly. As such, they matter. I'm not sure what you're asking here. Something matters, even if it's cruel. Maybe you can rephrase what your concern is? Just for me? (I'm not the smartest person in the world.) Is your question more whether we can expect to get the right people elected atm.? Because if so, I agree with what I think what you're trying to say, we're kind of in trouble.

Reason I entered the thread was indeed to go "Yes, policies matter, and due to us having a state, making the right policies is very important." This is actually a concern I have with some feminists today, because I think a lot of energy is spent on symptomatic treatment rather than solving core issues of what's preventing women from going forward in society. Sharing pictures of manspreading on instagram could maybe possibly solve manspreading, but it doesn't properly solve the actual structures that prevent women from proper public presence and happiness. That requires certain forms of legislation to actually reform the system. It also relates to activist consumption. It's all good that Beyoncé is now a feminist and minority acctivist, but she's part of an industry whose shareholders are connected to weapons manufacturing, something today that is very much connected to violence against or between minorities, for example. This isn't solved by selling CDs, but to make (or stop) certain policies that concerns the corporate structures and shape weapons consumption. Policies matter. Public opinion matters too, but in the end, changing someone's opinion will do far less than actually changing the behavior of the people with the monopoly on violence.

I would argue emotions and personality matter more.

Personally I don't follow policy whatsoever. I trust one side will do better than the other and vote for them. They can work out the exact details later.

 

[EgonSpengler]

If you're talking strictly about a candidate's getting elected, then yeah, policies are far down the list. A politician's physical appearance matters more, as does their demeanor and the "archetype" they fulfill in people's minds. For example, people thought George W. Bush was a 'regular guy' that 'you could have a beer with', and people thought Donald Trump was a good businessman. Neither was true, of course, but it didn't matter, it was the presentation that people bought into and then became emotionally attached to.

Looks matter a lot. JFK and his wife were like movie stars, and of course Ronald Reagan was literally a movie star. iirc, US Presidents have tended to be tall, and of course they've all been men. US Congress has never been even close to half women; I think it's about ¼ women right now, which I think is higher than it's ever been. So a candidate's gender may well be more predictive of their chances of being elected than their policy positions.

 

[Wastl]

Are you asking whether policies matter to the outcome of an election, or whether they matter when you need to decide who to vote for?
Because those are two different things.

Emotions and personality really shouldn't matter much at all when deciding upon who to vote for, unless a candidate is such a vile human being that no one sane should ever put him in a place of power. If someone isn't at least a somewhat decent human being, it is highly unlikely that his positions are any good anyway.

That being said. People do get influenced significantly by emotions and personality, to the point that some will vehemently suppot a party that stands for everything that makes life worse for them. In general, it will depend on the system in place and the message that is being delivered. Someone who offers grand solutions that have little chance of actually being enacted, tends to get a high level of support, or at the very least a lot of hardcore supporters. Someone who takes step after step, because he is a realist and notices that grand solutions have no chance of passing, is unlikely to create tons of hardcore supporters, but might get the votes in a "the only decent option" kind of way.

Then there are occasions that cause a significant rise in support for one party due to a big event. E.g. the power-plant in Fukushima going bust had the Greens in Germany go through the roof, because they had always been the anti-nuclear party. If you can ride such a wave into an election, you are golden. That is a mix of emotions and policy though.