I don’t know if I missed the point of the section on “Voting Systems, voting strategies and knowing your fellow voters” but could it be summed as:
People don’t vote for politicians because they agree with them, rather they vote for the politicians who are better than the next best alternative. The politician who satisfies this characteristic appeals to the median voter. Moreover people on either side of the median voter will vote for the very same politician for different reasons.
Other than that, I thought the section on the Median Voter theorem was fascinating. It does seem to elegantly explain the data. Now I want to know why the US is polarized by geography.
Now I want to know why the US is polarized by geography.
Part of this is historical reasons, that is true of nearly all countries (there’s a great map that overlays German election results with both the Thirty Years War truce line and the line between East and West Germany).
Also there are reports that this is becoming self-reinforcing, i.e., people moving to regions of the country with similar beliefs to theirs.
I don’t know if I missed the point of the section on “Voting Systems, voting strategies and knowing your fellow voters” but could it be summed as:
People don’t vote for politicians because they agree with them, rather they vote for the politicians who are better than the next best alternative. The politician who satisfies this characteristic appeals to the median voter. Moreover people on either side of the median voter will vote for the very same politician for different reasons.
Other than that, I thought the section on the Median Voter theorem was fascinating. It does seem to elegantly explain the data. Now I want to know why the US is polarized by geography.
Part of this is historical reasons, that is true of nearly all countries (there’s a great map that overlays German election results with both the Thirty Years War truce line and the line between East and West Germany).
Also there are reports that this is becoming self-reinforcing, i.e., people moving to regions of the country with similar beliefs to theirs.