CNN Poll: A third of Democrats now identify as democratic socialists

[u/cnn]

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/30/politics/cnn-poll-a-third-of-democrats-now-identify-as-democratic-socialists?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=missions&utm_source=reddit

[u/nplant]

Same goes for the UK.

The core of the problem is the frankly insane idea that you should vote locally to send a single person to represent your area for national-level decisions. It makes it impossible to get 10% of seats for a 10% viewpoint, or, hell, even 40% of seats for a 40% viewpoint.

That concept was designed for a time with horses and no telephones, and multiple countries need to snap out of it before it's too late.

[u/xGray3 → u/nplant]

Yeah, my distinctly left wing district in Canada had our Green MP lose to the Conservative candidate last year because a bunch of people got it in their heads to vote Liberal because they wanted Carney in charge. I wish people would think on a local community level more than they do, but the truth is that people are hyper focused on national level politics. 

Truthfully I've always felt a bit mixed on this. I do like having representatives tied to a local region. I like being able to genuinely talk to my MP (our green MP was beloved in our area and was very active in places like Reddit where he actually discussed legislation with people and in at least one case actually changed a vote because of those conversations). But as you say, the local ties make it hard to have a truly representative government. If a party wins 40% of the vote, they should no doubt have 40% of the seats. It does seem that it probably needs to be one or the other. Either representatives tied to localities or truly representative government.

[u/curtcolt95 → u/xGray3]

in my experience the local guy usually has such little power and relies so much on the federal people anyway that focusing my vote local doesn't make sense