I think trying to approach change from every avenue is the best way forward

Politics frankly won’t change much in the next 4 years unless a bunch of progressives and liberals move to every purple state from the deep blue and deep red states. I still have some faith in newer generations not being as right leaning, but it would take decades for younger generations to vote at the scale of Baby Boomers and Gen X.

Plus Federated spaces need to grow more as well if we want to try to prevent misinformation from spreading as much as we see in the privately owned social media companies.

I believe there needs to be a push to change the voting system away from First Past the Post voting. As this is the main thing that keeps us in this mess of a two party system. The change needs to happen through grassroots organizing at the local election level all the way up to the state level to be successful in passing an alternative voting system in each state. Alaska and Maine both have already moved away from First Past the Post voting, so it is possible to do.

Ranked choice is decent, but I would prefer STAR voting, Ranked Robin Voting, or Score Voting personally. I know this is an old community and post, but I think now is the best time to start a movement to move away from FPTP.

RCV is Alaska is still relatively new for voters. Republicans only fought against it in Alaska when a Democrat managed to win an election when RCV was present, which they may have still won with FPTP as well.

The Democratic Party is not strongly for or against alternative voting systems. More or less on a state by state basis it could be in their favor to have, and the same applies with Republicans as well.

Some forms of Alternative voting have been banned in red states. They certainly are trying to prevent it and marketed against it hard in 2024. 2026 will likely have less Republican turnout due to it not being a presidential election year.

Many states were trying to push RCV and failed to get it passed in 2024. I feel it mostly had to do with not enough people understanding how it or other alternative voting systems worked. We have two to four years to work on educating people about how alternative voting systems will work and trying again and again to get an alternative passed. It’s okay if each state chooses something else, as almost anything is a step up from First Past the Post.

I will say that Alaska opting to barely keep RCV is still a solid sign for Alternative Voting systems as whole, as everywhere else it was on the ballot but not in place it got voted down in 2024.

I think along with a state centered Alternative Voting strategy, a lesson we can take from 2024 is trying to go for grassroots change at the local, city, school board, and union board elections level to promote alternative voting systems. If it’s something people are familiar with, it’s much more likely to succeed at the state and national levels. What’s neat is that even low stakes things such as a vote for what you and your friends want for dinner or what movie to watch can use these different voting systems to introduce people to the idea.

It will take time and hard work for change to happen, but every bit we do now will matter if we want to try to shape things for the better.

It functionally can’t without changing the system, imo. The system itself must change or the Democratic Party needs to be changed from within by electing more people like AOC. That later type of change can take decades though, and the more business oriented side of the party doesn’t make it easy for progressive to move up the ranks. Also, the old guard of Democratic voters is not as progressive as the younger base. The Baby Boomers and Gen X for instance don’t exactly want all of the same things as Millennials and Gen Z. The fact that Millennials and Gen Z do not make up the largest percentage of the base voting in elections influences some of the decision making as well.

It could happen in at least some states. It takes ballot initiatives that require signatures. If you have other ideas I’m all ears, but I think at least starting the process to change our current system and can be applied fifty states is at least worth a shot. It requires grassroots organizing and would benefit a lot from smaller political parties getting on board as well.

If it has the BlueSky moderation tools I think that could go a long ways to keeping it a pleasant place. Quality moderators can help steer the culture of the boards as well.

I agree, I actually have been wanting a 4chan type replacement for a while and I believe there are enough tools out there with a federated space for it to be possible. 4chan’s method of communication in the best of times is fun and spurs some interesting conversations, when it’s done right. I think we all know what 4chan does wrong, mostly its lack of any noticeable moderation or automods.

If it had the same type of moderation tools that say BlueSky had though, where things like misinformation, slurs, etc. are removed/hidden as the default setting for users. Then this would go a long ways to building a kinder community/discussion space.

That’s close to what happened in 2024 tbh. Sites like Reddit, Instagram, and YouTube were heavily botted and full of bad faith actors to promote misinformation. Since there are no guardrails like BlueSky has for instance, the bots could show up early to every thread/post/video to set the narrative and then they’d be the last to reply before threads closed to get the final word in.

I believe the future depends on more Federated sites to become mainstream and for Federated sites to adopt the same moderation mechanisms used by BlueSky.

I think it’s important to work towards enabling more political parties between now and 2028. We need alternative voting systems like Alaska and Maine have, but in the other states as well. That is only really possibly through getting ballot initiatives passed in each state for something like STAR Voting, Ranked Robin Voting, Score Voting, or Ranked Choice Voting.

A different voting system enables us to move away from First Past the Post, which is what forces a two party system. By having this, there can be more smaller parties that more truly represent the values of each state that can work with the bigger parties. Plus, it opens up the door for the most liked candidates to not knock each other out over the least liked candidates when tallying the votes.

All that is needed in about half of the states is to get signatures to put ballot initiatives up for a vote. Through grassroots action we can make a meaningful difference, and get more politicians like Walz that actually care about us in office.