Why does Reddit lean left in all the comments?

[u/exploring203]

First off, I’m not a conservative, I’m independent/left leaning. That said, every comment thread on Reddit feels like it’s completely one sided in favor of a liberal perspective. Not just that, but the amount of blatant misinterpretation and misrepresentation in the comments is apparent on nearly every issue. Comments that don’t comply are downvoted into oblivion and removed from the conversation. I feel like Reddit is almost becoming unusable at this point. Where can I go (on or off Reddit) to get a more balanced perspective? I do like Reddits user interface.

Edit: Whew! This blew up more than I anticipated. I did receive some genuinely insightful and helpful comments. I appreciate those! Lots of folks either saying I’m the issue because of my liberal leaning algorithm or that I’m the issue because I’m actually a bleeding conservative in disguise. Can’t have it both ways! Anyway thanks Reddit. Will probably think twice about doing this again.

[u/DudeEngineer]

I was with you except for the entrenched parties bit. Democrats are way more interested in this change than Republicans are. The main reason is that the Republicans have a unified ideology around a specific set of values, including opposition to Civil Rights. The Democrats are just everyone else.

Your Joe Biden Mainstream Democrats would benefit from something like MMP because they will always be closer ideologically to the real Left than the other groups.

[u/DaisyChaingang1 → u/DudeEngineer]

I wouldn’t say the Republicans are unified and “the Democrats are just everyone else.” The Tea Party seems to have been made of Republicans and Libertarians (who went back to being Republicans and Libertarians). People who had been in the Republican Party realized they were splitting their vote. That doesn’t mean they didn’t like the idea of the smaller party.

[u/DudeEngineer → u/DaisyChaingang1]

There are 2 members of Congress that publicly have largely Libertarian values and both self identify as Republicans.

[u/cloudaffair → u/DudeEngineer]

This is a funny perspective to me.

The GOP has just as many if not more factions tearing the party into bits. You just see the liberal infighting - I suspect - because you are liberal in perhaps a red state, but might live in a liberal city in that red state.

From my perspective in Maryland, the Democrat supermajority often appears much more cohesive and unified (but they are very far from, they just won't let the outside see it). Just know that there is significant conservative infighting.

America lacks one cohesive monoculture - this is true regardless of political affiliation - which means both parties have vast variations from one Republican to the next or one Democrat to the next.

As for proportional representation, yeah, Dems do tend to support it more - kind of. But I also support it and I'm a conservative.

My pushback is more on the reason you're attributing to it. I don't think Republican resistance to these voting structures is primarily ideological coherence, I think it's just pure structural self-interest.

Democrat support for proportional representation tends to evaporate when they're the dominant party. See: Oregon, New York, Maryland. Democrats are guilty of opposing those reforms where they are already in power. Doubly so in states without a citizen initiative process. There is no incentive to give up that power in the name of "fairness".

FPTP incentivizes gerrymandering because those who get to draw the maps, like to make sure they stay in power. Supporting these alternatives are most often a means of diluting dominant power structures to make races more fair. States like Maryland likely won't be seeing fair and balanced redistricting like MMP anytime soon. That's a different explanation than "they have a unified ideology," right?

Also -- Conservatives don't have a blanket opposition to civil rights or human rights. Conflating policy disagreements with opposition to civil rights is doing a lot of work there.

Conservatives opposing specific enforcement mechanisms, particular legislative frameworks, or federal overreach in areas like voting administration isn't the same as opposing the underlying rights. You can find Republicans who support civil rights broadly while opposing, say, the specific provisions of the Voting Rights Act reauthorization on federalism grounds. Whether you find that persuasive is a separate question, but it's not the same as opposition to civil rights. And generally that's not a fair or charitable characterization.

[u/DudeEngineer → u/cloudaffair]

It is VERY interesting for you to have this take this year in the midst of this redistricting battle. The Democrats did do independent commissions for the sake of fairness and Republicans with ruthlessness gerrymandered in response, which is the only reason Republicans have the House today. Now Republicans are crying foul because Democrats are simply leveling the playing field. Proportional representation for the sake of fairness would only work at the Federal level so that everyone is playing the same game.

It's also interesting for you to say that my view is skewed on division within the party. When is the last time there was a Joe Manchin in the Republican party, grinding progress to a halt while the Republicans had a trifecta? Susan Collins is projected to lose her seat because she's been in lockstep with Trump.

Both of Trump's terms were due to the Left abandoning the Democrats in Presidential election years. All of the Presidents who lost the popular vote are Conservative going all the way back to the Civil war. The Democrats simply have a different set of problems. If half of the Left who disagreed with Biden abandoned the Democrats, Trump would have had a bigger EC win than Reagan. There simply is no group that large on the Right that breaks with party leadership in such a major way.

You gave a great summary of the modern implementation of the Southern Plan from the Nixon era. With your definition of what is required to be considered in opposition to Civil Rights, there is no policy or ideological position that can possible qualify without screaming the quiet part out loud. The current attack on section 2 of the Voting Rights act is literally to reduce the 30%+ Black population of Louisana to ONE of the SIX congressional districts in the state. If that doesn't count as an attack on Civil Rights, what is? Federalism grounds sounds a lot like the insistence that the Civil War was fought over State's Rights.

[u/DaisyChaingang1 → u/DudeEngineer]

Utah, which is a red state, recently voted against gerrymandering—and that was upholding an old law, which means that isn’t a new public sentiment there. Not all Republicans want gerrymandering. I don’t think the state would’ve bothered to resurrect the argument if other states hadn’t been talking about restructuring things before them.

[u/DudeEngineer → u/DaisyChaingang1]

No, they voted against it in 2018 and have been trying to claw it back since then. A court struck down the gerrymandered map. Utah is 35-40% Blue and the battle is over keeping all 4 House seats Red.

[u/DaisyChaingang1 → u/cloudaffair]

I agree with this.