
In Spain, Politics via Reddit - loomio
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/spain-politics-via-reddit
======
spindritf
Hard to imagine a better place for leftist populism than Reddit. The fact that
it's not popular in Spain is a feature here, allowed them to target the most
engaged first. With the language barrier, probably also younger and better
educated.

 _It’s still early to predict what is in store for Podemos._

I'll take a shot: it'll fizzle out, just like Occupy, just like dozens of
parties across Europe who manage a decent showing in the European elections
and then don't pass the threshold or only do it as a random plankton
coalition. That, and direct, all-inclusive democracy generally doesn't work.
But they're ditching that from the looks of it so who knows.

~~~
Imerso
That's not what politics in Europe look at all at the moment. The extreme
right and the extreme left are growing a lot. And the center-right and center-
left are pretty much merging in many countries, they are either governing in
coalition, or they will have to govern in coalition in the near future if they
want to remain in power.

Syriza in Greece won the European elections and may govern in the future. FN
is rising in France. UKIP in UK.

And in Spain Podemos is not fizzling out at all, the last polls put it as the
3rd party and getting very close to be the 2nd one, and even if they disappear
what the polls seem very sure about is that neither center-right nor center-
left could govern by themselves, and if they need to create a coalition that
would mean political suicide for any future elections, at least with the
current political atmosphere, maybe they are able to sell that coalition
somehow. But there's probably too much corruption at the moment to sell it as
anything else than as the last "let's keep stealing money" card.

~~~
blueskin_
UKIP are centre-left, not 'extreme right'. On economic issues, they're to the
left of the big 'left' party in the UK (Labour, who are really a more centrist
party) and only really go to the right on immigration rather than social
issues in general. You're confusing them with the BNP.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
I wouldn't call them centre-left, they're a bit of grab-bag of policies e.g.
some member have been a bit libertarian (which can be socially "left" but
economically "right" depending on particular issues). But Xenophobia is the
biggest theme, see for yourself:

[http://www.ukip.org/issues](http://www.ukip.org/issues)

~~~
disputin
Is wanting to leave the EU xenophobic? The EU is currently failing. Or wanting
immigrants to be have sufficient points and be able to support themselves?
This is standard for many countries.

~~~
blueskin_
I have to agree - in many people's eyes it's 'xenophobic' due to not having
been the case in the past, even where it by all rights should have been.

------
joeyspn
Podemos is undoubtedly an Internet phenomena. A modern and open party that not
just uses Reddit for coordination and keeping in touch with its voters, but
also makes use of tools like Agora Voting[0] for Liquid Democracy/online
referendums, and mobile apps for transparent group decisions.

They say about themselves that "they're not really a Party but a tool for
disrupting politics" and I think this is quite accurate... they've gone from 0
to front-runner in 5 months.

[0] [https://github.com/agoravoting/agora-
ciudadana](https://github.com/agoravoting/agora-ciudadana)

~~~
im_dario
Actually, there were other parties in Spain using Agora, like Confederación
Pirata [0] (the Spanish pirate party). Indeed, Agora's core developers are
tightly related to the Pirate movement.

As a pirate, I'm happy to see other parties using our tools and I'm also glad
to have somebody disrupting our political landscape but pirates are also "a
tool for disrupting". We just disrupted it sharing our experience and favorite
tools! :)

[0]
[https://agora.confederacionpirata.org/](https://agora.confederacionpirata.org/)

------
r0dia
I would like to rant a bit if you don't mind.

There is no political Left in Europe. Podemos is not a leftist party, since no
leftist party or democratic conservative party would ever get paid by the
State and be part of it (like the Nazi party). It's a contradiction in terms
and something that simply cannot be.

Most of the people don't know the distinction between formal democracy and
real(social) democracy and this causes great confusion.

Formal democracy is not about the content of laws (eg: laws to protect Human
Rights), but about the rules that define the democratic game, rules that
ensure that the People is in charge at all times (constitutional liberty).
Real democracy is about the content and this explains why it is prone to have
an ideological battle.

The most important requirements are:

1.- Representativeness: not possible in Spain, Italy, Germany, Greece,
Portugal among others, since they use the proportional list system.

2.- Separation of powers: not happening in Spain. The most voted political
party in the legislative elections forms government.

3.- Imperative mandate: Sieyes abolished it during the French Revolution and
it still to be restored in all Europe. The elected candidates in the
legislative elections should remain loyal to their promises.

4.- Different elections: for executive and legislative (like in France)

Podemos doesn't care about any of these things as far as I concern.

In my modest view there is no possible reform, the problem is not the people
in charge (Podemos guys seem honest), but the actual political system that
doesn't fulfill any of the requirements. We haven't conquered our Liberty yet.

~~~
herge
> 4.- Different elections: for executive and legislative (like in France)

The two most powerful countries with non-figurehead executives (France and the
United States) are perpetually beset with bickering and internal fighting
instead of "checks and balances". Is a system with government shutdowns like
we saw last year in the US, or François Hollands troubles in France any better
than a system where all the power is held by the legislature and the prime
minister? I only see a president as a sort of dictator who holds for 4 or 5
years the view of the electorate at one point in time, as opposed to a
legislature who are always looking at future elections.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The two most powerful countries with non-figurehead executives (France and
> the United States) are perpetually beset with bickering and internal
> fighting instead of "checks and balances".

That's not so much a problem of a Presidential system as a problem of the a
Presidential system in a country which _also_ has a poorly-representative
electoral system in general (particularly for the national legislature).

However, there aren't a lot of systems that have electoral systems that
produce effective representation _and_ Presidential systems in the same place.

------
ghostDancer
Podemos is just a symptom to the problem of corruption in the two main
parties, they even menace to make a coalition if they can lose control over
the power centers, and with the crisis and unemployment is the way of escape
of many of the frustrations of the people. I don't know if they'll survive or
will be assimilated(probably) but if they shake the dirty and corrupted
politics of Spain is welcome.

