Today's post, Stop Voting For Nincompoops was originally published on 02 January 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
Many people try to vote "strategically", by considering which candidate is more "electable". One of the most important factors in whether someone is "electable" is whether they have received attention from the media and the support of one of the two major parties. Naturally, those organizations put considerable thought into who is electable in making their decision. Ultimately, all arguments for "strategic voting" tend to fall apart. The voters themselves get so little say in why the next president is that the best we can do is just to not vote for nincompoops.
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Clearly, the elite opinion changes gradually over time for all sorts of reasons, sometimes unclear and puzzling. Often there are also conflicts within the elite (sometimes further complicated by foreign influences), which may lead to sudden and unexpected developments. My above comments assume that the state of affairs is stable in the short run, and that the contrarians in question face uniform opposition from the elite.
As for the specific changes in the U.S. elite's positions in the first half of the 20th century, I don't have a ready answer, even though I am reasonably familiar with the relevant history. I have seen multiple theories espoused by different people, but none has struck me as clearly correct, and I can only speculate how they might be fit together. However, I don't think any part of these historical developments involved contrarians winning through public activism while faced with a uniformly hostile elite.
I think that some activism is necessary, but not close to sufficient, to cause certain kinds of social change. At least in a post-Enlightenment society (i.e. a society that pays any attention to the concept of "consent of the governed").