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This exactly. If the issue is people feeling/being disenfranchised, changing how we elect the President isn't going to help. It just reinforces the idea that we
by WarDores 7y ago
This exactly. If the issue is people feeling/being disenfranchised, changing how we elect the President isn't going to help. It just reinforces the idea that we're a monarchy and the job of the rest of the government is to do the will of the President. We can do better than this!
The Presidential horse race every 4 years is mostly for television. Federalism works because you want the decisions that affect your life the most to have the most direct accountability.
- notfromhere 7y agoNothing reinforces the feeling of disenfranchisement than having no direct impact on how the most powerful single government is elected. The Electoral College is fundamentally undemocratic and the lack of democracy de-legitimizes the office.
- WarDores 7y agoWhy does direct democracy confer legitimacy? Does the Supreme Court not have legitimate authority? I don't see a correlation.
- notfromhere 7y agobecause legitimate government is based on the consent of the governed? Supreme Court justices are picked by popularly elected Senators. It's not even direct democracy, its a representative democracy. Except in the case of the presidency we're not even allowed to directly pick our representative in the executive branch.
- kd5bjo 7y ago> Supreme Court justices are picked by popularly elected Senators. Not exactly; they’re selected by the President and then confirmed by the Senate, which wasn’t popularly elected until 1913.
- notfromhere 7y agoSenators were legitimized through popular elections since before the whole body was appointed via backroom deals with state legislatures, and have been popularly elected for over 100 years.