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It seems to me that US politics took a turn for the worse in the past 20 years, and my response has been to disengage. Randomly, I picked up The Politics Indust

by robfig 6y ago

It seems to me that US politics took a turn for the worse in the past 20 years, and my response has been to disengage. Randomly, I picked up The Politics Industry by Michael Porter and Katherine Gehl, and I found it pretty convincing: (a) The system of elections and legislation is responsible for the poor outcomes we see. It's not the specific personalities. (b) That system's rules were written by the Republican and Democratic parties to entrench their power. It is NOT encoded in the constitution or otherwise set in stone. Both parties are winners with the status quo -- they do very well financially by drumming up tribalistic competition instead of cooperation and problem solving. (c) The result of the current rules is that a politician's ONLY job is to appeal to primary voters, which is why they take an ideologic or hard line stance. "Reaching across the aisle" results in a primary challenger that costs them their job. As an "average voter" that thinks the best route is probably somewhere in the middle (the world is complicated, and government is neither omnipotent nor impotent), me and everyone like me are not represented. They present a surprisingly straightforward remedy: (1) Adopt non-partisan primaries with Final Five ballots, which a couple states have already passed variants of (Final Four just passed in Alaska!) (2) Ranked choice voting to remove the Spoiler reason ("don't throw your vote away") that keeps independents or third parties out. I came away optimistic about the future. Highly recommended! Here's their site if you'd like to learn more: https://gehlporter.com/ https://gehlporter.com/

ThomPete 6y ago
this is why Trump was such a welcome change despite his style. he owed no one and thus were able to remove 8 rule for every one he implemented, challenge china, challenge coventional wisdom about middle east and get results that all the “experts” claimed to be impossible, change the global supply chain into something quite different than what the economists and experts said were oossible. Live him or hate him, Trump were a proper disrupter who saw things from a radical different view and i believe he will be much better judged by our dependents than most people today aknowledge
- licebmi__at__ 6y ago
  I would like to agree, as bringing pro worker rethoric, pushing against delocalization, a change of EEUU foreign policy, and not really being entrenched on the career politician POV were actually the parts of Trump I did like when he was running on 2016. But unfortunately I think he failed to deliver, and ultimately the positive changes were few and outnumbered by the negative ones.
- badconvincer 6y ago
  All I saw was the drastic reduction of American hegemony by pulling out of bases and countries, losing the entire Asian pacific region to Chinese hegemony (partially due to the killing of TPP), losing Eastern European/middle eastern allies to Putin/Erdogan and denigrating moral standards that enabled authoritarians and dictators both at the government and lower levels. Picking a fight with China was probably the only good thing to come out of his presidency.
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  > Trump were a proper disrupter who saw things from a radical different view Of late that seems to be a decidedly non-democratic view (and by democratic I mean government, not party). I'm not sure that's the kind of disruption we needed in 2020.
handmodel 6y ago
I agree with a lot of this although I would get ride of "to entrench". I think assuming intentionality is both a big assumption and not really necessary to describe the issue. This happens simply because the dynamics of a winner take all election. George Washington was against parties but it was inevitable they would form and did so quickly (not necessarily because of an evil condition but simply because it is good game theory) The fact that the major parties are not fighting against rank choice voting leads me to believe that they don't have a preference for a two-party system necessarily. It just isn't a main motivator.
emodendroket 6y ago
> (c) The result of the current rules is that a politician's ONLY job is to appeal to primary voters, which is why they take an ideologic or hard line stance. "Reaching across the aisle" results in a primary challenger that costs them their job. I'm not sure how that's the conclusion you're drawing from this round of Democratic primaries.
- CGamesPlay 6y ago
  He obviously isn't drawing that conclusion from "this round of democratic primaries". In a comment addressing 20 years of history, your attempt to revoke it involves looking at what one half of the parties did in the most recent few months.
  - emodendroket 6y ago
    OK, but go back all the way to Bill Clinton and it's clear that this pattern does not fit the trends in the Democratic Party at all. In fact, the Dems have been quite successful at beating back progressives for decades. Big hole in the "polarization" narrative. Party insiders pulling out all the stops to make a Sanders win unlikely just makes it obvious in a way it might not have been previously.
    - orange_joe 6y ago
      Pew seems to indicate that the democratic party (or at least the electorate) has moved significantly leftward, particularly after the 2016 election. It doesn't seem that polarization is unique to a particular party. Moreover, I would argue that a self described socialist becoming one of the most important voices in the party is actually evidence of this leftward movement. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/interactives/political-polarization-1994-2017/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/interactives/political-...
      - emodendroket 6y ago
        The whole point I'm making is that the Democratic Party has beat back the challenge from its base far more effectively than the Republicans, to the point that the argument just won't fit. Despite Sanders' high favorability among many Democratic voters, there's no evidence he's going to be very "influential" anytime soon.
zhoujianfu 6y ago
You may be interested in represent.us, they were the group behind the Alaska initiative!
mch82 6y ago
> my response has been to disengage What if disengagement (demoralization) is what the people who oppose your politics want you to do? Wikipedia, “Demoralization (warfare)”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoralization_(warfare) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoralization_(warfare)

by robfig 6y ago

ThomPete 6y ago

this is why Trump was such a welcome change despite his style. he owed no one and thus were able to remove 8 rule for every one he implemented, challenge china, challenge coventional wisdom about middle east and get results that all the “experts” claimed to be impossible, change the global supply chain into something quite different than what the economists and experts said were oossible. Live him or hate him, Trump were a proper disrupter who saw things from a radical different view and i believe he will be much better judged by our dependents than most people today aknowledge

licebmi__at__ 6y ago
I would like to agree, as bringing pro worker rethoric, pushing against delocalization, a change of EEUU foreign policy, and not really being entrenched on the career politician POV were actually the parts of Trump I did like when he was running on 2016. But unfortunately I think he failed to deliver, and ultimately the positive changes were few and outnumbered by the negative ones.
badconvincer 6y ago
All I saw was the drastic reduction of American hegemony by pulling out of bases and countries, losing the entire Asian pacific region to Chinese hegemony (partially due to the killing of TPP), losing Eastern European/middle eastern allies to Putin/Erdogan and denigrating moral standards that enabled authoritarians and dictators both at the government and lower levels. Picking a fight with China was probably the only good thing to come out of his presidency.
rootusrootus 6y ago
> Trump were a proper disrupter who saw things from a radical different view Of late that seems to be a decidedly non-democratic view (and by democratic I mean government, not party). I'm not sure that's the kind of disruption we needed in 2020.

handmodel 6y ago

I agree with a lot of this although I would get ride of "to entrench". I think assuming intentionality is both a big assumption and not really necessary to describe the issue. This happens simply because the dynamics of a winner take all election. George Washington was against parties but it was inevitable they would form and did so quickly (not necessarily because of an evil condition but simply because it is good game theory) The fact that the major parties are not fighting against rank choice voting leads me to believe that they don't have a preference for a two-party system necessarily. It just isn't a main motivator.

emodendroket 6y ago

> (c) The result of the current rules is that a politician's ONLY job is to appeal to primary voters, which is why they take an ideologic or hard line stance. "Reaching across the aisle" results in a primary challenger that costs them their job. I'm not sure how that's the conclusion you're drawing from this round of Democratic primaries.

CGamesPlay 6y ago
He obviously isn't drawing that conclusion from "this round of democratic primaries". In a comment addressing 20 years of history, your attempt to revoke it involves looking at what one half of the parties did in the most recent few months.
- emodendroket 6y ago
  OK, but go back all the way to Bill Clinton and it's clear that this pattern does not fit the trends in the Democratic Party at all. In fact, the Dems have been quite successful at beating back progressives for decades. Big hole in the "polarization" narrative. Party insiders pulling out all the stops to make a Sanders win unlikely just makes it obvious in a way it might not have been previously.
  - orange_joe 6y ago
    Pew seems to indicate that the democratic party (or at least the electorate) has moved significantly leftward, particularly after the 2016 election. It doesn't seem that polarization is unique to a particular party. Moreover, I would argue that a self described socialist becoming one of the most important voices in the party is actually evidence of this leftward movement. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/interactives/political-polarization-1994-2017/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/interactives/political-...
    - emodendroket 6y ago
      The whole point I'm making is that the Democratic Party has beat back the challenge from its base far more effectively than the Republicans, to the point that the argument just won't fit. Despite Sanders' high favorability among many Democratic voters, there's no evidence he's going to be very "influential" anytime soon.

zhoujianfu 6y ago

You may be interested in represent.us, they were the group behind the Alaska initiative!

mch82 6y ago

> my response has been to disengage What if disengagement (demoralization) is what the people who oppose your politics want you to do? Wikipedia, “Demoralization (warfare)”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoralization_(warfare) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoralization_(warfare)