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> the broken political system ( two party model, winner take all, gerrymandering, electoral college, appointed judges, mind boggling fetishisation of an obsolet

> the broken political system ( two party model, winner take all, gerrymandering, electoral college, appointed judges, mind boggling fetishisation of an obsolete document, remnants of slavery, to name just a few) two party model: while the two party model isn't ideal it's not always been as divisive as it is right now since ~2016. There are steps we could take at the state level that would over time make this better. winner take all: Our system is designed to have a relatively powerful head of state while also enforcing severe limitations. The constitution mostly accomplishes this by giving the president the military but not the budget. In principle this is a difficult balance to get right. Too much power to the president and there is a run-away effect where limitations get sidestepped over time. Too little power and the federation eventually breaks apart (imagine Lincoln accepting the confederacy without a fight). gerrymandering: This is also hard to get right. It is indicative of systemic problems that politicians can't reach an agreement that would more universally curb this undemocratic practice but it's easy to condemn these practices and much harder to propose airtight alternative solutions. electoral college: there are pros and cons. The pros are that it works to balance power between population centers and vast rural areas by giving a slight boost to unpopulated areas over the population centers. The cons are obviously that the result of this leads to elections that are slightly off from a 'popular' vote. Feel free to dislike the rule but it is debatable at the very least. Appointed judges: yes they're appointed at the federal level (there's a deep history to this aspect of the three branches of government), but states do it differently. In my area most of my judges by case load are elected officials. obsolete document: again, it's easy to criticize but hard to offer alternatives that would work better. I'm weary of the lazy attempts to tear institutions down while not recognizing their incredible value. Remember this has been the defining document outlining our system of government since King George III. Remnants of slavery: what country doesn't deal with problems stemming from its past sins? How would some sort of revolution help to fix this?

sofixa 5y ago
I'd have to hard disagree. > two party model: while the two party model isn't ideal it's not always been as divisive as it is right now since ~2016. There are steps we could take at the state level that would over time make this better. Is this really the best excuse you have? It hasn't always been this bad? Are there any legitimate reasons to want or keep a two party system? That the people benefiting from it don't want it to change is a very poor excuse, and honestly i can't think of another one. > winner take all: Our system is designed to have a relatively powerful head of state while also enforcing severe limitations. The constitution mostly accomplishes this by giving the president the military but not the budget. In principle this is a difficult balance to get right. Too much power to the president and there is a run-away effect where limitations get sidestepped over time. Too little power and the federation eventually breaks apart (imagine Lincoln accepting the confederacy without a fight) I meant winner of a single election take all, disenfranchising anyone who didn't vote for the winner. E.g. a senator elected with 45% against another candidate with 30% represents only the 45% of the electorate who voted for them, the rest be damned. Obviously that's ridiculously stupid, and makes it so people in areas overwhelmingly disagreeing with them don't even bother voting, and aren't represented by anyone. > gerrymandering It's not that hard to get right, go proportional at a fixed predefined level - like a state. 10 representatives from the state, state-level elections, and the places are proportionally distributed per list/party by percent of votes. > electoral college: there are pros and cons. The pros are that it works to balance power between population centers and vast rural areas by giving a slight boost to unpopulated areas over the population centers. The cons are obviously that the result of this leads to elections that are slightly off from a 'popular' vote. Feel free to dislike the rule but it is debatable at the very least. To stop disenfranchising a part of the population ( rural areas), it drastically disenfranchises the vast majority of the population ( urban areas). Rural areas are already overrepresented by virtue of the fixed number of senators per state. I think that's more than enough, but i agree, it's debatable. However what's not debatable is applying the ridiculously stupid winner take all logic for that. > Judges I'm not saying elected judges are better than appointed by the executive, because both are pretty bad. Popular judges aren't necessarily the best ones. A mixed system whereby other judges, prosecutors and lawyers vote seems better, but that's certainly debatable. > Slavery & constitution Few countries explicitly allow slavery in their constitution. Or have their system of governance proportional based on number of slaves (3/5s, electoral college distribution). Most countries are capable of realising and admitted bad things, and working on making them impossible ( see Germany). The document is obsolete ( as you said yourself, it literally dates from a different time, a time with kings, slaves, the fastest travel method being a horse or a boat, literacy being rare, etc.) and needs to be rewritten before being torn down.
- qohen 5y ago
  Few countries explicitly allow slavery in their constitution...Most countries are capable of realising and admitted bad things, and working on making them impossible The 13th Amendment to the Constitution[0] abolished slavery back in 1789: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. [0] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-13/ https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-13/
  - sofixa 5y ago
    That's an amendment, the original constitution and other legal statutes ( e.g. 3/5 compromise) explicitly allow it and discuss it. Furthermore, did you miss the except part in that 13th amendement? Slavery is still legal in the US, that has to be the only country that is considered developed and still does that.
- native_samples 5y ago
  Be careful what you wish for. The alternatives to the two party system are: 1. Less internally democratic parties with more side-show parties like the UK. You'd probably end up with 3 or 4 parties with name recognition, one of which acted as a kind of protest vote and occasionally came near enough to winning to be interesting, but which in reality never did. It would mean giving up things like presidential primaries. 2. PR. Look at European politics closely before deciding you want that. It's a recipe for not having a functioning/elected government for months or even a year+ after an election. In a system with elections every 4 years that'd lead to a situation where most of the time there wasn't actually any legitimate government at all and power would shift even more decisively to the civil service. There'd also be frequent collapses of government, and changes in government unconnected to any election. 3. Totalitarianism. The less said about this the better. The US has a two party system because both Democrat and Republican parties are extremely broad and loose coalitions, so it basically never makes sense to try creating a new party instead of taking over one of the existing ones. Hence people like Trump, Bernie Sanders, etc who aren't even really connected to their host parties at all. Americans like to complain about the two party system but also like to complain about primary elections getting fixed by the party machine. Well, get rid of your current system and you're going to just formalize and institutionalize that party machine, in return for a couple more parties that most people won't vote for. The US system has its flaws but it's not obviously worse than the alternatives. It's different, but both UK style Parliamentary systems and European style PR systems create different problems.

sofixa 5y ago

I'd have to hard disagree. > two party model: while the two party model isn't ideal it's not always been as divisive as it is right now since ~2016. There are steps we could take at the state level that would over time make this better. Is this really the best excuse you have? It hasn't always been this bad? Are there any legitimate reasons to want or keep a two party system? That the people benefiting from it don't want it to change is a very poor excuse, and honestly i can't think of another one. > winner take all: Our system is designed to have a relatively powerful head of state while also enforcing severe limitations. The constitution mostly accomplishes this by giving the president the military but not the budget. In principle this is a difficult balance to get right. Too much power to the president and there is a run-away effect where limitations get sidestepped over time. Too little power and the federation eventually breaks apart (imagine Lincoln accepting the confederacy without a fight) I meant winner of a single election take all, disenfranchising anyone who didn't vote for the winner. E.g. a senator elected with 45% against another candidate with 30% represents only the 45% of the electorate who voted for them, the rest be damned. Obviously that's ridiculously stupid, and makes it so people in areas overwhelmingly disagreeing with them don't even bother voting, and aren't represented by anyone. > gerrymandering It's not that hard to get right, go proportional at a fixed predefined level - like a state. 10 representatives from the state, state-level elections, and the places are proportionally distributed per list/party by percent of votes. > electoral college: there are pros and cons. The pros are that it works to balance power between population centers and vast rural areas by giving a slight boost to unpopulated areas over the population centers. The cons are obviously that the result of this leads to elections that are slightly off from a 'popular' vote. Feel free to dislike the rule but it is debatable at the very least. To stop disenfranchising a part of the population ( rural areas), it drastically disenfranchises the vast majority of the population ( urban areas). Rural areas are already overrepresented by virtue of the fixed number of senators per state. I think that's more than enough, but i agree, it's debatable. However what's not debatable is applying the ridiculously stupid winner take all logic for that. > Judges I'm not saying elected judges are better than appointed by the executive, because both are pretty bad. Popular judges aren't necessarily the best ones. A mixed system whereby other judges, prosecutors and lawyers vote seems better, but that's certainly debatable. > Slavery & constitution Few countries explicitly allow slavery in their constitution. Or have their system of governance proportional based on number of slaves (3/5s, electoral college distribution). Most countries are capable of realising and admitted bad things, and working on making them impossible ( see Germany). The document is obsolete ( as you said yourself, it literally dates from a different time, a time with kings, slaves, the fastest travel method being a horse or a boat, literacy being rare, etc.) and needs to be rewritten before being torn down.

qohen 5y ago
Few countries explicitly allow slavery in their constitution...Most countries are capable of realising and admitted bad things, and working on making them impossible The 13th Amendment to the Constitution[0] abolished slavery back in 1789: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. [0] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-13/ https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-13/
- sofixa 5y ago
  That's an amendment, the original constitution and other legal statutes ( e.g. 3/5 compromise) explicitly allow it and discuss it. Furthermore, did you miss the except part in that 13th amendement? Slavery is still legal in the US, that has to be the only country that is considered developed and still does that.
native_samples 5y ago
Be careful what you wish for. The alternatives to the two party system are: 1. Less internally democratic parties with more side-show parties like the UK. You'd probably end up with 3 or 4 parties with name recognition, one of which acted as a kind of protest vote and occasionally came near enough to winning to be interesting, but which in reality never did. It would mean giving up things like presidential primaries. 2. PR. Look at European politics closely before deciding you want that. It's a recipe for not having a functioning/elected government for months or even a year+ after an election. In a system with elections every 4 years that'd lead to a situation where most of the time there wasn't actually any legitimate government at all and power would shift even more decisively to the civil service. There'd also be frequent collapses of government, and changes in government unconnected to any election. 3. Totalitarianism. The less said about this the better. The US has a two party system because both Democrat and Republican parties are extremely broad and loose coalitions, so it basically never makes sense to try creating a new party instead of taking over one of the existing ones. Hence people like Trump, Bernie Sanders, etc who aren't even really connected to their host parties at all. Americans like to complain about the two party system but also like to complain about primary elections getting fixed by the party machine. Well, get rid of your current system and you're going to just formalize and institutionalize that party machine, in return for a couple more parties that most people won't vote for. The US system has its flaws but it's not obviously worse than the alternatives. It's different, but both UK style Parliamentary systems and European style PR systems create different problems.