5 ms·

That sentence stuck out to me too. It makes me wonder if the nature of America's representative democracy lowers the threshold by which our elected officials ac

by MrLeap 4y ago

That sentence stuck out to me too. It makes me wonder if the nature of America's representative democracy lowers the threshold by which our elected officials actually have to do a good job / serve the will of the people. They constantly fall short, even of the narrow interests of whatever their particular constituency is. But there's kind of a floor where we just throw up our hands and say "WELL THEY WERE VOTED IN" Do our officials receive less psychic pressure? Does the Chinese government work harder to align the populous' desires with their actions? Pretty fascinating rabbit holes.

mrslave 4y ago
Study: Congress literally doesn’t care what you think[0] Their study took data from nearly 2000 public opinion surveys and compared it to the policies that ended up becoming law. In other words, they compared what the public wanted to what the government actually did. What they found was extremely unsettling: The opinions of 90% of Americans have essentially no impact at all. [0] https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba/ https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba/
- astrange 4y ago
  That study is false. https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-study https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-...
danielheath 4y ago
The way the US electoral system chooses representatives is terrible. Other countries have better methods, but change is very, very hard.
- throwaway2037 4y ago
  I assume you are talking about a parliamentary system? Yes, I also prefer it. It is even better if there is a good mix of parties in power -- Germany, Netherlands, etc. It seems like 5-10 parties in parliament forces a good amount of compromise, which results in the most progress possible. I prefer what is loosely termed as a "weak prime minister" where the coalition is multi-party, over a "strong prime minister" where no coalition is required. (Please ignore the scenario of a _constant_ super majority, like Singapore's "People's Action Party".)
  - jimmydorry 4y ago
    GP is probably referring to the electoral system itself: "first past the post" [1]. Essentially a winner take all style of voting which enforces a two-party system. E.g. In such a system, if a state has 50 seats and a party manages to win 24 of them (while the second place only wins 23 seats), that first party gets all 50 seats of representation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting
    - throwaway2037 4y ago
      Dreadful. I don't understand the point of "first past the post" versus a (semi-)Presidential system. What is the _effective_ difference if the outcome is always two parties? To be fair: My comment is mostly focused upon "Western" parliments, which includes two geographically non-Western places: Australia and New Zealand! If you look at the constant dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Japan... look _very_ closely... you realise there are many competing factions within the party. So LDP _acts_ like multiple parties and forces the Prime Minister to compromise to get things done. Not perfect, but many outsiders fail to understand this about the Japanese (national) political system.
  - ido 4y ago
    There’s also weirdness like the electoral college and presidents getting elected despite getting fewer votes than their competitors (see Bush Jr. and Trump).

by MrLeap 4y ago

mrslave 4y ago

Study: Congress literally doesn’t care what you think[0] Their study took data from nearly 2000 public opinion surveys and compared it to the policies that ended up becoming law. In other words, they compared what the public wanted to what the government actually did. What they found was extremely unsettling: The opinions of 90% of Americans have essentially no impact at all. [0] https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba/ https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba/

astrange 4y ago
That study is false. https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-study https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-...

danielheath 4y ago

The way the US electoral system chooses representatives is terrible. Other countries have better methods, but change is very, very hard.

throwaway2037 4y ago
I assume you are talking about a parliamentary system? Yes, I also prefer it. It is even better if there is a good mix of parties in power -- Germany, Netherlands, etc. It seems like 5-10 parties in parliament forces a good amount of compromise, which results in the most progress possible. I prefer what is loosely termed as a "weak prime minister" where the coalition is multi-party, over a "strong prime minister" where no coalition is required. (Please ignore the scenario of a _constant_ super majority, like Singapore's "People's Action Party".)
- jimmydorry 4y ago
  GP is probably referring to the electoral system itself: "first past the post" [1]. Essentially a winner take all style of voting which enforces a two-party system. E.g. In such a system, if a state has 50 seats and a party manages to win 24 of them (while the second place only wins 23 seats), that first party gets all 50 seats of representation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting
  - throwaway2037 4y ago
    Dreadful. I don't understand the point of "first past the post" versus a (semi-)Presidential system. What is the _effective_ difference if the outcome is always two parties? To be fair: My comment is mostly focused upon "Western" parliments, which includes two geographically non-Western places: Australia and New Zealand! If you look at the constant dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Japan... look _very_ closely... you realise there are many competing factions within the party. So LDP _acts_ like multiple parties and forces the Prime Minister to compromise to get things done. Not perfect, but many outsiders fail to understand this about the Japanese (national) political system.
- ido 4y ago
  There’s also weirdness like the electoral college and presidents getting elected despite getting fewer votes than their competitors (see Bush Jr. and Trump).