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Christopher H. Achen & Larry M. Bartels wrote a whole book showing that voters do not keep track of what elected officials do, and so politicians are not punish

Christopher H. Achen & Larry M. Bartels wrote a whole book showing that voters do not keep track of what elected officials do, and so politicians are not punished for bad behavior, see excerpt here: https://demodexio.substack.com/p/longer-elected-terms-lead-to-better https://demodexio.substack.com/p/longer-elected-terms-lead-t...

SllX 4y ago
Correct, which is why I spoke mostly of Presidents and Parties who are all big enough targets that most American voters do form opinions about what they’re up to, even with only vague notions about the details. Individual members of Congress can usually skate by, but that’s only as true as their district or State is uncompetitive. And in States where “big issue” lawmaking is deferred to the public via referendum on a regular basis there’s almost no incentive at all to mind what the legislature or governor is doing; especially if tax increases also have to be voter approved. Who do you hold accountable when it’s the voters who make a bad decision about a law?
- lkrubner 4y ago
  The emphasis on parties might be the most accurate part. This is a possible reason for the so-called "Panama Exception" -- a nation the should be a dictatorship and yet has been a thriving democracy: https://demodexio.substack.com/p/the-panama-exception https://demodexio.substack.com/p/the-panama-exception
phpisthebest 4y ago
This is also shown in polling data, where congress on the whole has an approval rating of less than 10%, yet most years the incumbent is reelected That statistic alone has me questioning if democracy is a good system
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  We need an option 'against all' and if that option wins, all candidates are disqualified for life. Then approval rating would mean something.
  - gruez 4y ago
    That arguably makes vote splitting worse. Do you cast your vote for the least bad corrupt candidate so the other candidate that wants to [legalize killing babies/control women's bodies] doesn't win, or do you vote for the "against all" option so that both corrupt candidates get disqualified?
  - lkrubner 4y ago
    Assuming we need some kind of government, then does "against all" actually offer an improvement over the current system? The economist Kenneth Arrow suggested something in the opposite direction, approval voting, where the voters get as many votes as their are candidates, so the voters have the option of voting for everyone except maybe the absolute worst. Arrow did the math and liked the results from such a system of voting. And also, what is the goal of voting? Is it to give an individual an avenue for self-expression, or is it to achieve the social goal of forming a government? This is the argument against self-expression: https://demodexio.substack.com/p/should-a-system-of-voting-aim-to https://demodexio.substack.com/p/should-a-system-of-voting-a...
- zugi 4y ago
  Paraphrasing Winston Churchill: democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. For those decisions that need to be made collectively, democracy is just the worst bad method we've come up with. But one huge benefit of freedom is that if we embrace freedom, the vast majority of decisions can be made individually, or by mutual agreement of consenting individuals, and not collectively. So the negative consequences of democracy aren't as impactful.
- Thiez 4y ago
  Perhaps democracy is fine, but we are just doing voting wrong. See this page for some interesting alternative voting systems that have different / better outcomes: https://ncase.me/ballot/ https://ncase.me/ballot/
- SllX 4y ago
  That’s easy: it’s not our guy! It’s those other guys! We’re wonderful and they’re terrible! That’s how incumbents can maintain their edge whilst Congress as a body is untrusted. I’m convinced that capping the House of Representatives at 435 was a mistake, and Federalizing most laws even more of a mistake. The question isn’t whether democracy can scale, but whether ours can within its present constraints. The reforms I would want to see are mechanical; not social, economic or judicial. A Continental-sized nation with hundreds of millions and growing probably needs thousands—not a few hundred!—of legislators if representation is to be meaningful. Short of that, my Representative has 700K+ constituents, so any one individual holding her accountable without other connections is a pipe dream at best.
  - phpisthebest 4y ago
    I have been in favor of 3 changes to the House. 1. Wyoming Rule. No district should be larger than the least populist state. 2. Make DC a Museum. With modern technology there is no need to "send" legislatures to Washington DC, they can vote, meet, etc all remotely. This will make lobbying more expensive, and put the representatives back in their actual communities, because lets face it most of them represent Washington DC not Local Communities. 3. Expand the Term to 4 Years, with a 2 year offset to the president Election. So every 4 years the entire house is elected as a Mid Presidential term Election
    - prottog 4y ago
      I'm entirely in favor of making lobbying as expensive as possible, but I disagree that there isn't something to be gained from having people be in the same physical location to achieve a common goal. Some things just can't be done very well over Zoom. I do wish that more federal functions would be spread out throughout the country, in the same way that Germany does; many of their federal agencies are headquartered in places far away from Berlin. There's no reason why the USDA shouldn't be headquartered in Kansas City, the Fed in New York, and the Department of the Interior in Wyoming.
      - phpisthebest 4y ago
- alasdair_ 4y ago
  Democracy is fine. Representative democracy can go to hell.
  - seneca 4y ago
    You're contradicting thousands of years of political philosophy and theory with that statement. Democracy is a complete mess of whiplashing changes. It's only real redeeming factor is that it's better than tyranny by a monarch or aristocracy. That's an incredibly important factor though, so you need to find a way to make it work. Representative democracy is a way to temper the erratic will of the people and turn democracy into a workable form of government.
    - int_19h 4y ago
      Most of those thousands of years of political philosophy was devised by that very aristocracy. Of course they're horrified of "mob rule", if it means that they get stripped of all the wealth that they have so patiently fleeced from their slaves / serfs / workers for generations. In practice, all the claims that were made about representative democracy being superior to direct on the basis that it's "less erratic" have been proven false by experience - just look at who we keep electing to Congress etc. At best, it gives the whole circus some veneer of respectability - as in, our representatives still make an erratic mess, but they do so with gravitas. But even that doesn't last for long - at some point, if enough voters really feel like it, you get someone like Donald Trump. The worst thing about representative democracy is the sham scalability. In theory, a parliament can "represent" as many people as you want - there's an upper limit on the number of MPs who can still hold a coherent discussion, but there's no limit on how many people each MP "represents". However, the higher that number is, the more said "representation" is removed from the voters, and the more of a sham it is. With direct democracy, because of how poorly it scales, you have to keep the scope of the government small for it to function at all procedurally, and then come up with some federation arrangements above that - and that's a good thing.
  - lkrubner 4y ago
    In the other comment seneca points out that you're ignoring history with your comment. You might want to consider a system that goes in the other direction, and adds more layers of representation: https://demodexio.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-democracy-empower-the https://demodexio.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-democracy-empowe...

SllX 4y ago

Correct, which is why I spoke mostly of Presidents and Parties who are all big enough targets that most American voters do form opinions about what they’re up to, even with only vague notions about the details. Individual members of Congress can usually skate by, but that’s only as true as their district or State is uncompetitive. And in States where “big issue” lawmaking is deferred to the public via referendum on a regular basis there’s almost no incentive at all to mind what the legislature or governor is doing; especially if tax increases also have to be voter approved. Who do you hold accountable when it’s the voters who make a bad decision about a law?

lkrubner 4y ago
The emphasis on parties might be the most accurate part. This is a possible reason for the so-called "Panama Exception" -- a nation the should be a dictatorship and yet has been a thriving democracy: https://demodexio.substack.com/p/the-panama-exception https://demodexio.substack.com/p/the-panama-exception

phpisthebest 4y ago

This is also shown in polling data, where congress on the whole has an approval rating of less than 10%, yet most years the incumbent is reelected That statistic alone has me questioning if democracy is a good system

ClumsyPilot 4y ago
We need an option 'against all' and if that option wins, all candidates are disqualified for life. Then approval rating would mean something.
- gruez 4y ago
  That arguably makes vote splitting worse. Do you cast your vote for the least bad corrupt candidate so the other candidate that wants to [legalize killing babies/control women's bodies] doesn't win, or do you vote for the "against all" option so that both corrupt candidates get disqualified?
- lkrubner 4y ago
  Assuming we need some kind of government, then does "against all" actually offer an improvement over the current system? The economist Kenneth Arrow suggested something in the opposite direction, approval voting, where the voters get as many votes as their are candidates, so the voters have the option of voting for everyone except maybe the absolute worst. Arrow did the math and liked the results from such a system of voting. And also, what is the goal of voting? Is it to give an individual an avenue for self-expression, or is it to achieve the social goal of forming a government? This is the argument against self-expression: https://demodexio.substack.com/p/should-a-system-of-voting-aim-to https://demodexio.substack.com/p/should-a-system-of-voting-a...
zugi 4y ago
Paraphrasing Winston Churchill: democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. For those decisions that need to be made collectively, democracy is just the worst bad method we've come up with. But one huge benefit of freedom is that if we embrace freedom, the vast majority of decisions can be made individually, or by mutual agreement of consenting individuals, and not collectively. So the negative consequences of democracy aren't as impactful.
Thiez 4y ago
Perhaps democracy is fine, but we are just doing voting wrong. See this page for some interesting alternative voting systems that have different / better outcomes: https://ncase.me/ballot/ https://ncase.me/ballot/
SllX 4y ago
That’s easy: it’s not our guy! It’s those other guys! We’re wonderful and they’re terrible! That’s how incumbents can maintain their edge whilst Congress as a body is untrusted. I’m convinced that capping the House of Representatives at 435 was a mistake, and Federalizing most laws even more of a mistake. The question isn’t whether democracy can scale, but whether ours can within its present constraints. The reforms I would want to see are mechanical; not social, economic or judicial. A Continental-sized nation with hundreds of millions and growing probably needs thousands—not a few hundred!—of legislators if representation is to be meaningful. Short of that, my Representative has 700K+ constituents, so any one individual holding her accountable without other connections is a pipe dream at best.
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  I have been in favor of 3 changes to the House. 1. Wyoming Rule. No district should be larger than the least populist state. 2. Make DC a Museum. With modern technology there is no need to "send" legislatures to Washington DC, they can vote, meet, etc all remotely. This will make lobbying more expensive, and put the representatives back in their actual communities, because lets face it most of them represent Washington DC not Local Communities. 3. Expand the Term to 4 Years, with a 2 year offset to the president Election. So every 4 years the entire house is elected as a Mid Presidential term Election
  - prottog 4y ago
    I'm entirely in favor of making lobbying as expensive as possible, but I disagree that there isn't something to be gained from having people be in the same physical location to achieve a common goal. Some things just can't be done very well over Zoom. I do wish that more federal functions would be spread out throughout the country, in the same way that Germany does; many of their federal agencies are headquartered in places far away from Berlin. There's no reason why the USDA shouldn't be headquartered in Kansas City, the Fed in New York, and the Department of the Interior in Wyoming.
    - phpisthebest 4y ago
alasdair_ 4y ago
Democracy is fine. Representative democracy can go to hell.
- seneca 4y ago
  You're contradicting thousands of years of political philosophy and theory with that statement. Democracy is a complete mess of whiplashing changes. It's only real redeeming factor is that it's better than tyranny by a monarch or aristocracy. That's an incredibly important factor though, so you need to find a way to make it work. Representative democracy is a way to temper the erratic will of the people and turn democracy into a workable form of government.
  - int_19h 4y ago
    Most of those thousands of years of political philosophy was devised by that very aristocracy. Of course they're horrified of "mob rule", if it means that they get stripped of all the wealth that they have so patiently fleeced from their slaves / serfs / workers for generations. In practice, all the claims that were made about representative democracy being superior to direct on the basis that it's "less erratic" have been proven false by experience - just look at who we keep electing to Congress etc. At best, it gives the whole circus some veneer of respectability - as in, our representatives still make an erratic mess, but they do so with gravitas. But even that doesn't last for long - at some point, if enough voters really feel like it, you get someone like Donald Trump. The worst thing about representative democracy is the sham scalability. In theory, a parliament can "represent" as many people as you want - there's an upper limit on the number of MPs who can still hold a coherent discussion, but there's no limit on how many people each MP "represents". However, the higher that number is, the more said "representation" is removed from the voters, and the more of a sham it is. With direct democracy, because of how poorly it scales, you have to keep the scope of the government small for it to function at all procedurally, and then come up with some federation arrangements above that - and that's a good thing.
- lkrubner 4y ago
  In the other comment seneca points out that you're ignoring history with your comment. You might want to consider a system that goes in the other direction, and adds more layers of representation: https://demodexio.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-democracy-empower-the https://demodexio.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-democracy-empowe...