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"A campaign is a marketing effort intended to install a team of people in power." You've just described the current crisis of representational democracy.

by nsns 13y ago

brd 13y ago
Any campaign will be a marketing effort in any context. The crisis is that the marketing effort is the only data point that most of the voting population considers prior to the vote. Without an informed population there is no incentive for honest campaigns.
- aaronem 13y ago
  You can turn that argument around just as easily; without honest campaigns, there is no incentive for an informed population, because there is no meaningful chance for popular support to elevate a candidate running an honest campaign to the same heights attained by those to whom all weapons are friends.
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  - brd 13y ago
    Politicians are public figures by definition. There is plenty of information out there to make informed decisions with or without the existence of honest campaigns. The only reason there is "no meaningful chance for popular support" of an honest candidate is because the voting population doesn't reward it; and perhaps more importantly, the voting population doesn't punish dishonesty.
    - aaronem 13y ago
      > There is plenty of information out there to make informed decisions It's funny you should say that, given the number of people who thought they were making informed decisions to support Obama, especially in 2008, and who have since found so many reasons to feel so deeply betrayed. Short of mind-reading, I'm not sure how you imagine it possible for citizens, almost all of whom have lives to lead which do not revolve around the ambitions of the current crop of politicians, to inform themselves in as accurate and precise a fashion as you seem to consider trivial; for almost everyone, it comes down to a choice among competing sets of analysts, all of whom arrogate unto themselves the mantle of reliable authority, and all of whom have not only equal reason to lie in support of their own desiderata, but equal lack of compunction to dissuade them from such mendacity. (That's why they call corruption corruption; like any rot, it spreads.) As for "punish[ing] dishonesty", I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on precisely what benefit there is in choosing one pack of liars over another. Given the track record of American politicians, and especially of American presidential candidates, favoring one in particular seems less likely to succeed at "punish[ing] dishonesty" than to act as a strong selective pressure in favor of the most skillful and least scrupulous liars available -- something I'd argue was not just perceptible but obvious in modern American politics, except that I think the presidency has been the province of liars since at least as far back as Andrew Jackson.
TelmoMenezes 13y ago
It's not current and it's not a crisis. It's working exactly how it was designed to work. We changed, not them. The Internet disrupted the popular perception of democracy by creating a massive global communication channel that is not under the control of the people in power.
- abvdasker 13y ago
  No. Wrong. It is current and it is a crisis when campaign finance is essentially unlimited and politicians are more accountable to their financiers than their constituents. American politics were bad and they're getting worse post-Citizens United.
- adventured 13y ago
  It is fascinating how people lay blame. The most common thing I see is my fellow Americans blaming politicians, bankers, school teachers, lobbyists, cops, unions, almost anyone... except themselves. The truth is, the American people are the problem, and they've spent the last few decades doing everything possible to avoid personal responsibility for the shape of the country.
  - geetee 13y ago
    Please elaborate on this statement.
  - aaronem 13y ago
    > It is fascinating how people lay blame. Oh, yes, very much so! For example, you seem quite effortlessly to lay blame on three hundred or so million people, and that's only counting those alive right now, with no consideration for those who've predeceased us, at least some of whom presumably could be expected, in your formulation, to have had a hand in creating the situation you so readily decry. But laying blame, while satisfying, rarely does anything to solve a problem. In blaming "the American people" for the current state of things, you imply that they, all three hundred million or so, could have acted, and presumably could still act, to improve the situation. What would you have us do? -- all three hundred million of us, of course. (For the sake of not seeing you wiggle out of the question that easily, assume in your answer that some method, not intolerable to the modern American sense of morality and ethics, exists of usefully coordinating the actions of almost half a billion human beings.)
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- grandalf 13y ago
  > If voters only knew that campaign promises are a signal, along with past actions and a lot of other signals! You might mention that to the journalist who wrote the linked article, since he appears to believe that the change of opinion is remarkable.
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skylan_q 13y ago
Current? I think it's the defining trait of representational democracy.
clarkmoody 13y ago
I believe it's high time to repeal the 17th Amendment and return a fair bit of power to the states. This would ease the democracy crisis and decentralize some of the power from D.C.
- crusso 13y ago
  Yeah, the power structure in DC has gotten way too comfortable for the people living there. Look at how unaffected the DC housing market was by the crisis over the last 6 years. The people in Washington aren't going to relinquish any of their power, though. An Article V convention of the states is about the only hope. http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/08/enacting_the_liberty_amendments.html http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/08/enacting_the_liberty_...
  - BrandonMarc 13y ago
    I agree about a constitutional convention ... trouble is, that sword cuts both ways. It's a great opportunity for those you agree with to get major changes through ... but it's a great opportunity for those you disagree with.
  - quaunaut 13y ago
    > Look at how unaffected the DC housing market was by the crisis over the last 6 years. You mean the same way most American cities went? http://timiacono.com/wp-content/uploads/10-11-30_cs-hpi.png http://timiacono.com/wp-content/uploads/10-11-30_cs-hpi.png
    - crusso 13y ago
      Sorry, I should have said "least affected". Then when you consider that Washington moved UP vs all other cities in that graph, DC has done really well. My point remains. Thanks for the data to refer to next time. :)
- brown9-2 13y ago
  How does the indirect election of Senators help democracy?
chongli 13y ago
No, just the current crisis in a subset of electoral systems. A voting system such as Range Voting[0] would go a long way towards solving these problems, predominant among them being the issue of spoilers. [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_voting#Example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_voting#Example

"A campaign is a marketing effort intended to install a team of people in power." You've just described the current crisis of representational democracy.

by nsns 13y ago

"A campaign is a marketing effort intended to install a team of people in power." You've just described the current crisis of representational democracy.

brd 13y ago

Any campaign will be a marketing effort in any context. The crisis is that the marketing effort is the only data point that most of the voting population considers prior to the vote. Without an informed population there is no incentive for honest campaigns.

aaronem 13y ago
You can turn that argument around just as easily; without honest campaigns, there is no incentive for an informed population, because there is no meaningful chance for popular support to elevate a candidate running an honest campaign to the same heights attained by those to whom all weapons are friends.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- brd 13y ago
  Politicians are public figures by definition. There is plenty of information out there to make informed decisions with or without the existence of honest campaigns. The only reason there is "no meaningful chance for popular support" of an honest candidate is because the voting population doesn't reward it; and perhaps more importantly, the voting population doesn't punish dishonesty.
  - aaronem 13y ago
    > There is plenty of information out there to make informed decisions It's funny you should say that, given the number of people who thought they were making informed decisions to support Obama, especially in 2008, and who have since found so many reasons to feel so deeply betrayed. Short of mind-reading, I'm not sure how you imagine it possible for citizens, almost all of whom have lives to lead which do not revolve around the ambitions of the current crop of politicians, to inform themselves in as accurate and precise a fashion as you seem to consider trivial; for almost everyone, it comes down to a choice among competing sets of analysts, all of whom arrogate unto themselves the mantle of reliable authority, and all of whom have not only equal reason to lie in support of their own desiderata, but equal lack of compunction to dissuade them from such mendacity. (That's why they call corruption corruption; like any rot, it spreads.) As for "punish[ing] dishonesty", I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on precisely what benefit there is in choosing one pack of liars over another. Given the track record of American politicians, and especially of American presidential candidates, favoring one in particular seems less likely to succeed at "punish[ing] dishonesty" than to act as a strong selective pressure in favor of the most skillful and least scrupulous liars available -- something I'd argue was not just perceptible but obvious in modern American politics, except that I think the presidency has been the province of liars since at least as far back as Andrew Jackson.

TelmoMenezes 13y ago

It's not current and it's not a crisis. It's working exactly how it was designed to work. We changed, not them. The Internet disrupted the popular perception of democracy by creating a massive global communication channel that is not under the control of the people in power.

abvdasker 13y ago
No. Wrong. It is current and it is a crisis when campaign finance is essentially unlimited and politicians are more accountable to their financiers than their constituents. American politics were bad and they're getting worse post-Citizens United.
adventured 13y ago
It is fascinating how people lay blame. The most common thing I see is my fellow Americans blaming politicians, bankers, school teachers, lobbyists, cops, unions, almost anyone... except themselves. The truth is, the American people are the problem, and they've spent the last few decades doing everything possible to avoid personal responsibility for the shape of the country.
- geetee 13y ago
  Please elaborate on this statement.
- aaronem 13y ago
  > It is fascinating how people lay blame. Oh, yes, very much so! For example, you seem quite effortlessly to lay blame on three hundred or so million people, and that's only counting those alive right now, with no consideration for those who've predeceased us, at least some of whom presumably could be expected, in your formulation, to have had a hand in creating the situation you so readily decry. But laying blame, while satisfying, rarely does anything to solve a problem. In blaming "the American people" for the current state of things, you imply that they, all three hundred million or so, could have acted, and presumably could still act, to improve the situation. What would you have us do? -- all three hundred million of us, of course. (For the sake of not seeing you wiggle out of the question that easily, assume in your answer that some method, not intolerable to the modern American sense of morality and ethics, exists of usefully coordinating the actions of almost half a billion human beings.)

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

grandalf 13y ago
> If voters only knew that campaign promises are a signal, along with past actions and a lot of other signals! You might mention that to the journalist who wrote the linked article, since he appears to believe that the change of opinion is remarkable.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

skylan_q 13y ago

Current? I think it's the defining trait of representational democracy.

clarkmoody 13y ago

I believe it's high time to repeal the 17th Amendment and return a fair bit of power to the states. This would ease the democracy crisis and decentralize some of the power from D.C.

crusso 13y ago
Yeah, the power structure in DC has gotten way too comfortable for the people living there. Look at how unaffected the DC housing market was by the crisis over the last 6 years. The people in Washington aren't going to relinquish any of their power, though. An Article V convention of the states is about the only hope. http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/08/enacting_the_liberty_amendments.html http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/08/enacting_the_liberty_...
- BrandonMarc 13y ago
  I agree about a constitutional convention ... trouble is, that sword cuts both ways. It's a great opportunity for those you agree with to get major changes through ... but it's a great opportunity for those you disagree with.
- quaunaut 13y ago
  > Look at how unaffected the DC housing market was by the crisis over the last 6 years. You mean the same way most American cities went? http://timiacono.com/wp-content/uploads/10-11-30_cs-hpi.png http://timiacono.com/wp-content/uploads/10-11-30_cs-hpi.png
  - crusso 13y ago
    Sorry, I should have said "least affected". Then when you consider that Washington moved UP vs all other cities in that graph, DC has done really well. My point remains. Thanks for the data to refer to next time. :)
brown9-2 13y ago
How does the indirect election of Senators help democracy?

chongli 13y ago

No, just the current crisis in a subset of electoral systems. A voting system such as Range Voting[0] would go a long way towards solving these problems, predominant among them being the issue of spoilers. [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_voting#Example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_voting#Example