AMERICA, PLEASE BE WARNED: PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION WILL NOT FIX YOUR BROKEN DEMOCRACY!
New Zealand (where I am writing from) has had Mixed Member Proportional Representation since 1996 and our multi-party parliament is now a squabbling and dysfunctional shambles. This has occurred because minor parties negotiate “deals” with the major party after an election to enable the major party to govern. Unpopular and divisive minor party policies are supported by the major party in return for the minor party agreeing to support the major party’s policies. This results in the unpopular minor party policies being rammed through our parliament. Proportional representation may have worked in less divided times, but it’s not suited to the highly polarized societies we live in now.
I am sure these problems are not localized to New Zealand and my conclusion is that democracies around the world are failing because:
Competing political parties + Cyclic elections =
Economic waste + Social turmoil + Inability to implement long-term plans
I just read your comments in your article in Medium.com (your link, here). I hope others will take the time and opportunity to do so, as well. Very thoughtful! Thank you!
The author misses the point altogether. The problem is TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT POWER. People should run their own lives, not elect others to run their lives for them. Government should be shrunk by at least 95% if we're ever to achieve a just society.
I don't hear read any real explanations here for why partisanship has become so severe and divisive. Even with the two party system, the US has not always been so separated into two walled encampments. Our family noticed that extremism in politics was increasing beginning in the 1980s; it has gotten worse over time. Newt Gingrich pushed hard for partisanship and refusal to work with the opposition. Nobody stopped him. At the same time, think tanks fostered by the Koch Enterprises with their great quantities of money, sought multiple avenues for increasing division, with their goals of spreading Libertarianism and incorporating deregulation into our system of government. The Tea Party ran on total refusal to cooperate with the opposition. No one called them out over just how awful, how critically damaging that thinking is to a society. This manner of thinking spread like Covid 19 among voters who have totally bought into it, never questioning the negative effects. Social media has given the whole movement... the movement that is Refusal to Compromise in Any Way, Shape, or Form... a big boost as citizens have adopted the error of operating this way. We have spent years at our breakfast table lamenting this failing path of the US and searching for answers. We have noted how the Republican Party has led the way in obstinancy and the Democrat Party has stood by and watched. Until the mindset of non-compromise is deeply, forceably changed, no tricks of voting or any other magic is going to reverse the downward path of this country. One major item to tackle is the distortion of fact in much media.
"One major item to tackle is the distortion of fact in much media"
Yes.
False-Witnessing is everywhere and it is rewarded and seemingly never punished. I'm old enough to have been raise in last years before insane-acceptance was forced on us all by SCOTUS in the early 1970's and that has continuously increasing damaged of all the world's mental-faculties ..
Or haven't you noticed?
So, what can be done about the ubiquitous False-Witnessing that this fatherhood and family destroying society poisons itself with ..
By applying Thomistic Theology, I have designed a proposed solution .. if I could only pick one change to reverse the worlds and all us peoples 60+ years of demonic driven Fall into Hell, it would be this implemented world-wide.
Also, triple the size of the House, which was capped over 100 years ago at the insistence of conservative racists
Also, ranked-choice voting
Also, perhaps, getting rid of districts altogether and returning to proportional representation within each state (which, along with tripling the size of the House) would end gerrymandering for congressional elections
Also, automatic national voter registration for all citizens that can never be canceled (like Canada has)
Change the investment and tax laws so owners of rental building can't benefit from simply holding an unoccupied property and selling it when the appreasated increase value and when the tax write-off is no longer needed.
Where I live the general rent for an okay apartment in a relatively decent maintained building is around $1500 a month, after very basic utilities I was trying to live on $240 a month for all the other costs - food, replaced cloths, bus fair, ..
The author has convinced me that rank-choice voting is the way to go. It's clearly not his preferred solution so he:
- Falsely conflates "jungle" primaries like the ones in California with ranked-choice voting. Pick one of two is not "ranked" at all -- it's just the same ol' same ol' first past the post stuff.
- Tries to hand wave away the successful examples in Alaska. Fact is, ranked choice worked. It kept the extremist Sarah Palin out of the House. I don't know what he's driving at with his discussion of Murkowski. The people wanted a less extreme candidate than the two unpalatable choices served up by the two-party system.
- Fails to mention that proportional representation, unlike ranked-choice, has actually been tried in the U.S., and that it was abolished because of the gerrymandering problems it causes.
I learned a lot from this article, but I don’t understand why every article on the dysfunction of American politics fails to mention this obvious problem – the federal government has more power than what the system was originally designed for. An ever-growing federal government causes all sorts of downstream effects:
• Everything in society is now impacted by the regulatory/spending power of the federal government. This naturally leads to the nationalization of politics.
• Nationalization leads to tribal politics and negative polarization of our political parties.
• This leads to a focus on the political parties to stray away from governance, and focus more on electoral politics. Winning is more important than governing.
• Nationalization of politics takes the oxygen away from local and state governance
• Local and state governance sees more voter apathy, less voter turnout (unless local elections are aligned with federal elections).
• All this creates a cycle where the meaning of local/state politics lessens, as more energy and attention moves to federal politics.
• Local/state democratic muscles go through atrophy, local/state politics ends up being dominated by interest groups
• Interest groups end up creating bureaucracies at the local/state that resist change. Only way to apply significant reform to anything we care about is to go national. And the cycle continues.
Solution is simple and obvious, not easy. Return the federal government to a more constitutional state, return the power to local politics, make local elections matter again. Democracy should thrive at the local and state levels, not at the national level.
It's always fun to compare the political systems of USA and Switzerland because they have rigorously the same skeleton (federal republic, bicameral legislature) but the meat on the bone is very different. In Switzerland we have a proportional multi party system, the executive is shared between 7 counsels that have to govern collegially, a national direct democracy. Makes for very boring and undramatic politics.
Lee, what happen to my comment about earned citizenship - voting, running for gov office, working for gov, .. is only allowed by people that completed 4 years of voluntary community or national service .. I include much more detail, but it seems that Lee is one of those psychotics or whatever that assumes to mind-control and others by interfering with information that is published for anyone to benefit from or ignore, but ..
.. think about it. Someone that disrespects others so much that though control is just alright for him (her) to do because you and me are soulless-cattle without being made in the image of God, and those would turn us all into programmed golems to serve them till we die from the overwork and general neglect that you and I would do to a frog ..
How next will be displays his Contempt of Man and God?
PS. I bet I know what triggered him/her. I wrote about how universal suffrage is national suicide at best, a guaranteed rapid destruct of society and fast-paced into Hell like we are experiencing as live and breathe.
and I include a video of a women comedian that explains how since women were meritlessly and in what must have been mass insanity given the vote they in total have managed to make anyone with a bit of sense of historical information realize that we ain't pulling out of dive in Hell and damnation that out now Sickened baby-murdering insane and evil accepting divorce raping family destroying fatherhood killing and child sexually mutilation .. you get the point - that unless we can tie whatever plan that might save us to increasing the wage theft of men to give to them or to increase some hyper-feminize power or the right to abort actually born heathy babies if she wants .. tied into the vote, most will find a reason to vote to save us from hell because the pissed that the plan wasn't presented to them by men crawling on their bellies calling out "please your worship! Can you kick us in the balls again and here is a plan to save us, will you please throw in enough delusional psychotic nightmare causing changes so instead of save us from hell, we dive into hell but all the men and children burn before your women because instead of preventing the horror it became a method that could be used to degrade us men and children
That “top 2” idea is on the verge of destroying California. It’s destructive and anti-democracy.
Who gets to decide who or what is ‘extremist’?
AMERICA, PLEASE BE WARNED: PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION WILL NOT FIX YOUR BROKEN DEMOCRACY!
New Zealand (where I am writing from) has had Mixed Member Proportional Representation since 1996 and our multi-party parliament is now a squabbling and dysfunctional shambles. This has occurred because minor parties negotiate “deals” with the major party after an election to enable the major party to govern. Unpopular and divisive minor party policies are supported by the major party in return for the minor party agreeing to support the major party’s policies. This results in the unpopular minor party policies being rammed through our parliament. Proportional representation may have worked in less divided times, but it’s not suited to the highly polarized societies we live in now.
I am sure these problems are not localized to New Zealand and my conclusion is that democracies around the world are failing because:
Competing political parties + Cyclic elections =
Economic waste + Social turmoil + Inability to implement long-term plans
I think democracies need to get rid of both polarizing political parties and election cycles. My suggestions for achieving these changes may be found here: https://medium.com/@cliffwainui1/our-democracies-are-breeding-grounds-for-inequity-and-discontent-this-is-because-5bfa5810a96e
I just read your comments in your article in Medium.com (your link, here). I hope others will take the time and opportunity to do so, as well. Very thoughtful! Thank you!
Thank you Barbara! Just not sure how to build momentum for change ...
The author misses the point altogether. The problem is TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT POWER. People should run their own lives, not elect others to run their lives for them. Government should be shrunk by at least 95% if we're ever to achieve a just society.
I don't hear read any real explanations here for why partisanship has become so severe and divisive. Even with the two party system, the US has not always been so separated into two walled encampments. Our family noticed that extremism in politics was increasing beginning in the 1980s; it has gotten worse over time. Newt Gingrich pushed hard for partisanship and refusal to work with the opposition. Nobody stopped him. At the same time, think tanks fostered by the Koch Enterprises with their great quantities of money, sought multiple avenues for increasing division, with their goals of spreading Libertarianism and incorporating deregulation into our system of government. The Tea Party ran on total refusal to cooperate with the opposition. No one called them out over just how awful, how critically damaging that thinking is to a society. This manner of thinking spread like Covid 19 among voters who have totally bought into it, never questioning the negative effects. Social media has given the whole movement... the movement that is Refusal to Compromise in Any Way, Shape, or Form... a big boost as citizens have adopted the error of operating this way. We have spent years at our breakfast table lamenting this failing path of the US and searching for answers. We have noted how the Republican Party has led the way in obstinancy and the Democrat Party has stood by and watched. Until the mindset of non-compromise is deeply, forceably changed, no tricks of voting or any other magic is going to reverse the downward path of this country. One major item to tackle is the distortion of fact in much media.
"One major item to tackle is the distortion of fact in much media"
Yes.
False-Witnessing is everywhere and it is rewarded and seemingly never punished. I'm old enough to have been raise in last years before insane-acceptance was forced on us all by SCOTUS in the early 1970's and that has continuously increasing damaged of all the world's mental-faculties ..
Or haven't you noticed?
So, what can be done about the ubiquitous False-Witnessing that this fatherhood and family destroying society poisons itself with ..
By applying Thomistic Theology, I have designed a proposed solution .. if I could only pick one change to reverse the worlds and all us peoples 60+ years of demonic driven Fall into Hell, it would be this implemented world-wide.
Here is the article’s audio overview mirrored in YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7AaWp4VVK8
“.. A Thomistic Solution for Truth-Enforcement and Greater Justice” https://stevenwork.substack.com/p/multiverse-journal-index-number-2237, https://archive.is/GhbO6
Fusion voting, yes.
Also, triple the size of the House, which was capped over 100 years ago at the insistence of conservative racists
Also, ranked-choice voting
Also, perhaps, getting rid of districts altogether and returning to proportional representation within each state (which, along with tripling the size of the House) would end gerrymandering for congressional elections
Also, automatic national voter registration for all citizens that can never be canceled (like Canada has)
For starters…
Change the investment and tax laws so owners of rental building can't benefit from simply holding an unoccupied property and selling it when the appreasated increase value and when the tax write-off is no longer needed.
Where I live the general rent for an okay apartment in a relatively decent maintained building is around $1500 a month, after very basic utilities I was trying to live on $240 a month for all the other costs - food, replaced cloths, bus fair, ..
The author has convinced me that rank-choice voting is the way to go. It's clearly not his preferred solution so he:
- Falsely conflates "jungle" primaries like the ones in California with ranked-choice voting. Pick one of two is not "ranked" at all -- it's just the same ol' same ol' first past the post stuff.
- Tries to hand wave away the successful examples in Alaska. Fact is, ranked choice worked. It kept the extremist Sarah Palin out of the House. I don't know what he's driving at with his discussion of Murkowski. The people wanted a less extreme candidate than the two unpalatable choices served up by the two-party system.
- Fails to mention that proportional representation, unlike ranked-choice, has actually been tried in the U.S., and that it was abolished because of the gerrymandering problems it causes.
I learned a lot from this article, but I don’t understand why every article on the dysfunction of American politics fails to mention this obvious problem – the federal government has more power than what the system was originally designed for. An ever-growing federal government causes all sorts of downstream effects:
• Everything in society is now impacted by the regulatory/spending power of the federal government. This naturally leads to the nationalization of politics.
• Nationalization leads to tribal politics and negative polarization of our political parties.
• This leads to a focus on the political parties to stray away from governance, and focus more on electoral politics. Winning is more important than governing.
• Nationalization of politics takes the oxygen away from local and state governance
• Local and state governance sees more voter apathy, less voter turnout (unless local elections are aligned with federal elections).
• All this creates a cycle where the meaning of local/state politics lessens, as more energy and attention moves to federal politics.
• Local/state democratic muscles go through atrophy, local/state politics ends up being dominated by interest groups
• Interest groups end up creating bureaucracies at the local/state that resist change. Only way to apply significant reform to anything we care about is to go national. And the cycle continues.
Solution is simple and obvious, not easy. Return the federal government to a more constitutional state, return the power to local politics, make local elections matter again. Democracy should thrive at the local and state levels, not at the national level.
It's always fun to compare the political systems of USA and Switzerland because they have rigorously the same skeleton (federal republic, bicameral legislature) but the meat on the bone is very different. In Switzerland we have a proportional multi party system, the executive is shared between 7 counsels that have to govern collegially, a national direct democracy. Makes for very boring and undramatic politics.
Lee, what happen to my comment about earned citizenship - voting, running for gov office, working for gov, .. is only allowed by people that completed 4 years of voluntary community or national service .. I include much more detail, but it seems that Lee is one of those psychotics or whatever that assumes to mind-control and others by interfering with information that is published for anyone to benefit from or ignore, but ..
.. think about it. Someone that disrespects others so much that though control is just alright for him (her) to do because you and me are soulless-cattle without being made in the image of God, and those would turn us all into programmed golems to serve them till we die from the overwork and general neglect that you and I would do to a frog ..
How next will be displays his Contempt of Man and God?
PS. I bet I know what triggered him/her. I wrote about how universal suffrage is national suicide at best, a guaranteed rapid destruct of society and fast-paced into Hell like we are experiencing as live and breathe.
and I include a video of a women comedian that explains how since women were meritlessly and in what must have been mass insanity given the vote they in total have managed to make anyone with a bit of sense of historical information realize that we ain't pulling out of dive in Hell and damnation that out now Sickened baby-murdering insane and evil accepting divorce raping family destroying fatherhood killing and child sexually mutilation .. you get the point - that unless we can tie whatever plan that might save us to increasing the wage theft of men to give to them or to increase some hyper-feminize power or the right to abort actually born heathy babies if she wants .. tied into the vote, most will find a reason to vote to save us from hell because the pissed that the plan wasn't presented to them by men crawling on their bellies calling out "please your worship! Can you kick us in the balls again and here is a plan to save us, will you please throw in enough delusional psychotic nightmare causing changes so instead of save us from hell, we dive into hell but all the men and children burn before your women because instead of preventing the horror it became a method that could be used to degrade us men and children