Rant about America's broken political system

[DeistPaladin]

These days, we have two political parties: the crazy fascists and the milquetoast moderates.

The crazy fascists run our country into the ground and until voters elect milquetoast moderates into positions of power. After we fight to get them into office, the moderates fold up into the fetal position at the slightest hint of controversy. Now the milquetoasters are about to be defeated in November and they'll probably conclude that they weren't milquetoasty enough. Tighter fetal positions will be called for. Meanwhile, the corporatist jackboots will try to financially shut down the government and waste time and taxpayer money with numerous frivolous investigations of the White House.

Our three-branch, two-party system used to work quite well when we had a liberal and conservative party. That all changed over the last 30 years when each party pursued a different strategy.

The Republicans began to walk base, talk center. They realized the futility of pursuing moderate voters because moderates don't vote. The new strategy became "fire up the base to get to 50+1". The rhetoric was to accuse the Democrats of being "out of touch" and "extreme" in order to create the appearance of centrism.

The Democrats began to talk base, walk center. Use the liberals for donations and volunteers, promise them whatever you need to, but always run to the center to try to capture the mythical centrist voters. "Bipartisanship" and "moderation" became guiding principles. The net result was to become the Republican-lite or "just like them but not quite so loopy".

The net result is that the Republicans have drifted further and further to the right, to the point now where Reagan looks liberal and W. Bush seems like a centrist. The Dems, meanwhile, have been running after them, to the point that "socialist" Obama is now to the right of Reagan on some issues.

And the Democrats can't figure out why progressives like me are so demoralized. :facepalm:

No doubt, if they lose as big as people are projecting, they'll conclude they weren't milquetoasty enough and the drift to the far right will continue.

 

[Unwardil]

My totally amateur and inexpert opinion...

The seat of the presidency needs to be phased out in favor of some other kind of thing. Some other governing body that has the same authority as the president, but maybe with the house and senate each electing people into the position.

The presidency makes that branch of the government too effectual for democracy to work. In order for democracy to be truly free, the government must be as impotent as possible to be and the more people you have sharing power, the less effective the system. This, believe it or not, is good for democracy and freedom generally.

But that's just my two uneducated cents on the issue.

 

[dr_esteban]

I would suggest throwing out the US system and using the UK one but I shudder to think what a GOP with a large majority could do.

 

[DeistPaladin]

I would suggest throwing out the US system and using the UK one but I shudder to think what a GOP with a large majority could do.

I remember back in the 90s, I was speaking to some British colleges in my field at a business dinner in London. They were asking me about the odd nature of our political system where then President Clinton faced a majority of the opposing party controlling congress.

I explained that actually we based our current system off of the one in the UK... two hundred years ago. Hey, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree (thinking of America as the offspring of Britain).

We changed a lot of the names but the functions of each branch were similar. The powers of the President were virtually the same as those of the British monarchy at that time. The biggest change was spinning the judiciary into its own third branch (the king was also the supreme judge at that time). Struggles between king and Parliament are reflected in our struggles between President and Congress.

The advantage over Parliamentary democracy is that change happens a bit more gradually. If the Parliament changes hands, the administration and all the laws could be changed over night. The disadvantage is gridlock, as apparent in our recent failures to reform health care or pass a real stimulus package for our economy.

I have to say this last decade has made parliamentary democracy look appealing to me. Bush would have been out on his ass in 2006 and we might have gotten more done in the last few years.

The price would have been paid in the 90s, when the Republicans were prevented by the system from doing too much damage. Prime Minister Gingrich? *Shudder*

 

[Yfelsung]

Any democratically based system would work far better if you had to have a certain level of intellect and understanding of politics to vote.

Dumb people are easily swayed by appeals to their emotion, especially fear, ESPECIALLY fear of change.

US Republicans and, to a lesser extent, the Conservative Party in my own country (Canada) appeal to the base instincts of people that they continually fuck over.

You can't be for reducing the deficit while also being for reducing taxes. They don't meld and only an idiot would fall for it. Unfortunately, idiots outnumber us and generally vote more than we do.

Taxes run countries. More taxes in the hands of a fiscally RESPONSIBLE (which doesn't mean fiscally liberal or fiscally conservative, it means people who know how to spend and when to spend) government makes a better country. A 50% tax rate would create a fucking Utopia if you had the right people handling the money.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Don't forget that the largely rural red states get disproportionate representation in Congress, and pay less in taxes than they get back in federal money. Then they turn around and try to destroy federal programs that largely benefit the urban areas that pay more than they get back.

The mainstream media is pro-corporation, anti-union, anti-environment, and anti-taxation, so the Republicans are allowed to lie on those issues... and mostly on every other issue to, since the Democrats are too limp to fight back. Speaking of the Democrats, they are what were called Republicans 30 years ago. The Republicans are a combination of the pre-1960s racist Southern Democrats and the ultra-wealthy robber baron wannabes, with no answer to any problem at all, ever.

And more and more stuff... the system is broken from top to bottom.

 

[televator]

The net result is that the Republicans have drifted further and further to the right, to the point now where Reagan looks liberal and W. Bush seems like a centrist. The Dems, meanwhile, have been running after them, to the point that "socialist" Obama is now to the right of Reagan on some issues.

And the Democrats can't figure out why progressives like me are so demoralized. :facepalm:

This is 150% concentrated truth. It seems like all the politicians are driving us off a cliff. When in reality this is the time for some one with "Roosevelt" qualities. Someone who's not afraid to take the heat and say "STFU! I'll drag this country back to glory weather corporations and banks like it or not." The guy even won the Nobel Peace prize for a real reason....unlike another current day "milk-toast" president... Roosevelt was the leader of the Republicans back int the day and today he'd be considered a "Stalinist-Maoist-neo Marxist-commie-tree hugging hippie-fascist-nazi-zombie-cyborg-ninja-pirate" by today's right wing lunatics. Albeit, he was constantly at odds with the rest of the party at the time...

 

[Pennies for Thoughts]

I believe calling the USA a democracy, which it barely is, rather than a plutocracy, which it certainly is, leads to confusion. Money talks and democracy walks in the Land of the Free, as demonstrated by perhaps our gravest and least known problem: under-representation.

The under-representation problem becomes clear by selecting any 3-4 countries that happen to come to mind. Look for variety. For example, Japan is a democracy and heavily populated, Nauru is a democracy and lightly populated, Belarus is a dictatorship, and Sudan is a mess. The CIA's World Factbook lists Japan's population as 127,078,679 and it's House of Representatives or Shugi-in has having 480 members; Nauru's 14,019 people have a unicameral parliament with 18 representatives; Belarus at 9,648,533 has 110 in its Chamber of Representatives; and Sudan at 41,087,825 has 450 in it's National Assembly.

In Japan this works out to one representative for every 264,000 people, citizens of Nauru have one for every 800, Belarus' ratio is 1:88,000, and Sudan's is 1:91,000. The USA's is 1: 700,000!

Pick a country, any country, and their proportional representation, the heart of democracy, will be far better than that of the United States. True, there's some mixing of apples and oranges in this analysis. North Korea's legislature has one representative for every 33,000 of its people, but it's a stretch to connect that to much of anything democratic. Suffice to say, among democracies the USA's proportional representation system is a system operating out of proportion. Enter the plutocrats.

They're $12M now, but with tight Congressional campaigns costing upwards of $8M in 2004...

Such a huge financial burden has altered the way parties recruit their candidates. "Candidates who say they want to talk about issues, we love 'em," said Rep. Robert T. Matsui (Calif.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "But running for political office requires discipline and hard work -- being on the phone eight to 10 hours a day, calling people they don't know. . . . Candidates who do that are the most successful."

According to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2935-2004Oct2.html.

And with the Supreme Court lifting all limits on big money donations, one has to wonder whether the American voter is anything more than window dressing on a democratic facade.

http://www.thirty-thousand.org has more about the best legislature money can buy.

 

[Macabre215]

We desperately need lobbying reform. Better yet I would cut off lobbyist altogether, which sounds like some Teddy Roosevelt shit.

 

[nemesiss]

i think this whole "Us Vs Them" has made the usa and country of loonies, atleast in politics.
to quote the guy from TYT "the country has shifted so far to the right, that its gonna fall off the cliff".
their whole system works on the one side trying make shit work and the other side to fuck it up as much as possible.

perhaps the Acronym "United States of America" should be replaced with a more fitting "Da Emerican Repulbicon Plaiz" aka DERP.

if there was one way that would like change the system is through shock-method.
based on the actions and result once per year, we would electrocute that person on a point base system.
for all the things they did accomplished which was negative for the development , the get add points.
for all the things they did accomplished which was negative for the development , the get detract points.
the total amount then sets the amount time a person would be electrecuted.

though i think that this way perhaps we will desinigrate 80%.
not sure if thats a good thing..or perhaps it would be...