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drat yo this thread descended into some "is the US an empire" nonsense right quick which is pretty irrelevant to the topic since any "imperial subjects" (however you wanna square) can't really participate in electoral politics i mean maybe posters were making some stealth arguments about the role of Guam and Puerto Rico and haven't yet disclosed their hand but ahaha no there was no chance they were going there anyway to peg my pet issue where is the US going, or not going, on electoral reform, and why? i have the luxury of living in URBAN CALIFORNIA, which in my particular district has the luxury of using ranked-choice voting... in some local elections, at least. the current (notoriously composed of slime extracted from the cogs of the Democratic Party machine) governor has vetoed broader statewide permission to use this system and, despite demonstrated success in a boring statistical sense, it faces challenges from local politicians (or rather, real estate lobby figureheads who lost with it in place) wishing to roll it back (because, idk, i guess you don't need to pay as much to sway a primary) to what extent is there a chance for the US to adopt democratic reforms developed since the 1800s? is it instead hopelessly mired in an pale simulacrum of democracy that fails to actually involve the electorate but is easily manipulated by political insiders? to note an earlier post Google Jeb Bush posted:Show up for your local and (if convenient) state Democratic conventions, people. ... It's how the nefarious shadowy DNC conspiracy gets elected, it's how election rules get set, it's how you signal boost issues that are important to you... NOBODY loving shows up for this poo poo. i am peak voter that pays attention to every local election, even for the goddamn transit boards and whatnot, and even i cannot be arsed to deal with the machinations of the local Democrat party apparatus. Theoretical democracy doesn't work when half the elections on a ballot are single-person contests featuring the one person the local party managed to coerce into running for some unpaid elected in hope that it may boost their chances of working the party machine to submit them in a race that offers primo insider trading opportunities down the road with de facto zero competition
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Feb 28, 2024 10:07
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Discendo Vox posted:It is in fact possible for the US to adopt democratic reforms; there is no magic cutoff that makes the transitions or efforts involved impossible compared with, for instance, the 17th amendment, which took about 50 years of slowly increasing advocacy. These reforms and this history themselves reflect the profundity of the shifts that have occurred; the period before past representative and civil improvements is practically unrecognizable, especially the (agonizing, long) process of instilling the norms of a civil service. im asking less "is this legally possible" than "will political elites entertain this in the slightest" if it functionally reduces their ability to broker power. my cynical take is that people in higher political office see more utility in preserving broken systems if they can manipulate them towards power for their party. gerrymandering, and its validation by the judiciary, is probably the most prominent example quote:You are answering your own question here; you, personally, cannot be arsed. Involvement and lack of involvement is a choice. i assure you more people on average participate in the vote for their federal representative than their local Democrat party who knows what the gently caress board (much less the internal party dealing between those board members). far more of the electorate participates in the former, but at least in my district the only viable candidate has been decided by the latter. democracy shouldn't need to be something you can only meaningfully participate in if you have time to do politics as a hobby. i (and the vast majority of people less interested in local politics than i) should not be obligated to delve into party minutiae to participate in our government
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Feb 28, 2024 11:24
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