Open primaries would seem like the more feasible alternative to those you have suggested. Additionally, the process is underway with twenty-four states having degrees of openness in the presidential primaries. Allow that process to expand to the legislative branch. The objections of dilution and clown stacking by the opposition haven't materialized.
There is a better alternative that's not merely theoretical, but widespread: a parliament, in which somewhat narrow voter preferences (collections of many correlated policy interests) are each able to gain representation, and then these narrower groups are rather freely able to negotiate larger coalitions.
Ha, fair point! But there's no route to reform from the US system to a parliamentary one, whereas it seems comparatively straightforward to reform the current system to use approval voting -- apparently Fargo, ND and St Louis, MO have already done so (for local elections).
I come from a country with the Westminster system. Too much political power is concentrated in the prime minister's office. Most governance is done by orders in council and bureaucratic regulation. This all happened slowly over many decades. It used to be a first among equals, now the office of the prime minister dictates to all other ministers. In a recent election the ruling political party received less than 33% of the vote in an election where turnout was less than 63% of the electorate. The leader of a political party that has the most seats in parliament becomes the prime minister not the most popular votes. Usually, before an election the leader is selected by the members of that party and that process is governed basically by who can sell the most memberships. While candidate parliamentarians selection also comes down to who can sell the most party memberships and additional not get overruled by the party brass should it decide to parachute in a candidate for "reasons". There is no power in these parliaments because the selection process for parliamentarians ensure the centralization of power and discipline according to party lines. The legislature wrote themselves out of power when they allowed most decisions to be made by orders in council. It is better to be ruled by a bunch of clowns who get nothing done in two co-equal branches codified to be at odds with each other then to be ruled by one clown who has near total control and where all it took was less then 22% of the electorate thinking they were tolerable.
@MrP, you may not be in the UK, but in another Westminster system country, so the following may still apply ...
The current government is very likely to be voted out of power, isn't it, at the next election? Many MPs will lose their seats. That has a sobering effect on them, and you don't have to be privy to their whatsapp messages to know that. The pressure they put on the PM writes them into power, wouldn't you say? Ask Liz Truss.
Liz is about to publish a book on the Administrative State, and agrees with you that the Legislature have written themselves out of power. The organs of this Administrative State, such as the Bank of England, Ofcom, National Rail, etc, are answerable to The Executive and also to the Legislature. Their legitimacy comes when they present to the Legislature's relevant Committees.
By "Orders in Council" did you mean Orders that have been approved at a meeting of the Privy Council personally by The King for specific Acts of Parliament which give His Majesty a power to make Orders?
As to whether MPs are clowns, meeting a few, or even just your own Member of Parliament, might give you a more accurate impression of exactly how clownish they really are. I'm guessing that Richard's principle permitting the slagging off of the idea but not the person doesn't apply the third parties such as politicians! :-)
"An extremist minority may yet constitute 'a majority of the majority'. In this way, the party primary system risks empowering clowns even when the median voter (of the general electorate) is broadly reasonable."
"Clown" is perhaps not the best term for extremists that constitute a plurality of the majority. After all, considering that you're a moderate utilitarian, your own position is wildly more radical than that of virtually any politician in America.
Of course, but then your argument in that paragraph doesn't quite connect with the possibility of electing clowns yet. I guess your implicit premise is that clowns are less likely to be elected by majorities than pluralities of majorities. A minor points.
What change could most improve American democracy? For the changes Richard suggests to be made possible.
The political parties that win elections have no interest in changing and every interest in retaining the current way of doing things. Political parties are in so many cases the gatekeepers to what is democracy. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Certainly not the demos.
Looking at American politics from the UK, the amount of money spent in election after election suggests that it is money well spent by those (few) who put it up. Is that democracy?
The Supreme Court has alot of power. Wade v Roe 1973 was a decision made by a few unelected lawyers, and led to decades of the sort of bad-tempered conflict and violence Richard would block people for on this platform. Why don't the people get to elect them?
I know that Richard doesn't like obtuse discussion of semantics, but the meaning of democracy in America is limited to a few things Kapital permits so long as it is left alone to do what it wants. Even then, Kapital appears to have a large say in the agenda of δημοκρατία, don't you think?
Not sure why you think ranked choice voting would be too complicated for the public. It was used by the students' union at my alma mater and it worked just fine (granted, the set of students who vote in their uni elections is a narrow, and perhaps atypically politically literate, demographic, but even so...).
Most of the public isn't college educated. It's a standard objection to RCV that many people find it confusing and hard to understand. I'd be happy (but mildly surprised) if that turned out not to be the case.
Open primaries would seem like the more feasible alternative to those you have suggested. Additionally, the process is underway with twenty-four states having degrees of openness in the presidential primaries. Allow that process to expand to the legislative branch. The objections of dilution and clown stacking by the opposition haven't materialized.
More feasible, but (I'd guess) less impactful? I'd still support it as a step in the right direction, though.
There is a better alternative that's not merely theoretical, but widespread: a parliament, in which somewhat narrow voter preferences (collections of many correlated policy interests) are each able to gain representation, and then these narrower groups are rather freely able to negotiate larger coalitions.
Ha, fair point! But there's no route to reform from the US system to a parliamentary one, whereas it seems comparatively straightforward to reform the current system to use approval voting -- apparently Fargo, ND and St Louis, MO have already done so (for local elections).
I come from a country with the Westminster system. Too much political power is concentrated in the prime minister's office. Most governance is done by orders in council and bureaucratic regulation. This all happened slowly over many decades. It used to be a first among equals, now the office of the prime minister dictates to all other ministers. In a recent election the ruling political party received less than 33% of the vote in an election where turnout was less than 63% of the electorate. The leader of a political party that has the most seats in parliament becomes the prime minister not the most popular votes. Usually, before an election the leader is selected by the members of that party and that process is governed basically by who can sell the most memberships. While candidate parliamentarians selection also comes down to who can sell the most party memberships and additional not get overruled by the party brass should it decide to parachute in a candidate for "reasons". There is no power in these parliaments because the selection process for parliamentarians ensure the centralization of power and discipline according to party lines. The legislature wrote themselves out of power when they allowed most decisions to be made by orders in council. It is better to be ruled by a bunch of clowns who get nothing done in two co-equal branches codified to be at odds with each other then to be ruled by one clown who has near total control and where all it took was less then 22% of the electorate thinking they were tolerable.
@MrP, you may not be in the UK, but in another Westminster system country, so the following may still apply ...
The current government is very likely to be voted out of power, isn't it, at the next election? Many MPs will lose their seats. That has a sobering effect on them, and you don't have to be privy to their whatsapp messages to know that. The pressure they put on the PM writes them into power, wouldn't you say? Ask Liz Truss.
Liz is about to publish a book on the Administrative State, and agrees with you that the Legislature have written themselves out of power. The organs of this Administrative State, such as the Bank of England, Ofcom, National Rail, etc, are answerable to The Executive and also to the Legislature. Their legitimacy comes when they present to the Legislature's relevant Committees.
By "Orders in Council" did you mean Orders that have been approved at a meeting of the Privy Council personally by The King for specific Acts of Parliament which give His Majesty a power to make Orders?
As to whether MPs are clowns, meeting a few, or even just your own Member of Parliament, might give you a more accurate impression of exactly how clownish they really are. I'm guessing that Richard's principle permitting the slagging off of the idea but not the person doesn't apply the third parties such as politicians! :-)
"An extremist minority may yet constitute 'a majority of the majority'. In this way, the party primary system risks empowering clowns even when the median voter (of the general electorate) is broadly reasonable."
"Clown" is perhaps not the best term for extremists that constitute a plurality of the majority. After all, considering that you're a moderate utilitarian, your own position is wildly more radical than that of virtually any politician in America.
Whether one is intellectually serious or a clown is not determined by how many people agree with you.
Of course, but then your argument in that paragraph doesn't quite connect with the possibility of electing clowns yet. I guess your implicit premise is that clowns are less likely to be elected by majorities than pluralities of majorities. A minor points.
The second half of the sentence was: "...even when the median voter (of the general electorate) is broadly reasonable."
What change could most improve American democracy? For the changes Richard suggests to be made possible.
The political parties that win elections have no interest in changing and every interest in retaining the current way of doing things. Political parties are in so many cases the gatekeepers to what is democracy. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Certainly not the demos.
Looking at American politics from the UK, the amount of money spent in election after election suggests that it is money well spent by those (few) who put it up. Is that democracy?
The Supreme Court has alot of power. Wade v Roe 1973 was a decision made by a few unelected lawyers, and led to decades of the sort of bad-tempered conflict and violence Richard would block people for on this platform. Why don't the people get to elect them?
I know that Richard doesn't like obtuse discussion of semantics, but the meaning of democracy in America is limited to a few things Kapital permits so long as it is left alone to do what it wants. Even then, Kapital appears to have a large say in the agenda of δημοκρατία, don't you think?
Not sure why you think ranked choice voting would be too complicated for the public. It was used by the students' union at my alma mater and it worked just fine (granted, the set of students who vote in their uni elections is a narrow, and perhaps atypically politically literate, demographic, but even so...).
Most of the public isn't college educated. It's a standard objection to RCV that many people find it confusing and hard to understand. I'd be happy (but mildly surprised) if that turned out not to be the case.