It certainly makes it more likely for the rich to be able to go to the senate. Especially if you’re an especially big and tall guy like Fetterman who would have to get all of his suits tailor-made.
Oh absolutely but they don’t hold titles or political power granted by blood. If the Vanderbilt family loses all its money that’s it. I’ve known several poor people whose family had been old money but lost it all. Our aristocracy has to fight to stay an aristocracy.
And yeah that’s part of the point of the senate. It was clearly meant for representatives to be the common dredges of society, whoever the hell the people of a small geographical area felt represented them at the time. Both the 6 year term and the 2 per state quantity are meant to make it a more prestigious institution. It’s more expensive to become a senator and you have to be able to appeal to people outside your area. That results in a handful of senators that aren’t alike, but for the most part they’re career politicians, rich people, backed by rich people, or from a more legal background. A representative Kennedy isn’t sure they want to be a politician that much, is breaking their teeth, or is a fuckup, kennedies are senators. The founders of the United States saw themselves in the senate or executive branch. Hell, even in states with more senators than representatives, due to the greater power of senators they’re the ones that fit those descriptions.
Let’s remember that a bastard who married rich that had a good deal of influence on how our government works. He definitely was making sure that he had a future.
It’d be nice to go beyond and have some sort of ranked voting while we’re at it. Essentially being forced to pick between two parties or risk having your vote being wasted sucks.
Ranked choice still doesn’t solve the winner-takes-all situation that is the presidential election. Instead it should be appointed by a group of competent people, who in turn are voted in by something like ranked choice or whatever.
The original intent from the Constitution was that the winner was president and the second place was vice president. Since the vice president also is the tie breaking vote in the Senate, that doesn’t sit very well with the president. So they changed it to the running mate system.
The group your talking about would essentially be the cabinet? Right? They get approved by Congress. So indirect approval by the people.
The cabinet doesn’t appoint the president, so no. More like Congress members members get voted in by ranked choice, and they vote on someone to represent the country in international affairs.
Given ballot options of Socialists, Democrats, and Republicans, I’d rank them 1, 2, and 3, respectively. However, when expressing my feelings about the election: I love the Socialists, dislike the Republicans, and prefer the Democrats slightly over the Republicans.
This nuanced opinion isn’t captured on a ranked ballot.
With a score ballot, like STAR voting, I’d give the Socialists 5 stars, the Democrats 1 star, and the Republicans 0 stars. This method not only captures my preferences but also the depth of my feelings for each party. This is then reflected in both the final score and the automatic runoff step of tabulation.
Reminds me of the Blackadder episode where Baldrick won by 16,000 votes, even though there was only one voter:
H: One voter, 16,472 votes — a slight anomaly…?
E: Not really, Mr. Hanna. You see, Baldrick may look like a monkey who’s been put in a suit and then strategically shaved, but he is a brillant politician. The number of votes I cast is simply a reflection of how firmly I believe in his policies.
I don’t know how the american system works, but voting for small parties should not considered a wasted vote. It helps the party even if they don’t get elected
Because in first past the post voting, whomever gets the score first, wins. Combine that with mostly voting against a specific party, and you’re railroading people into a de facto two-party system when people vote for the “best bet against _____”.
First past the post incentiveses two party systems, which is why people are desperate for ranked ballot, or something that can allow other parties to exist.
Part of that is due to the feeling that one’s vote doesn’t matter. IMO having the president be elected by popular vote would bring a lot more people to the polls.
But even if a party gets, say, 5% of the vote and gets funding, that level of vote splitting can influence who gets a seat now. That might be fine and dandy when the short term doesn’t matter too much, but right now, the stakes are very high in the US, since the right straight up wants to dismantle democracy, kill trans people, and completely ban abortions.
Those are high stakes just to likely get some more funding for a third party (much less win even a single seat).
IMO any political pressure that could go towards pushing third parties should first to towards electoral reform. Only then can third parties be voted for without putting a lot of people at risk.
RCV is a rebrand of the voting method IRV, which was used by many cities in the early 20th century. Due to inconsistent results, it was repealed. So, unfortunately, conservatives have a leg to stand on when they attack RCV.
For clarity: their specific attacks take things to the extreme and often have some racist underpinnings, but there is a kernel of truth to attacking specifically on the method itself.
That is why I support something like STAR voting, it doesn’t suffer from many of RCV’s issues
I wish your ballot measure luck however, because at the end of the day it still is, mildly better than FPTP
I wish for something like STAR as well, but much like voting now it’s all about the lesser of two evils between current voting and anything besides the current voting method haha
Well the thing about that is, RCV has been repealed in 6 states and counting for producing poor results. And it’s also given right wing groups like the heritage foundation a foothold to attack it. I’m actually seeing negative RCV sentiment on the ground when I talk to people about STAR so their message is spreading. When I explain STAR and how it fixes several of RCVs issues they come around to it, so it may in fact be better to push that instead of tag along with RCV if it’s going to end up being a waste of political capital
I don’t see it being on the radar of the major parties at the moment. RCV is in the spotlight so far. But that can change very soon because in Eugene, Oregon this week they are finishing up getting STAR on the ballot for their elections, then they’re also pushing for it to appear on the state ballot in May. The effort is led by non-partisan groups like the equal vote coalition.
So far my conversations with both sides of the aisle have been fruitful, and I hope that is how it continues
RCV will do nothing to break the duopoly in America. RCV will basically allow you to vote for the Democrats or Republicans without bubbling their name on your ballot.
Contrary to what is stated, RCV falls apart as soon as more than 2 parties become viable. It suffers from the spoiler effect.
RCV, like plurality voting, only reflects your preference for one candidate at a time. In fact, it’s relatively accurate to say that RCV is just plurality with (literally) extra steps (rounds).
One of the better ballot changes we can make is to move to something like STAR voting, which can capture the nuance of magnitude of preference for ALL candidates at once.
However, even still, changing voting method alone is not enough. Proportional representation and expanding the number of elected officials are two powerful ways to introduce new ideas and break up power structures.
And, of course, campaign finance reform such as democracy vouchers
As I imagine it it would be: Republicans HATE Democrats. Democrats HATE Republicans. If all Democrats rank the R candidate dead last and Republicans do the same for the D one, their votes pretty much nullify each other, and whatever third party that got less First-choice votes but also way less Last-choice votes has a better chance at winning. Isn’t that how it should work?
Mostly. Yes, RCV tends to elect compromise candidates, ones who may not be anyone’s first choice, but that most people can live with. I think Joe Biden is a good example of this. Everyone was rah-rah for some else during the primaries: Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee… but Joe Biden has broad tepid appeal.
Unpopular opinion: ranked choice voting will do little to solve the USA’s democracy issues.
For starters, there are plenty of countries that do use FPTP and still have plenty of third parties in their parliaments (Canada, UK, Taiwan, Australia off the top of my head). So FPTP does not inherently preclude third parties - rather, the USA simply doesn’t have any culture of multilateralism. I’d say this is mostly a byproduct of various cultural phenomena - the wealth gap, corporate media ownership, private campaign financing, win-or-lose mindset, etc.
But the greater issue is that RCV doesn’t really ensure proportionality. As long as you have a single winner from each district, there will be distortions between the proportion of parties for whom people vote and the ultimate parliamentary body. For example, even if you implemented RCV across the entire USA today, I’m pretty sure most legislative bodies would still be entirely dominated by a single party because of gerrymandering and single-member districts.
So if you want to fix the USA’s core issue, what you really need is a more proportional system - either have fewer, larger districts with multiple representatives from each one, or adopt something like MMP which is what Germany has (where you also cast a party vote to declare your preference for which party you most want represented in parliament and distribute proportionally along this tally across all voters). Not only does this make the final representation more fair, but it also does a much better job of making all votes matter, instead of only the lucky few in swing states or the rare competitive Congressional race.
But RCV on its own won’t do much. It is still a small improvement, and if you have the opportunity to adopt it, I say go for it. But at best, I think it would take decades, or maybe even generations, before it starts to improve things.
Also, while I know this doesn’t pertain quite so much to Presidential elections as the electoral college is used for, the USA is also fairly unique in that it has a directly elected head of government with much more power than other countries that also have a directly elected head of state. This is also a part of the problem - the executive branch is supposed to be the weakest of the 3 Federal branches - but it’s a discussion for another time.
Same as I wrote on the other sibling comment. I think these countries all have terrible electoral systems. But the point is, they’re still ahead of the USA in terms of the fact that they will still have an awareness and understanding of third parties, whereas >90% of Americans are just programmed to believe there are only 2 options.
As a thought experiment, ask yourself what would happen if you could wave a magic wand and make every city, state and national legislative election use RCV over FPTP. Do you really think anything would change? I’m pretty sure 95% of the results would be exactly the same. Like I said above, RCV may make things better 20+ years from now, but there’s also a very good chance that so few people actually use their second options that it nothing ends up changing at all. This is why I think multi-member districts or MMP are better solutions.
But the point is, they’re still ahead of the USA in terms of the fact that they will still have an awareness and understanding of third parties, whereas >90% of Americans are just programmed to believe there are only 2 options.
Are you forgetting Ross Perot almost won? There is constant talk of Trump starting a third party, libertarian and green parties get a fair amount of attention, and not to mention the fact that the two major parties actually consist of many smaller factions in a coalition. There’s a reason primaries happen, and often congressmen vote against the majority of their party and votes are split on other lines than party lines. Most people are smarter than is popular to say on the internet, they just understand voting the lesser of two evil is their best option right now from a certain perspective. I prefer to vote third party to increase the viability of third parties in later elections.
While also true in Australia, we have preferential voting as well and whilst smaller parties dont have the numbers or votes to become the ruling parties you can vote 1 for a smaller party and 2 for a major party so the smaller party gets a funding boost for future campaigns.
And also if enough people vote for a smaller party them a larger party may have to team up with a smaller party to get the majority numbers to hold government.
Then the smaller party may have a bit of clout to get some of their values and opinions into parlimertary debate or passing bills meaning we get a wider variety of input than the major party line and its members falling into line to vote with their peers blindly.
Look at third parties and their success in the UK and Canada.
The last general election in the UK was 2019. Conservatives got 43.6% of the vote but 56.2% of the seats. Labor got 32.1% of the votes and 31.1% of the seats.
The biggest national third party, the Liberal Democrats, got 11.6% of the vote but a mere 1.7% of the seats.
In comparison, look at regional third parties. The Scottish National Party got 3.9% of the vote and a whopping 7.4% of the seats. Irish regional parties like Sinn Feinn and the Democratic Unionist Party got a combined 2.3% of the seats with a combined 1.4% of the seats.
Previous elections have been quite similar. In 2015, the far right UKIP won only a single seat after getting a whopping 12.6% of the vote.
Canada is quite similar. The Bloc Quebecois consistently gets more votes than the national New Democratic Party, despite having gotten less than half as many votes.
Understood, all of these countries have terrible electoral systems, that was not my point. My point is that Americans only have a culture of voting for one of two parties, so switching to ranked choice voting will likely change nothing at all, because Americans already practically never even consider alternate options. Hell, I doubt even 10% of them could even name a third party, so why would they consider voting for them all of a sudden just because of the switch to RCV? They’re constantly blasted with the same message that you have one of two options, so chances are that they’ll just pick one and ignore the rest, just like they do now.
Parties work a bit differently in the US vs e.g. Israel.
In Israel, party insiders choose their politicians. If you want different candidates than an existing party is offering, you have to make your own new party with your own new list.
By contrast, in the US, parties run primary elections where voters pick the candidates. The specifics depend on the state, but in most states the election is held for registered members of that party.
Americans aren’t idiots. Most know third party candidates don’t do well in plurality elections. So smart progressives, alt-right etc. politicians don’t run as a third party candidate against mainstream Democrats and Republicans. Instead, they primary an incumbent Democrat or Republican, like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, or join the primary when the incumbent retired like Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Somewhere like Israel, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Joe Manchin would be in two very different parties. In the US, they’re in the same party.
In places where RCV is passed, you absolutely see more candidates running and getting decent percentages of the vote. Because that isn’t a terrible strategy any more. Someone like AOC might have run as a Progressive or something rather than primarying the Democrat.
I contest your usage of Canada as an example. While it’s certainly not as polarized as the US, the effects of FPTP are still prominent. There’s a ton of vote splitting at the federal and provincial levels. Eg, conservatives rule Ontario despite the majority of people voting for one of the two left-er leaning parties, since the two parties basically split the left vote down the middle, while conservatives only have one party.
I do completely agree that propositional voting is waaaaay better than ranked choice, though. Personally, I will take almost anything over FPTP, but some form of PR is vastly superior, as you noted.
But at least with ranked choice, people can start to vote for another party without it feeling like a penalty. As a Canadian, I basically have to vote strategic. I don’t get to vote for my favourite party because of FPTP. Ranked choice would at least remove that issue.
I think the two party system of the US is basically where FPTP systems are all at risk to end up, especially since voting strategically gradually results in that. But the US GOP is so crazy that it’s almost a necessity for any progressive to vote strategically, whereas at least in Canada, things aren’t quite as bad, which makes it easier for people to take the risk of voting for who they really want to.
Remember the emotional support peacock lady they wouldn’t let on a plane? She actually had a great Instagram for him and all the places they went together as a therapeutic animal. He died a few years ago but he was pretty fascinating.
They only said they'd do that if she took a leave of absence. The next 4 oldest Senators are Grassley (90) - who's on Judiciary, Bernie (82), McConnell (81), and Risch (80 - Republican from Idaho); if they start playing the "no committee replacements for dead senators" game it's likely to come back and bite them in the ass very quickly.
Sure, that’s what they said. But they also refused to allow Obama to appoint a SC Justice for a year. They will stonewall and not allow anyone to fill that seat. They will count on Dems doing the right thing when the time comes for them while refusing to do it when its their turn.
They very well might, but Biden has already had 3 years of appointing judges, and he's already gotten probably the only Supreme Court appointment he's going to get for this term. Refusing to let them replace Feinstein now gains them little - maybe a couple of extra unfilled district court slots - while if a Republican wins the White House and then Grassley dies in 2025/2026, the consequences for Republican judicial confirmations could be catastrophic.
Schumer and Biden will both say they can’t believe it, then 10 seconds later go back to calling Republicans their best friends and bending over backwards for them
There will be a power vacuum on several committees in the Senate, and they probably have already written their editorials criticizing Newsom’s choice as a replacement Senator, they are just waiting to fill in the name.
No democrat hated Feinstein because she was a woman, pretending that’s the only reason just makes you look like your completely ignorant of American politics.
I don’t think anyone is refusing to admit that. It’s just that when you are a male and you’re an asshole and you die in office you’re not a bitch and a cunt, you’re a fighter, died doing what you loved.
Come on. I was not born yesterday. Were you? Have you really not noticed this double standard within your own life?
Well you’re right that they do exist in my head, but then I’m not ignorant and have seen some shit. Perhaps once you encounter it for yourself you’ll be like “oh yeah that really does happen! Ha!” It’s your lens, lack of empathy or experience, that has kept it from you thus far.
Dude has a concealed carry license, hopefully it helps in this situation. It sucks that he’s been incarcerated since April over this. Fuck an exploitative YouTuber.
He is being rewarded by youtube and his subs for that behavior. Which is especially messed up given youtube demonitizes videos for saying shit and fuck but not the harassment and stalking this guy does.
Its a serious problem in our entire criminal justice system. Trump is the post child for the inequality. Charged with 91 felonies and walking around doing as he pleases. Meanwhile this poor guy has been locked up for months without a trial, and may get off with no jail time but he’s in jail anyway.
Not sure how. Concealed carry is you carry a concealed weapon. This dude pulled his out, banged it out in the food court on a YouTuber, that’s open carry. 😆
I don’t see which weapons charge he was convicted on, or who is appealing. Sounds like there may be inconsistent verdicts. I teresting to see how post verdict motions go.
This “prankster” is 6’5". I’m 6’3 and I apparently intimidate people by just existing. If I was going around assaulting people I would fully expect someone to act defensively.
A shutdown could cause a rapid loss of food benefits for nearly 7 million low-income women and children on the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infacts and Children, or WIC, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
But don’t worry, the Pentagon is exempting Ukraine operations from the government shutdown.
This is constitutionally required as per the 27th Amendment.
The optics are gross, admittedly, but it would literally violate the Constitution to suspend their pay. It also does neuter a potential strategy of a coalition of wealthy Congress critters simply doing nothing as an intentional effort to cut off their opponents' income and pressure their direct personal finances.
This probably wasn't a consideration during the drafting of the amendment, but it's not as if we're going to be touching the Constitution any time soon, so here we are.
The entire thing is stupid, but there's one party that's squarely responsible for this. Go ask the House GOP why they don't care about halting SNAP payments, but I don't see how enabling Russia to slaughter more Ukrainians would be better.
Your impressive lack of ability to have a conversation with any amount of good faith is pretty entertaining, yes.
Speaking of the poor starving, while you're talking to McCarthy, hop over the to Senate and ask the Republicans (and Manchin and Sinema as well, but also 50 Republicans), why they ended Biden's child tax credit that caused significant measurable reductions in child poverty and food insecurity?
You know, since you seem to care so much about these things.
But why do you refuse to acknowledge that this is a structural problem with America’s government? This is the only country where the government is structured so it can “shut down” while not causing snap elections and all the politicians still get their paychecks. What the fuck?
Why the fuck is the government structured so it can continue to funnel money into a foreign war completely unrelated to the defense of the homeland, but it can’t do the same to the hungry at home? Why is the government structured in a way so one of the only two parties is literally anti-government?
You’re blinding yourself to fundamental problems with America’s government by only blaming Republicans. Republicans are just taking advantage of a badly structured polity.
You're absolutely correct, it is a massive structural problem. It's incredibly stupid and causes an obscene amount of pain every year or so because the structure of government enables a few children causing a tantrum to grind everything to a halt.
But once you'd identified that, what next? This is one of the many downsides of being stuck with one of the oldest active constitutions in the world that was envisioning a very different environment than what we have now. The simple fact of the matter is that we're not going to see a Constitutional Convention anytime remotely soon (and given how disastrous that could be, probably for the best). So, what is the point of spending energy being angry about these structural issues when that won't actually accomplish anything?
Believe me, everyone involved in government right now knows that this is incredibly stupid. It's not as if no one has ever considered this before. The problem is, no matter how frustrating it is, being angry at these structural issues doesn't actually do anything, because we're stuck with them. While I do think it is absolutely important to raise some awareness about those issues, that doesn't really help the acute situation right now.
So yes, it is horrific that welfare payments will get halted by this, I completely agree. I don't see where I ever "refused to acknowledge" the structural issues that caused this. They're not a secret; everyone vaguely knowledgeable about politics knows them.
So yes, it is horrific that welfare payments will get halted by this, I completely agree. I don’t see where I ever “refused to acknowledge” the structural issues that caused this. They’re not a secret; everyone vaguely knowledgeable about politics knows them.
Your first response was to dismiss my criticism of America’s government by creating a false dilemma between funding war and feeding the poor. Then followed that up by dismissing my criticism by telling me to only blame McCarthy. Then followed that by mocking me and the very concept of government critique as pie-in-the-sky revolutionary idealism.
Over and over you deflect from America’s structural problems.
Since the pandemic I’ve been working from home and that gives me time to take food-shopping off of my wife’s share of the household work. I noticed pretty quickly that every supermarket under the Kroger group was gouging on prices, so when they acquired Safeway I discovered there’s a WinCo in my town. (WinCo is employee owned, has the feel of a warehouse/bulk store, and it beats Kroger/Walmart/Amazon/GoodFoodHoldings stores on price, by a lot. Plus, the employees don’t have the energy of beaten animals and that matters to me for some reason.)
Good on Chicago doing this but there are already alternatives to Walmart and Whole Foods in some places if you look.
WinCo is legit. The bulk section alone makes going in there worth it. Need oregano? You can pay $5.99 for the jar at Kroger (in my area, Fred Meyer) or you can go to the bulk section of WinCo and pay $0.37.*
Numbers not exact, but it is literally that drastic a difference.
Yeah. I got a bunch of resealable/airtight bulk containers and will probably never buy spices in those little 2oz shaker-jars again. My pantry is a small store by itself now, it feels better to get like a pound of a spice for $7 than it does to buy 2 ounces at a time for $7- and all those trips I don’t have to make to get a spice I just ran out of is totally worth it- my restocking trip is… from kitchen to pantry, takes seconds.
Eh, where I live the employee-owned grocery store is of lower quality and higher priced than Walmart.
I went in expecting more, was sorely disappointed and left without buying anything.
It’s essentially the same products in a worse store for a higher price.
I know a lot of people like to beat the ‘employee-owned’ drum, but unless that translates to lower prices or better quality, I don’t see a reason for customers to subscribe to it.
I agree. At the end of the day it’s a business. But if two companies offer similar products go with the employee owned company.
The main thing about is decision making structure. Because employee or community owned stores are owned by the users. It means the end users have power over what is offered. As opposed to big box in which case it is non local non user shareholders.
But if two companies offer similar products go with the employee owned company.
Completely ignored my point about lower quality and higher prices.
It means the end users have power over what is offered.
What do you mean? The employees or the customers? I don’t really care if the employees have the power. That just moves who’s trying to take advantage of me.
As opposed to big box in which case it is non local non user shareholders.
It also doesn’t matter if they’re local.
What matters is if they give me a better deal. If they can’t do that, I will go with someone who will.
I almost completely agree with your first and last points. I was trying to say if they provide the same product at the same quality and price try to prefer the co-operative. I say similar because, personally I’d give some leeway to the co-op. But there are limits and co-ops are businesses and if they give sub par products and services than we shouldn’t buy from them.
The power is held by the owners. If it’s a consumer co-operative it is controlled by the consumer and a worker cooperative is owned by the workers. So the end users of products or the ones who have jobs. It depends on how it’s structured.
I somewhat agree with your last point. The big thing is ownership is wealth and control. If you control your store you get to chose the available options if someone else owns it it means someone else has control. So I’d rather I have control over it. Again with the previous thing. If someone else can do it sooo much better than I than I should someone’s product.
But we have to be careful because you can lead to the problem with data and big tech. I use an alternative to Google Cloud that is a cooperative but I have to pay. But with Google I don’t pay but loose my privacy. In that instance you have to determine what’s more important, given what I need it for is comparable to what I need what is important and I chose ownership and privacy over having neither of those.
Everyone is like, she should’ve retired… But WHY!? People kept voting her in, she has all this power, all this money/control, top of the line health care, etc., etc. Who would ever leave that!? Unless you’re not a psychopath narcissist after knowing how freaking different the “1%” live?
Same thing with RBG.
Only thing that will change are the rules. And good luck with that…
She was incoherent while “working” just a few weeks ago if that. The video was online.
Maybe she could have been an icon. But instead her legacy is that of a greedy asshole who made shady stock deals and held her political power far too long - to the detriment of her constituents.
The most interesting thing about this result is that it was achieved thru behavioral change (masking, hand washing, distancing, isolation), and not technologic advancement. We have the capability, with cooperation to significantly alter the infectious disease landscape.
Human beings, when working together, quite literally are the strongest biological force on Earth. There is very little we can’t do when working together.
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