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Pew is out with a new, very complex poll looking at the the diversity of American opinions across a broad range of issues. The whole thing is long, but worth a read.
An aspect of the poll that really stuck out to me, though, is that one of the few things that Americans of all political stripes can agreed on is that our politicians suck. From Pew:
There are few points on which all the typology groups can agree, but cynicism about politicians is one. Majorities across all eight groups, as well as Bystanders, say elected officials lose touch with the people pretty quickly.
When everyone across the political spectrum is this cynical about our politicians, the problem probably isn’t just our current batch of elected officials, but that design of the system itself.
I can’t promise my preferred set of structural reforms would improve the situation, but here goes:
- A larger number of Congressional seats;
- Eliminate or fix the Senate;
- Election rules, like proportional representation or “instant runoff” voting, that would allow people to vote for a greater variety of viable political parties and reduce negative campaigns;
- Public campaign financing to reduce the pressure for politicians to sell out.
Like I said, I can’t promise these make it better, but given how bad it has gotten, it is hard to believe they could make it worse.
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I’ve given quite a bit of thought to the dilemma of how to design a more effective democracy. But the problem is that a functional democracy is predicated on the notion of the electorate actually paying attention and giving a shit, and we Americans clearly don’t. We have a fantastic Constitution, we have the Internet and all sorts of social media to use as organizational tools, and yet we have a public that is ill-informed and cynical. Good government isn’t going to be reality until the citizens care enough to take hold of it themselves and shake it good and hard, like they are doing in Wisconsin.
I think there is going to be a low voter turnout in 2012
no doubt 2012 will not reach the level that 2008 did unless something really surprising happens.
We have to destroy the Senate in order to fix it.
Any institution that can let Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Kent Conrad or Tom Coburn call the shots
doesn’t deserve to exist.
I’d go further:
*Take all money and gifts out of the system. Gifts like ties and shoes from blood relatives, okay but public service should require some personal sacrifices and these people make enough base pay to live on very comfortably. No private business dealings while in office, period.
*Outlaw professional lobbying.
*Reform ethical rules so that no Representative or Senator sits on a committee or is allowed to vote on any bill that affects his/her friends, family members or business partners.
All of these would be in addition to, rather than in substitution for the changes you proposed.
What makes you say that?
The U.S. constitution allowed slavery for decades, it set up (or allowed to be set up; don’t really know the history) the electoral college, membership in a powerful governing body (senate) that had nothing to do with representing actual people.
To name a few of the constitution’s more glaring faults.
Few of which have been repaired.
On first blush, that seems like an oxymoron.
WRT to substance of the post, I would put blame squarely on SCOTUS, which has been packed by the wingers for well over a century. Listened to a book on court packing a couple of years ago, which pointed out how bad it was during the Gilded Age.
So corps=peeps, a long time ago, followed by evisceration of all attempts, however feeble, of congress to rein in corp purchase of pols, is the root of the evil.
Maybe you could start by designing a democracy to begin with since we live in a republic.
As for SCOTUS, nothing said “more of the same” to me like Obama refusing to expand the court to get a liberal majority and then nominating right leaning “centrists” to fill the vacancies so far.
Finally everyone has come to agree with Thers, whose classic 2008 post was clearly ahead of its time.
Oh, Peter. I don’t think you can actually say All Americans. But, you go ahead. We can disagree. I think that’s allowed.
Call me a cock-eyed optimist (well, not exactly) but I have to think that there might be an opportunity to turn this cynicism to progressive advantage, especially as regards the economy. After all, wingnuts are hurting, too. They just don’t understand why. Progressives must seize the narrative and help them to understand. It’s good politics, and can result in good policy. As for trying to corral everyone into the same pen? It worked on “Audit the Fed,” and it scared the holy shit out of the hacks on Capitol Hill. Just a thought.
On the other hand, if (as many people, myself included, sometimes) the game is already over, then we might as well throw in the towel right now. I’m not willing to do that…not just yet, anyway.
The game isn’t over. We outnumber them and always will.
hey mods: We have a clothing pimp on the Osama bin Lynched thread:
I doubt that. Where do you come up with that?
What’s a clothing pimp? New one for me. Thanks.
Twain is right. Almost two thirds of voters when polled prefer Democratic policies over Republican ones consistently, no matter what they call themselves. There is at least a third of the electorate however that are reflexive voters and are easily manipulated. The problem is that the idiot Democrats think the way to persuade those voters is to behave like Republicans, rather than drawing clear policy differences.
Don’t let it be forgot that once there was a spot for one, brief, shining moment that was known as The Warren Court.
Nothing new. Somebody created an account to come onto a thread and put up an ad and a link to his/her website, in this case, clothing.
Unicameral; twice the current size of the House; publicly financed, nine-week campaigns; 24-hour Election Day by mail as a federal holiday; IRV.
All current incumbents pensioned off. It’s a small price to pay to mitigate the damage they would otherwise do in office.
Senators can wander in the Salt Lake desert wilderness.
When did 2/3′s become everyone? Sorry to bring up math.
I don’t get it. But, whatever.
I like that plan. Especially the part about pensioning off all sitting members. As for the Senate? We don’t need a House of Lords.
Party on, dudes. Circle.
You responded to Twain @ 14 who said:
Sorry if I misunderstood.
priceless!
No prob. Take a look at the comment. You’ll understand. :)
Uh huh. I disagree. If people here outnumbered, things would be different.
In addition, make our reps actually *live* in their districts – as in, “must be physically present at least x% of the time,” where “x” is at least 75.
Back before I was most recently downsized, they made us do a lot of virtual meetings to save money. It’s not nearly as good as face to face, but in this case that might be an advantage. IMO, one of the (many) problems nowadays is that our reps have much more in common with each other than they do with us.
Somewhat along those ones, I’d also like to see a requirement that they live with the kind of incomes and health insurance that the majority of their constituents have during their tenure.
I was speaking of the middle class and the poor.
Well, that’s what we’re all about: the free exchange of opinion.
I would love a House of Lord. turning Senate into people with no power but get to walk around like they matter with fancy titles. I trade I would be happy to make.
Money makes politicians stupid; the big money boys like it like that.
As long as they didn’t get paid either, no power would be okay.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely but money corrupts systemically and fundamentally.
Election rules, like proportional representation or “instant runoff” voting, that would allow people to vote for a greater variety of viable political parties and reduce negative campaigns;
Instant runoff sounds like a great system, but it has its own flaws. The biggest is that the actual vote counting procedure is so complicated, it would in practice almost always be done by machines and that invites more electronic voting machine manipulation and election stealing. We really don’t want an electoral system where we have to take “their” word for it.
There is another problem with instant runoff, which is that in a 3-way race, the one compromise candidate that is acceptable (though not the first choice) of a very large supermajority of voters could be eliminated in the first round.
Fortunately, there is an alternative to IRV that avoids all these difficulties: approval voting. In approval voting, voters simply mark all candidates that they like “approve” and the rest “disapprove”. Candidate with the highest approval wins. Approval voting elections can be hand-counted unlike instant runoff ones, and there is no problem of premature and anomalous rejection of candidates.
Some comments on proportional representation. It’s a highly desirable system in principle to be sure, but a great deal can go wrong in the implementation.
Countries that use the system frequently have a 5% barrier (parties need at least 5% of the vote to receive seats) which was originally meant to prevent party fragmentation and inability of the system to produce majorities that can govern.
But this has produced its own version of the spoiler effect. While under such as system there usually are 4 or 5 parties (in Germany for example), new parties usually face near impossible barriers in establishing themselves, because voters (correctly) feel that their vote for such a party is wasted. Giving voters a 1st and 2nd choice for the party of their preference (and the 2nd choice is counted if the 1st choice doesn’t make it in) is a way to fix that problem.
An even greater problem lies in the easily overlooked technicality of who determines which candidates are on the party lists. Political commentators in Germany have for a long time criticized what they call a “dictatorship of parties”. People get to cast a proportional vote for party lists, but it is (corrupt) party leaders who decide who’s on those lists.
To make my point, if the Senate was proportionally elected (which is a very good idea), it should be combined with an instant primary wherein after you vote for a party, you get to approve/disapprove all candidates wishing to take seats for that party. Seats would then be given to candidates in order of approval. Letting voters only approve/disapprove of candidates of the party they voted for would have the beneficial side effect of eliminating “sabotage” votes that we have in states with open primaries where hostile voters support the worst candidates of an opposing party.
Edward Abbey: “What’s the difference between a whore and a congressman? A congressman makes more money”
Americans get it. RCP Poll Average: 73.5% disapprove Congress
So what should be the FDL position on 2012? Simple: Don’t vote for any incumbent congress-person. None Nada. Zilch. No votes for incumbents.
Do that for several voting cycles — no immediate results — and they’ll eventually come begging. I promise. Withholding votes is the ONLY weapon we have, but it is a weapon.
Anything else won’t work. I promise that too.
I just looked up top. “KICK-ASS ACTIVISM.”
That’s exactly where they should be kicked. Out.
Can something be done to require broadcasters and cable outlets to provide free time for candidates to get their message out? And also prohibit the selling of the public airways which limits the field in our elections to whores, basically.
Free air time to all who pay the filing fee and meet the requirements. Greens get the same exposure as Republicats.
Both, actually. It’s a republic with representative democracy: we elect people to represent us in Congress. The problem is that way too many of them are doing crappy jobs.
That happens a lot. Some places actually have buttons so you can report it.
All campaigning to stop at least 24 hours before the polls open. That includes all ads. Give people a day of peace and quiet to make their decisions, or change them.
My experience with it is that it’s very, very difficult to game the system – the rankings change in ways that are extremely unpredictable.
There are, actually, reliable, tested programs to count ballots – the people I know who use it call it ‘preferential balloting’ – and there’s 40 years of experience behind those programs, in elections where the voters can easily find the people who are responsible for counting the ballots.
Yeah, and by then no one who’s elected will have any experience in politics. It works so well in California, after all. /s
I thought this part of the poll was interesting.
Most Unwilling to Trade Privacy for Security
All of our choices are horrible because politicians are bought and paid for. So they no longer.. if ever represent the people. The money from the bailout should have gone directly into the peoples pocket. I conclude that we find a way for the people to take charge of our government and put the bankers and politicians in jail for a while. I have always enjoyed reading your posts David.
OOPS!Sorry Jon
So if most people don’t want to trade their privacy/freedom for security why are our politicians consistently trading our privacy/freedom for the illusion of security? And the even bigger question is why aren’t we stopping them?
Fixing the the government will do no damn good unless you fix our corrupt economic system and get rid of the money == privilege paradigm and the corporation as a person.
Amen!
What works (or doesn’t) in California? And what does that have to do with Congress?
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the problem for american politicos is the stilted silliness of their speech, of their political rhetoric.
the first politician who can talk with people in a straight-forward, no-bullshit fashion will benefit hugely.
why is this so hard.
why is the speech, the rhetoric, of political ads so predictable, so contemptible, and so laughable?
for one, our politicians are simply not politically or socially imaginative.
IIRC, Howard Dean spoke no BS, mostly, in 03-04, and many of my friends, progressives all, wrung their hands and worried that he wouldn’t be electable if he kept it up.
Jon, your reforms would be much, much better than the current system, yet they still retain the core assumptions in our system such as geographic representation, monolithic executive, etc. Have you considered re-thinking the fundamental assumptions of modern representative democracy? I think that is where the basic flaws lie…
yes, alas.
i liked dean a lot and still do.
the contempt dean was shown was initiated by his opponents using a willing media to trash him.
dean’s mistake was not directly and immediately attacking the media for creating a false image.
part of talking straight is going to have to be attacking the media for its gossipy quality of reporting.