How do we restore democracy to the United States?

[Jelmatt]

*cough* America wasn't designed to be a democracy *cough*

*cough* yes it was *cough*

A republic is a government which is not a monarchy. That's all it means, and that's all it's meant since the sixteenth century, when Machiavelli classified governments that way. Possibly before, too, but I don't know. "Democracy" means a government which relies on the consent of the people in some way--either directly through voting on laws or indirectly through methods of sortition (as in Athens) or representation (through free elections). The relationship between them is almost orthogonal; you have authoritarian monarchies (e.g., Saudi Arabia), constitutional, democratic monarchies (e.g., the UK), authoritarian republics (e.g., China) and democratic republics like the USA. I feel that needs to be explained.

Anyway, proportional representation, no electoral college, instead have a two-round run-off system, or maybe even IRV or range voting.

[Thermodolia]

Because otherwise it weakens your democracy, by making it easier for someone to take over: you simply have all of your opponents arrested, so they lose their ability to vote.

You realize we have separation of powers for a reason. Anyone who has broken the laws of the land and is currently imprisoned should not be able to vote. Upon being released and having served their due time they should be able to once again participate in the political process but not while they are imprisoned for gods sake.

Separation of powers has nothing to do with people being imprisoned and losing their right to vote

[Thermodolia]

We don't. Pure democracy is trash, and we have never been a democracy.

No such thing as "Pure democracy", because not all democracy is the same.

It's easier to educate those who think that the USA isn't a democracy by saying that they are talking about a "pure democracy" in a sense. That way they can at least understand that yes indeed the US is a democracy.

[Aegis Prime]

You realize we have separation of powers for a reason. Anyone who has broken the laws of the land and is currently imprisoned should not be able to vote. Upon being released and having served their due time they should be able to once again participate in the political process but not while they are imprisoned for gods sake.

Separation of powers has nothing to do with people being imprisoned and losing their right to vote

Um yes it does when you are making the argument that you could have political opponents jailed to get them out of the way. Our system of law and governance is made to make such a situation very unlikely and hard to accomplish.

[MERIZoC]

If we restore democracy, that would imply that democracy was already there at some point, which is a questionable claim, if you're also saying that there isn't democracy now.

What would I do to better american democracy?

Turn america into a unicameral parliamentary democracy
proportional representation
voting rights for all citizens above the age of 16
automatic voter registration
instead of election day, election week

those are the big ones

Why exactly, 16, and not 14, and why not 18? Interesting.

Why not 14 indeed? Fine by me. Whatever it is, there's no reason for it to be as high as it is right now.

I suppose 15 or 16 is a reasonable number as that's when many start entering the workforce.

[Jelmatt]

Separation of powers has nothing to do with people being imprisoned and losing their right to vote

Um yes it does when you are making the argument that you could have political opponents jailed to get them out of the way. Our system of law and governance is made to make such a situation very unlikely and hard to accomplish.

Historically, no, that's not hard to accomplish. The US locked up pacifists in WWI, and much of modern-day drug laws were, in part, motivated by being able to imprison political opponents part of sub- or counter-cultures known for using drugs--like hippies opposing the Vietnam War. And then there were things which were not imprisonment but still hurt your idea that separation of powers is enough to stop this type of political bullying--the US deported anarchists and other far-leftist groups early in the 1900s, stripping them of their citizenship, for example, solely based on their political opinions, and then there were the Japanese internment camps. Separation of powers should've stopped those. They didn't. It's insufficient. Necessary, yes, but abuses can still get past the filter.

[Outer Sparta]

Ban corporate lobbying. Not only this tactic is corruptive, but they can use their financial clout to get their interests supported.

[Arlenton]

Don't just say remove the electoral college cause it favors the republicans, you know theres more to do than that. What would you personally do to put forth a fair electoral system in the United States? Besides the electoral college, you may want to put your opinions on
-Referendums
-Prisoner Voting Rights
-Superdelegates
-Third Parties
-E-Democracy
-Voter IDs
-Run off voting

I'd say keep the EC.
-Referendums I like.
-I don't think prisoners should vote.
-Superdelegates are something used only by the party I am not a part of, so I don't have an opinion on them. But I do see the logic behind it.
-I'm part of one of the major parties so this isn't an issue for me. All I have to say to third parties complaining about never winning: Git gud.
-Not familiar with E-Democracy
-I support voter ID laws. Very few people vote illegally, so lets keep it that way.
-Runoffs I don't mind individual states enacting.

[Arlenton]

Also do away with campaign finance laws.

[The Foxes Swamp]

i don't think it can be done peacefully unless you can persuade those in charge that they serve all the people not just the rich and powerful.

[The Liberated Territories]

Cut all taxpayer subsidies to the parties. In order to prove their positions, the top two parties should be able to generate the money instead of be handed it. It would also significantly level the playing field for third parties who are not privy to these funds.

[Mattopilos]

Cut all taxpayer subsidies to the parties. In order to prove their positions, the top two parties should be able to generate the money instead of be handed it. It would also significantly level the playing field for third parties who are not privy to these funds.

That way it would be based more on merit than sheer wealth. Sounds better than whatever the hell we have now.

[Longweather]

We need much stricter laws against campaign finance. The amount of dark money that is funneled into both parties in this country is absurd, absolutely absurd. There needs to be tighter restrictions on lobbying, and cutting bureaucracy in general, that way civil servants can be held accountable for their actions. In layman's terms, gutting many existing federal and state agencies, in large part because they're ineffective, but also for the sake of transparency.

What really, really, really would change a lot are simple limits on donations a candidate or party can receive. I love capitalism, but I hate crony capitalism, wherein the interests of non-governmental groups ultimately dictate our policies. That is what we're seeing right now, and the Democrats and Republicans are both equally guilty of this shit.

On top of this, shortening the federal executive branch shaping election (also known as the Presidential, ignoring the Vice President because screw them, election) campaign cycle should help. It's practically a two year election cycle and you hear people complaining about fatigue from the "adults" running for the positions acting like children about half a year beforehand. That could help prevent voter apathy.

Oh, and it would be nice to have a 2 term limit in the Senate and a 6 term limit in the House of Representatives (that way they both get a maximum of 12 years).

I'm not against the electoral college because it gave us two unpopular republicans in recent years, I'm against it because it upholds the two party system and intentionally ignores the votes of contrarians in more solid red or blue states. You can't tell me theres no one thing you would change about the voting system? One thing you distrust?

Don't blame the electoral college for the ignored votes. Blame the state governments that would rather do something involving hoping other people make a change (the NPVIC) instead of doing something sensible like awarding their electoral slates proportional to their state's vote. It's simply idiotic that what amounts to multiple votes are allotted based upon a first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all method. Changing this is a state level option that doesn't need to be tied to the other states doing it (and doing so would potentially snowball to the rest of the states following suite much like how the current method came to be near universal).

I'd either want that individually based reform or the popular vote with a revamp of the entire federal executive branch of government so it's not just blue or red every 4-8 years. I'm not for torching the electoral college for a marginal gain in representation in the executive branch. It has to be vastly more superior.

You clearly don't know what a republic is then. Let me put it this way: all republics are democracies, but not all democracies are republics. It's like squares and rectangles. "That shape isn't a rectangle, it's a square!"

You obviously are not aware of the Most Serene Republic of Venice or the various maritime republics in history. Oh, and the Dutch Republic... Republics can and have been oligarchic, aristocratic, and/or thalassocratic.

[San Marlindo]

I just got done watching the last season of House of Cards, and I wouldn't change a thing.

Seems like I have a better chance of making it in politics if I threw my book of ethics out the window and shamelessly took advantage of the current political system rather than trying to reform it.

[San Cervantes]

I just got done watching the last season of House of Cards, and I wouldn't change a thing.

Seems like I have a better chance of making it in politics if I threw my book of ethics out the window and shamelessly took advantage of the current political system rather than trying to reform it.

Uh oh. I smell corruption.

[Thermodolia]

I just got done watching the last season of House of Cards, and I wouldn't change a thing.

Seems like I have a better chance of making it in politics if I threw my book of ethics out the window and shamelessly took advantage of the current political system rather than trying to reform it.

Uh oh. I smell corruption.

It's really the only way to get things done at this point

[Radiatia]

"Restore" isn't the right word to use because the United States was never a democracy, and its system was consciously crafted to avoid the (perceived) pitfalls of democracy.

That said, the most important step that can be taken to take America back to being a more representative system (as opposed to an oligarchy as is the case currently) is to repeal that ghastly Supreme Court ruling, Citizens United. In fact I would add that almost every undemocratic thing that has ever happened in the United States - good or bad - has been a result of the Supreme Court making some sort of decision.

[Thermodolia]

"Restore" isn't the right word to use because the United States was never a democracy, and its system was consciously crafted to avoid the (perceived) pitfalls of democracy.

That said, the most important step that can be taken to take America back to being a more representative system (as opposed to an oligarchy as is the case currently) is to repeal that ghastly Supreme Court ruling, Citizens United. In fact I would add that almost every undemocratic thing that has ever happened in the United States - good or bad - has been a result of the Supreme Court making some sort of decision.

The US is a democracy it just not a "pure democracy". If the US wasn't a democracy we wouldn't be able to elect anyone to office. But yes in order to restore something it must have been taken away which hasn't happened yet.

[Ostroeuropa]

-More states rights and devolution

-Abolish the senate, replace it with a Demarchic second house. (See below.)

-Campaign finance reform, no donations allowed, only party membership fees.

-Dismantle the institutions taken over by demagogues pushing an ideological agenda, replace as needed.

-Bring back the telecommunications act and break up the big media companies. One man, one paper law. Ban investors having an interest in more than one news company, allow temporary trading of stock so they can pick which one to back. Make it so a media company can only put the name of its parent company on its product. (So, in the UK for instance, the Sun, Mail etc, would all be forced to be called "Newscorp", to reveal the lack of diversity.)

- Every paper must include a page in every issue listing its corporate sponsors. Every news channel must include a crawler listing them.


Demarchy:
Instead of senators, citizens from across the US would be selected ala Jury Duty to attend their local government building and approve or reject any bill passed by congress. Each bill would result in a new roster of citizens being called upon. These citizens may not propose bills, only reject those forwarded by congress or approve them. Congress would remain an elected representative house.
Federal bills which restrict states actions could require a larger majority of approval. (2/3rds, for instance.)

This combines the best aspects of direct and representative democracy, while minimizing the pitfalls.

[Salus Maior]

Every time people get more entrenched in their beliefs that [X bad thing] is good/right/just/true, it gets a bit worse.

There's a lot of that on all sides. Unless you mean a specific brand of that you don't like?

[Forsher]

"Restore" isn't the right word to use because the United States was never a democracy, and its system was consciously crafted to avoid the (perceived) pitfalls of democracy.

It pretty clearly is a democracy. It was never meant to be a direct democracy but conflating the two is misleading to the point of lying.

-More states rights and devolution

How does that help?

Every time people get more entrenched in their beliefs that [X bad thing] is good/right/just/true, it gets a bit worse.

There's a lot of that on all sides. Unless you mean a specific brand of that you don't like?

I would have thought it clear that the set {bad things} of which X is a member/element referred specifically to things that compromise democracy. The people responsible are neither here nor there except to the extent they are necessary as the progenitors of beliefs.

For instance, the memorial/marker at Runnymede was created by American lawyers... a product of a peculiarly American fascination with old scraps of paper (parchment) that I earlier suggested was a cause of the blood sacrifices that result in the problem. As further explanation, I turn to my comments elsewhere: "However, the three scholars [Sumption and Melton and Hazell] do present reasons to be concerned with the myth insofar as it is used to justify democracy, due process or constitutionalism, suggesting respectively that humanity is capable of better justifications and that paper, as seen in 1215, is ‘not sufficient to constrain executive authority.’^{Melton, pg. 19}".

[Ostroeuropa]

-More states rights and devolution

How does that help?

By providing a means for non-professionals to challenge incumbants and meaningfully effect policy. If your only shot at changing things is a degree and a career in politics (or massive media ties and billions of dollars), you can't realistically change things.

"Joe the plumber" can't realistically run for president or the senate. He could do quite well in the state senate and such.

Centralization has led to professionalization, which disenfranchises most of the country.

It would allow campaigning on local issues instead of esoteric ones. Through esoteric politics, much of the electorate is tricked or lied to about the effects of policies. Abstract tax policy on a national level leaves people unsure of what they are voting for, compared to campaigns to say, keep the local docks open, etc.

Democracy is not government by professionals. It is a system of equals and government of, for, and by the people. It is not a means by which to select which professional governs them, but a means by which they are permitted to govern themselves. Centralization undermines this by overcomplicating the process.

If a policy does not need to be national, it should not be national, and thus, should remain in control of the local populace instead of professionals. Overcomplication of policy as a means to shut out plebes is a problem for a democracy, especially one with poor social mobility.

[Vault 93]

... America isn't a democracy, it is a republic. Secondly, the electoral college has been around since the start of the nation, so I am unsure what you mean by, restore.

A republic is a form of democracy. And saying "It's a republic, so we shouldn't get rid of the Electoral College" is an inherently stupid defense of the EC. Just because it's modeled after a certain, archaic government doesn't mean we can't change it to be more modern and truly giving every voting citizen an equal voice. Besides abolishing the EC entirely, we also need to have ranked voting and a non partisan redistricting committee (or better yet, ditch humans entirely and have redistricting done by an algorithm). While voter ID sounds like a good idea in theory, it allows states to discriminate certain demographics of people, similar to poll taxes and tests.

Also do away with campaign finance laws.

Not sure how that helps democracy. It just lets the rich buy their way to an election.

[Forsher]

How does that help?

By providing a means for non-professionals to challenge incumbants and meaningfully effect policy. If your only shot at changing things is a degree and a career in politics (or massive media ties and billions of dollars), you can't realistically change things.

"Joe the plumber" can't realistically run for president or the senate. He could do quite well in the state senate and such.

Centralization has led to professionalization, which disenfranchises most of the country.

It would allow campaigning on local issues instead of esoteric ones. Through esoteric politics, much of the electorate is tricked or lied to about the effects of policies. Abstract tax policy on a national level leaves people unsure of what they are voting for, compared to campaigns to say, keep the local docks open, etc.

In practice, of course, it enables centralised government to abrogate its responsibilities, especially regarding locally centred regional initiatives. What serves the part well may, in fact, harm the whole.

Similarly, this mechanism exists at current. It's kinda how you get career politicians (which I am not happy to cast as the villain, anyway).

Esoteric -- Intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest

Seems far more apt a description of local politics to me?

If we want to talk about conceptual politics (big ideas for big people... which seems to be your meaning) as a problem for democracy... It is necessary, I think, to have a vision. A successful vision will appeal to people and, ideally, allow you to trick them into believing whatever the hell you want. Or, well, not even trick, it may be persuasive. A successful democracy doesn't allow vision-making to be monopolised (which, I think you'd agree with based on your comments regarding finance, for instance) but rather forces it to be contested.

In the ideal system, people are ambivalent between the visions. That is, if we have two visions, roughly as many are decisively convinced by one vision as there are so strongly convinced by the other vision. For the remainder, it is necessary to turn to reality. In this sense, policy is vision that confronts how things already are. In an ideal world, policy actually helps create visions... thus the "pure democracy" (at least, in the sense I mean) develops a system that tries to force the decision to be decided based on policy. This is most definitely not something that scales. The smaller and more local the election, the more likely you are to vote because you know Joe the plumber but Jo the carpenter, who the hell is that? Similarly, in a local situation, there are fewer people to contest/confront visions and force them down to the level of policy.

But how do we explain politicians who lie or the likes of John Key who don't need to lie and/or who are made of teflon? To a certain extent, people like visions so much that they don't really care if there's no policy... John Key also demonstrates that "National should be in charge" is a highly effective vision. And, in principle, we are all happy to be told lies to children and may even think that some lies ought to be told (which is why there's an ethical dilemma in, say, Died Hard 3... although Simon resolves it for the police). What gets to us is when we know something is, if not a lie, clearly not right, yet lives the life fantastic regardless of this troublesome Truth. The answer, in Forsher's brand of pop psychology (i.e. BS), is that we love this feeling of superiority over our so-conned fellows as much as we are frustrated by the knowledge that they're conned. People make great subjects to lie to, because people help being lied to... and we've been interested in this for so long that we now even imagine that the only purpose of rhetoric is so that we can lie better. Which may be the problem, actually.

I like my comfortable bubble; do you like yours?

Naturally, some people do address lying politicians. Sometimes a party in government tries to win a by-election by promising to build bridges and loses said by-election. Sometimes. Often, I feel, what happens is that the liar is isolated as the problem. This is excellent news for the liar. Now they are the problem... not the policy (in fact, I suspect Ostroeuropa is over-rated...). So, this suggests, people are weak vessels for policy and, thus, maybe if we could imbue some other body with policy things would be better... at least, without personification (which, undoubtedly, does happen... I've seen it). The trouble is that it is possible to convince people that some parties have a monopoly on Policy (even when, if you stick a referendum on their main policy used to win an election, is expected to... and then does... show that people disagree with the policies)... and I am really not sure what to do about that (perhaps, although I am, for once, discomforted by the removal of freedoms, through measures like Ostro's suggestions for the media?). Having more people confronting lies, probably helps... which, again, suggests that localising democracy doesn't do much to improve democracy.

This does remind me... the small nature of issues in increasingly localised systems can result in issues that a central party might miss (or ignore) being attended to. However, it seems to me that local generation of solutions is inclined to echo-chambers (not good for democracy... and this atomising of democracy will result in silos) and may miss relevance to a wider issue (e.g. poor quality transit... leveraging natural monopolies can and does bring efficiencies... this, I feel, is such a situation) better solved on a bigger scale. All that may be achieved by atomisation is that issues like transport (which is Big) being consigned to local issues where people without means talk about how to solve issues that require means (and, at some point, we're less a federation than the EU). Which means that solving "ignored local issues" is not simply solved through atomisation. Rather, I feel, a more productive approach would be to streamline the offering of bills to central bodies. This may be complicated in slow moving legislatures but this merely suggests that centralised reform is what truly opens the local concern in a way that maximises done things.

I'm not entirely convinced I have done much about the lying point other than show that it is ingrained at all levels... but I do think I have shown that it's slightly easier with bigger pictures to do something about it. I imagine a critique would focus on diminishing returns to scale.

Also... make making new political parties fairly easy, and have proportional representation and a system that ensures small parties can get their voices out. A local area may have enough sway to get enough vote to get a seat or two... for an important enough issue... in addition to any electorate seats or whatever.

(Some of the examples in this post may sound ridiculous. I assure you, they're all true.)

[Ostroeuropa]

By providing a means for non-professionals to challenge incumbants and meaningfully effect policy. If your only shot at changing things is a degree and a career in politics (or massive media ties and billions of dollars), you can't realistically change things.

"Joe the plumber" can't realistically run for president or the senate. He could do quite well in the state senate and such.

Centralization has led to professionalization, which disenfranchises most of the country.

It would allow campaigning on local issues instead of esoteric ones. Through esoteric politics, much of the electorate is tricked or lied to about the effects of policies. Abstract tax policy on a national level leaves people unsure of what they are voting for, compared to campaigns to say, keep the local docks open, etc.

In practice, of course, it enables centralised government to abrogate its responsibilities, especially regarding locally centred regional initiatives. What serves the part well may, in fact, harm the whole.

Similarly, this mechanism exists at current. It's kinda how you get career politicians (which I am not happy to cast as the villain, anyway).

Esoteric -- Intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest

Seems far more apt a description of local politics to me?

If we want to talk about conceptual politics (big ideas for big people... which seems to be your meaning) as a problem for democracy... It is necessary, I think, to have a vision. A successful vision will appeal to people and, ideally, allow you to trick them into believing whatever the hell you want. Or, well, not even trick, it may be persuasive. A successful democracy doesn't allow vision-making to be monopolised (which, I think you'd agree with based on your comments regarding finance, for instance) but rather forces it to be contested.

In the ideal system, people are ambivalent between the visions. That is, if we have two visions, roughly as many are decisively convinced by one vision as there are so strongly convinced by the other vision. For the remainder, it is necessary to turn to reality. In this sense, policy is vision that confronts how things already are. In an ideal world, policy actually helps create visions... thus the "pure democracy" (at least, in the sense I mean) develops a system that tries to force the decision to be decided based on policy. This is most definitely not something that scales. The smaller and more local the election, the more likely you are to vote because you know Joe the plumber but Jo the carpenter, who the hell is that? Similarly, in a local situation, there are fewer people to contest/confront visions and force them down to the level of policy.

But how do we explain politicians who lie or the likes of John Key who don't need to lie and/or who are made of teflon? To a certain extent, people like visions so much that they don't really care if there's no policy... John Key also demonstrates that "National should be in charge" is a highly effective vision. And, in principle, we are all happy to be told lies to children and may even think that some lies ought to be told (which is why there's an ethical dilemma in, say, Died Hard 3... although Simon resolves it for the police). What gets to us is when we know something is, if not a lie, clearly not right, yet lives the life fantastic regardless of this troublesome Truth. The answer, in Forsher's brand of pop psychology (i.e. BS), is that we love this feeling of superiority over our so-conned fellows as much as we are frustrated by the knowledge that they're conned. People make great subjects to lie to, because people help being lied to... and we've been interested in this for so long that we now even imagine that the only purpose of rhetoric is so that we can lie better. Which may be the problem, actually.

I like my comfortable bubble; do you like yours?

Naturally, some people do address lying politicians. Sometimes a party in government tries to win a by-election by promising to build bridges and loses said by-election. Sometimes. Often, I feel, what happens is that the liar is isolated as the problem. This is excellent news for the liar. Now they are the problem... not the policy (in fact, I suspect Ostroeuropa is over-rated...). So, this suggests, people are weak vessels for policy and, thus, maybe if we could imbue some other body with policy things would be better... at least, without personification (which, undoubtedly, does happen... I've seen it). The trouble is that it is possible to convince people that some parties have a monopoly on Policy (even when, if you stick a referendum on their main policy used to win an election, is expected to... and then does... show that people disagree with the policies)... and I am really not sure what to do about that (perhaps, although I am, for once, discomforted by the removal of freedoms, through measures like Ostro's suggestions for the media?). Having more people confronting lies, probably helps... which, again, suggests that localising democracy doesn't do much to improve democracy.

This does remind me... the small nature of issues in increasingly localised systems can result in issues that a central party might miss (or ignore) being attended to. However, it seems to me that local generation of solutions is inclined to echo-chambers (not good for democracy... and this atomising of democracy will result in silos) and may miss relevance to a wider issue (e.g. poor quality transit... leveraging natural monopolies can and does bring efficiencies... this, I feel, is such a situation) better solved on a bigger scale. All that may be achieved by atomisation is that issues like transport (which is Big) being consigned to local issues where people without means talk about how to solve issues that require means (and, at some point, we're less a federation than the EU). Which means that solving "ignored local issues" is not simply solved through atomisation. Rather, I feel, a more productive approach would be to streamline the offering of bills to central bodies. This may be complicated in slow moving legislatures but this merely suggests that centralised reform is what truly opens the local concern in a way that maximises done things.

I'm not entirely convinced I have done much about the lying point other than show that it is ingrained at all levels... but I do think I have shown that it's slightly easier with bigger pictures to do something about it. I imagine a critique would focus on diminishing returns to scale.

Also... make making new political parties fairly easy, and have proportional representation and a system that ensures small parties can get their voices out. A local area may have enough sway to get enough vote to get a seat or two... for an important enough issue... in addition to any electorate seats or whatever.

(Some of the examples in this post may sound ridiculous. I assure you, they're all true.)

This is a good argument, but ultimately doesn't dispel my concerns. I think however you've convinced me that a state can be centralized if there is still a mechanism for people power, such as the demarchic second house, to resist the power of professionals and the elites of a country.
States rights could be done away with, if such a house were there.