Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

1. Separate opinion journalism from reporting journalism.

Opinion journalism can be w/e. Reporting journalism has to be fact checked. Masquerading as reporting journalism should be a big bad. You gotta disclose opinion journalism up front, like you gotta put a Surgeon General's warning on cigarettes.

2. Mandate non-partisan districting boards and do away with "safe" districts.

This would lose majority-minority districts, which are responsible for a big proportion of our Reps of color. But safe districts skyrocket partisanship; politicians in safe districts can wander super far from the mainstream--think Steve King for example. And actually they oftentimes have to become radical in order to survive primaries. There's only so much you can do here with the current system but, a little would help a lot.

3. Empower state and local governments by repealing balanced budget amendments and term limits.

State governments have really hamstrung themselves with these policies, and as a result the federal government has to do a lot. This creates a perception--right or wrong--that a far away government is telling you how to live your life. If the federal government has secured rights for all and managed federal concerns, it should be reasonable for say, Oregon to have one set of gun regulations and Illinois to have another.

4. Make voting compulsory, make Election Day a holiday, expand early voting, establish same day registration everywhere.

The majority of Senators (and in midterms, the majority of Reps) are elected by a minority of people who are much more partisan than the mean. This pushes politicians out of the mainstream.

5. Federally finance elections, shorten the length, and amend the Constitution to obviate Citizens United.

Campaigns and their ads are super polarizing. Special interests run messaging campaigns on wedge issues (abortion, immigration, gun rights) in order to pass bills like SOPA or subsidies for fossil fuel energy companies in the night. Campaign finance reform disarms all this.

6. Limit the terms of Supreme Court Justices to 18 years and enact jurisdiction stripping.

The stakes of Supreme Court nominations are so high that it drives us all crazy. We should limit their terms so that 2-term presidents get to nominate 2 Justices, and we should limit the power of the Supreme Court on the basis that it's a deeply undemocratic and unaccountable institution. Pro-lifers feel this every day, as do progressives. We all agree it's bad; let's change it.

7. Enact affirmative action for mortgage companies, fund housing assistance, and reform public schools.

The US has a huge de facto segregation issue due to generations of discriminatory practices by mortgage companies, and the sky high cost of housing in neighborhoods with good schools. This creates fertile ground for bubbles and othering, not just in adults but also in children.

8. Re-establish affirmative action for colleges, and make it free.

The partisanship gap in the US now largely traces the education and income gap.

9. Establish clear boundaries on religious freedom.

Religious freedom is a fundamental part of the fabric of the United States, but so are personal liberty and individual rights. We need to give people the ability to live out their beliefs, but also establish a pluralistic society free of discrimination towards _and from_ the religious. Fighting a culture via religious freedom debases us all.

I don't think that my post promotes an idea senators have to vote in accordance with my opinion on issues. The point I was trying to make is that there is a very real threat of gridlock in the Congress (especially, considering the voting record of the current majority in the Senate), which might be extremely unproductive and even damaging to the lives of the American people.

What would ya'll do if the courts rule in Trump's favor re: ballots arriving after Nov 3? I'm just saying, wait for the decisive victory, and be careful of the possibility of civil war.

The last thing I want to do is come across as defending Trump, because I didn't vote for him either time and am happy to see him go. But your reply is a perfect example of the problem I'm talking about, and it is present on both sides of the equation (i.e. I'm going to point some things out, but please don't read that as meaning that I think this is a problem that only some people on one side participate in - both are incredibly guilt of it, generally speaking).

So here goes:

> One candidate supports separating children from their families

This is objectively false. Nobody "supports" that position at all as a matter of policy - rather you have oversimplified a complex problem to the point of absurdity. A police officer pulls over a drunk driver and finds kids in the car. The driver is arrested. Do the kids go too? No, of course not. Is it correct to say that "the police support separating children from their families"? Only in the most technical and intentionally misleading sense. Is it their policy to find ways to separate kids from parents? Of course not. Are there sometimes situations in which the only practical solution is to separate some kids from their parents? Yep!

> keeping them in cages

Again, nobody "supports" keeping children in cages. (and do keep in mind that these so-called "cages" were used by earlier administrations too) But consider this situation: your country has a standing policy that when a refugee comes to your border, instead of turning them away, you let them in, you keep them in a temporary facility while you try to go through the legal process of evaluating their asylum claims or whatever because your country also has a standing policy that people just can't wander into the country unaccounted for. Most of the time, these two policies can be in harmony, but one day 20k people show up on your doorstep. Policy A says you don't turn them away, policy B says you don't let them loose into the country. What do you do? And I'm not talking about what would be the long term ideal, if we have unlimited time and money. I mean what do you do about this problem /today/? You're probably going to scramble and set up some temporary shelter while you get the policymakers to start figuring out a real solution, but you can't just call into existence beds, food, and furnishings.

> and has lost track of 500 of them.

The president obviously doesn't track them to begin with, so Trump obviously didn't lose track of them (any more than the 800,000 who are reported missing each year were personally lost by Trump - see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-missing-children/miss...).

I'm not really interested in debating these specific policies, because the larger issue is that you can look at things one of two ways: 1) There are 70 million people who voted for an idiot. By extension, they must be terrible to some degree or another too. 2) The solution to any "interesting" problem - especially social problems - involves tradeoffs, conflicting objectives, pros and cons. If the solution really were trivial and simple, we wouldn't argue about it. The debate is because it's so complex, and with any really complex problem, you can have very reasonable and intelligent people draw different conclusions on how best to proceed.

If you choose to see the U.S through the lens of #1, you may as well give up now, because it's hopeless - those people are barely people and are separated from you by an insurmountable gulf. OTOH lens #2 is hopeful - you see that ultimately everyone wants pretty much the same high level objectives, the debate is the path to get there and how to spend limited resources. With #1, nothing will get done. With #2, potentially everything is possible.

So, American friends, I can't imagine Trump stopping his hissy fit and conceding... what happens if he doesn't concede?