Allies Believe U.S. 'No Longer a Good Model of Democracy,' Poll Shows • Hacker News Board

Re: Allies Believe U.S. 'No Longer a Good Model of Democracy,' Poll Shows

#51

Post by saba2008 » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 12:43 PM UTC

nairboon wrote: post #47

saba2008 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, two party system proved to be stable in long term, while ensuring rotation in government.

In what way is a two party system more stable than a multi-party system?

Multiparty system has failure mode, when one party balloons in size, either by aggressive use of populist rhetoric (NSDAP) or by merging several smaller parties (United Russia). At this point rest either have to unite (producing two party system), or become irrelevant (producing single party system, opening way to totalitarian or authoritarian regime).

Re: Allies Believe U.S. 'No Longer a Good Model of Democracy,' Poll Shows

#52

Post by asg101 » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 12:49 PM UTC

Democracy died in the USA the minute they gave corporations "personhood" and declared that money was "speech".

Re: Allies Believe U.S. 'No Longer a Good Model of Democracy,' Poll Shows

#53

Post by deepstack » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 12:58 PM UTC

Not a surprise. First of all, US is a republic, not democracy. And even mainstream academia admits that US is an Oligarchy now days:

http://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens%20homepage%20materi...

Re: Allies Believe U.S. 'No Longer a Good Model of Democracy,' Poll Shows

#54

Post by salawat » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 1:07 PM UTC

austincheney wrote: post #37

dragonwriter wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish anti-trust actions apply to political parties and break them both apart. There are hundreds of political parties in the US; the stable equilibrium is only two competitive factions because of the electoral system. Breaking up currently dominant parties without addressing the electoral system won’t change anything meaningful. You need to fix the electoral system. Specifically, the solid evidence from across mo…

I would so love to eliminate winner takes all from states as part of the electoral college. California is slightly purple and Texas extremely so. That should be represented in their massive vote counts.

The electoral college was never meant to be influenced at all by political party membership; and Washington warned against the siren call of the National political party when he left office.

Re: Allies Believe U.S. 'No Longer a Good Model of Democracy,' Poll Shows

#55

Post by anotherevan » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 1:36 PM UTC

strken wrote: post #31

On a purely systemic note, the first-past-the-post US voting system would benefit immensely from ranked voting, which in most forms makes it impossible to waste your vote if you choose a minor candidate. As an Australian, I also think mandatory voting would fix other problems with the US electoral system, like perceived voter fraud (since most of the population votes, to cast a vote as someone else is harder and more…

Consistent nation-wide laws around voting are also pretty good.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Electoral_Commissio...

Re: Allies Believe U.S. 'No Longer a Good Model of Democracy,' Poll Shows

#56

Post by jfengel » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

strken wrote: post #31

On a purely systemic note, the first-past-the-post US voting system would benefit immensely from ranked voting, which in most forms makes it impossible to waste your vote if you choose a minor candidate. As an Australian, I also think mandatory voting would fix other problems with the US electoral system, like perceived voter fraud (since most of the population votes, to cast a vote as someone else is harder and more…

The "perception" of voter fraud in the US is itself entirely a fraud, created to allow rules that make voting harder.

Mechanisms like mandatory voting and greater access to polling places (and holidays on voting day) are exactly the opposite of what is desired by those talking about voter fraud. So while there is much talk of voter fraud, those options are always off the table.

Voter fraud just isn't a significant thing in the US. The perception of it won't be fixed by dealing with voter fraud, one way or the other.

Unfortunately, that means that the real problem is much harder. It's a combination of authoritarianism, partisanship, and xenophobia, deliberately exacerbated both within and without. We don't get to spend much effort on the genuine issues because we're too suspicious of each other, and spend all of our time fighting about non-issues.

Re: Allies Believe U.S. 'No Longer a Good Model of Democracy,' Poll Shows

#57

Post by TheAdamAndChe » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 2:56 PM UTC

jfengel wrote: post #56

strken wrote: post #31

On a purely systemic note, the first-past-the-post US voting system would benefit immensely from ranked voting, which in most forms makes it impossible to waste your vote if you choose a minor candidate. As an Australian, I also think mandatory voting would fix other problems with the US electoral system, like perceived voter fraud (since most of the population votes, to cast a vote as someone else is harder and more…

The "perception" of voter fraud in the US is itself entirely a fraud, created to allow rules that make voting harder. Mechanisms like mandatory voting and greater access to polling places (and holidays on voting day) are exactly the opposite of what is desired by those talking about voter fraud. So while there is much talk of voter fraud, those options are always off the table. Voter fraud just isn't a significant th…

Perception is everything in a society. Police can't be everywhere, and the stability of the system is maintained by everyone accepting the legitimacy of a certain political structure.

There may not actually be fraud, but strengthening the election system wouldn't hurt, and it would calm those who think there is and help stabilize the system during a tumultuous time in our country's history.

Re: Allies Believe U.S. 'No Longer a Good Model of Democracy,' Poll Shows

#58

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 2:56 PM UTC

austincheney wrote: post #37

dragonwriter wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish anti-trust actions apply to political parties and break them both apart. There are hundreds of political parties in the US; the stable equilibrium is only two competitive factions because of the electoral system. Breaking up currently dominant parties without addressing the electoral system won’t change anything meaningful. You need to fix the electoral system. Specifically, the solid evidence from across mo…

I would so love to eliminate winner takes all from states as part of the electoral college. California is slightly purple and Texas extremely so. That should be represented in their massive vote counts.

> I would so love to eliminate winner takes all from states as part of the electoral college

The manner of Presidential elections is a whole lot less important to having a partisan duopoly than the manner of legislative elections and the fact we have a strong Presidency.

Re: Allies Believe U.S. 'No Longer a Good Model of Democracy,' Poll Shows

#59

Post by jfengel » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 2:57 PM UTC

ludamad wrote: post #27

fatboy93 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What other places are better to live in? My country is starting to look like a fascist authoritative regime run by a megalomaniac.

I wonder about this - some have felt this under President $FOO but $FOO still had to concede to a loss or term limits. I feel like actual change of power is important, and the US still has this while a lot of the world is losing it

The US messed around with losing it, too. It didn't end up happening, but it has edged closer and closer for the past couple of decades. The system has twice produced a result that was clearly against the popular preference, and most recently the losing candidate took numerous measures to attempt to make it a third.

Both sides have significant doubt about whether the mechanisms used to count votes are accurate, and it's growing worse. It looks very much like a situation where sooner or later we, too, could lose the ability to have a peaceful change of power.

Extrapolations about the future are always fraught, so take that with a grain of salt. Nonetheless, the fact that everybody is making the same extrapolation just makes it more likely.

Re: Allies Believe U.S. 'No Longer a Good Model of Democracy,' Poll Shows

#60

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Jun 11, 2021, 3:02 PM UTC

salawat wrote: post #54

austincheney wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would so love to eliminate winner takes all from states as part of the electoral college. California is slightly purple and Texas extremely so. That should be represented in their massive vote counts.

The electoral college was never meant to be influenced at all by political party membership; and Washington warned against the siren call of the National political party when he left office.

> The electoral college was never meant to be influenced at all by political party membership;

Then, frankly, the framers were completely incompetent, because they couldn't have designed a system designed better to guarantee a stable national partisan duopoly if that had been their intent.

> and Washington warned against the siren call of the National political party when he left office.

That wasn't a forward looking warning; the duopoly guaranteed by the Constitutional structure of government had already been firmly established by the end of Washington's first term, with the leaders of both factions in his Cabinet.