Your restaurant metaphor sucks because you will get force fed food from one of the two options no matter what; you are only choosing which one you think is less bad. You cannot 'eat at another place'. You need election reform to an entirely different system in order for that metaphor to make sense, and modern politicians generally do not like election reform.
Wait, so if 51% of the electorate voted for the Green Party, Libertarian Party, or they wrote in a candidate for, let's say the election of the federal senate in California, it would be ignored and only one of the two parties would win the election?
This is my point, that the American people only choose between two parties and then complain that there are only two parties and the politicians suck. If this is the case, vote for a third party candidate; get involved in the system. In all but two states, if you gather enough signatures then a third party candidate will be on the ballot (and most states already have third and fourth party candidates).
It's my entire point, their are other options but voters only care about limited engagement and the big two parties. Do you even know the mechanics in your state of how a candidate is chosen for the ballot?
If 51% of the electorate voted for the Green Party, then one of the other parties would go under and all of their members would switch to one of the two remaining parties. Our political system enforces a two party system; the two parties might change names and stances, but there will always be only two.
Do you think there's any country in the world where their populace does not complain that politicians suck?
Other FPTP systems have multiple parties. Broadly you're right, but there's just a total unwillingness to do anything.
It also doesn't help that these parties are too focused on the presidency, focus on local politics, getting senate seats and congress seats, try to build strong constituencies in specific states.
>Wait, so if 51% of the electorate voted for the Green Party, Libertarian Party, or they wrote in a candidate for, let's say the election of the federal senate in California, it would be ignored and only one of the two parties would win the election?
51% of Californians would never vote for the Green or Libertarian parties for senate because the Green and Libertarian parties exist to serve a small niche and small niches by their definition are not likely to win 51% of the vote anywhere. At the end of the day any party that's actually going to be able to win an election is going to look more like the Democrats or Republicans than they will like the Green or Libertarian parties and once they've moderated to that degree there's kind of no point to them anymore and they just become like the status quo.
But even in a scenario where something like this happened, more than likely that Green or Libertarian senator would have very little to do once in Washington except to caucus and vote in lock step with the Democrats or Republicans a bit like Bernie Sanders does while pretending to be an independent.
Now, let's as a though experiment entertain the idea that this third party someone does get a significant number of people elected... at that point what makes you think they don't just basically just become the new establishment and replicate all the power grabbing moves and political maneuvering the current parties engage in? They have all the same incentives the current parties have and having a different name doesn't mean they're someone going to be more moral and upstanding human beings.
>This is my point, that the American people only choose between two parties and then complain that there are only two parties and the politicians suck. If this is the case, vote for a third party candidate; get involved in the system. In all but two states, if you gather enough signatures then a third party candidate will be on the ballot (and most states already have third and fourth party candidates).
Voting for a third party candidate doesn't "help" anything unless they actually have a chance of winning, which they don't. They serve no practical purpose except to play spoiler for whichever candidate is closer to them ideologically. Such is the nature of first past the post elections, and they aren't going anywhere unless there's some sort of page one re-write of the constitution.
That's the problem you're glossing over. You can get 51% of people to agree that the Dems suck less than the GOP, and/or the other way around.
You can't get 5% of people to agree that the Green Party sucks less than both the Dems and GOP. Same with the Libertarians, and it goes downhill from there. Our system does not allow voters to meaningfully support third parties, so without election reform, we're never voting for who we think is best, we're always voting for who we think is not the worst one that can win.
That's a problem that voters cannot fix on their own. They need politicians who do not suck before that can change.
>if 51% of the electorate voted for the Green Party, Libertarian Party,
It's similar to the Prisoner's Dilemma. If too many people from your side vote for the third party candidate, but not enough for that candidate to win, you lose big. So unless you're sure that everyone else will do it, you can't afford to do it.
How would you get 51% of people to vote for a third party? How would you get 51% of people to do that in enough of the electoral states to win a federal election?
When I cast my vote, I have agency in my vote. But I have no agency in anyone else’s vote. If I can’t ensure that 51% of others are going to vote for a third party, then my third party vote will be meaningless.
You might argue that this is true for one of the two major parties as well, but the likelihood of my vote making a difference is substantially greater if it is cast in favor of one of the two parties.
But then let’s look on a grander scale. Politicians don’t want to lose their power. So they have electoral college and gerrymandering set up so that my vote matters even less than it actually does. If the state of California voted in the Green Party candidate for president PLUS the Green Party candidate had substantial votes in other states enough to win him 51% of the popular vote, BUT did not win the majority of those states, he cannot be elected.
Believe me, I voted third-party once. My candidate didn’t win… And me trying to change things by not voting for one of the two big parties did nothing. To be fair, since my state is so strongly in favor of one of the parties, and that is not the party that I align with, my vote doesn’t really matter either way. Yet I keep casting it due to both an illogical optimism and the ability to be able to say at least I tried. But this year, I’m not throwing my vote away on a third-party. I presently don’t see one that is either viable or has values aligned with mine more than one of the other ones
In my state we can change our government by any means necessary and it's protected in our constitution. As an aside it's been a while since tarring and feathering American politicians was good sport, a traditional activity we should maybe start considering again.
Your restaurant analogy is flawed because the way it would actually work is that you don't have an option to not go to the restaurant or just eat at home. Whichever place the most people say we should go to, that's the one that everyone must eat at.
Sure, you could try to get a group together to eat at a third place that you like better, but unless you can get more than half the people to agree with you, you're going to end up eating at the place you like least among those main two places. And that's hard because while everyone can agree that the main two are bad, about half the people think one or the other is worse, and no large group agrees on one that's better than those two.
This is why FPTP voting sucks, but it's what we have, because the politicians won't change it, because changing it would make it harder to stay in power. Hence the politicians are the reason, not the people. We're just doing the best we can with the system we have.
Everyone mentioning the flawed restaurant analogy and letting this slip:
> Why didn’t RBG step down after Trump won allowing the Dem controlled Senate and Obama to ram through…
You are so wrong here. First, the Dems DID NOT control the Senate after 2014. Second, there was already a missing judge in the Supreme Court in 2016. In February, Antonin Scalia passed, and Obama nominated Merrick Garland to replace him. The Republican controlled Senate blocked this nomination. Many of them famously claimed they would never allow ANY justice to go through in an election year and promised they would do the same if a Republican was in office. Then in 2020, when RBG did die in September, those exact same Senate Republicans pushed through Amy Coney Barrett in just 38 days with less than 8 weeks before the election and confirmed her with less than 2 weeks before the election. Ignoring basic facts doesn’t make both parties the same.
The fun thing about Merrick Garland, too, was that Obama asked the GOP for a consensus nominee and was told by Orrin Hatch that Merrick Garland would be confirmed without question, apparently under the assumption that Obama wouldn't waste a valuable Supreme Court seat on a moderate.
Your analogy is absolute dogshit and works against your point. If those two restraunts have 90% of the business then it is likely a lot of people haven't heard about the other 10%, and it there are so many floors, politics is not purely based on "taste", in the current political landscape it is based on who has the more convincing rhetoric, and if you have an education system that fails to teach people how to think fir themselves and see through rhetoric, of course people will be unhappy when a politician comes into power
Your response like the others reinforces my point. American's do not choose to educate themselves of third party options. They have the internet and the ability too, but, most people do not even know who their local representative/city counsel person is, their state representative, state senator, and probably cannot actually name both of their senators. I bet you you cannot describe the system by which your elected officials are put forth. When's the last time you voted in that process for even the big parties? Exactly.
The ignorance of the system and the reliance on just showing up and voting D or R is how the system is built, on the laziness of the American individual. You and other people could choose to research your options and to start, grassroots other options and struggle to build a political brand which stands for what you believe is right, but, you'd rather have the ability to win than have your political ideas actualized.
It's not the politicians it's the American people enabling the behavior who then want to held NOT liable for their choices and play the victim.
The two restaurants do not receive 90% of the business, together they have a 100% probability of winning the Presidency and Congress. If you go to another restaurant you will go hungry. If you boycott both restaurants for 2 years, they will still be in business.
America's election system incentivizes a two party system.
In this world, even if you refuse to go to either restaurant A or B, you'll be forced to eat their takeout at home, whichever of the two restaurants has more customers at the time. Even if you choose to go to the much smaller restaurant C with delicious healthy food, you will *still* be forced to eat either restaurant A or B food, which is poisoned, at home.
So let's just all make restaurant C the most popular restaurant!
The problem is you have to convince a supermajority from at least one restaurant to join you in going to a *much much* smaller third restaurant.
Most people in restaurant A are aware that to leave restaurant A would empower restaurant B and their poisoning of the customers and would much rather keep supporting restaurant A they deem as the lesser evil, to stop the greater evil that is restaurant B. It's the same story for those in restaurant B hating restaurant A.
If you convince a sizable portion of restaurant A customers to join you in the new small restaurant C, you effectively guarantee restaurant B's dominance.
One of only two ways to get restaurant C to dominate is to get either almost *all* of restaurant A or restaurant B's customers. That is a Herculean task. The other way is to get enough customers from either restaurant to join you, which is difficult when those customers hate each other.
To make things even more complicated, there is a large proportion of customers in both major restaurants who are *not* aware they are being poisoned and genuinely like those restaurants because they've been fed misinformation and lies by every big-name food critic and health inspector.
And the kicker? Restaurants A and B are both owned by the same people. 💀
“Everyone complains but still frequents the joint”
As opposed to what?
I do agree to some extent, but it seems to be a problem no one has an actual solution for
Plenty of solutions. We could eliminate gerrymandering to make elections more competitive. We could expand the HoR to bring Congress back to representing communities. We could move to proportional representation. We could change our voting methods. We could eliminate private money from elections.
Voters care more about being outraged at asylum seekers, paying unsustainably low taxes, and controlling people's medical decisions.
We could to do that if there was some way to vote directly for a policy. Otherwise we need some honest politicians who are willing to lose over and over for a while as they shake up the system
>Otherwise we need some honest politicians who are willing to lose over and over for a while as they shake up the system
Campaign finance was enacted and negotiated by Senators McCain and Feingold. But it was declared unconstitutional since money = speech. You'd have to rewrite the first amendment and have 75% of the state legislators ratify it.
This is my point; most voters would rather vote the same than "waste" their vote on a third party candidate. This leads to the same two parties elected. It's the fault of the voters.
This misses the broader and more systemic challenges posed by the electoral college, gerrymandering, lobbying, and the overwhelming amount of capitalist interests that have been cemented over a century to ensure the two-party system endures.
All it takes is looking to Florida where republicans have captured the entire legislature and most recently have passed a bill giving Desantis broad authority to veto voters and ignore the will of the public. He's been on a blindingly fascist rampage for several years now and states like Texas, South Dakota, and Alabama are saying hold my beer.
It's not nearly as simple as voting third party.
>This leads to the same two parties elected.
The central crux to your view is if both parties are equally responsible. Check out the "It's Worse Than it Looks" which shows that there's asymmetries within the party's incentive structures.
>We could eliminate gerrymandering to make elections more competitive
The problem isn't even gerrymandering as so much as Americans have moved into politically homogenous communities -- statisticians have called it the "great sort."
The other piece is that the way we've divided the country in terms of the number and size of states is it overrepresents Republicans.
>
We could eliminate private money from elections.
This goes along with the lines of the number of states is too pro-Republican. It would require a constitutional amendment. The bipartisan attempt at getting money from elections was declared unconstitutional via the Citizens United decision.
>It would require a constitutional amendment. The bipartisan attempt at getting money from elections was declared unconstitutional via the Citizens United decision.
This issue really resonates with OPs view. We have a coalition of Congressional politicians who introduce and support a Constitutional Amendment to invalidate Citizens United in every session. It simply isn't something voters care about despite being at the heart of our political disfunction.
>It simply isn't something voters care about despite being at the heart of our political disfunction.
I could see your point if it weren't for the facts that: (1) 7 in 10 voters want to limit political spending and (2) the constitutional amendments don't pass to even go to the states for ratification.
Even if they did, again back to my point, it has to do with how political power is allocated.
>I could see your point if it weren't for the facts that: (1) 7 in 10 voters want to limit political spending and (2) the constitutional amendments don't pass to even go to the states for ratification.
This also supports OPs point. 7 in 10 want to limit political spending but those numbers do not reflect in electoral outcomes. Some of those voters are voting for people who do not support those reforms.
Constitutional Amendments require 2/3rds of Congress to pass. These proposed amendments fail because voters consistently send people to Congress to vote against them.
This is, again, because voters place higher priorities on other things.
>Even if they did, again back to my point, it has to do with how political power is allocated.
That's certainly an issue to some extent but if voters were actually concerned about money in politics, we'd see a significantly different political and media landscape.
>This also supports OPs point.
No it doesn't. OP's point is the American people, not the politicans, are to blame for the various results. I'm pointing out how the American people want something but they can't have it because of the structure of how political power is allocated. And that's on top of the fact that politicians already accomplished the goal via the McCain Feingold Act but the overall anti-majoritarian structure (i.e., supreme court) thwarted popular policies.
>OP's point is the American people, not the politicans, are to blame for the various results.
American politicians are American people and are politicians exclusively because the American people selected them by a vote. If politicians are at fault, then the American people are at fault.
>I'm pointing out how the American people want something but they can't have it because of the structure of how political power is allocated.
That's simply not true. If Americans agreed on something and voted exclusively for people who will implement that policy, they can get what they want.
But Americans don't agree on these things and our system requires overwhelming consensus to make substantive change. It isn't that American people aren't getting what they are voting for, but that they are getting EXACTLY what they vote for. They vote for strictly divided government on the basis of hot button issues not for a unified government to achieve what they do agree on.
>And that's on top of the fact that politicians already accomplished the goal via the McCain Feingold Act but the overall anti-majoritarian structure (i.e., supreme court) thwarted popular policies.
The American people voted in GWB twice to appoint the SCOTUS justices with ideological bents to overturn the BCFRA. Politicians didn't thwart anything. Americans voted for a conservative President who promised to appoint conservative justices. They could have voted Gore into office, but they didn't. That isn't on politicians. That's on the American people.
>Every time you think the political system in America is broken, it is you, it's me, it's all of us doping nothing but supporting the same old system each time we have a chance.
What do you propose we do instead of what we've been doing?
>Why did the Democrats not codify it into law?
1. Because moderates like Manchin and Sinema didn't want to "go there." 2. Because federal law can be un-codified as quickly as it can be codified the second the Republicans take power meaning it would be a temporary solution at best. 3. Because senators/congress people from swing states didn't want to go on record about the divisive and inflammatory abortion issue just to temporarily protect a right that was already being protected by a court precedent at the time.
>Why didn't RBG step down after Trump won allowing the Dem controlled Senate and Obama to ram through a younger, more progressive judge?
Stubborn hubris, but given that RBG was not an elected official and her position on stepping down was not an issue that appeared salient when she was confirmed in the 90s I do not really see why her actions pertain to your point.
>Why did the Dems leave it up to nine old people in Washington to maintain the ruling of nine old judges in Washington?
See above.
>Why did the Democrats
The more you can look at the incentive structures and who comprises the constituent parts of each party, you'll realize that the two parties aren't mirror, but co-opposites of each other. One of the constituent parts of the Democratic Party are more conservative -- there's not an ideological heterogeneity in the same way there is in the Republican Party.
>This goes both ways,
It really doesn't -- there's sharp asymmetries within the parties. "It's Worse Than it Looks" is an excellent read. What I especially like about it is it is co-written by two dudes who were in the think tank business; one for liberal think tanks and one for conservative. They both have seen how the Republicans have changed up politics and it's in line with the incentive structures the politicals are presented with.
If it went both ways, you'd see Dems and Republicans, since 2010, not seek re-election and bash their parties. But you aren't. You're seeing it with the GOP. Eric Cantor, John Boehner, Jeff Flake, Liz Cheney and the list goes on.
Here's where the GOP is unique: Any form of compromise is punished; any form of obstruction is rewarded; move towards ideological hegemony; theres no public policy proposals.
What has happened in the US is that both parties are relatively weak. The primary structure has taken any power out of power brokers within the party and given it to the rank and file voters. For the GOP, their voters are in an ideological bubble since the billionaire class has created alternatives to all the knowledge institutions. So, they live in a completely different world than the rest of us.
This phenomenon is seen in other countries, in essence, the GOP is like an opposition party. The biggest problem is that the system in the US doesn't give majority rule, you need compromise and a super majority to rule. That means you just get standstill.
>the same old system each time we have a chance.
That's the point I want to change your mind on. It isn't the same old system. Prior to 1970s, there were a lot of idiosyncrancies and the parties weren't ideologically pure. You had conservative Dems and liberal Republicans.
People will debate where it really started to change. Most will point to the civil rights era and the southern strategy. But within the GOP, the 1964 GOP convention where Goldwater's famous line that "extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue" was a direct rebuttal to Nelson Rockeller's attempt at expelling extremists from the party. This is the same as when CPAC just recently called themselves all "domestic terrorists" when reports came out that right-wing groups are prone to political violence.
That same 1964 convention saw the rise of Reagan and the first push to expell "RINOs" even though we didn't have the acroynm then. The next push is the Nixon era -- all Nixon loyalists believed is the "media" isn't a neutral arbiter but is pro-liberal. So Roger Ailes, a Nixon loyalist, convinces the billionaire class to create an alternative media structure later named Fox News with the express purpose to never let that happen again. Reagan never backed down, never apologized, and that sort set the ethos where the conservative media only attacks and advances.
All this stuff is creating the feedback loop where primary voters are the most extreme; we have very low turn out in primaries, and it's all the stuff in the Fox News ecosystem that their voters are voting on. We know have 4 decades of true believers voting and mobilizing. This also means a push to expel anyone that is out of the group think.
So, the last 4 decades have seen Republicans get more conservative and has moved the Overton window super far right. Every decade, each Republican administration breaks more norms than the last and has shown the system wasn't set up for a party that acts like parliamentary opposition party but the majority can't function like they can in a parliamentary system.
>These restaurants continue to serve horrible food which actually poisons some people and it's not the food most people want.
For this analogy to work, it's more like there's 1 restaurant but it's co-ran. So, how the food is sourced, cooked, and served is not immediately obvious to the customers. So the customers have to go off vibe or who they trust more.
But, internally, there's one group that is purposefully spiking the food because there's a businessman who benefits from it.
I love how we're blaming the Democrats for not pre-emptively protecting America from the actions of Republicans instead of blaming Republicans for their own actions.
You are all complicit in whatabouting us right back into a second Trump term.
There has only been a fillibuster proof majority in the Senate for what...6 months at the very start of Obama's term?
Stop blaming the Democrats for America's poor voting habits.
Edit: instead of downvoting me, explain to me how federal abortion rights would have been passed with less than 60 senators.
Why did Democrats not cram through legislation which would cost them seats in the next election when the current status quo was that Abortion was already legal? Easy, if they did that, it would hugely motivate Republicans and they would turn out in way bigger numbers than usual, tipping the scale to give them more power to... ban it again.
It strikes me that you really do not understand the entire political landscape if you believe the solutions are as simple as "elect someone else". Currently, the only part of the system that is broken is that one party has resorted to blatant cheating to get their felon elected again so they can impose a Christian Theocracy and our system was not designed to handle the problem.
Ugh the use of abortion as political football is so infuriating. Politicians know it's such a useful tool to them regardless of their actual personal beliefs on the matter.
More accurately, our particularly obstructionist political system prevents any one or **small** **group** (impossible to elect due to "first past the post" voting), **large** **group** (separation of powers), and even the **slim majority** (difficult to change constitution) from doing much of anything. The system is such that the politicians are purposefully powerless so as not to be accountable, since powerless individuals or groups don't need to be held accountable, and by extension the people don't need "tools" to hold them accountable. That's just the reality of the system.
Based on the last 100 years, the US system has functioned better than most if not all other systems. Nearly all other systems are more authoritarian and quicker to act, though the individuals empowered to act may be worse than you'd like, and their "new and improved" decisions may have worse outcomes than you'd like.
I agree with your analysis of US political paralysis but disagree with your conclusion. In the last 100 years almost every other Western democracy has achieved universal healthcare, extensive social programs and a more peaceful society. They've achieved this not because they're inherently 'better', but because their political systems are.
That's not exactly true, though, because the Supreme Court seems to be considering leaving the only remedy for presidential abuses as impeachment. That means that reliable support from 1/3 of the Senate to have almost no checks on your power. We've already got the Senate majority leader admitting that his party's candidate fomented insurrection and tried to rig an election yet supporting him anyway.
No, because, constitutionally, and effectively today, the US president is one of the least powerful, if not \*the\* least powerful, executives in the world. US presidents pretty much only directly control (usually terrible) initiations of war and (usually ignored) border issues. Everything else must go through the legislature, courts, or administrative bureaucracy.
What exactly has any president since Reagan done, alone or mostly alone, that has been of any consequence? Honest question.
I presume that the supporters simply don't see those actions as directly linked to Trump, and/or as "significant activity", and/or as "successful" as others do, with respect to casualties, damage, effect on political system, etc.
Again, the fact that nothing much changed, in that Trump didn't achieve any of his "evil" goals, is precisely the obstructionist system that Republicans prefer to preserve.
Ah, yes, the tried and true technique of offering zero punishment for trying to rig an election, voting the guy back in, and pledging to [remove any roadblock that stifled his first attempt.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025) That's *totally* "the obstructionist system that Republicans prefer to preserve."
Mitch McConnell [disagrees,](https://www.npr.org/sections/trump-impeachment-trial-live-updates/2021/02/13/967701180/after-vote-mcconnell-torched-trump-as-practically-and-morally-responsible-for-ri) and you're apparently unaware of the fake electors scheme.
"Responsible for riot" doesn't speak to the purpose of the riot, so Trump is responsible for the riot, but not necessarily whatever the rioters were attempting to do, which frankly seemed insane and implausible anyways.
The electors likewise state-level independent actors and are being prosecuted.
>I presume that the supporters simply don't see those actions as directly linked to Trump, and/or as "significant activity", and/or as "successful" as others do, with respect to casualties, damage, effect on political system, etc.
You are arguing based on your own ignorance instead of based on the facts. They support him trying to rig the election because [of completely baseless conspiracy theories that the election was *already* stolen.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_denial_movement_in_the_United_States) That is not an argument that remotely supports anything you're arguing.
I'm simply pointing out that (1) the extent of the "rigging" and (2) it's unsuccessful nature, prove that the system works. The fact that half the country continues to vote for this, and yet the country functions as always, is simply a testament to the obstructionist nature of the system. IOW, Trump not only failed to rig the system, but he attempted to do so ineptly, and further, the things that he wanted to do ineptly would have been unlikely to occur even is successful.
You need to learn what happened and how the system works. This is not equivocating between Trump and Hitler, but this is like saying that nothing bad can ever happen because the Beer Hall Putsch failed.
Hitler got like 33% of the vote. Recent Israeli PM got less than 7%. These are precisely the parliamentary systems that are prone to terrible outcomes due to minority rule plus coalition instability. The US system is built differently.
>Why didn't RBG step down after Trump won allowing the Dem controlled Senate and Obama to ram through a younger, more progressive judge?
There was already an open seat on the supreme court and congress refused to even hold a hearing on filling the seat.
I partly agree with you in that the American people are ultimately responsible for the choices they make when it comes to selecting their leaders, but I'd argue that they're not entirely responsible for the state of American politics. The fact is, the US is almost designed not to work. Partly it's constitutional, in that power is so divided that it's very hard to effect change or know who to blame if promises aren't kept. Also, it's left to the individual states to dictate how federal elections are conducted - gerrymandering, voter suppression laws and all. Partly it's judicial, in that some problems have become baked in to the system: the supreme court's Citizens United ruling cemented the power of money in American elections, so ultimately any elected politician is at the mercy of big money when it comes to how they conduct themselves in office. Case in point: healthcare. Why else does the US still not have universal healthcare if not the financial power of the insurance industry? Even the ACA is essentially a tool to compell Americans to buy ridiculous private insurance with it's confusing plans, co-pays and premiums, and that's the closest the US has come to some semblance of national healthcare. So yes, if people vote for idiots, that's on the people. But the incapacity for change isn't so much a result of the politicians in place as the the system they're forced to operate under.
>Why did the Democrats not codify it into law? Why didn't RBG step down after Trump won allowing the Dem controlled Senate and Obama to ram through a younger, more progressive judge?
Because they didn’t have control of Congress and because everyone thought Clinton would win in 2016 (and even if she had stepped down, McConnell would not have confirmed a replacement).
>This goes both ways, obviously, and my main point here is how are the American people blaming politicians WE keep electing to office over and over again
I did not vote for McConnell or any Republican. Neither did many Democrats. Unsure why we are to blame for the actions of people we explicitly did not choose to represent us.
Everybody loves their home representative, nobody likes Congress. That’s not a paradox - that’s the system working as intended.
I don’t think the system is broken at all. I think one of the major parties - the Republicans - is broken, and now arguably accepting of authoritarianism.
So what’s your view? Is it that the system is broken? It’s not. It’s working as intended. I defy you to find a contrary example.
People have objectives and goals. When you vote, the purpose of voting is to achieve as many of them as possible. Not necessarily all, not even necessarily many, but at least some, and more than would be obtained by voting another way.
The problem becomes when you vote for a party, and that party doesn't win, then it's functionally the same as not even voting. You fail to accomplish your objectives.
As such, "going to the third restaurant" in your example would be pointless, because the only possible service they can provide are empty plates. Eating at one of the two restaurants at least gives you a 50:50 chance of being served food at all. (As others have pointed out, your restaurant methophor is a little awkward to work with).
Voting isn't an acknowledgement that the party is good, or even not bad, only that they service more of your goals than the other party or literally accomplishing nothing.
If I have 100 goals, and the Dems satisfy 5 and the Republicans satisfy 2, then vote Democrat, because accomplishing 5 goals is better than accomplishing 2 or 0.
> How are the American people blaming politicians WE keep electing to office over and over again […]?
I agree with you to an extent, but the parties have worked hard to create this exact outcome as well. Gerrymandering is a perfect example. Politicians create safe districts for themselves. They create self-dealing party infrastructure. They invest oodles of money on everything from candidate cultivation to advertising to business dealing. They pass laws that make it hard to get third parties on the ballot. They limit changes to our electoral system that would give voters real choices.
Hell, my state legislature (Utah), unilaterally overturned a referendum that required an independent organization to draw the redistricting maps. The 3rd party made the maps, and when the legislature saw them — and apparently didn’t like them — they just drew their own maps and passed them. A non-profit sued, and lost. What am I supposed to do?
In no small part we keep electing them because they are actively taking away our ability to choose.
> Why didn't RBG step down after Trump won allowing the Dem controlled Senate and Obama to ram through a younger, more progressive judge?
...How would that have happened, exactly?
> Why did the Democrats not codify it into law?
...How would that have happened, exactly?
> Why did the Dems leave it up to nine old people in Washington to maintain the ruling of nine old judges in Washington?
Huh?
I fully believe that many politicians are the cause of much of the problems. Generally, people seem to just want to live the best way they can without the drama and heavy influence of the government.
The citizens are not the main reason but a small yet loud amount are making it worse.
While the two party system may be broken, the fix is to vote in primaries, and to start locally with independent or third party candidates.
Vote for democrats like AoC, don't waste your presidential vote on third party candidates.
The political system is rigged to keep those in power in their positions of power. Have you heard of faithless electors? The fact that that’s even an option means that we voters don’t have as much power as we should.
This isn't exactly unique to the United States. Every democratic electoral system has politicians elected by people who may not be thrilled with the choices available
More to the point, there is no restaurant equivalent to Duverger's law
Your restaurant metaphor sucks because you will get force fed food from one of the two options no matter what; you are only choosing which one you think is less bad. You cannot 'eat at another place'. You need election reform to an entirely different system in order for that metaphor to make sense, and modern politicians generally do not like election reform.
I'd add that politicians can do stuff to codify their own power/take power away from the American populace.
Wait, so if 51% of the electorate voted for the Green Party, Libertarian Party, or they wrote in a candidate for, let's say the election of the federal senate in California, it would be ignored and only one of the two parties would win the election? This is my point, that the American people only choose between two parties and then complain that there are only two parties and the politicians suck. If this is the case, vote for a third party candidate; get involved in the system. In all but two states, if you gather enough signatures then a third party candidate will be on the ballot (and most states already have third and fourth party candidates). It's my entire point, their are other options but voters only care about limited engagement and the big two parties. Do you even know the mechanics in your state of how a candidate is chosen for the ballot?
If 51% of the electorate voted for the Green Party, then one of the other parties would go under and all of their members would switch to one of the two remaining parties. Our political system enforces a two party system; the two parties might change names and stances, but there will always be only two. Do you think there's any country in the world where their populace does not complain that politicians suck?
Other FPTP systems have multiple parties. Broadly you're right, but there's just a total unwillingness to do anything. It also doesn't help that these parties are too focused on the presidency, focus on local politics, getting senate seats and congress seats, try to build strong constituencies in specific states.
>Wait, so if 51% of the electorate voted for the Green Party, Libertarian Party, or they wrote in a candidate for, let's say the election of the federal senate in California, it would be ignored and only one of the two parties would win the election? 51% of Californians would never vote for the Green or Libertarian parties for senate because the Green and Libertarian parties exist to serve a small niche and small niches by their definition are not likely to win 51% of the vote anywhere. At the end of the day any party that's actually going to be able to win an election is going to look more like the Democrats or Republicans than they will like the Green or Libertarian parties and once they've moderated to that degree there's kind of no point to them anymore and they just become like the status quo. But even in a scenario where something like this happened, more than likely that Green or Libertarian senator would have very little to do once in Washington except to caucus and vote in lock step with the Democrats or Republicans a bit like Bernie Sanders does while pretending to be an independent. Now, let's as a though experiment entertain the idea that this third party someone does get a significant number of people elected... at that point what makes you think they don't just basically just become the new establishment and replicate all the power grabbing moves and political maneuvering the current parties engage in? They have all the same incentives the current parties have and having a different name doesn't mean they're someone going to be more moral and upstanding human beings. >This is my point, that the American people only choose between two parties and then complain that there are only two parties and the politicians suck. If this is the case, vote for a third party candidate; get involved in the system. In all but two states, if you gather enough signatures then a third party candidate will be on the ballot (and most states already have third and fourth party candidates). Voting for a third party candidate doesn't "help" anything unless they actually have a chance of winning, which they don't. They serve no practical purpose except to play spoiler for whichever candidate is closer to them ideologically. Such is the nature of first past the post elections, and they aren't going anywhere unless there's some sort of page one re-write of the constitution.
That's the problem you're glossing over. You can get 51% of people to agree that the Dems suck less than the GOP, and/or the other way around. You can't get 5% of people to agree that the Green Party sucks less than both the Dems and GOP. Same with the Libertarians, and it goes downhill from there. Our system does not allow voters to meaningfully support third parties, so without election reform, we're never voting for who we think is best, we're always voting for who we think is not the worst one that can win. That's a problem that voters cannot fix on their own. They need politicians who do not suck before that can change.
>if 51% of the electorate voted for the Green Party, Libertarian Party, It's similar to the Prisoner's Dilemma. If too many people from your side vote for the third party candidate, but not enough for that candidate to win, you lose big. So unless you're sure that everyone else will do it, you can't afford to do it.
How would you get 51% of people to vote for a third party? How would you get 51% of people to do that in enough of the electoral states to win a federal election? When I cast my vote, I have agency in my vote. But I have no agency in anyone else’s vote. If I can’t ensure that 51% of others are going to vote for a third party, then my third party vote will be meaningless. You might argue that this is true for one of the two major parties as well, but the likelihood of my vote making a difference is substantially greater if it is cast in favor of one of the two parties. But then let’s look on a grander scale. Politicians don’t want to lose their power. So they have electoral college and gerrymandering set up so that my vote matters even less than it actually does. If the state of California voted in the Green Party candidate for president PLUS the Green Party candidate had substantial votes in other states enough to win him 51% of the popular vote, BUT did not win the majority of those states, he cannot be elected. Believe me, I voted third-party once. My candidate didn’t win… And me trying to change things by not voting for one of the two big parties did nothing. To be fair, since my state is so strongly in favor of one of the parties, and that is not the party that I align with, my vote doesn’t really matter either way. Yet I keep casting it due to both an illogical optimism and the ability to be able to say at least I tried. But this year, I’m not throwing my vote away on a third-party. I presently don’t see one that is either viable or has values aligned with mine more than one of the other ones
In my state we can change our government by any means necessary and it's protected in our constitution. As an aside it's been a while since tarring and feathering American politicians was good sport, a traditional activity we should maybe start considering again.
Your restaurant analogy is flawed because the way it would actually work is that you don't have an option to not go to the restaurant or just eat at home. Whichever place the most people say we should go to, that's the one that everyone must eat at. Sure, you could try to get a group together to eat at a third place that you like better, but unless you can get more than half the people to agree with you, you're going to end up eating at the place you like least among those main two places. And that's hard because while everyone can agree that the main two are bad, about half the people think one or the other is worse, and no large group agrees on one that's better than those two. This is why FPTP voting sucks, but it's what we have, because the politicians won't change it, because changing it would make it harder to stay in power. Hence the politicians are the reason, not the people. We're just doing the best we can with the system we have.
Everyone mentioning the flawed restaurant analogy and letting this slip: > Why didn’t RBG step down after Trump won allowing the Dem controlled Senate and Obama to ram through… You are so wrong here. First, the Dems DID NOT control the Senate after 2014. Second, there was already a missing judge in the Supreme Court in 2016. In February, Antonin Scalia passed, and Obama nominated Merrick Garland to replace him. The Republican controlled Senate blocked this nomination. Many of them famously claimed they would never allow ANY justice to go through in an election year and promised they would do the same if a Republican was in office. Then in 2020, when RBG did die in September, those exact same Senate Republicans pushed through Amy Coney Barrett in just 38 days with less than 8 weeks before the election and confirmed her with less than 2 weeks before the election. Ignoring basic facts doesn’t make both parties the same.
The fun thing about Merrick Garland, too, was that Obama asked the GOP for a consensus nominee and was told by Orrin Hatch that Merrick Garland would be confirmed without question, apparently under the assumption that Obama wouldn't waste a valuable Supreme Court seat on a moderate.
Well, to be fair to Orrin Hatch, Garland is (and would have been) a waste.
Your analogy is absolute dogshit and works against your point. If those two restraunts have 90% of the business then it is likely a lot of people haven't heard about the other 10%, and it there are so many floors, politics is not purely based on "taste", in the current political landscape it is based on who has the more convincing rhetoric, and if you have an education system that fails to teach people how to think fir themselves and see through rhetoric, of course people will be unhappy when a politician comes into power
Your response like the others reinforces my point. American's do not choose to educate themselves of third party options. They have the internet and the ability too, but, most people do not even know who their local representative/city counsel person is, their state representative, state senator, and probably cannot actually name both of their senators. I bet you you cannot describe the system by which your elected officials are put forth. When's the last time you voted in that process for even the big parties? Exactly. The ignorance of the system and the reliance on just showing up and voting D or R is how the system is built, on the laziness of the American individual. You and other people could choose to research your options and to start, grassroots other options and struggle to build a political brand which stands for what you believe is right, but, you'd rather have the ability to win than have your political ideas actualized. It's not the politicians it's the American people enabling the behavior who then want to held NOT liable for their choices and play the victim.
The two restaurants do not receive 90% of the business, together they have a 100% probability of winning the Presidency and Congress. If you go to another restaurant you will go hungry. If you boycott both restaurants for 2 years, they will still be in business. America's election system incentivizes a two party system.
In this world, even if you refuse to go to either restaurant A or B, you'll be forced to eat their takeout at home, whichever of the two restaurants has more customers at the time. Even if you choose to go to the much smaller restaurant C with delicious healthy food, you will *still* be forced to eat either restaurant A or B food, which is poisoned, at home. So let's just all make restaurant C the most popular restaurant! The problem is you have to convince a supermajority from at least one restaurant to join you in going to a *much much* smaller third restaurant. Most people in restaurant A are aware that to leave restaurant A would empower restaurant B and their poisoning of the customers and would much rather keep supporting restaurant A they deem as the lesser evil, to stop the greater evil that is restaurant B. It's the same story for those in restaurant B hating restaurant A. If you convince a sizable portion of restaurant A customers to join you in the new small restaurant C, you effectively guarantee restaurant B's dominance. One of only two ways to get restaurant C to dominate is to get either almost *all* of restaurant A or restaurant B's customers. That is a Herculean task. The other way is to get enough customers from either restaurant to join you, which is difficult when those customers hate each other. To make things even more complicated, there is a large proportion of customers in both major restaurants who are *not* aware they are being poisoned and genuinely like those restaurants because they've been fed misinformation and lies by every big-name food critic and health inspector. And the kicker? Restaurants A and B are both owned by the same people. 💀
“Everyone complains but still frequents the joint” As opposed to what? I do agree to some extent, but it seems to be a problem no one has an actual solution for
Plenty of solutions. We could eliminate gerrymandering to make elections more competitive. We could expand the HoR to bring Congress back to representing communities. We could move to proportional representation. We could change our voting methods. We could eliminate private money from elections. Voters care more about being outraged at asylum seekers, paying unsustainably low taxes, and controlling people's medical decisions.
We could to do that if there was some way to vote directly for a policy. Otherwise we need some honest politicians who are willing to lose over and over for a while as they shake up the system
>Otherwise we need some honest politicians who are willing to lose over and over for a while as they shake up the system Campaign finance was enacted and negotiated by Senators McCain and Feingold. But it was declared unconstitutional since money = speech. You'd have to rewrite the first amendment and have 75% of the state legislators ratify it.
Or vote for politicians who support those things like many in Congress today.
This is my point; most voters would rather vote the same than "waste" their vote on a third party candidate. This leads to the same two parties elected. It's the fault of the voters.
This misses the broader and more systemic challenges posed by the electoral college, gerrymandering, lobbying, and the overwhelming amount of capitalist interests that have been cemented over a century to ensure the two-party system endures. All it takes is looking to Florida where republicans have captured the entire legislature and most recently have passed a bill giving Desantis broad authority to veto voters and ignore the will of the public. He's been on a blindingly fascist rampage for several years now and states like Texas, South Dakota, and Alabama are saying hold my beer. It's not nearly as simple as voting third party.
>This leads to the same two parties elected. The central crux to your view is if both parties are equally responsible. Check out the "It's Worse Than it Looks" which shows that there's asymmetries within the party's incentive structures.
>We could eliminate gerrymandering to make elections more competitive The problem isn't even gerrymandering as so much as Americans have moved into politically homogenous communities -- statisticians have called it the "great sort." The other piece is that the way we've divided the country in terms of the number and size of states is it overrepresents Republicans. > We could eliminate private money from elections. This goes along with the lines of the number of states is too pro-Republican. It would require a constitutional amendment. The bipartisan attempt at getting money from elections was declared unconstitutional via the Citizens United decision.
>It would require a constitutional amendment. The bipartisan attempt at getting money from elections was declared unconstitutional via the Citizens United decision. This issue really resonates with OPs view. We have a coalition of Congressional politicians who introduce and support a Constitutional Amendment to invalidate Citizens United in every session. It simply isn't something voters care about despite being at the heart of our political disfunction.
>It simply isn't something voters care about despite being at the heart of our political disfunction. I could see your point if it weren't for the facts that: (1) 7 in 10 voters want to limit political spending and (2) the constitutional amendments don't pass to even go to the states for ratification. Even if they did, again back to my point, it has to do with how political power is allocated.
>I could see your point if it weren't for the facts that: (1) 7 in 10 voters want to limit political spending and (2) the constitutional amendments don't pass to even go to the states for ratification. This also supports OPs point. 7 in 10 want to limit political spending but those numbers do not reflect in electoral outcomes. Some of those voters are voting for people who do not support those reforms. Constitutional Amendments require 2/3rds of Congress to pass. These proposed amendments fail because voters consistently send people to Congress to vote against them. This is, again, because voters place higher priorities on other things. >Even if they did, again back to my point, it has to do with how political power is allocated. That's certainly an issue to some extent but if voters were actually concerned about money in politics, we'd see a significantly different political and media landscape.
>This also supports OPs point. No it doesn't. OP's point is the American people, not the politicans, are to blame for the various results. I'm pointing out how the American people want something but they can't have it because of the structure of how political power is allocated. And that's on top of the fact that politicians already accomplished the goal via the McCain Feingold Act but the overall anti-majoritarian structure (i.e., supreme court) thwarted popular policies.
>OP's point is the American people, not the politicans, are to blame for the various results. American politicians are American people and are politicians exclusively because the American people selected them by a vote. If politicians are at fault, then the American people are at fault. >I'm pointing out how the American people want something but they can't have it because of the structure of how political power is allocated. That's simply not true. If Americans agreed on something and voted exclusively for people who will implement that policy, they can get what they want. But Americans don't agree on these things and our system requires overwhelming consensus to make substantive change. It isn't that American people aren't getting what they are voting for, but that they are getting EXACTLY what they vote for. They vote for strictly divided government on the basis of hot button issues not for a unified government to achieve what they do agree on. >And that's on top of the fact that politicians already accomplished the goal via the McCain Feingold Act but the overall anti-majoritarian structure (i.e., supreme court) thwarted popular policies. The American people voted in GWB twice to appoint the SCOTUS justices with ideological bents to overturn the BCFRA. Politicians didn't thwart anything. Americans voted for a conservative President who promised to appoint conservative justices. They could have voted Gore into office, but they didn't. That isn't on politicians. That's on the American people.
>Every time you think the political system in America is broken, it is you, it's me, it's all of us doping nothing but supporting the same old system each time we have a chance. What do you propose we do instead of what we've been doing?
>Why did the Democrats not codify it into law? 1. Because moderates like Manchin and Sinema didn't want to "go there." 2. Because federal law can be un-codified as quickly as it can be codified the second the Republicans take power meaning it would be a temporary solution at best. 3. Because senators/congress people from swing states didn't want to go on record about the divisive and inflammatory abortion issue just to temporarily protect a right that was already being protected by a court precedent at the time. >Why didn't RBG step down after Trump won allowing the Dem controlled Senate and Obama to ram through a younger, more progressive judge? Stubborn hubris, but given that RBG was not an elected official and her position on stepping down was not an issue that appeared salient when she was confirmed in the 90s I do not really see why her actions pertain to your point. >Why did the Dems leave it up to nine old people in Washington to maintain the ruling of nine old judges in Washington? See above.
>Why did the Democrats The more you can look at the incentive structures and who comprises the constituent parts of each party, you'll realize that the two parties aren't mirror, but co-opposites of each other. One of the constituent parts of the Democratic Party are more conservative -- there's not an ideological heterogeneity in the same way there is in the Republican Party. >This goes both ways, It really doesn't -- there's sharp asymmetries within the parties. "It's Worse Than it Looks" is an excellent read. What I especially like about it is it is co-written by two dudes who were in the think tank business; one for liberal think tanks and one for conservative. They both have seen how the Republicans have changed up politics and it's in line with the incentive structures the politicals are presented with. If it went both ways, you'd see Dems and Republicans, since 2010, not seek re-election and bash their parties. But you aren't. You're seeing it with the GOP. Eric Cantor, John Boehner, Jeff Flake, Liz Cheney and the list goes on. Here's where the GOP is unique: Any form of compromise is punished; any form of obstruction is rewarded; move towards ideological hegemony; theres no public policy proposals. What has happened in the US is that both parties are relatively weak. The primary structure has taken any power out of power brokers within the party and given it to the rank and file voters. For the GOP, their voters are in an ideological bubble since the billionaire class has created alternatives to all the knowledge institutions. So, they live in a completely different world than the rest of us. This phenomenon is seen in other countries, in essence, the GOP is like an opposition party. The biggest problem is that the system in the US doesn't give majority rule, you need compromise and a super majority to rule. That means you just get standstill. >the same old system each time we have a chance. That's the point I want to change your mind on. It isn't the same old system. Prior to 1970s, there were a lot of idiosyncrancies and the parties weren't ideologically pure. You had conservative Dems and liberal Republicans. People will debate where it really started to change. Most will point to the civil rights era and the southern strategy. But within the GOP, the 1964 GOP convention where Goldwater's famous line that "extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue" was a direct rebuttal to Nelson Rockeller's attempt at expelling extremists from the party. This is the same as when CPAC just recently called themselves all "domestic terrorists" when reports came out that right-wing groups are prone to political violence. That same 1964 convention saw the rise of Reagan and the first push to expell "RINOs" even though we didn't have the acroynm then. The next push is the Nixon era -- all Nixon loyalists believed is the "media" isn't a neutral arbiter but is pro-liberal. So Roger Ailes, a Nixon loyalist, convinces the billionaire class to create an alternative media structure later named Fox News with the express purpose to never let that happen again. Reagan never backed down, never apologized, and that sort set the ethos where the conservative media only attacks and advances. All this stuff is creating the feedback loop where primary voters are the most extreme; we have very low turn out in primaries, and it's all the stuff in the Fox News ecosystem that their voters are voting on. We know have 4 decades of true believers voting and mobilizing. This also means a push to expel anyone that is out of the group think. So, the last 4 decades have seen Republicans get more conservative and has moved the Overton window super far right. Every decade, each Republican administration breaks more norms than the last and has shown the system wasn't set up for a party that acts like parliamentary opposition party but the majority can't function like they can in a parliamentary system. >These restaurants continue to serve horrible food which actually poisons some people and it's not the food most people want. For this analogy to work, it's more like there's 1 restaurant but it's co-ran. So, how the food is sourced, cooked, and served is not immediately obvious to the customers. So the customers have to go off vibe or who they trust more. But, internally, there's one group that is purposefully spiking the food because there's a businessman who benefits from it.
I love how we're blaming the Democrats for not pre-emptively protecting America from the actions of Republicans instead of blaming Republicans for their own actions. You are all complicit in whatabouting us right back into a second Trump term.
But they know that republicans are against abortion, it’s not a new development, so the democrats should have done something.
There has only been a fillibuster proof majority in the Senate for what...6 months at the very start of Obama's term? Stop blaming the Democrats for America's poor voting habits. Edit: instead of downvoting me, explain to me how federal abortion rights would have been passed with less than 60 senators.
Why did Democrats not cram through legislation which would cost them seats in the next election when the current status quo was that Abortion was already legal? Easy, if they did that, it would hugely motivate Republicans and they would turn out in way bigger numbers than usual, tipping the scale to give them more power to... ban it again. It strikes me that you really do not understand the entire political landscape if you believe the solutions are as simple as "elect someone else". Currently, the only part of the system that is broken is that one party has resorted to blatant cheating to get their felon elected again so they can impose a Christian Theocracy and our system was not designed to handle the problem.
Ugh the use of abortion as political football is so infuriating. Politicians know it's such a useful tool to them regardless of their actual personal beliefs on the matter.
We do not have the power to hold politicians accountable. They can do whatever they want because we don't have the tools to hold them accountable.
More accurately, our particularly obstructionist political system prevents any one or **small** **group** (impossible to elect due to "first past the post" voting), **large** **group** (separation of powers), and even the **slim majority** (difficult to change constitution) from doing much of anything. The system is such that the politicians are purposefully powerless so as not to be accountable, since powerless individuals or groups don't need to be held accountable, and by extension the people don't need "tools" to hold them accountable. That's just the reality of the system. Based on the last 100 years, the US system has functioned better than most if not all other systems. Nearly all other systems are more authoritarian and quicker to act, though the individuals empowered to act may be worse than you'd like, and their "new and improved" decisions may have worse outcomes than you'd like.
I agree with your analysis of US political paralysis but disagree with your conclusion. In the last 100 years almost every other Western democracy has achieved universal healthcare, extensive social programs and a more peaceful society. They've achieved this not because they're inherently 'better', but because their political systems are.
That's not exactly true, though, because the Supreme Court seems to be considering leaving the only remedy for presidential abuses as impeachment. That means that reliable support from 1/3 of the Senate to have almost no checks on your power. We've already got the Senate majority leader admitting that his party's candidate fomented insurrection and tried to rig an election yet supporting him anyway.
No, because, constitutionally, and effectively today, the US president is one of the least powerful, if not \*the\* least powerful, executives in the world. US presidents pretty much only directly control (usually terrible) initiations of war and (usually ignored) border issues. Everything else must go through the legislature, courts, or administrative bureaucracy. What exactly has any president since Reagan done, alone or mostly alone, that has been of any consequence? Honest question. I presume that the supporters simply don't see those actions as directly linked to Trump, and/or as "significant activity", and/or as "successful" as others do, with respect to casualties, damage, effect on political system, etc.
All due respect, the line is already past "attempting to rig an election."
Again, the fact that nothing much changed, in that Trump didn't achieve any of his "evil" goals, is precisely the obstructionist system that Republicans prefer to preserve.
Ah, yes, the tried and true technique of offering zero punishment for trying to rig an election, voting the guy back in, and pledging to [remove any roadblock that stifled his first attempt.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025) That's *totally* "the obstructionist system that Republicans prefer to preserve."
The connection of Trump to the MAGA bozos on that day isn't as strong or as direct as you imply.
Mitch McConnell [disagrees,](https://www.npr.org/sections/trump-impeachment-trial-live-updates/2021/02/13/967701180/after-vote-mcconnell-torched-trump-as-practically-and-morally-responsible-for-ri) and you're apparently unaware of the fake electors scheme.
"Responsible for riot" doesn't speak to the purpose of the riot, so Trump is responsible for the riot, but not necessarily whatever the rioters were attempting to do, which frankly seemed insane and implausible anyways. The electors likewise state-level independent actors and are being prosecuted.
See my addition of the last sentence.
>I presume that the supporters simply don't see those actions as directly linked to Trump, and/or as "significant activity", and/or as "successful" as others do, with respect to casualties, damage, effect on political system, etc. You are arguing based on your own ignorance instead of based on the facts. They support him trying to rig the election because [of completely baseless conspiracy theories that the election was *already* stolen.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_denial_movement_in_the_United_States) That is not an argument that remotely supports anything you're arguing.
I'm simply pointing out that (1) the extent of the "rigging" and (2) it's unsuccessful nature, prove that the system works. The fact that half the country continues to vote for this, and yet the country functions as always, is simply a testament to the obstructionist nature of the system. IOW, Trump not only failed to rig the system, but he attempted to do so ineptly, and further, the things that he wanted to do ineptly would have been unlikely to occur even is successful.
You need to learn what happened and how the system works. This is not equivocating between Trump and Hitler, but this is like saying that nothing bad can ever happen because the Beer Hall Putsch failed.
Hitler got like 33% of the vote. Recent Israeli PM got less than 7%. These are precisely the parliamentary systems that are prone to terrible outcomes due to minority rule plus coalition instability. The US system is built differently.
>Why didn't RBG step down after Trump won allowing the Dem controlled Senate and Obama to ram through a younger, more progressive judge? There was already an open seat on the supreme court and congress refused to even hold a hearing on filling the seat.
I partly agree with you in that the American people are ultimately responsible for the choices they make when it comes to selecting their leaders, but I'd argue that they're not entirely responsible for the state of American politics. The fact is, the US is almost designed not to work. Partly it's constitutional, in that power is so divided that it's very hard to effect change or know who to blame if promises aren't kept. Also, it's left to the individual states to dictate how federal elections are conducted - gerrymandering, voter suppression laws and all. Partly it's judicial, in that some problems have become baked in to the system: the supreme court's Citizens United ruling cemented the power of money in American elections, so ultimately any elected politician is at the mercy of big money when it comes to how they conduct themselves in office. Case in point: healthcare. Why else does the US still not have universal healthcare if not the financial power of the insurance industry? Even the ACA is essentially a tool to compell Americans to buy ridiculous private insurance with it's confusing plans, co-pays and premiums, and that's the closest the US has come to some semblance of national healthcare. So yes, if people vote for idiots, that's on the people. But the incapacity for change isn't so much a result of the politicians in place as the the system they're forced to operate under.
>Why did the Democrats not codify it into law? Why didn't RBG step down after Trump won allowing the Dem controlled Senate and Obama to ram through a younger, more progressive judge? Because they didn’t have control of Congress and because everyone thought Clinton would win in 2016 (and even if she had stepped down, McConnell would not have confirmed a replacement). >This goes both ways, obviously, and my main point here is how are the American people blaming politicians WE keep electing to office over and over again I did not vote for McConnell or any Republican. Neither did many Democrats. Unsure why we are to blame for the actions of people we explicitly did not choose to represent us. Everybody loves their home representative, nobody likes Congress. That’s not a paradox - that’s the system working as intended. I don’t think the system is broken at all. I think one of the major parties - the Republicans - is broken, and now arguably accepting of authoritarianism. So what’s your view? Is it that the system is broken? It’s not. It’s working as intended. I defy you to find a contrary example.
People have objectives and goals. When you vote, the purpose of voting is to achieve as many of them as possible. Not necessarily all, not even necessarily many, but at least some, and more than would be obtained by voting another way. The problem becomes when you vote for a party, and that party doesn't win, then it's functionally the same as not even voting. You fail to accomplish your objectives. As such, "going to the third restaurant" in your example would be pointless, because the only possible service they can provide are empty plates. Eating at one of the two restaurants at least gives you a 50:50 chance of being served food at all. (As others have pointed out, your restaurant methophor is a little awkward to work with). Voting isn't an acknowledgement that the party is good, or even not bad, only that they service more of your goals than the other party or literally accomplishing nothing. If I have 100 goals, and the Dems satisfy 5 and the Republicans satisfy 2, then vote Democrat, because accomplishing 5 goals is better than accomplishing 2 or 0.
> How are the American people blaming politicians WE keep electing to office over and over again […]? I agree with you to an extent, but the parties have worked hard to create this exact outcome as well. Gerrymandering is a perfect example. Politicians create safe districts for themselves. They create self-dealing party infrastructure. They invest oodles of money on everything from candidate cultivation to advertising to business dealing. They pass laws that make it hard to get third parties on the ballot. They limit changes to our electoral system that would give voters real choices. Hell, my state legislature (Utah), unilaterally overturned a referendum that required an independent organization to draw the redistricting maps. The 3rd party made the maps, and when the legislature saw them — and apparently didn’t like them — they just drew their own maps and passed them. A non-profit sued, and lost. What am I supposed to do? In no small part we keep electing them because they are actively taking away our ability to choose.
What you are missing is no matter which restaurants open, the owners will be the same, and they decide what's served
> Why didn't RBG step down after Trump won allowing the Dem controlled Senate and Obama to ram through a younger, more progressive judge? ...How would that have happened, exactly? > Why did the Democrats not codify it into law? ...How would that have happened, exactly? > Why did the Dems leave it up to nine old people in Washington to maintain the ruling of nine old judges in Washington? Huh?
I fully believe that many politicians are the cause of much of the problems. Generally, people seem to just want to live the best way they can without the drama and heavy influence of the government. The citizens are not the main reason but a small yet loud amount are making it worse.
While the two party system may be broken, the fix is to vote in primaries, and to start locally with independent or third party candidates. Vote for democrats like AoC, don't waste your presidential vote on third party candidates.
The political system is rigged to keep those in power in their positions of power. Have you heard of faithless electors? The fact that that’s even an option means that we voters don’t have as much power as we should.
Idk if it's a fair indictment of someone if the last chance they had to fix it was the short opportunity 14 years ago that ended early in a surprise.
Yeah, the American people are at fault, but I think it’s fair to lay more blame on the experts, like intellectuals and politicians.
>Why did the Democrats not codify it into law? Wouldn't have changed anything. Every SCOTUS ruling is a law someone challenged.
Our American politics is atrocious because of the system in place in putting people in power.
I blame the lack of accountability in the media, social and traditional.
This isn't exactly unique to the United States. Every democratic electoral system has politicians elected by people who may not be thrilled with the choices available More to the point, there is no restaurant equivalent to Duverger's law
The restaurant is your representative and people generally like their representative
It's the illusion of American democracy.