Impeachment 2: Impeach Harder

[RandBlade]

The US uses a Presidential system. There are stricter boundaries between the parts of government. They also have a strong enough tendency towards fewer viable parties that we should just admit it's a feature of it.

The executive is Presidential. It is in France too and other European countries.

The legislature though, that is Congress and that is parliamentary is it not?

The rules of Congress, like how filibuster operates etc, are even called 'parliamentary procedure' are they not?

Calling Congress not a Parliament seems to me to be like saying that the USA is "a republic not a democracy", it is to conflate two separate issues.

[Wraith]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presid...mentary_system

I think the confusion here is my fault, I started talking about proportional representation at one point without really making it clear. I overedited my posts and made everything muddled. My bad.

[Loki]

Yeah, I actually prefer having our politicians represent specific areas and groups of people instead of representing specific ideologies. I just want the parties to have less of a say in who we vote for, more choices, and removal of the inherent structural incentives to pander to your party's extremists. I'm increasingly convinced that George Washington was right and political parties are destructive - I don't want any system where you vote for a party instead of a person.

Parties provide a link between the people and the government. Without them, we'd have more demagoguery, not less. Look at places like Israel, which have weak parties. Everything revolves around personalities.

Eventually once you've worked through the candidates that you've liked, sure, you'd be left with choices between candidates you disliked the least. No system is going to guarantee that you'll like all the candidates. I'd still be pretty excited to get to vote for a candidate I liked for once, though.

That might make you feel better, but it won't make a difference unless a lot of people are ranking multiple candidates, which isn't the case in places where it is an option. Even then, this does nothing about gerrymandering. A district that has a reliable 50% voting for one party would rarely (if ever) be at risk of being taken by the other party.

The main impact would be how it takes away power from the parties to decide who we get to vote for. If Candidate A is the preferred candidate for 60% of the population but only 40% of their party, and Candidate B is preferred by 60% of their party but nobody outside of their party likes them, the current system gives us two Candidate B's to choose from. That's shit. Any sort of single transferrable vote system would help fix that and slowly erode party loyalties as it changes the incentives to reward those with broader voter appeal.

Except Democrats will still vote for a Democrat rather than the centrist Republican; same for Republicans. Incredibly few would ever rank a candidate from the other party. You also seem to have assumed primaries out of existence. You won't even get a chance to vote for the centrist in the general election.

As for multi-member districts, I'd be curious what that would look like. The impact would vary depending on the implementation details. What's the version you like?

https://www.fairvote.org/a_strong_ar...ing_in_georgia

They have a video somewhere but I can't find it.

[RandBlade]

A general rule of thumb in life: never trust anyone in politics campaigning under the term "fair ...."

[Wraith]

Parties provide a link between the people and the government. Without them, we'd have more demagoguery, not less. Look at places like Israel, which have weak parties. Everything revolves around personalities.

It doesn't have to be this way. Things could be better.

I don't actually know much about Israeli politics, so no comment on that.

That might make you feel better, but it won't make a difference unless a lot of people are ranking multiple candidates, which isn't the case in places where it is an option. Even then, this does nothing about gerrymandering. A district that has a reliable 50% voting for one party would rarely (if ever) be at risk of being taken by the other party.

Yes, STV is not a panacea. It doesn't need to be one.

Except Democrats will still vote for a Democrat rather than the centrist Republican; same for Republicans. Incredibly few would ever rank a candidate from the other party. You also seem to have assumed primaries out of existence. You won't even get a chance to vote for the centrist in the general election.

They will, especially at first. There'll always be straight ticket voters, but we can reverse the shrinking of the middle. How many people have you heard in the past saying they like the Republican's fiscal policies but not their social ones? Why do they need to be shoved out? An STV would start putting pressure on politicians to appeal to the middle, and over time it would erode party loyalties, and it'd lower the barriers for entry for other parties. It'd be a significant step in the right direction, even if it doesn't solve everything.

[Aimless]

You're really going to challenge me on this? Set your goal posts then. What makes a non-transferable system better for a non-parliamentary representative democracy?

All countries that use STV currently are parliamentary.

It's not a challenge; I am completely agnostic on STV, and deeply critical of FPTP. I just don't know whether the benefits being claimed—eg. wrt party influence & extremism—are real. Because STV is used in many places—albeit not necessarily at the national level in most cases—we should have data on whether or not those hoped-for benefits actually materialize when STV is implemented.

[Wraith]

I'm not married to STV, I'll take a lot of its alternatives too. I'm only hitching my wagons to it because it's been gaining momentum the past few years and right now it looks like the solution in the best position to actually happen, even as unlikely as it still is. There's not going to be high quality data about anything that goes on at this level - there are too few countries, too many variables, and too much is always changing. Just try to logic out how it would impact the incentives.

[Loki]

Not quite the same thing you're talking about, but similar logic. Read the linked to piece.

Twitter Link

[Aimless]

I'm not married to STV, I'll take a lot of its alternatives too. I'm only hitching my wagons to it because it's been gaining momentum the past few years and right now it looks like the solution in the best position to actually happen, even as unlikely as it still is. There's not going to be high quality data about anything that goes on at this level - there are too few countries, too many variables, and too much is always changing. Just try to logic out how it would impact the incentives.

As you know, I have no real issue with polarization, nor do I have a problem with parties. I think, rather than focusing on trying to address polarization, you might be better off trying to make it more difficult for bad actors to exploit the system which currently gives antidemocratic extremists a disproportionate advantage. STV might help accomplish that if you also do away with the winner-take-all plurality voting element. One approach that might be worth exploring is an early, open, multiple-candidate primary—implementing some sort of preferential voting system—followed by a final contest between the top candidates, with a requirement for an absolute majority to win.

But, in all honesty, a more important first step—before considering sweeping systemic overhauls—might be to stop disenfranchising or otherwise obstructing voters. Make it easy as hell for everyone to participate in every stage of the election process, and I think you'll see more candidates who try to build broad coalitions. Pass—and enforce—a modern voting rights act, grant representation to areas that are currently not adequately represented, and see where that gets you first. It's low hanging fruit.

Not quite the same thing you're talking about, but similar logic. Read the linked to piece.

Need an "antidemocratic crank" measure

[Wraith]

As you know, I have no real issue with polarization,

You've been a driving force, so I assumed.

I think, rather than focusing on trying to address polarization, you might be better off trying to make it more difficult for bad actors to exploit the system which currently gives antidemocratic extremists a disproportionate advantage. STV might help accomplish that if you also do away with the winner-take-all plurality voting element. One approach that might be worth exploring is an early, open, multiple-candidate primary—implementing some sort of preferential voting system—followed by a final contest between the top candidates, with a requirement for an absolute majority to win.

But, in all honesty, a more important first step—before considering sweeping systemic overhauls—might be to stop disenfranchising or otherwise obstructing voters. Make it easy as hell for everyone to participate in every stage of the election process, and I think you'll see more candidates who try to build broad coalitions. Pass—and enforce—a modern voting rights act, grant representation to areas that are currently not adequately represented, and see where that gets you first. It's low hanging fruit.

What did you think was the point of making it easier to elect better politicians? We need to be able to put people in power who will actually fix shit without getting mired in political point scoring and ideological dogma.

[Aimless]

I guess I just don't see how a simple process-change accomplishes that. I can see how broad, intense, long-term political activity might accomplish that—if you bolster the political agency of all members of society, and ensure that representatives are truly accountable to all their constituents. So, to the extent that a simple process change might accomplish that, I'm all for it—but there are greater obstacles in need of more urgent attention, that might be more fruitful to eliminate before you try to build capital for a complete overhaul of the electoral system. The solution for bad politics is more politics—not less politics, or built-in compromise-cheats, or technocracy.

[Aimless]

It was in the sixties

Twitter Link

[Aimless]

If you guys aren't following this... er, keep not following it, because jfc the defense is shitting all over American conservatism rn. Letting Trump off the hook on the basis of a competent defense would've been one thing, but, after this shitshow, GOP senators are faced with the unpleasant prospect of saying thank you for having the Trump team poop right into their open mouths.

[Wraith]

I guess I just don't see how a simple process-change accomplishes that.

It's a metasolution. A solution for the problem of finding solutions. It's another tool for the box. Given the regressions we've had this century, it's clear to me that we need to start making progress on making progress easier. As I said, there are other means, and I'm quite open to most of them, either in addition to or instead of STV. I don't see a downside with it, the scope is pretty limited which makes it reasonably safe, and if there's a problem I won't see until it happens, we can always reverse the change and go back to non-transferable votes or a different vote counting method altogether.

[Aimless]

Senate votes (55-45) to call witnesses.

[Aimless]

It's a metasolution. A solution for the problem of finding solutions. It's another tool for the box. Given the regressions we've had this century, it's clear to me that we need to start making progress on making progress easier. As I said, there are other means, and I'm quite open to most of them, either in addition to or instead of STV. I don't see a downside with it, the scope is pretty limited which makes it reasonably safe, and if there's a problem I won't see until it happens, we can always reverse the change and go back to non-transferable votes or a different vote counting method altogether.

Agree in principle re. advantages; the downside is political opportunity cost. An attempt to bring about a change like this has a large cost in terms of political capital and associated political resources (eg. limited campaign time & funds), and the risk of failure is very high—reasonable scenario is, you invest your political capital and your resources on a campaign that ends up burning the policy change you seek for half a generation or more (see eg. UK alternative vote referendum).

In contrast, more modest changes involving shoring up voting rights and making antidemocratic shenanigans more difficult—eg. by passing a new voting rights act, legislating to make partisan gerrymandering more difficult, pushing state-level campaigns to restore voting rights to former felons—are low-cost, low-effort and low-risk approaches with a large democratic payoff. A riskier but still cautious venture is NPVIC. I just think there's so much more that can still be accomplished within the fairly malleable constraints of the current system, without any need for costly gambles on a reformist agenda that I'm sympathetic to but simultaneously not confident about.

[RandBlade]

Reek McConnell has said he's voting to acquit. So I expect 55-45 to be the final tally.

[RandBlade]

I was close.

50 Democrats
7 Republicans
37 Reek
6 QAnon

[Lewkowski]

Now the most acquitted president in history.

[Steely Glint]

'my acquitted twice by the senate t-shirt is raising a lot of questions already answered by my t-shirt'

[Aimless]

Republicans being gutless cowards is less interesting than the question of why witnesses were not called after the Senate voted to call them. Does anyone have any info on wtf happened here?

[Aimless]

If this is true, Chris Coons is having an affair.

Twitter Link

(thread)