Yes, but it assures those voters their votes aren’t going to be thrown away and their last choice become the officeholder. Here in NJ I’d vote Green in an instant (and have at a safe Rep level) as long as it didn’t mean I was taking a vote from the most viable non-GOP candidate.
4 Likes
Ironically, they hate Republicanism too.
a republic guarantees a certain set of basic civil rights to every citizen, codified in a charter or constitution.
5 Likes
1 Like
“DISPERSE!”
1 Like
In a way, that is freeing. If you play nice and get labeled as bad, then you can play nasty and get the same result.
9 Likes
please
I already knew everything that he went over in the video but it’s still so depressing to hear out loud.
2 Likes
I’m not so sure that our current form of representative democracy is the final, best form of government. I think we need a new Enlightenment. Something that incorporates present academic knowledge of sociology, economics, psychology, game theory, etc.
I, for one, welcome our AI overlords. I bet they can come up with a solution for climate change.
I agree – ranked choice is strictly better than what we have now. If nothing else, it means that Green Party supporters and Democrats could act as allies instead of being filled with loathing whenever strategic voting comes up.
Note by the way that some states (such as Washington) already have a form of runoff election in the form of a top two primary. It’s only two rounds do it’s not quite the same, but the general idea isn’t as big of a change as you might think.
I just think it’s a very small improvement, not something that will have a large impact in practice. If 10% (or whatever it really ends up being) of the public support the Green Party and continue to be represented by 0% of elected officials, have things really changed meaningfully? Being courted in an offhand way for voters by the ruling party is thin soup, even compared to the alternate approach of just running as a Democrat and attempting to primary the establishment.
1 Like
A republic only guarantees that you don’t have a monarchy. What you described is a constitutional government, for example Britain which is most definitely not a republic.
6 Likes
I hope that is not true. It would mean they have no honor, and are not here to defend the Constitution and are willing to obey illegal orders. If it is true (which I said I don’t believe it is) then disbandment of the military is the only reasonable action. Not that we’re in an age of reason.
2 Likes
Our AI Overlords will be written by Segei Brin, Larry Page, or Mark Zuckerberg. Or whatever lilywhite libertarian ghost monster crawls out of the bay area to become the next generation of those guys. I very much do not welcome them.
4 Likes
Well, nuts; I should probably reconsider my general game theory strategy of co-operating/trusting in almost any circumstance.
1 Like
Why wasn’t this video made 10 years ago? I cannot believe how much clarity this packs into such a short video.
I’m amazed more isn’t made of Obama’s penchant for “compromise”; that is, ceding the GOP everything they can grab with both hands. Part of the cause for the misguided chant by disaffected Democrats that “Both parties are the same!” is because of Obama’s inability to fight when the Republicans knocked him down in the schoolyard and took his candy.
It took Harry Reid 4 years to implement the “partial nuclear” option in the Senate (using a simple majority instead of 60 to go around the obstructionist Republican minority)-- just in time for the Senate to flip Republican in 2015 (slowing nominations to a crawl), and allowing Trump/McConnell in 2017 to go “full” nuclear to nominate SCOTUS and judges for those “Obama” vacancies as fast as they can. (One never got the feeling Obama pressured Reid over this; Reid just took his time, kept trying to observe “Senatorial comity” (that is, “going high”), until his actions were almost irrelevant.)
Sad Note: If Pusillanimous Harry Reid had used the nuclear option in 2009, we could have had much more progressive Obamacare, but since we did need all 60 Dem Senators, we have this much more arcane system, one that isn’t as good for Americans, one that gives Republicans more ammunition for saying it should be abolished.
what happens next?
Well, at the very least, if Democrats ever get the Senate during a Republican administration:
-
confirm no more SCOTUS judges for as long as it takes to get Democratic administration (or for the Senate to flip back to Republicans, obviously). Then, keep up the tactic until we get back to “par.” (But perhaps by then, it will be institutionalized that “SCOTUS judges are only nominated if the POTUS is of the same party as the Senate.” I mean, even if Democrats get back to “par” they would have to keep going, knowing that if they relented, the GOP will just keep pulling Garlands to one-up what “those bad Democrats” did.
-
perhaps cease confirming judges who are in any way Conservative (which is effectively “cease confirming all judges,” since Trump/McConnell would never compromise, never nominate moderate judges, and indeed Trump would relish the conflict).
2 Likes
But, if one side in your two party state decides to abandon the rules, isn’t democracy already dead in the water?
5 Likes
I firmly believe that “twenty-two years of Fox News programming” should be considered an unreported campaign donation to Donald Trump. He would not be president if Fox hadn’t spent two decades patiently laying the groundwork for him.
Russia’s interference in the last election pales into insignificance compared with Australia’s. Well, one Australian’s anyway.
Steve Jobs once told Rupert Murdoch “The axis today is not liberal and conservative, the axis is constructive-destructive, and you’ve cast your lot with the destructive people. Fox has become an incredibly destructive force in our society. You can be better, and this is going to be your legacy if you’re not careful.” All reports suggest that Murdoch was untroubled by the criticism, and is more than happy for this to be his legacy.
7 Likes
At least, unlike the Russians, the Australians don’t poison people physically. They leave that up to their fauna.
1 Like
Welp, This is depressing as fuck.
6 Likes
Ranked choice doesn’t get around the problem of people not responding to the ‘nudge’ of Federalism and clustering in a couple states along the coast.
The Senate was given the powers they enjoy as a counter to the Executive branch being separate and embodied in one person. A good chunk of this power needs to be taken from this half of the legislative branch and given to the House, similar to what happened in the Parliament Act of 1911. Our problem is that the structure of US government makes that much harder than how they did it in Britain.
1 Like
Murdoch renounced his Australian citizenship thirty-three years ago. He’s yours.
1 Like
Ranked choice also violates several fair-voting criteria. As does every voting system, but ranked choice violates two big ones:
Condorcet criterion – the candidate who can win in a head-to-head matchup against any other candidate should win overall
Monotonicity – If opinion of a candidate improves (i.e., if a bloc revises its ranking of a candidate higher), the candidate’s ranking overall should not decrease, all other things remaining equal
That said, Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem is a cruel master. Social choice theory is weird.
