Abolish the electoral college and people in NY will stop giving a shit about what happens in Georgia immediately.
The federal government was supposed to be small, because the founders understood the downside of a large federal government.
This is what it looks like before the system breaks entirely. The buffers can't buffer anymore.
Looking at the US in the last 200 years, it has grown enormously rich, while many ossified systems in the world around it have collapsed. It seems that the competition you dislike does not turn individual Americans into paupers. An average American's living standard is so high that it is actually ecologically unsustainable.
Both Germany and Japan rebuilt their industrial bases to become export juggernauts. And fairly quickly so. Experience with forced improvisation helped.
Also, the UK is still a nice place to live, probably nicer than it used to be at the height of the empire - just witness how many people are trying to move there, even ilegally. Large parts of the empire were money sinks, as was the huge navy needed to protect it.
..and yet Pax Americana isn't 200 years old; and would be very lucky to get there. Which is exactly my point: just because it happened recently doesn't make it particularly notable/superior/longer-lasting conpared to other empires.
The "land votes, not people" scheme of the US is a holdover from appeasing wealthy landowners and slavers. We need at least one branch of the federal government that is directly democratic.
The way things are going, an increasingly small minority of extremists will make decisions at the federal level, as we are starting to see now.
The real undemocratic institution in the US is its most powerful, the US Senate. It should be directly democratic.
No Republican loser has blamed it for their loss because it hasn't hurt any of them in the modern era. When you get 6 million more votes than your opponent and still lose, that's a subversion of democracy.
I don't see how that's any different than the Senate. With direct democracy, we would've had a more popular president with more popular policies for an additional 8 of the last 22 years.
We are not one big representative democracy. We are a federation of states. It was not intended that the federal government run everything - it was concerned primarily with defense and relations with other countries. Originally.
Do you know where the States come from? They aren't local cultures. They are a bunch of territory ruled by some aristocratic British dude.
Most of the states that exist are due to undemocratic compromises with monarchs and slaveholders.
Draw state boundaries around communities that want to be cohesive, and stop designing a nation around 18th Century concerns, and we can talk.
The reason is that people in states with low populations have far more per-capita representation in the Senate than people in populous states.
The Senate is so powerful that this means that most federal decisions are determined by the minority of the country.
splitting out all the related citites into their own states would make a more appropriate federation
"The right of equal suffrage among the States is another exceptionable part of the Confederation. Every idea of proportion and every rule of fair representation conspire to condemn a principle, which gives to Rhode Island an equal weight in the scale of power with Massachusetts, or Connecticut, or New York; and to Deleware an equal voice in the national deliberations with Pennsylvania, or Virginia, or North Carolina. Its operation contradicts the fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail. Sophistry may reply, that sovereigns are equal, and that a majority of the votes of the States will be a majority of confederated America. But this kind of logical legerdemain will never counteract the plain suggestions of justice and common-sense. It may happen that this majority of States is a small minority of the people of America; and two thirds of the people of America could not long be persuaded, upon the credit of artificial distinctions and syllogistic subtleties, to submit their interests to the management and disposal of one third. The larger States would after a while revolt from the idea of receiving the law from the smaller. To acquiesce in such a privation of their due importance in the political scale, would be not merely to be insensible to the love of power, but even to sacrifice the desire of equality. It is neither rational to expect the first, nor just to require the last. The smaller States, considering how peculiarly their safety and welfare depend on union, ought readily to renounce a pretension which, if not relinquished, would prove fatal to its duration.
It may be objected to this, that not seven but nine States, or two thirds of the whole number, must consent to the most important resolutions; and it may be thence inferred that nine States would always comprehend a majority of the Union. But this does not obviate the impropriety of an equal vote between States of the most unequal dimensions and populousness; nor is the inference accurate in point of fact; for we can enumerate nine States which contain less than a majority of the people; and it is constitutionally possible that these nine may give the vote. Besides, there are matters of considerable moment determinable by a bare majority; and there are others, concerning which doubts have been entertained, which, if interpreted in favor of the sufficiency of a vote of seven States, would extend its operation to interests of the first magnitude. In addition to this, it is to be observed that there is a probability of an increase in the number of States, and no provision for a proportional augmentation of the ratio of votes.
But this is not all: what at first sight may seem a remedy, is, in reality, a poison. To give a minority a negative upon the majority (which is always the case where more than a majority is requisite to a decision), is, in its tendency, to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser. Congress, from the nonattendance of a few States, have been frequently in the situation of a Polish diet, where a single VOTE has been sufficient to put a stop to all their movements. A sixtieth part of the Union, which is about the proportion of Delaware and Rhode Island, has several times been able to oppose an entire bar to its operations. This is one of those refinements which, in practice, has an effect the reverse of what is expected from it in theory. The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or of something approaching towards it, has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security. But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority. In those emergencies of a nation, in which the goodness or badness, the weakness or strength of its government, is of the greatest importance, there is commonly a necessity for action. The public business must, in some way or other, go forward. If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority, in order that something may be done, must conform to the views of the minority; and thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater, and give a tone to the national proceedings. Hence, tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good. And yet, in such a system, it is even happy when such compromises can take place: for upon some occasions things will not admit of accommodation; and then the measures of government must be injuriously suspended, or fatally defeated. It is often, by the impracticability of obtaining the concurrence of the necessary number of votes, kept in a state of inaction. Its situation must always savor of weakness, sometimes border upon anarchy."
(https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed22.asp)
Sounds familiar?
Thing is, the Articles of Confederation was the only thing they could agree upon at the time, so it was better than nothing. And the Constitution, similarly, was the only thing they could agree upon at that time. Both were compromises guided by the unique circumstances of the time. When those circumstances change significantly, the compromise may no longer make sense for all the parties involved. I don't think that either EC or the Senate make sense for many states at this point; they merely tolerate them, but the more the minority uses those mechanisms to push its politics on the majority, the less that tolerance is going to be.
Keep doing this, and you'll find out that Constitution that not enough people believe in is, indeed, just a piece of paper.
> It was not intended that the federal government run everything - it was concerned primarily with defense and relations with other countries. Originally.
I'm not qualified to vote on 95% of the stuff Congress has to deal with, so thanks for the offer, but no thanks. Direct democracy is a shitfest for anything much larger than a canton; representative democracy is much better for running large countries with a diverse set of serious matters to address.
The problem with the Senate is that tiny states like Wyoming have the same power as huge states like California.
That means that people living in rural areas (or just small states) have far more power and representation in the Senate than people in urban areas.
But are they? We're constantly hearing how nobody reads the bills and nobody can be expected to really understand them.
And yes, those systems do exist in real world. AANES (Rojava) has been operating under such a system for over 10 years now.
No, it's not a triviality, and no, they don't.
There have only been a few superficially EC-caused losses, and it's not at all common for others to be blamed on it, even though the fact of the undemocratic nature of the EC has wide ranging effects shaping elections beyond just the immediately obvious times it produces results at odds with the popular vote at the end, because it creates pressure that acts on all stages of the process, including candidate selection.
> The real undemocratic institution in the US is its most powerful, the US Senate. It
The Presidency is more powerful than the Senate, though slightly less undemocratic. But the undemocratic nature of the Presidency through the EC is directly tied to the even more undemocratic nature of the Senate.
The Senate isn't the most powerful US institution, but it is the most structurally anti-democratic, and through it's structure directly contributes to the undemocratic nature of institutions which depend on it or the allocation of seats to it.
Ask yourself this question: who has made more important, far-reaching decisions for the country, Mitch McConnell or Barack Obama?
Repeat the same question with Trump or Biden if you want, even though they have left time in office than Obama.
Oh, so you aren't asking which institution is more powerful, but which faction is better at using power, the currently dominant faction of the Democratic Party or the currently-dominant faction of the Republican Party?
> Repeat the same question with Trump or Biden if you want, even though they have left time in office than Obama.
Considering all four, considering impact and not positive/negative polarity, and considering that in some cases certain of the decisions at issue involved both institutions, and weighting for time in office since we are assessing the power of the institution not the power a person can exercise over their tenure in the institution, my initial impression is Trump > McConnell > Biden > Obama, though that might unfairly promoting McConnell and/or Biden.
Those that want to return to this need to start advocating to abolish freedom of movement and permit states to implement residency requirements to access services. That way State A can go ahead an implement locally the "large federal government" services like Medicare or Social Security, while State Z can choose not to. At the moment our constitutional rights mean State Z residents can freeload by moving to State A. This kind of problem simply wasn't conceivable when the country was founded.
What I would bet too is if you go and poll people on whether they like their "big government" program or what to get rid of it, most people would rather keep it, Medicare is big government I don't see seniors wanting rid of it. Social Security is big government. The military, I don't see anyone in these "small government" states saying they want rid of that.
The states are like incubators for different policies. The rest of us watch, and see what does work, and what doesn't work. For all I know, there are residency requirements for services in some places.
One of the things the Constitution protects is freedom of movement.
If a state wanted to implement something like Medicare for All, I think they could just do that.
If you don't like the laws in your state - change them.
If you live in California and you don't like the law in Alabama, what business of yours is that?
> If a state wanted to implement something like Medicare for All, I think they could just do that.
Yes. But for the problem explained. Also you can throw in issues such as states can't issue their own currencies or treasuries to finance things.
Really the USA is not set up for this kind of "confederation". We are a federation of states that have very limited powers and very stupidly drawn borders. If we want what it sounds like you're after then we need more a European Union style set up. Not separate states. But entirely separate countries. Basically we should decide if we're a country called the USA and are all American's first, or if we're all Kentuckians, Texans, Washingtonians, first and American's second.
If a distant metropolis does not have to care what people in the flyover land think, why not declare independence?
It is a small wonder that the US had, so far, only one secession and civil war crisis, and a testament to your resilient constitutional order.
The distant metropolis is rich enough to pay a lot of taxes to support a long war. Flyoverland is definitionally low density meaning it has relatively few people. All they have to fight the war is some extremely stubborn people. That can be enough but an awful lot of people are going to die. There’s a great deal of good on avoiding civil war.
The country clearly leans slightly center left as a whole, but we are trending hard right right now and that is a recipe for disaster and the electoral college is in large part to blame.
We’ve been trending left for fifty years. Maybe it’s time to go the other way for awhile. And hand some power back to the states, where it belongs.
Depends on the topic. Gun rights, for example, have gone decidedly to the right. Few people now remember that Ronald Reagan signed some significant gun control legislation without losing support of his voters.
In the '60s, high school students carried rifles on the NYC subway while going to target practice. Try doing that today.
So, I'd say there has been a lot of pressure to move the window on gun regulation to more restrictive over the last fifty years. I don't think it's done any good at all relative to reducing crime committed with guns. Law abiding gun owners have always had low incidence of gun infractions compared to, say, the police.
The real problem is not enforcing the gun laws we have had for years. Chicago is a prime example: very restrictive laws, but very few convictions for gun offenses, which are frequent. Why is that?
As of today, there is almost half a billion of guns in civilian possession in the US, and the # of open carry and concealed carry jurisdictions has grown massively.
I would say that the lowest point for gun rights US-wide was around the Columbine school shootings, and that the trend changed quite decisively since them. Legislation like that has no chance of passing today.
Even before the recent ruling, there were 8 states that were may-issue; the rest were shall-issue or no permit required.
Justice Thomas has discussed this in his SCOTUS opinions. It’s quite revealing and well worth reading.
SCOTUS rulings are a lot more readable than you might think. They are often quite colorful. You quickly learn to skip by the boilerplate to find the dissenting opinions, which are near the end.
But, yes, states are just as artificial as US as a whole. Municipalities feel like they're the lowest level organization that is actually somewhat organic and interconnected.
And yes, the Civil Rights Act, the 14th Amendment, formally Roe vs Wade, Brown v. BoE, etc.
I will go a step further and say that ONLY the Federal government can secure your individual rights. If your rights can be erased by crossing a state line, then you don't have an individual right.
As for the federal government securing my individual rights in general - considering the existing federal drug laws, and the very real possibility of a federal abortion ban coming in a few years, I'd say you're cherry-picking here.
Consider it another way - to win the electoral college, you only need to win the 10 most populous states with a plurality. To win the popular vote, you still need to win basically the exact same set of 10 states but now you would need to win every vote in them (which is functionally impossible).
We also have to agree that even with the EC candidates don't care about the majority of the country. Any voter in a state that goes consistently opposite to them is made completely irrelevant, with no point to trying to reach out to them. If the EC was gone suddenly all those voters actually get a voice.
Keep in mind we're talking about the EC, which makes the problem you're describing _worse_. Like I mentioned, the EC is still largely dependent upon state population, so it doesn't actually force you to win more states or even a substantially different set of states compared to the most populous ones. But since almost all states give out EC votes based on plurality vote, it means winning those population centers you talking about _does_ actually override the votes of the entire rest of the state. In NY, ~37% of the state voted for the Republican in 2020, but 100% of the EC votes went to the Democrat.
You're complaining that NY would get an outsized say if the EC was gone, but are ignored the fact that due to the EC cities like NYC are _already_ getting an outsized say in the presidential election. They benefit from getting to effectively control all the EC votes given to their state, even though a substantial portion of that population doesn't even agree with how they are proportioned. Same thing with California and various other states.
If your concern is instead just that small states won't get represented during the presidential election, then I hate to tell you that they're already completely ignored. I think switching to a direct vote could actually help them get more say, as the proportion of the vote you get from those states could be relevant.
> You want representatives to represent the populace, look no further than the House of Representatives. The Senate is disproportionately represented on purpose. It was designed this way, on purpose.
Sure, but the comment above was specifically about the EC, as was mine. The EC is a completely different beast from the Senate, and arguably was not designed to work this way anyway.