And that’s why the founders set up the electoral college. We are a federal republic of states.
The federal government was supposed to be small, because the founders understood the downside of a large federal government.
The federal government was supposed to be small, because the founders understood the downside of a large federal government.
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.
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.
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.