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Comment by reenorap | Hacker News Reader

It wasn't that they were fighting each other, they were working in concert with each other, like a dance. If the Dems say one thing, the Republicans say the opposite and vice versa, because they knew it would keep both of them in power. Now we have a true Agent of Chaos in charge that doesn't heed any of the previous rules and us peons will have to deal with the fallout from that. The biggest negative repercussions is that both the Republicans and the Democrats will be completely emboldened to do whatever they want now and we are going to suffer because neither party gives a fuck about us, they only care about maintaining their own power.

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100%. The damage that has been done in just the past several months is unthinkable. It’s not going back to the old ways any time soon, if ever. The democratic republic experiment might even be over at this point.

I’m beginning to believe the best path forward is a new constitution, which is absolutely crazy because I used to believe we had an extraordinary system designed with incredible foresight. It turns out it was full of holes and we mostly got by on the honor system. Sure, there have been lousy and corrupt politicians, but we never had a truly bad actor determined to sidestep every rule until now.

The problem is not the Constitution. No democratic-adjacent political system can survive the majority of its constituents being apathetic and disengaged (as is currently the primary problem. Our current Constitution was designed to assume some measure of engagement from the citizens because that's a hard constraint that bounds all democratic systems.

The problem is the citizens, which are chronically disengaged (a fact which has ample evidence behind it), not the legal framework. If you disagree, then feel free to point to a functioning democratic system at the same scale as the US that can survive 99% of its voters not caring enough to do anything more than spend 15 minutes voting once every two years, which is where we're at now.

The only way to keep a democratic government is to keep Huxley at bay.

>The problem is the citizens, which are chronically disengaged (a fact which has ample evidence behind it), not the legal framework.

That sounds like a problem with the legal framework, if it relies on millions of individuals changing their personalities and priorities. That's not realistic.

Please read my entire comment before responding:

> because that's a hard constraint that bounds all democratic systems.

There's no way to have democracy without an engaged citizenship.

And not only is it not a problem with the Constitution because of that fact, but it's a fact that the citizens were engaged in the past, so it absolutely is realistic.

You disengage when you are not represented. And with just two parties with very rigid stances on everything very few people are adequately represented. US needs multi-party democracy. Two party system they have now is just one party system, split in half and frozen.

> hen feel free to point to a functioning democratic system at the same scale as the US that can survive 99% of its voters not caring enough to do anything more than spend 15 minutes voting once every two years, which is where we're at now

What do really expect them to do ?

> It turns out it was full of holes and we mostly got by on the honor system.

100%. The Constitution was designed with good faith actors in mind. It was not designed in an age of gamification, in which we find ourselves now.

Alternative would be one party system like China. Where you could do more but at the cost of controlling social hatred towards government. US goes easier route and controls hatred by splitting it in half directing the halves to hate each other.

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