The American Political System: Can It Be Fixed?

I didn't say the system was fine... I said the system works. THe influence of money has always been a part of government... always will.

K Street didn't pop up overnight.

Something has broken however.. I was merely pointing out what I, and others, see as the real culprit.

It is us... the voters. Blind partisan voting, igorant uninformed voting. Keeping a dead political party on life support and setting it on the track to being a permenant minority party. Our political system is not designed to handle that.  Thus gridlock and obstruction.  We are why the system is broken.

to quote the final line from that article.

Left untouched, our politics will reach a breaking point — maybe we’re already there. And ultimately, voters get the government they deserve.


Edited by micky - September 02 2016 at 05:42

ClemofNazareth wrote: micky wrote: Yeah.. can't agree with the basic premise.  It isn't our political system that is broken.. it is the country.  Don't blame the politicians.. blame the un-informed, apathetic, ignorant, hyper-partisan voter for the mess in Washington.  For electing and continuing to return to office those that have zero interest in doing anything other than obstruction or pushing agendas that serve the few rather than the many .  Zero ideas on how to responsibly govern.. to work together to say yes.. to move forward.. and who are only there (and put there implicitly by idiot voters who then rage about how our government is broken and nothing gets done) to say no.. and obstruct. Gotta disagree on several counts Mick.  The last two presidential (and congressional) election cycles were the most expensive in terms of media and promotional spending, so it's hard to argue people are uninformed.  Misinformed maybe, but not uninformed.  And I don't think voters are apathetic either.  We've had a pretty consistent level of voter participation for the past forty years, 50-60%, but the partisanship has grown steadily over that same time period.  You have to go back to the last half of the 19th century to see higher levels of participation, and back then pretty much only Protestant, land-owning white men had the right to vote (more on that in a moment).  And we're certainly not ignorant, at least from a macro-view.  America today has the most well-educated populace in her history, with high-school graduation rates at a near all-time high and enrollment in higher education steadily increasing for the past century.  Partisan politics have gotten uglier over the past few years but this is certainly nothing new for us, one could argue that things were a whole lot uglier 150 years ago when we spent four years killing each other over our sharply-divided political views. What has steadily and irreversibly changed over the past century is the diversity of the electorate, and of the population in general.  Today people of all faiths, economic classes, religions, genders and social viewpoints have the power of the ballot box, although even here there are constant attempts to dilute that diversity through gerrymandering, voter ID initiatives, intimidation and other forms of disenfranchisement.  It is not a coincidence that the my current state requires state-issued IDs and in this area the only two places to get one are DMV offices that are in white neighborhoods and off the path of public transportation.  This was not the case several years ago when state IDs were not required to vote. The two-party, winner take all approach, funded and influenced by special interests that we have for elections is the system, and if not broken then it at least has become highly ineffective.  National parties choose the candidates, which means I can have anyone I want as President or Senator, as long as it is one of the pre-approved selections of those parties.  Super delegates didn't decide the Democratic nominee but their existence means the national party controls the nomination process except in the case of a high landslide, which will become more unlikely as our population becomes more diverse.  And we've proven time and again that there is no realistic chance of a third-party candidate, and the primary systems of many states prevent third-parties from even making it onto a ballot, so the ability to affect change through voting is a restrictive proposition at best.  And given the growing diversity of our voting population it seems likely that we will continue to see elections like this one where we play out a sick game of 'would you rather' at the polls because our outdated system is not designed to accommodate much beyond either/or choices.

I think we are talking on two sides of the same coin here Bob.

Forget the amount spent on previous elections. How much of it related to issues... I'd wager...10%.. and I think I am being generous. The other 90% is related to tearing apart or destroying the opposing candidate. That is something the GOP brought out in 1988 and something the Democrats took some time to learn.. and after finally releazing that the Gen Pop could really care less about the minutia of policy details but care more about which candidate they 'like' best or hate worst... they finally learned what the GOP taught them.

most American voters can't be troubled to learn about the issues... they are engaged.. yes they vote.. but are they really paying attention to issues Bob? Of course not.. if so... Trump would have had his boxers run up the flagpole for the obvious stupidity of his claims. From Obama's birth.. to all the conspiracy theories.. to sim;ply blaming Obama for Khan's son's death... years before he was even a national figure.  The American public.. or a large right wing percentage of it does not care about facts. They hear want they want to hear.

So yes.. I stand by uniformed and ignorant.  40% of this nation takes its news from organizations that have ZERO interest in presenting anything but what the audience tunes in to what to hear. Thus the 2012 poll debacle. Ignorance pure and simple.

Where we are on the same coin is the root cause of a signifcant percenage of the electorate willingly making themselves unimformed and ignorant.

partisan politics. 

great article here...  I must admit.. I found this after my posting diarrea the other night. And proud to say... it says nothing more than what I was saying.

which bring us back to the original topic.. and my posts. The system is not broken... it is the voters that are the problem. The system worked for 200 plus years... what we are seeing now... we have never seen in this country... even when our House members were beating each other with canes.

we simply have never seen this level of partisanship in this country.. never.. not even when we were killing each other ...

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-political-process-isnt-rigged-it-has-much-bigger-problems/

A Person wrote: The T wrote: Short of an actual social revolution (which won't ever happen here as American youth seems to not give a sh*t about anything but cars women and the NFL) the system will remain as it is forever. I disagree with that, things like the Occupy movement and the BLM movement are proof that this generation has become less complacent imo

It's true that there are elements who have started showing they care a little, but:

The T wrote: Short of an actual social revolution (which won't ever happen here as American youth seems to not give a sh*t about anything but cars women and the NFL) the system will remain as it is forever.

I disagree with that, things like the Occupy movement and the BLM movement are proof that this generation has become less complacent imo

SteveG wrote: The T wrote: The T wrote: No You're too eloquent for such a brief response T. Could you please expand on your reply. Thanks.

Sorry. But yes, I see it impossible. Too many strange things have to happen from a political point of view and then there even have to be societal mindset changes that I think in 2079 the system will be exactly the same. To "fix" this system you need money out of politics (won't happen, even if it's somewhat reduced, the American elections will remain a "who has more money for ads and staff" contest); you need in my opinion more than 2 parties (won't happen, unless Democrats and Republicans for some reason get a liking to political harakiri); you need a more informed electorate (yes, with such "tremendous" education at the mid-high school level); I even think you make minor things like a national voting day holiday (won't happen, Republicans won't let it happen); no gerrymandering; etc etc etc etc. 

The T wrote: The T wrote: No

You're too eloquent for such a brief response T. Could you please expand on your reply. Thanks.

micky wrote: Yeah.. can't agree with the basic premise.  It isn't our political system that is broken.. it is the country.  Don't blame the politicians.. blame the un-informed, apathetic, ignorant, hyper-partisan voter for the mess in Washington.  For electing and continuing to return to office those that have zero interest in doing anything other than obstruction or pushing agendas that serve the few rather than the many .  Zero ideas on how to responsibly govern.. to work together to say yes.. to move forward.. and who are only there (and put there implicitly by idiot voters who then rage about how our government is broken and nothing gets done) to say no.. and obstruct.

At the risk of repeating myself (), I have to say that fixing the system is both the responsibility of the parties now in place and the voters. Again, I'll state that practices like gerrymandering are encouraged or at least over looked by both parties, as they both find it a handy tool when they are in control of Congress. And voters seem to come out of the woodwork for a unique candidate like Barrack Obama for Pres. and, now, Donald Trump running in the recent Republican primary. Where were these record number of voters before they had a hero to vote for?

and would people still think our political system is broken... pfff...

JJLehto wrote: Yes, it's broken.  Yes, it can be fixed.  Needless to say this would be a very very difficult, realistically probably impossible, task but of course it can be done. It would just require our will to do so, after discussion and debate and etc like I said, in reality this is most certainly never happening.  Me personally? A proportional voting, 3+ party system, something done about extreme/political gerrymandering and far more open primaries. Either allowing independents in, letting them change to a party day of, something along those lines. Primaries should all be video recorded, and fully staffed. This sounds almost dumb...but it's true. The stories like 80% of Iowa precincts (or whatever it was) not being fully staffed, the 100,000+ in Brooklyn denied because they were backlogged on registration all these places not having enough ballots, pure shameful lunacy. The 60 voting stations for a 4 million person county, causing 5 hour lines? Yeah no more of that.  This is for the voting process of course. For politics itself, the $ influence involved has to be removed.  How on earth this could happen, no idea. Hopefully some of the above ideas, which while difficult could be done, would go a long way.  Trying to keep things somewhat realistic. While I am for abolishing the electoral college, I see this as perhaps the most improbably feat, and ya know things have worked well for a long time with it, so it's less necessary to me to see it removed. That said I am on paper, for it.

agreed interesting ideas... about as much chance of happening as I would have becoming President with all the videos out there of me in drag and trying to score guys phone numbers during my Jack Daniels years...

the system is fine.... it is the rage filled self-destruction of one of our two parties that brings into focus potential 'problems' in the system. The lack of tacking important issues... bipartisanship needed to do so... the EC issues with predetermined results.  I don't blame the system.. it has worked for 200 years... I blame again the voters for allowing it and in the case of half of our fellow Americans.. encouraging it..