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How do we fix American politics? (1 Viewer)

CR69

Footballguy
After seeing (and reading about) what has happened in our country over the last 40 years, how do we fix this? I don’t want to get into left vs right or Republican vs Democrat because let’s be honest, most of them are corrupt. The allegations being thrown around at both candidates right now are disgusting. What do future elections look like?

Social media is giving people their own echo chamber which allows them to convince themselves that they’re right and everybody else is stupid. It’s making it impossible to tell what’s real and what’s fake. How is the average person supposed to know who to trust or believe?

I’m so disgusted with politics in this country but have no idea how it can possibly be fixed anytime soon. 

 
Expand the number of Representatives in the House.  I think that would make it a more representative House of The People.

Better education in schools.

 
Break up the two main parties.

I think within the systems most countries have, the best we can do politically (and it basically only happens in select European countries) is multiple (4-5+) popular parties, where none ever gets a majority and as a result it's a permanent "coalition government" where various political parties have no choice but to work together to represent the populace. 

I have no idea how the United States (or any other 2/3/4 party country) gets to that point though. It's easy to say "vote third party" and for the long term, if the third parties are there and representative of people, that's probably almost always right, but for the short term I don't think it works that way. So break up the democrat and republican parties.

If there was for example:

  • The Bernie Sanders Progressive Democrat Party
  • The Joe Biden Centrist Democrat Party
  • The Al Gore Green Party
  • The Michael Bloomberg Centrist Party
  • The Justin Amash Libertarian Party 
  • The Mitt Romney Republican Party
  • The Donald Trump New Conservative Party
is anyone getting anywhere near even 40% of the vote? I say no. So when it comes to passing legislature, you find appropriate compromise and yes, trade off.

 
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Break up the two main parties.

I think within the systems most countries have, the best we can do politically (and it basically only happens in select European countries) is multiple popular (4-5+) parties, where none ever gets a majority and as a result it's a permanent "coalition government" where various political parties have no choice but to work together to represent the populace. 

I have no idea how the United States (or any other 2/3/4 party country) gets to that point though. It's easy to say "vote third party" and for the long term, if the third parties are there and representative of people, that's probably almost always right, but for the short term I don't think it works that way. 

If there was for example:

  • The Bernie Sanders Progressive Democrat Party
  • The Joe Biden Centrist Democrat Party
  • The Al Gore Green Party
  • The Michael Bloomberg Centrist Party
  • The Mitt Romney Republican Party
  • The Donald Trump New Conservative Party
is anyone getting anywhere near even 40% of the vote? I say no. So when it comes to passing legislature, you find appropriate compromise and yes, trade off.
I'm gonna need my Amash party in there, professor. 

 
There has been some talk in history that had the timing been a little different we may have ended up with a parliament instead of a congress. 

I sometime consider the differences between the two. It would definitely make it a bit easier getting some things done but we would probably end up with a lot of laws that get flip flopped each time power changes hands.

But boy, can you imagine if each state held the power to set the term limit of its congress reps?  You could literally have the house flip power a few times a year.  Fun times. 

 
Lehigh98 said:
We need more teams.  These two parties' fixation on each other is a problem.
Agree. A Parliamentary system has many faults like any system. And any modality of government is only good as the people elected to run it.

But ongoing, rampant polarization and the subjugation of "what's best for the country" to "let's score points against the other party no matter how much it hurts us, them, or the collective nation" has become the norm.

More legitimate additional parties with diverse platforms, and more need to work across party lines to execute policy and maintain momentum -- and power -- can only help.

 
I’m good with any of the following: anarchy, armed rebellion, basic income, civil war, partition, revolution, socialism, third party. Preferably more than one.

Every great empire comes apart and fails or becomes something drastically different. There’s a non-zero chance I’m totally wrong, but if I live another 25-30 years, I believe the country will be vastly different.

 
My prayer is we get away from the false dichotomy and begin viewing each other as humans again. We need to listen to each other more, and accept different doesn’t mean wrong.

:shrug:

IDK tbh

 
Four regularly competitive parties would likely do wonders. It would be tough for any one party to get a majority of the House or Senate, not to mention the Presidency as well. It will force parties to work together to get anything done which will lead to more balanced bills and policies that aren’t reversed when the opposing party takes over.

That would be the start because everything else would likely need bipartisan support that won’t happen now. Term limits, campaign finance reform, etc.

 
There are five things that I'd recommend to alter in our approach:

1.  Term limits for politicians.
2.  Demolish gerrymandering.
3.  States alter their EC votes so all states were proportional.
4.  Automatically allow the other parties of this country a seat at the debate table with the Dems and Repubs.
5.  Remove money as the primary voice.

 
*Term Limits

*Every member of congress must live in their District for 75% of the year

*Like hate crimes any crime committed by anyone in the public sector should have harsher penalties

*Any convicted voter fraud is a mandatory 20 year sentence with no parole

*Mandatory retirement at age 75

 
Pitchfork said:
Break up the two main parties.

I think within the systems most countries have, the best we can do politically (and it basically only happens in select European countries) is multiple (4-5+) popular parties, where none ever gets a majority and as a result it's a permanent "coalition government" where various political parties have no choice but to work together to represent the populace. 

I have no idea how the United States (or any other 2/3/4 party country) gets to that point though. It's easy to say "vote third party" and for the long term, if the third parties are there and representative of people, that's probably almost always right, but for the short term I don't think it works that way. So break up the democrat and republican parties.

If there was for example:

  • The Bernie Sanders Progressive Democrat Party
  • The Joe Biden Centrist Democrat Party
  • The Al Gore Green Party
  • The Michael Bloomberg Centrist Party
  • The Justin Amash Libertarian Party 
  • The Mitt Romney Republican Party
  • The Donald Trump New Conservative Party
is anyone getting anywhere near even 40% of the vote? I say no. So when it comes to passing legislature, you find appropriate compromise and yes, trade off.
The easy change is to split the Democratic party into the Democratic Party and the Progressive Party.  It looks like it's starting to trend that way.  When you see a centrist like Biden having to tiptoe from one platform landmine after another just within his own party I think the Democratic Party is at a crossroads.  Moderates are soon going to be left behind.  Unfortunately, the Republican party is mostly united behind Trump ideology so if the Dem party splits, they'll change the composition of the House, but the Senate and Executive will be Republican controlled for a long time.

 
Wildcat said:
I think you nailed it with social media.  It has killed independent thinking.  I don’t know how to fix it. 
I agree that this is mainly an issue driven by social media, and I also agree that there's no obvious fix on the horizon.  Representative government works pretty well when people don't spend a lot of time thinking about politics -- voters show up every 2-4 years, elect people who (presumably) know what they're doing, and go back to living their lives.  Now people treat their partisan identity the way people in northern Ireland viewed their religious identity, and unsurprisingly the electoral process doesn't work so go great anymore.  

 
The biggest problem, IMO, is the money from lobbyists. It is the root of all evil in politics.

Until that is removed, the system will never be fixed. Adding a 3rd party (or more) won't matter. When special interests groups can throw boatloads of money behind those writing laws, then we as a country and as citizens lose.

Things like term limits would help, but still doesn't address the basic problem.

Once you do that, you have people in office that will try to listen to the people they represent or they won't get voted in.

If anything, I think we should completely remove political parties. Candidates should run on issues, let their stances be known, and be able to vote and legislate each item independently. 

 
The biggest problem, IMO, is the money from lobbyists. It is the root of all evil in politics.

Until that is removed, the system will never be fixed. Adding a 3rd party (or more) won't matter. When special interests groups can throw boatloads of money behind those writing laws, then we as a country and as citizens lose.

Things like term limits would help, but still doesn't address the basic problem.

Once you do that, you have people in office that will try to listen to the people they represent or they won't get voted in.

If anything, I think we should completely remove political parties. Candidates should run on issues, let their stances be known, and be able to vote and legislate each item independently. 
I agree.  Also when runinng for office make a "salary cap" type of law for ads.  Give each canidate X amounts of dollars to use as they see fit. Make it so elections are not bought. 

In my local school board election we has 2 candidates who spent over 100K each to get elected to the school board position that pays 100.00 a meeting for 9 meetings a year.  Of course they had donors who paid to have their agenda pushed through.  A very qualified lady I knew had around 2K to spend and never had a chance.

 
Remove money from from politics.  It's a simple response, but it fuels all of this.  When you see how much more time congress members spend fund raising rather than debating and legislating, it should be pretty apparent where the problem lies.

Campaign finance needs a complete overhaul, lobbying needs significantly more regulation and oversite, citizens united needs to be revisited.  The outsized influence corporate interests have on our politics is madness, and fuels so much of the divide.  Wedge issues are used constantly in ads by special interests as a means to support or defeat candidates when the wedge issue itself has nothing to do with the motivation of the organization funding the ads.  The people are misled and used every cycle by stoking emotional responses to issues that those funding these politicians and ads could care less about.  There is no honesty or transparency at all in what motivates those funding these campaigns.    

 
Alex P Keaton said:
Put a “none of the above” option on every ballot.  If “none of the above” wins, make the parties pick new candidates and re-do the election.
Anything Brewsters Millions related will get my support.  :thumbup:

 
Thunderlips said:
Expand the number of Representatives in the House.  I think that would make it a more representative House of The People.
The Constitution originally called for each member of the House to represent 30,000 people.

If we used the same ratio today, we'd have over 11,000 members of the House Of Representatives. Which might not be a bad idea -- it would certainly make it more difficult for special interests to gain control of it.

 
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We need to find people who's incentive for serving this country is truly "service to this country" - not service to themselves.

 
Agree with all the money and term limit posts.  

It won't change until people quit choosing a side (team) to be on.  Which is the way they want to keep it, so they can remain in corrupt power.  They'd rather have us fighting than uniting for something better.

 
We need to find people who's incentive for serving this country is truly "service to this country" - not service to themselves.
All elected officials of congress should have to show tax returns as long as we are paying them. We will see how special the interests are then.  Also, I would like to see a cap on campaign spending.

 
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Also, no reporting of the results while voting booths are still open.  It does influence elections at the local level.  Two time zone states are hurt by this also.

 
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