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How do you fix America's broken political system? (1 Viewer)

Its too late. 

The warning sign was when republican trust in the media fell to 50% when Nixon resigned.  The warning sign was when republican trust in the media fell to 30% when the media turned against the Iraq War in 2003.  When republican trust in the media fell to basically 0% in 2016, it was too late.  

In todays world, it doesnt matter how effective the mainstream press is, because republicans arent watching.  Rush Limbaugh could take over as anchor of CNN and it would not matter because republicans have their OWN media now.  

there are now two narratives and it is permanent.  The next step is democrats will assert their narrative by removing trump. In the GOP media narrative, that will be an act of war and democrats dont understand that. 

There is no fixing this now.  Its gone too far.  We missed every opportunity. Now were heading for civil war. 

 
Yankee23Fan said:
I can't get behind that but I understand the argument and it is interesting.
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You could simply take the existing districts and divide them by some number to get the representation ratio down where you think it should be. Then, instead of all this districting nonsense, it just becomes an Excel exercise. 

 
You key to understanding modern politics is that roughly HALF the electorate has zero trust in the media because they feel it only represents the democrats.  That means you've got a broken government.  

 
Riversco said:
There is no fixing this now.  Its gone too far.  We missed every opportunity. Now were heading for civil war. 
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Civil war?

lol

Americans can't even be bothered to vote once every four years.

+10 points for posting without mentioning Nazis though.

 
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Non-partisan redistricting in every state (CA already has) eliminates gerrymandering.  You can have nine-member commissions with three selected by the governor, three selected by the legislature or the judiciary, and three elected at large.  

Legislatively overruling Citizens United or getting the SCOTUS to make it bad law takes a huge amount of the dough out of politics.  

 
Ramblin Wreck said:
What if none of them are ethical nor have good character?
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I think what I said, or meant, is go with the better character. I don't expect to find any Snow Whites out there, and I will admit I'm fairly jaded/skeptical, and I'm very wary of supposed heroes with clay feet. If you have to go third party do that. It's a frequent problem here on a local level. Apply this locally in councilman/mayor elections and see where it lands you - who do you trust more if you brought them a problem in your neighborhood? All I can tell you is that making compromises on ethics will result in bad character in office which will result in people who will not deal fairly with their colleagues. Unethical behavior in office is related to bad performance in office, IMO. Malfeasance and misfeasance go hand in hand. And I know people will point to certain known pols over time who 'got things done', well I think that's fairly much false and an excuse for apathy from the people who want to hand things over to 'problem solvers' while they are not involved. Reform starts with the people. There is no systemic fix or gimmick to resolve this.

 
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SaintsInDome2006 said:
I think what I said, or meant, is go with the better character. I don't expect to find any Snow Whites out there, and I will admit I'm fairly jaded/skeptical, and I'm very wary of supposed heroes with clay feet. If you have to go third party do that. It's a frequent problem here on a local level. Apply this locally in councilman/mayor elections and see where it lands you - who do you trust more if you brought them a problem in your neighborhood? All I can tell you is that making compromises on ethics will result in bad character in office which will result in people who will not deal fairly with their colleagues. Unethical behavior in office is related to bad performance in office, IMO. Malfeasance and misfeasance go hand in hand. And I know people will point to certain known pols over time who 'got things done', well I think that's fairly much false and an excuse for apathy from the people who want to hand things over to 'problem solvers' while they are not involved. Reform starts with the people. There is no systemic fix or gimmick to resolve this.
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It would probably take years to correct itself but why shouldn't elected officials (President and congress in particular) have to go through the same background checks, polygraph, etc... that a DBA would go through to work in a secure environment.  And since they are publicly elected officials make their skeletons public information.  It won't stop people voting their party line regardless of candidate but hopefully over time it will produce better candidates if they know their bull#### will all be public and they won't be eligible if they have a history of taking bribes and stuff because they can't get a security clearance.

 
Ramblin Wreck said:
It would probably take years to correct itself but why shouldn't elected officials (President and congress in particular) have to go through the same background checks, polygraph, etc... that a DBA would go through to work in a secure environment.  And since they are publicly elected officials make their skeletons public information.  It won't stop people voting their party line regardless of candidate but hopefully over time it will produce better candidates if they know their bull#### will all be public and they won't be eligible if they have a history of taking bribes and stuff because they can't get a security clearance.
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I'm all for transparency, yes IMO all kinds of background should be available. If people want it, give it to them. Unfortunately on a national level a lot of this is up to the parties, and IMO they should have committees that require certain background documentation like this is handed over before candidates can participate. Yes I realize I'm getting pie/sky here as clearly they don't want to do that.

 
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i skimmed a lot of posts here saying policy is the problem.  Policy isnt the problem.   Credibility is the problem.  The side that wants trump removed no longer have enough cred to remove him without starting a civil war, no matter how much evidence they pile up.  

 
Aerial Assault said:
Non-partisan redistricting in every state (CA already has) eliminates gerrymandering.  You can have nine-member commissions with three selected by the governor, three selected by the legislature or the judiciary, and three elected at large.  

Legislatively overruling Citizens United or getting the SCOTUS to make it bad law takes a huge amount of the dough out of politics.  
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That doesn't sound "non-partisan" at all.  Three chosen by the governor would be a partisan choice.  By definition, the three elected would be partisan.  Three selected by a legislature would be a partisan choice.  Frankly, I'm not sure how you choose a commission that's non-partisan, given that, by definition, whoever is doing the choosing has his/her own partisan bias.

 
Riversco said:
i skimmed a lot of posts here saying policy is the problem.  Policy isnt the problem.   Credibility is the problem.  The side that wants trump removed no longer have enough cred to remove him without starting a civil war, no matter how much evidence they pile up.  
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You keep posting this same nonsense, day after day after day.

It isn't getting any less ridiculous as time goes on.

But +10 more points for not mentioning Nazis again

 
-term limits

-president serves one, six year term......no reelection

-3rd or 4th party involvement

-eliminate electoral college

-weekend election day

-allow online voting

-mail in/absentee for active service only

 
Civil war :lmao:  most of this country is too lazy to go pick up a ####ing pizza. If war broke out I would just close my shades and go back to Netflix. I'm not going to die because some hillbilly with a bunker full of Vienna sausages thinks liberals are intruding on his rights.  

 
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Aerial Assault said:
Legislatively overruling Citizens United or getting the SCOTUS to make it bad law takes a huge amount of the dough out of politics.  
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It also gives the government the authority to dictate who can say what about political candidates within 60 days of an election, with a special bias against corporations, like Time Warner and the New York Times, Inc.  Maybe you are fine with that.  If Trump hasn't talked you out of it, nothing will.  

 
Politicians and diapers should both be changed regularly, and for the same reason. — Mark Twain

 
IvanKaramazov said:
It also gives the government the authority to dictate who can say what about political candidates within 60 days of an election, with a special bias against corporations, like Time Warner and the New York Times, Inc.  Maybe you are fine with that.  If Trump hasn't talked you out of it, nothing will.  
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This didn't happen before Citizens United.

 
fatguyinalittlecoat said:
This didn't happen before Citizens United.
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True, but we never had a president before who wanted to deny first amendment rights to corporate media.  

Edit: Not as openly and explicitly as Trump, anyway.  I know, Nixon etc. etc. but Trump is a very different person.

 
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Well guys, our current state just seems like a stress test to me.  If we devolve into some sort of despot state with Trump running things or if our society collapses, we can accurately say our system is broken.  We weren't broken during Nixon, or the corrupt times of the late 1800s.  They were merely tests and opportunities for us to make tweaks to our system, just like now.  Am I being naive?

 
fatguyinalittlecoat said:
I probably would have agreed with you until November 8.
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I'm sure you probably agree with me on this, but it goes back beyond November 8.  We only have two viable parties because of our first-past-the-post system.  When one of them sold out to white nationalism, that was the breaking point.  The GOP as it currently stands is essentially National Front USA.  It wasn't like that at all even as recently as the W administration, which was friendly toward immigrants and Muslims.  

 
jon_mx said:
Absolutely.  But the degree changes.  We are not at the degree of divisiveness as say the Civil War, but we are peaking for modern times.  It will probably take a common enemy to unite us. 
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If a terrorist organization killing thousands of innocent citizens on American soil doesn't unite our political leaders I am not sure what will. 

 
I go back and forth all the time on a third party solution.

On one hand it would force the need to govern through compromise, since it would be much harder for either current party to have full control. This would likely protect the interests of moderates more effectively than they are currently. On the other hand I don't think that has really been a problem until recently, and it would also likely mean we'd more often have a President elected with a plurality and in the worst case scenario it increases the probability we end up with another Trump (figuratively, not literally). 

I'm intrigued by the idea of having states allocate Representatives without geographic House districts. That seems like the most effective way of dealing with gerrymandering since it eliminates the problem completely. Particularly in large States there could less sense of accessibility to an "individual's" Representative but I'm not even even sure that's all that bad a thing. It's not like in most cases they are really living/mingling with their constituents anyway, which I imagine is the rationale for it. 

 
1. Change the voting on Senators back to the way it used to be.

2. Add members to the House.

3. Figure out a way to not gerrymander so much.

 
I think "none of the above" as a choice on the ballot, especially for President, would fix a lot.

If none of the above wins, then the Governor of Guam takes the reins of power and we have another election 3 months later. Rinse/Repeat.

 
IvanKaramazov said:
I'm sure you probably agree with me on this, but it goes back beyond November 8.  We only have two viable parties because of our first-past-the-post system.  When one of them sold out to white nationalism, that was the breaking point.  The GOP as it currently stands is essentially National Front USA.  It wasn't like that at all even as recently as the W administration, which was friendly toward immigrants and Muslims.  
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Tea Party?

 
It's not a computer, it's people. Ain't no fixin' it.

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." W.C.

 
IvanKaramazov said:
It also gives the government the authority to dictate who can say what about political candidates within 60 days of an election, with a special bias against corporations, like Time Warner and the New York Times, Inc.  Maybe you are fine with that.  If Trump hasn't talked you out of it, nothing will.  
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I don't have any idea what you're talking about.

 
The reason we can't fix our political system is people believe we actually have a political system.

What we have is an oligarchy and propoganda machine keeping everyone in the dark. The next 10,20 or 30+ years for this country have already been planned along with the story they are going to sell the general population. We cannot have true change until people realize we don't t live in a free society built on justice, but an amusement park constructed to keep us docile.

 
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flapgreen said:
Term limits.  The problem is the people making the laws won't ever let that happen 
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The problem with term limits (we have them in my state) is the only constant becomes the lobbyists.  You throw out the good with the bad but the lobbyists remain.  They run the show and write the laws.   

 
I know there will be problems with my suggestion* but instead of a 3rd party how about no parties?

Ultimately, you vote for individuals - knowing their party to me seems like a lazy way to know what the person stands for or is about.  Make people learn the issues and how a candidate will vote.  I truly believe a large % of people just vote party lines - I blame that more than anything for us having Trump.  There's just too many people that say - "I'm a Democrat" or "I'd never vote Republican" or "My family has been Republican for 70 years".

*It's really more a question - what happens if we got rid of political parties?

 
Ilov80s said:
That is interesting. You think voters would support a Constitutional amendment to limit their own power? 
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No.  But I think the original intent of the Senate makes more sense than a direct vote for the Senate. 

 
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