Why do you ask?
To better understand your reasoning, apparently.
But my reasoning would never be good enough for most on the Dope, so I prefer not to.
Here’s another relevant quote:
“People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed, in any case. They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or obedient. The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness. And so the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn’t that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people.”
- Terry Pratchett
R-i-i-i-i-ght.
The second part would indeed need a Constitutional amendment, but the first part isn’t necessary. The President’s nominating power already extends to the last day of his or her term.
Regards,
Shodan
Knock it off. These types of accusations are not permitted in this forum.
[/moderating]
There have been whole threads on this, but I maintain that it is a very bad idea.
Currently, we have a system that sometimes results in someone who got slightly less than an actual majority win, which isn’t great. But it also insulates us greatly from failure.
A compromised or questionable election in a single state won’t usually make a difference nationally.
If you make the election by nationwide popular vote, you decrease the likelihood of a close and contested election, but you increase the magnitude of the conflict over it whe it does occur.
Remember Florida in 2000? Imagine the court battles in every single state that would happen if there were a close election? It would be utter chaos. The chance of such a crisis being a nation-ending one is significantly higher than in the current system.
It’s much better to occasionally deal with a President that had slightly less than majority approval than it is to put the whole system at risk.
Then it’s quite a mystery as to how she got the majority of the primary votes.
As to the issue, honestly, the U.S. Constitution is as well written as any. You can change this or that, but it doesn’t matter much.
A Constitution is only as strong as the commitment to uphold it. As we are seeing now, it doesn’t matter what it says if the people who are supposed to uphold it don’t care. There have been many nobly written Constitutions in the world that didn’t mean jack shit when the folks in power decided it didn’t mean jack shit.
Failure? Yes, as we’ve seen in both the Dubya and Trump administrations. We narrowly escaped failure in both 2000 and 2016, didn’t we?
Some of us think democracy is more important than orderliness. YMMV.
This right here is the issue. The problem with America is that a big segment of our voters are made up of angry, brainwashed white people who are so terrified of multiculturalism that they’ll abandon every moral and intellectual principle that a civilized person should have just so long as the politician they vote for is as hostile to multiculturalism as they are (The elections of Roy Moore and Donald Trump are two good examples of angry white people abandoning civilized protocol to vote for someone hostile to multiculturalism).
Without that, there’d be no problem. But I don’t see that going away. In fact it is becoming a global problem. The National Front’s share of the electorate in France doubled from 2002 to 2017, I think it went from 18% to 34%.
So globally, nations have to do more to defend democracy against anti-democracy activists.
Reforms I’d like to see in the US include
[ul]
[li]Abolition of the electoral college, go to popular vote[/li]
[li]Make voting done by mail (or if possible online). Possibly institute penalties for not voting and have a ‘none of the above’ option. [/li]
[li]Stronger reforms on who can enter a primary in an election. [/li]
[li]Major politicians must pass the same background checks that intelligence members and military members pass to get clearance for high risk positions. [/li]
[li]Politicians must pass an independent medical and financial background check with results made public. [/li]
[li]Some way to combat the scourge of fake news and fox news style propaganda that is leading to the brainwashing of huge segments of the country. [/li]
[li]Make the department of justice more independent from the executive branch or put it under the judiciary.[/li]
[li]Make it so the president can’t pardon for crimes he is involved in.[/li]
[li]Restrictions of usage of states secret privilege to hide information. [/li]
[li]A bigger role for cybersecurity in defending our nations. [/li]
[li]Abolish double jeopardy laws when a crime is pardoned on the federal or state level, so it can be charged again in the second court. [/li][/ul]
The judiciary is the only branch still functioning as it should, so naturally conservatives are declaring war on an independent judiciary. That needs to be strengthened.
So you would agree that Senator McConnell was wrong when he said otherwise?
This is one thing I have a problem with. Since (the Interstate Compact notwithstanding) it would require an amendment, I would write the amendment about 180° opposite of that:
[ul]
[li] Electors are chosen every 2 years from each congressional district and 1 by state legislators during primary season[/li][li] Electors convene by law that September, choose a presiding officer and attend to any required business, which may include selecting specific major cabinet positions and/or the president[/li][li] Offices are filled from the pool of electors by a three-fifths (60%) majority: if this majority cannot be met, the top two (>40% support) candidates (which may include an incumbent) will be put to a public vote within 6 weeks[/li][li] Electors must convene at times when an office becomes vacant to select a replacement or candidates (the VP is eliminated and the cabinet covers membership deficits in the interim[/li][li] Reasonable mechanisms for petitioning for a convention of electors at any time will be defined; terms of office will not be calendar-date fixed but measure by election by electors/voters[/li][li] An officeholder is constrained to serve in the executive branch no more than 9 years of a 16 year period (open-ended term limits)[/li][/ul]
It is a silly notion, but the idea of being able to easily replace the president at indeterminate intervals seems appealing when viewed through the lens of “stuck with this guy for 4 years”. Pulling back “serve at the pleasure of the president” also has a certain appeal – in fact, I might consider eliminating the president entirely and having a cabinet council handle his duties.
Hey, I can dream here, right?
Apart from relatives, friends, business cronies and those hoping to curry favor with a potential Trump administration, there was no valid reason to vote for him…and fewer valid reasons to not vote for H. Clinton instead. This indicates the need for a “none of the above” option. If “none of the above” wins, all existing candidates should withdraw and new candidates proposed. I believe this would have a moderating influence on the types of candidates presented, as it would be in no one’s interest to have a vacuum of power hold sway for very long (except of course for some foreign countries and Republican hardliners who would prefer a vacuum in the absence of their favored candidate).
There is also the inescapable indication that too many people – especially in Middle America and (of course) the South - lack certain essential critical thinking skills. As the stakes in elections, presidential and others, are often quite high, anyone who voted for Trump should be disqualified from voting in any future election, as their vote demonstrated they do not have sufficient capacity for understanding what they are doing. This would root out many uninformed or otherwise too fucking stupid voters who degrade our democracy.
And whilst acknowledging the intellectual shortcomings of too much of the American public, I would also support a ban on all sports/entertainment/other TV-created celebrities from entering politics. Too many voters seem to view “being on TV” as an actual qualification for political office. As such, they are too easily swayed by what they see and hear on TV, without being able to discern the substance (or lack thereof) of what is being said. Eliminating celebrities from politics – or less severely, mandating a waiting period before they run for office – seems a sensible solution to this clearly escalating problem.
I am also in favor of eliminating all direct donations to political candidates or causes by anyone other than individuals. Organizations do not vote. Only individuals vote; only individuals should be allowed to contribute to political campaigns. Just like today, nothing would stop any organization from using their own money and resources to attempt to drum up support for their favored positions or candidates through advertising or other efforts (as long as such efforts are in accordance with their own bylaws and accommodate transparency laws identifying who paid for them), but direct donations to/coordination with campaigns should be outlawed with strict penalties. I have no idea what the current limits on individual political donations are, but above a certain level – say ten grand? Maybe twenty? – all donors should be publically identified.
Of course, none of these ideas has any chance of passing, and it is clear that Republicans (and fewer Democrats) would be willing to sacrifice or subvert them to the country’s detriment even if they did pass. As a final failsafe, I heartily endorse capital punishment for all presidential aspirants.
“Hey, it’s the fault of me and people like me that America’s global influence has been permanently decreased, the rest of the world thinks we’re insane, that pressing global issues are in the hands of people without a clue or a care as to how to fix them, and that LGBT rights are being pushed back at every turn, but you told me to fuck off, so clearly you’re the bad guy.”
:rolleyes:
Of course, the fact that this is functionally indistinguishable from “I have no good reasons” or “my reasons don’t hold up to the slightest bit of scrutiny” or “I’m an investment banker who screws over his clients and employees with arbitration so my reasons reflect very poorly on me” is merely a coincidence, I’m sure.
Please encourage your preferred candidates to say things like that. It worked out so well for Sec. Clinton.
The ironic thing is voters are wealthier and more educated than the general public. About 50%of voters have a bachelor’s degree or higher vs 30% for the general public. Voters earn more money too.
Voters are already smarter than average.
I may have missed it; do you have a cite for McConnell saying that?
I don’t recall him saying that.
Regards,
Shodan
As a suggestion, make governmental attempts to violate the First Amendment regarding the establishment of religion punishable by fine or imprisonment or at least impeachment.