Despite any political inclinations Nikki Haley might have, or what political instincts she may think will be most appealing for her political success, Nikki Haley probably has a better grasp of the realities of the American “experiment” that any other candidate in today’s political arena. The problem with Nikki Haley’s answer was not that she did not mention slavery as the cause of the civil war, but because she knows enough to understand that the issue of slavery didn’t cause the civil war in 1865. If it caused the civil war in 1865 it caused the civil war with Tariff of Abominations in 1828; if it caused the civil war in 1828; the constitution itself caused the civil war in its final draft in 1789; but if the constitution caused the civil war in 1789, the colonization of the American continent with its myriad purposes caused the civil war with its very colonization.
Hi Ken. You pushed one of my hot buttons with: "Union does not occur by having two “healthy” political parties that wish to subtract from unity rather than offer a solution away from the polyarchy that asks its proponents to remain in conflict."
At the risk of being an irritating Donny One Note, I will mention again that our flawed one-choice-only, plurality voting system creates the "voter's dilemma" (i.e., Do I vote for whom I truly prefer, or do I vote for someone who might actually win, so my vote is not wasted?) The consequence is that potentially viable third choices are reduced to annoying and potentially dangerous "spoilers". So, via the voter's dilemma, our flawed voting system creates the preservation mechanism of our political Duopoly.
There is a straightforward remedy: Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), allowing the voter to make his favorite his first choice and his "lesser of two evils" his second choice, so if his favorite is eliminated in the instant runoff rounds, his second choice is counted and the spoiler effect is eliminated. Without the burden of the spoiler effect his favorite might become an actual electoral winner. Hence, the gradual dissolution of the damnable Duopoly. RCV has the additional benefit of incentivizing moderation and conciliation among political candidates because they need to gather second and third choice positions on ballots to eventually gather an absolute majority in the runoffs. Extremists and firebrands lose! And party bosses lose the threat of "primarying" their members to maintain party discipline. That member now has a credible response of running as an independent and winning.
The Democratic Party is the only one that might consider moving to RCV (preferably through their Constitutional power to mandate the change in all federal elections, rather than the interminable state-by-state route.) But even they will be resistant because the Duopoly favors all incumbents. So, when they have the power to do it, a massive grassroots campaign will probably be necessary to incentivize them. This will require a general education on the issue, one person at a time. Hence, my own personal, perhaps presumptuous, answer to "What is to be done?" (to quote a very nasty individual).
Briefly, I think there has to be an end to any all contributions and otherwise money could pour so heavily into one candidate's campaign and skew the intent of ranked choice
Questions: 1)Do you have a substack column (I can't find any through your name) or do you have writings elsewhere I can access? 2) how does ranked choice work for the presidency? If there is no electoral college majority, how do you propose not to just let congress choose a president, which then they could do. 3? Congress could pass a nationally legislated rank-choice for federal offices, but do they have the ability to do so for state elections without amending the constitution. 4) Does ranked choice pass muster with S.C.
5) I was wondering if you might look over a set of articles I've been working on before I publish. them. I've been working on them for sometime but I have a feeling they could easily be misinterpreted, that somehow they might be seen as "anti-democratic". . Really it is only the second part (second article) that really concerns me and if you have time I was wondering if I could pdf them to you for your feedback and if you think my suggestions might seem to oppositionally negative.
By the way, did you ever see an Eddie Murphy movie, I can't remember the name of the movie, but the premise was a congressmen dies who had the same name as the Eddiie Murphy character, so Eddie runs and wins simply because he has the same name.
The problem with voting is most people have no idea who they're voting for. They make their selection based on party and secondly name recognition which might be more potent a factor. "Oh, I know that guy's name, it's all right to vote for him even though he's not of my party."
Then they want term limits because they keep electing the same person they don't like.
Can someone please begin teaching our children we have term limits already. 2 yrs for congress, etc...Their term has expired, now the vote gives them the opportunity to reject or accept them. Why don't people understand that?
There is a reform whose principal purpose would be to defeat voter suppression, but might help to deal with the problem of ignorant voting. The reform is to set up a national voter registration database, used to generate and mail ballots in a timely manner to each voter (automatically registered). The ballot would be accompanied with a return envelope and a form to be signed acknowledging receipt and returned to activate the ballot. Rather than having a few moments in a voting booth, the voter would have time to use his ballot to do online research of the candidates at his convenience and leisure. This would encourage more educated voting.
1. When I was browsing the Substack online I pushed some buttons that set up a Substack for myself, but I haven't made use of it. I haven't written much long form--mostly comments of from two to ten paragraphs. For easy access, I have been copying them to Microsoft Word Documents in my Documents folder. I would ask you the question: Should I copy them as miscellaneous entries into Substack? Do other people maintain Substack files of such modest format?
2. RCV in itself does not fix the mischief of the Electoral College. It just makes sure that within each individual state the voter is not subject to the voter's dilemma and has the ballot opportunity to fully express his preferences. There is another reform that might render Electoral College toxicity moot: the National Popular Vote State Compact (NPVSC). The NPVSC is an interstate compact that agrees that when the signing states comprise an electoral vote total large enough to determine a Presidential election (currently 270 electoral votes), those states will assign their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote. States currently completing the process represent 205 electoral votes, and states with partial completion represent an additional 62 electoral votes, for a total of 267 in process. It will no doubt face a Supreme Court challenge when they have 270 completed electoral votes, and attempt to activate the pact. A Congressional legislative endorsement of the pact might be helpful with the Supreme Court. (Article III, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution gives Congress supervision of Supreme Court appellant jurisdiction (cases coming to the Court as an appeal) but challenges to the pact would come from other states not in the pact, for which the Supreme Court has original, not appellant jurisdiction.
3. Congress apparently does not have the authority to mandate RCV for state elections like Governor or State (not U.S.) Representatives. But the federal mandate would familiarize the public to RCV enough that its extension to state elections (one state legislature at a time) would likely follow soon after.
4. A few states have currently established RCV. There is no apparent Supreme Court issue. However, federally mandated RCV depends on the Constitution's Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 (the Elections Clause). Some state might challenge its use in the Supreme Court.
Hi Ken. You pushed one of my hot buttons with: "Union does not occur by having two “healthy” political parties that wish to subtract from unity rather than offer a solution away from the polyarchy that asks its proponents to remain in conflict."
At the risk of being an irritating Donny One Note, I will mention again that our flawed one-choice-only, plurality voting system creates the "voter's dilemma" (i.e., Do I vote for whom I truly prefer, or do I vote for someone who might actually win, so my vote is not wasted?) The consequence is that potentially viable third choices are reduced to annoying and potentially dangerous "spoilers". So, via the voter's dilemma, our flawed voting system creates the preservation mechanism of our political Duopoly.
There is a straightforward remedy: Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), allowing the voter to make his favorite his first choice and his "lesser of two evils" his second choice, so if his favorite is eliminated in the instant runoff rounds, his second choice is counted and the spoiler effect is eliminated. Without the burden of the spoiler effect his favorite might become an actual electoral winner. Hence, the gradual dissolution of the damnable Duopoly. RCV has the additional benefit of incentivizing moderation and conciliation among political candidates because they need to gather second and third choice positions on ballots to eventually gather an absolute majority in the runoffs. Extremists and firebrands lose! And party bosses lose the threat of "primarying" their members to maintain party discipline. That member now has a credible response of running as an independent and winning.
The Democratic Party is the only one that might consider moving to RCV (preferably through their Constitutional power to mandate the change in all federal elections, rather than the interminable state-by-state route.) But even they will be resistant because the Duopoly favors all incumbents. So, when they have the power to do it, a massive grassroots campaign will probably be necessary to incentivize them. This will require a general education on the issue, one person at a time. Hence, my own personal, perhaps presumptuous, answer to "What is to be done?" (to quote a very nasty individual).
Briefly, I think there has to be an end to any all contributions and otherwise money could pour so heavily into one candidate's campaign and skew the intent of ranked choice
Questions: 1)Do you have a substack column (I can't find any through your name) or do you have writings elsewhere I can access? 2) how does ranked choice work for the presidency? If there is no electoral college majority, how do you propose not to just let congress choose a president, which then they could do. 3? Congress could pass a nationally legislated rank-choice for federal offices, but do they have the ability to do so for state elections without amending the constitution. 4) Does ranked choice pass muster with S.C.
5) I was wondering if you might look over a set of articles I've been working on before I publish. them. I've been working on them for sometime but I have a feeling they could easily be misinterpreted, that somehow they might be seen as "anti-democratic". . Really it is only the second part (second article) that really concerns me and if you have time I was wondering if I could pdf them to you for your feedback and if you think my suggestions might seem to oppositionally negative.
By the way, did you ever see an Eddie Murphy movie, I can't remember the name of the movie, but the premise was a congressmen dies who had the same name as the Eddiie Murphy character, so Eddie runs and wins simply because he has the same name.
The problem with voting is most people have no idea who they're voting for. They make their selection based on party and secondly name recognition which might be more potent a factor. "Oh, I know that guy's name, it's all right to vote for him even though he's not of my party."
Then they want term limits because they keep electing the same person they don't like.
Can someone please begin teaching our children we have term limits already. 2 yrs for congress, etc...Their term has expired, now the vote gives them the opportunity to reject or accept them. Why don't people understand that?
There is a reform whose principal purpose would be to defeat voter suppression, but might help to deal with the problem of ignorant voting. The reform is to set up a national voter registration database, used to generate and mail ballots in a timely manner to each voter (automatically registered). The ballot would be accompanied with a return envelope and a form to be signed acknowledging receipt and returned to activate the ballot. Rather than having a few moments in a voting booth, the voter would have time to use his ballot to do online research of the candidates at his convenience and leisure. This would encourage more educated voting.
1. When I was browsing the Substack online I pushed some buttons that set up a Substack for myself, but I haven't made use of it. I haven't written much long form--mostly comments of from two to ten paragraphs. For easy access, I have been copying them to Microsoft Word Documents in my Documents folder. I would ask you the question: Should I copy them as miscellaneous entries into Substack? Do other people maintain Substack files of such modest format?
2. RCV in itself does not fix the mischief of the Electoral College. It just makes sure that within each individual state the voter is not subject to the voter's dilemma and has the ballot opportunity to fully express his preferences. There is another reform that might render Electoral College toxicity moot: the National Popular Vote State Compact (NPVSC). The NPVSC is an interstate compact that agrees that when the signing states comprise an electoral vote total large enough to determine a Presidential election (currently 270 electoral votes), those states will assign their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote. States currently completing the process represent 205 electoral votes, and states with partial completion represent an additional 62 electoral votes, for a total of 267 in process. It will no doubt face a Supreme Court challenge when they have 270 completed electoral votes, and attempt to activate the pact. A Congressional legislative endorsement of the pact might be helpful with the Supreme Court. (Article III, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution gives Congress supervision of Supreme Court appellant jurisdiction (cases coming to the Court as an appeal) but challenges to the pact would come from other states not in the pact, for which the Supreme Court has original, not appellant jurisdiction.
3. Congress apparently does not have the authority to mandate RCV for state elections like Governor or State (not U.S.) Representatives. But the federal mandate would familiarize the public to RCV enough that its extension to state elections (one state legislature at a time) would likely follow soon after.
4. A few states have currently established RCV. There is no apparent Supreme Court issue. However, federally mandated RCV depends on the Constitution's Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 (the Elections Clause). Some state might challenge its use in the Supreme Court.
5. I would be pleased to review your articles. (My email is donklemencic@gmail.com).