The American Political System is Broken Beyond Repair
I propose to tear down the foundations and rebuild.
For many months I didn’t watch any news, or any other TV for that matter. Recently I’ve caught some news broadcasts and I see as-usual politics dominating governance, by which I mean one party hell-bent on blocking the other’s agenda instead of compromising in the name of progress. This inspired me to return to a subject that I have not written about in months — reforming the American political system.
In December I wrote:
I relied heavily on an article by David Frum in The Atlantic
Even given that turnout, assuming Trump steps down, the electoral system will produce a gridlocked government — not because “the voters” or “the American people” wanted it that way, but because strategically positioned voters in small states did. The unrepresentativeness of state governments is even more extreme because of gerrymandering.[Emphasis added]
He went on to say:
The U.S. system depends on compromise and cooperation. The administration cannot administer without the budgets and laws passed by Congress; Congress cannot legislate without dealmaking between the parties and (except in the most extreme cases) a signature from the president. Yet the spirit necessary to make the U.S. system work is draining away.
In December I proposed:
that at both the congressional and state levels, eliminate districts and change to cumulative voting. Thus, if a state has 15 seats in the House of Representatives, each citizen has 15 votes to allocate among the candidates as the elector wishes. This should enable candidates from lesser populated areas to accumulate enough votes to finish in the top 15 if they garner enough support among voters in their no-longer-extant districts. The elimination of districts should break the stranglehold that the parties have over their elected members and restore “country before party.”
Today I propose an entirely new system. Little fixes will not suffice.
Eliminate Political Parties
Party over country has run amok with devastating effect. Legislators currently take the following oath of office:
I, _______, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
While I maintain that party over country violates the oath as presently constituted, a congresswoman introduced a bill recently to make that explicit. The real issue though is enforcement. No party will sanction its members for choosing party over country. The DOJ could be the enforcer but is unlikely to take on a political issue. I can come up with solutions, like a private right of action for an injunction, but, such would fall into the little-fix category.
The founders knew that political parties would lead to factionalized government.
Alexander Hamilton once called political parties “the most fatal disease” of popular governments. James Madison, who worked with Hamilton to defend the new Constitution to the public in the Federalist Papers, wrote in Federalist 10 that one of the functions of a “well-constructed Union” should be “its tendency to break and control the violence of faction.”
Yet, the framers formed two parties (The Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans) and sure enough, they quickly sought to tear the other’s neck apart.
When Washington stepped aside as president in 1796, he memorably warned in his farewell address of the divisive influence of factions on the workings of democracy: “The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.”
So, my first fix would be to make parties unconstitutional. Since it would be accomplished by a constitutional amendment, there is no first amendment issue.
We also must get money out of politics. That would be an offshoot of eliminating parties, but even if parties remain, the influence of money must be curtailed. While many focus on campaign finance reform, here I focus on lobbyists.
Eliminate the House of Representatives and Transform the Senate
Lobbyists write a large number of the bills that congress seeks to pass.
See also several more articles. So, what do legislators really do? Arguably, nothing, except vote for laws they haven't read and pin amendments to bills that have nothing to do with the bill itself to enact something that will help their district, and of course, get taken to lunch and golf outings by lobbyists.
Utilize AI to Write Legislation
So, I propose to eliminate the House of Representatives. I would transform the Senate into a policy-making body. I would have AI write the legislation so that there would be no influence on bills’ content by special interest groups. Whatever the new Senate delegates to be written becomes law without a further vote, provided the President signs it.
Last but not least, I would utilize AI to fact check all campaign statements and I would extend false advertising laws to political speech.
I have been railing for months in any forum that I can about confirmation bias, which I now see as a malignancy infecting all aspects of life, politics being among the most obvious.
Many believe that the root problem with our political system is money and if Citizens United is overturned all will be well. Money was affecting politics long before Citizen’s United. That decision just provided an amplifier for the dissemination of propaganda, disinformation, outright lies, and deceptive presentation of facts. Confirmation bias cannot be cured.
I wager that while many expect a politician to bend the truth, that confirmation bias is particularly impactful on elections because most do not know that the false advertising laws do not apply to political advertisements. It is beyond absurd that one can be deceptive in a political campaign advertisement but not in an advertisement for a pack of gum. I am sure “Money” created the exception.
In Rama I create,