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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsOur system of government is breaking
It has reached its end. It no longer represents the people. Its structure is compromised probably beyond repair. Within 15 years 15 states will have 70% of the population and 35 states will control 15 states. The supreme court is politicized beyond repair. The electoral college is a disaster and the house is gerrymandered has hampered any reasonable representation of the people.
There are major changes that have to take place or we will eventually have a civil war.
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marylandblue
(12,344 posts)I think it would be more the Soviet Union breaking into pieces
Guppy
(444 posts)it is dysfunctional.
roamer65
(36,745 posts)It is the prime example of the breakup of a multi-ethnic state.
CentralMass
(15,265 posts)Guppy
(444 posts)and its design is flawed.
Squinch
(50,949 posts)
Haggis for Breakfast
(6,831 posts)So comparisons to what previous generations have said is no longer a valid argument.
We have been sabotaged. From within.
Squinch
(50,949 posts)massive starvation-inducing depressions, deadly labor wars that pitted our own government against workers, pandemics that wiped out large percentages of the population, the extreme corruption of wars created by the government for the enrichment of the already rich, assassinations, racial massacres, and more.
All of those, likewise, tore the fabric of our social contract and made people assume that the union would not survive.
I get what you are saying. Yes this is extreme, but we are not the only generation who has faced extremes.
I stand by my comment.
Haggis for Breakfast
(6,831 posts)As a historian and a political scientist by training (and college degrees) and employment, I stand by my comment.
JI7
(89,247 posts)Haggis for Breakfast
(6,831 posts)Nor do they make foreign policy.
End of this discussion.
Squinch
(50,949 posts)delisen
(6,042 posts)and a dust bowl with millions displaced and roaming in each of survival; we had a Great Flood from which a major city never fully recovered.we had a country battling Civil Rights and a Vietnam war; we had a Constitutional crisis with above-the-law Richard Nixon and and a lawless vp at the same time; we have had Supreme Court justices who declared huge numbers of our citizenry to be just fractions of persons.Yet here we are-still around to fight another day.
I agree we are still here.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)I'm a bit on your side on this, but I do think that Jackson might be pretty close.
I do think we are in a big pickle. We have monkeyed with the original system so much that it no longer achieves what it was designed to achieve. The EC was supposed to prevent Trumps, not enable them. 2 senators was so that small states would have outsized influence, not so a small minority (15%) could run the senate. Direct elections of both Electors and Senators was never in the original system. Oh, and Corporations were never supposed to be "people". So much for "originalism".
And by the by, the original authors wanted the AG to be a separate elected position, but could never figure out how to disconnect that from the problem of an AG going after the president. But it was presumed that an appointed AG would not be a toady for the president because the senate and congress wouldn't allow it.
Maven
(10,533 posts)Of course, this is a realization that some find disheartening and frightening and therefore, threatening. Even at DU, you will see much push-back on the idea that the system itself is flawed, democratically illegitimate, and unsustainable. Personally, I think that we must confront this truth and make reforming that broken system the central political project of this century.
We cannot keep pretending that all we need to do is find the right message or out-organize the competition, when what we have is a tyranny-of-the-minority system that does the total opposite of what the majority of citizens want and vote for. If we don’t fix it quickly, the whole thing will fall apart.
Garrett78
(10,721 posts)Democratic prospects for gaining and maintaining control of the Senate (by any margin much less a substantial one) are not good, even though we're clearly the majority.
The electoral college, a vestige of slavery, has long made a mockery of the principle of one-person, one-vote.
And gerrymandering (which is made easier by the concentration of liberals in urban areas) has got to stop. Neither side should do it. I realize that elections have consequences and shit like we're seeing in Wisconsin could have been prevented, but that shit shouldn't even be legal. Democrats won 53% of the vote for Wisconsin House seats but Republicans will control 64% of those seats. That's outrageous. It's not much better in MI, NC and PA.
Wisconsin State House
popular vote: 53-45
seats won: 36-64
Pennsylvania State House
popular vote: 53-45
seats won: 46-54
Michigan State House
popular vote: 52-47
seats won: 47-53
North Carolina State House
popular vote: 50-47
seats won: 46-54
There's no way a constitutional amendment is going to happen, precisely because of this tyranny of the minority system we have. But there are other measures that can be taken. And it's good to be talking more and more about the need for broad systemic change, as that's how seeds get planted in the public consciousness. The hope is that one day, maybe after all of us are long dead, those seeds will take root.
roamer65
(36,745 posts)The districts will now be drawn fairly.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)And the method by which that alternative, and no other, is to be implemented before throwing this one away.
The Constitution contains a mechanism for its own amendment. We used to use it more often.
Thank you.
Garrett78
(10,721 posts)See post #8.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)1. What is your alternative?
2. What is your plan to implement your alternative?
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)They need to be discussed
Oh, and basically a constitutional convention would be the basic mechanism. It's roughly how we got this constitution.
EndGOPPropaganda
(1,117 posts)Admitting DC, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands as states polls well nationally and would partially offset the current partisan skew of the Senate. It’s possible that the actual inhabitants of Puerto Rico and the USVI wouldn’t go for it (the state of DC opinion is a lot clearer), but there’s no earthly reason Democrats shouldn’t pursue fair referenda and quick statehood for these Americans territories. In the longer term, more exotic ideas — like dividing California, Texas, Florida, and New York into a larger number of smaller states to bring population disparities closer into line with what the founding generation experienced — are worth pursuing.
But none of this is possible without winning an election first, and to win that election Democrats are going to have to fight on a skewed map.
Haggis for Breakfast
(6,831 posts)is an insult of grievous proportion. Eleanore Holmes Norton has been an intrepid and vital voice for D. C. for years. It is beyond time to right this wrong. Remember that thing about taxation without representation being unconstitutional ??
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Is this in your copy?
"Congress shall have the power...
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States...."
elmac
(4,642 posts)roamer65
(36,745 posts)Michigan is trending that way now as well.
Democracy is healthier in Canada as well.
OnDoutside
(19,954 posts)government currently, is the most serious it has ever been. This is a moment to face this head on and smash the detractors.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Huge difference. This nation won't fall while the Democratic Party stands.
I haven't read any of your other posts since you joined, but it sounds like you may be caught up in the current pervasive anxiety and may have already forgotten the recent huge messages sent by the elections of Obama twice and subsequently of our first female (Democratic) president, as well as -- just a month ago -- from the midterms!
It's helpful to realize just how strongly our government is still standing against over 3 decades years of attempts to corrupt and dismantle it by what the Republicans have become. They themselves are bringing an end to the era of conservative domination of government, and what they've done will be repaired, and our institutions strengthened against corruption, by good people acting on the same principles as those who came before us.
As for the changes in our nation itself in a time of massive change, they are huge and constantly ongoing, but that's not new. Meeting and managing to advance our wellbeing in the face of giant disrupting changes has been the story of our nation's entire existence. The industrial revolution began in England a quarter century before we declared independence. Planetary wellbeing has been advancing enormously ever since, but always bringing great anxiety due to change and uncertainly and definitely new problems we had to overcome well enough to continue. But we have been doing that.
These are scary times, but this big-picture pattern from the past right up to today is far too strong to just dismiss.
Guppy
(444 posts)Since I was in college (Poli sci student)n the late 60's I have been opposed to the electoral college. This has always been a disaster waiting to happen. It has failed 12% of the time. What product would you buy that failed 12% of the time.If it was such a great system then why has no one copied it in the world.
It was devised almost 250 years ago. Its flaws have taken time to show but it is the system that is outdated. By design it is non responsive to the public. Legislation is almost impossible to pass.Divided government is inefficient.
It was designed to have the small states have too much power. We are being ruled my a minority. Minority rights(small statwes) must be protected but they can not ruke the majority.
What is your fix for that?
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)the electoral college completely failed its duty to protect our democracy from the election of a Trump. A depraved, mentally disordered, profoundly incompetent criminal widely believed to be compromised by Russia and at very least flirting with treason. To put it mildly we have a case.
I'm not recommending a specific fix at this point, though, only point out that the electoral college has been doing all we say since its establishment in 1804 and that in spite of it we grew into a great and unusually prosperous nation.
Guppy
(444 posts)is way past it's expiration date. That has to be abolished immediately. The system comes down to 5-6 states electing the president. No one travels to CA, TX NY. If it was a popular vote then getting 45% in CA may mean something as getting 45% in Texas might mean something. It makes us become a nation and not a divided country. It makes the message speak to all of us. This is a fundamental design flaw.
This system allowed Jim Crow.
peggysue2
(10,828 posts)Well stated and without hysteria.
Yes, things in the country are dicey right now but no one I know is giving up and Mueller's probe--after many, many obituaries--is rolling along and sweeping up more nefarious actors, those who would bring us down to their sea-bottom level. As a Nation, we've been in moments of crisis before and we've managed to weather the storms. I see no reason to doubt that we won't weather this and come out stronger as a result. Not in the same old, same old but in something new and even more resilient. Because we have been warned this time. In the strongest way possible.
Is it an era of stress and high anxiety? Yes. The entire world is in flux and with all great societal shifts, new perspectives of looking at the world, ourselves, our very existence while handling evolving economies, demographic changes and lifestyles, there are discombobulations. The Industrial Revolution is a fine example, as you pointed out and it, too, caused major dislocations and 'the sky is falling' attitudes. This time, what we've been facing has happened in lightening speed, making adjustments all the more difficult.
Ready or not, we're on the cusp of another revolution: global, technological, knowledge/information-based as our advances in computer science and robotics make a huge, startling leap forward while equal advances in nanotechnology and genetics turns the world we once knew upside down. There's no putting the genie back in the bottle.
We have a choice: we can welcome the change with cautious optimism, confident that the problems we face are solvable and/or can be mitigated for our survival and that of future generations. Or we can hide under our beds.
But change will come, one way or the other because it's a constant--everything changes. Scary? Sometimes. But as you point out: the past can provide a roadmap, a helpful guide.
mnhtnbb
(31,384 posts)It's been headed that way for a long time, but a major step was taken in 2000 when the Supreme Court stopped the vote counting in Florida and declared GWB POTUS. The Republicans have consistently been looking for ways--and were already doing it in some states--to disenfranchise voters. They have stepped up their efforts dramatically since 2000. Look at what they did in Georgia this time!
I live in NC. The Republicans here have been told multiple times by Supreme Court decisions to fix the gerrymandering they did after the 2010 midterms when people didn't show up to vote and they gained control. NC IS a purple state, but once Republicans gained control they gerrymandered the heck out of districts and House representation is now very lopsided at 10 R's and 3 Dems although the vote totals across the state usually run almost 50/50.
Look at what McConnell got away with: denying Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland a hearing/vote. That was outrageous! That is broken government.
I don't think the system is breaking, I think it's already broken. And we are in serious trouble if we don't recognize that and do something about it. Minority rule is NOT democracy. We were never intended to be a direct democracy--but a republic--but that doesn't mean we can't change it.
JudyM
(29,233 posts)We all stood down with Gore, with Kerry (both stolen though by different means) and despite folks like Palast screaming about the election infrastructure corruption, we stood down rather than standing up against the corruption, making a big stink about it and fixing it. We stood down when Shrub and Cheney committed their corruptions, too. When Garland wasn’t voted on. Why. And why aren’t we blanketing the airwaves with powerful messaging about these injustices? We too often let them frame the issues and they are more than happy to do it.
delisen
(6,042 posts)We really do to have president right now; we have a usurper this is running the government in his own personal interest and that, perhaps, of a foreign and hostile power.
So far we are still functioning as a country-not well-functioning but functioning.
McConnell is not allowing bills to come to a vote and he is stuffing all "federalist society" weirdos into our judicial system. How is this working again?
delisen
(6,042 posts)The form of government is a Democratic Republic or a Representative Democracy. We always have lots of options; sometimes we are slow to see them.
The real danger is while we are distracted by the little stuff, we are not addressing the the things that can really wipe out civilization--the killer asteroid heading our mayor the Big Sizzle in our future.
Guppy
(444 posts)in college including studying different forms of government. This one is broken .Major changes need to the structure. No one else copies this government because it is inherently bad.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)I'm afraid you may be the frog in the slowly rising post of boiling water.
It has been "breaking" virtually from the beginning. We had one civil war basically to settle the point of whether the Federal Government was supreme. But the structure of government and elections has been massively altered over what was created or intended.
harumph
(1,898 posts)Inequality of wealth AND inequality of justice has wrought this.
It's mind boggling that "serious people" are arguing that
a sitting president can't be indicted - NO MATTER WHAT HE OR SHE DOES.
This places the presidency (which is an expression of an oligarchy)
above the LAW.
People better wake the fuck up - these guys will take everything.
They'll snatch bread from your elderly mother's mouth.
They DO NOT and NEVER will give a fuck about anyone
except who they consider their equals. They're hard
wired to be transactional - and the only way to make the
bend at all is through power... (power at the voting station or
otherwise).
They'll lie and lie and lie and cheat and even kill through
proxies - and then sleep like babies, because that is who they are.
