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Photo of a persons' torso wearing a t-shirt that says: maybe a bunch of white slave owners from the 1700's did not come up with the best government ever
If they just used a better election format, that could have fixed so much. I don't think they envisioned such a large population. More than two parties can work at small scale but fails at large scale. And getting that changed is such a task I'm not even sure how it could happen right now.
I think it's actually easier than it may seem. Iirc states get to pick what election system they use to send representatives to Congress. If a single larger state switches to PR and a third party wins a few seats, they could instantly become a kingmaker if the house is divided.
To be fair, a Republic with a mostly democratic system is far better than the governments available at the time. The entire world was essentially all monarchies.
Now, the issue with the implementation was that initially, only land-owning free white men could vote. Over time, the people who were eligible to vote increased and the barriers to voting were gradually removed due to pressue from the people. The election system in the US today is far better than what it had been.
But here some issues that needs to be fixed:
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Get rid of the electoral college. One-person, one-vote. Electoral college violates that principle.
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Ranked choice voting / Instant runoff to replace first-past-the-post
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Get rid of the Senate, transfer all their powers to the House. Get rid of gerrymandering by allocating seats based on percentage of votes. Getting 51% of the votes means roughly 51% of the seats, not 45% of the seats due to some stupid districting shenanigans.
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Supreme Court justices should not be permanent. Example: 15 seats and each seat has a 15-year term with staggering expiration. Each year would have one seat expiring. Each year, one person will be appointed. If a judge dies before the seat expires, appointment would require 2/3 of the vote to confirm, or wait until the year it's suppose to expire then you can appoint one with only 1/2. One president shouldn't have more influence over others because there happens to be more Supreme Court justice death during the term.
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Get rid of bribery.
And Congress members should not be allowed to access their money during the term and live on minimum wage only in the official residence to be provided by the government. (Well they probably shouldn't have that much money at all, but that's a topic for another time) Let's see how quickly rich congresspeople would quit when they don't have access to their luxury lifestyle.(Edit: On a second thought, this part seems a bit problematic. The other points still stand.)
That's some basics on how to make things better. Not perfect, in fact, far from perfect, but more bearable until we can convince people to make more changes.
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I think that would allow a "better" democracy in paper, but not much would change. Using my country as an example:
- One person, one vote, voting is mandatory, if you don't vote you have to pay penalties and lose access to many government services. Businesses are required to give time off for voting. Elections are so fragmented that in the last one a person with 15% of the total votes won. People voted for they in second round only because they were the lesser of two evils.
Candidats are still shit, evil persons that only care about using the government to enrich themselves (and have a history of doing so), most of the population are so bad educated that they only need to hear a few promises to vote for them.
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Not implemented. Would be specially nice for the fragmentation.
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We only have congress. Still corrupt, still holds most of the power, uses it to gain money through laws that benefit them and their businesses. It is very fragmented, but it doesn't matter, because they join when they need to pass a law that benefits them. Leaders of the political parties decide which laws to pass, and tell the congresspeople how to vote. If someone does't vote as they are told, they are removed from congress.
And to get to congress you have to bribe a lot of money to a lot of people, so no one would self destruct after getting in debt before realizing some earnings.
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Supreme court justices are not permanent, last only 5 years, no reelections, appointed by congress. So what? Just do the things that need to be done during your 5 years. After that the new congress will place new puppets. If a major scandal is revealed, you'll be protected by congress, allowed to leave the country with all your money, and forgotten in a few years.
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Bribes are illegal, lobbying is illegal. We did it Patrick! Bribery is no more! You can just get money off the table. However, here the opposite is argued. Congresspeople and the president should have the highest salaries, so that they wouldn't have incentives to take bribes (they earn so much, why risk it to get more). But even if they were
Thanks... now I have no hope for humanity...
... but if even if they were to earn minimum wage, they can just, you know, take bribes? Just don't tell anyone about it. Or pass laws that benefit them.
Such changes only serve to maintain the status quo by giving people the illusion of progress while capitalism continues to ravage the planet and it's inhabitants
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They probably did considering the unprecedented, massive and voluntary migration of people from all over the world into said country.
Lmfao "voluntary" as if the US isn't one of the biggest contributors to other places being poor and/or wartorn.
Never mind the marginalisation that those who aren't white (or even white "enough") or abled or cis or straight or christian experience.
gtfoh
That's because they didn't have enough guns
The blatant failures of the current system have become the benefits for the ruling class. Thatβs why they wonβt ever change it. Itβs like a broken vending machine that no one will admit is broken because they keep getting free candy out of it.
Except the system isn't failing because it isn't broken. It's working exactly as designed.