What’s even more unfair is area based voting, where your individual vote doesn’t count to affect the government, you instead vote for a local representative which in turn effects the government. Your vote for president or prime minister should be direct, not a postcode lottery even without gerrymandering.
What your describing is called a Republic. There are several benefits to such a model.
The most relevant was well summarized in MIB as “a person is smart, people are stupid”. A simple direct democracy is great until you are relying on an uninformed population to make a time-critical decision that requires expertise. If we instead elect people who are then expected to use tax dollars to consult experts, and then represent our interests by voting accordingly, we can theoretically avoid problems (such as the tragedy of the commons).
The downside happens when the representative takes advantage of the public’s ignorance, fosters it, and wields it for personal/oligarchic gain. Ideally the people are just smart enough to see that happening and vote them out before it becomes a systemic issue…
In theory the US Federal govt should be split into branches so that it has power, but the checks and balances between branches prevent any single branch from dominating. Which sucks when all 3 branches collude to hand all the power to the executive branch, which then wields the Federal govt to dominate the states.
For the record, a similar system where the states remain separate with a centralized governing body, but with less power than a Federalist one is called a Confederacy…so yeah, we tried that in the US once too. On the flip side, Switzerland’s Confederation seems to be working out pretty great for them.
You don’t want that. France tried that, a couple of times, it didn’t work. Government ended up deadlocked and falling every 6 months. Our 5th republic granted more power to the presidency, and now it’s a little better.
What you do want, however, is the head of state and the head of government to be two distinct persons. Which is not the case in the USA.
I mean, you could go the other way. Presidencies are bad on their face and the chief executive should be promoted from the party with a legislative majority (ie, Parliamentary system).
Then go after single representative districts and the obscenely high constituent to representative ratios.
Area based voting is a necessity for electing a local representative. But it shouldn’t apply for national elections, on that I agree. The US is the only country I know of that applies area based voting in national elections.
The whole reason a prime minister is different from a president is that they’re not elected by direct votes. They’re the leader of the party with the most representatives (more or less).
That is the Westminster system. It’s fine in that the head of the executive only has power so long as they have the confidence of the elected members. If the elected members lose confidence then the government falls. The government is the house, so your vote does directly influence the government on either the government or opposition side. Don’t get too jealous of the American system - it’s a bloody mess in its own right.
The Government isn’t the house, it’s the around 140 ministers appointed by the PM, drawn from both houses, plus the whips. Opposite them is the opposition frontbench, which is the leader of the opposition and the shadow cabinet, and their whips. Everyone else in the Commons from those two parties are backbenchers.
“Government” has two meanings here. The oppostion has an official role in “governance” which is why they have offices, sit in committees, have research budgets, vote etc. In a minority government situation The backbenchers have a great deal of control over the process. Opposition included. The “GOVernment” controls the process to great extent.
This isn’t like the American system where the minority partner is relegated to the sides. The opposition play a very strong role in the parliamentary process. It doesn’t map well onto American politics at all.
What’s even more unfair is area based voting, where your individual vote doesn’t count to affect the government, you instead vote for a local representative which in turn effects the government. Your vote for president or prime minister should be direct, not a postcode lottery even without gerrymandering.
What your describing is called a Republic. There are several benefits to such a model.
The most relevant was well summarized in MIB as “a person is smart, people are stupid”. A simple direct democracy is great until you are relying on an uninformed population to make a time-critical decision that requires expertise. If we instead elect people who are then expected to use tax dollars to consult experts, and then represent our interests by voting accordingly, we can theoretically avoid problems (such as the tragedy of the commons).
The downside happens when the representative takes advantage of the public’s ignorance, fosters it, and wields it for personal/oligarchic gain. Ideally the people are just smart enough to see that happening and vote them out before it becomes a systemic issue…
Or even better, the position of president or prime minister should have little power.
In theory the US Federal govt should be split into branches so that it has power, but the checks and balances between branches prevent any single branch from dominating. Which sucks when all 3 branches collude to hand all the power to the executive branch, which then wields the Federal govt to dominate the states.
For the record, a similar system where the states remain separate with a centralized governing body, but with less power than a Federalist one is called a Confederacy…so yeah, we tried that in the US once too. On the flip side, Switzerland’s Confederation seems to be working out pretty great for them.
You don’t want that. France tried that, a couple of times, it didn’t work. Government ended up deadlocked and falling every 6 months. Our 5th republic granted more power to the presidency, and now it’s a little better.
What you do want, however, is the head of state and the head of government to be two distinct persons. Which is not the case in the USA.
When the Senate’s full of cucks, they let you do it
I mean, you could go the other way. Presidencies are bad on their face and the chief executive should be promoted from the party with a legislative majority (ie, Parliamentary system).
Then go after single representative districts and the obscenely high constituent to representative ratios.
Area based voting is a necessity for electing a local representative. But it shouldn’t apply for national elections, on that I agree. The US is the only country I know of that applies area based voting in national elections.
And the UK, as the parliament is made up of local representatives. They should be two different people.
The whole reason a prime minister is different from a president is that they’re not elected by direct votes. They’re the leader of the party with the most representatives (more or less).
That is the Westminster system. It’s fine in that the head of the executive only has power so long as they have the confidence of the elected members. If the elected members lose confidence then the government falls. The government is the house, so your vote does directly influence the government on either the government or opposition side. Don’t get too jealous of the American system - it’s a bloody mess in its own right.
The Government isn’t the house, it’s the around 140 ministers appointed by the PM, drawn from both houses, plus the whips. Opposite them is the opposition frontbench, which is the leader of the opposition and the shadow cabinet, and their whips. Everyone else in the Commons from those two parties are backbenchers.
“Government” has two meanings here. The oppostion has an official role in “governance” which is why they have offices, sit in committees, have research budgets, vote etc. In a minority government situation The backbenchers have a great deal of control over the process. Opposition included. The “GOVernment” controls the process to great extent.
This isn’t like the American system where the minority partner is relegated to the sides. The opposition play a very strong role in the parliamentary process. It doesn’t map well onto American politics at all.