@lennybird
@lemmy.worldI guess I'm curious about generations (namely GenZ and Alpha) who didn't live in a pre-Internet time. Like,
I hope people understand that campaign finance/election reform is one of the biggest (the biggest in my opinion) issues of our time. If you've ever said they're all the same or my vote doesn't matter, and so on, without falling into false-equivalence—you're partly* right, and it's because of this.
*^See^ ^my^ ^edit^ ^below^ ^addressing^ ^this^ ^asterisk^
There's a lot we could do in the realm of campaign finance/election reform, but the most ideal goals are:
Reversal of Citizens United v. FEC (Corporations/Unions can donate) and SpeechNow v. FEC (these entities can donate unlimited amounts, effectively crippling the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, a.k.a McCain-Feingold Act) and redefining Buckley v. Valeo (Set no limit on campaign expenditures, setting a precedent to throw equality of political speech out and equating money with free-speech).
Publicly funded elections to level the playing-field and not limit our pool of candidates to those who have deep pockets or friends with deep-pockets.
Transition to an alternative voting system (such as IRV or Approval voting—both of which are far superior to FPTP). This allows for (1) independent tickets to run without running the risk of spoiling your vote (splitting tickets and ending up with your least-preferable candidate), (2) the victor has the largest possible majority, and (3) reduces the odds that a Gore v. Bush will repeat and someone without the popular vote will be elected. Countries like France and states like Maine employ this to great success.
Abolition of the Electoral College
Finally, there is also the issue of gerrymandering. For addressing Gerrymandering, the most promising solution is a technical one. Computer algorithms can independently re-district locations as fairly and naturally as possible under the circumstances, all the while being overseen by an independent bipartisan committee who would intervene in exceptional cases or shortcomings of the software's redistricting algorithm.
Campaign finance/election reform also has bipartisan appeal among voters. When you look at the problems the right and left both have with government, the common denominator is money and a lack of representation. In fact, this is the easiest topic to bring people on opposite ends of the spectrum together at the same table. No other single issue transcends almost every other national issue in the U.S. Bear in mind that I am referring to the average electorate—not party officials.
Say what you will about former democratic candidate Lawrence Lessig (who? you might ask), but he was right to put his sole weight on this issue. We need more candidates willing to put this issue front & center.
So why is the system so broken and why is it so hard to change?
Big money tends to disproportionately help Republicans. As a result, they favor lax campaign finance laws. Gerrymandering is used by both parties for different reasons, but ultimately to diminish the effective representation of their opponents while artificially bolstering their own. This is counter to the interests of the American people as a whole, and serves to muddy the waters of discourse. For Democrats, it takes more money to offset this disadvantage in the wake of Citizens United and SpeechNow cases.
On the other hand, this is a way Republicans have now increased their natural advantage over Democrats. If you DON'T embrace the unleashed corporate financing of elections, then you are at a disadvantage. But if you want to play by the game in order to change the rules of the game in the end, then you'll be accused of being a hypocrite. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
If there was a single issue to vote on, Campaign Finance / Election Reform would be it. And if you don't believe the severity of this issue, first watch this short video, and then watch this short video from represent.us and connect the dots.
Bonus: If you have extra time, watch this quick 10-minute video after the first two (It's a bit quirky, but has some great explanations)
Edit: I want to be clear that when I'm making this "they're all the same argument," I'm trying to thread a needle between recognizing why some people feel defeated or disenfranchised with the status-quo of government not moving fast enough or listening to them, but at the same time without claiming that "each side" is equally-wrong/right substantively. While the latter simply is not true and it would indeed be a false-equivalence to say so, I think we can indeed find common-ground among both Democrats and Republicans (citizens, not party-officials) that there exists a lack of representation. The most passionate of the left feel the factual issues they have become watered-down by centrist solutions (causing them not to function as intended in the first place), while the right-wing feel their concerns frequently aren't adequately addressed by their own party—that it's better to be in a constant state of fear/anger/scapegoating for political-expediency of party leaders than it is to attempt to actually solve the issue. There's truth to both, and the solution is found within campaign finance/election reform.
In the past when I've posted this, I've seen a pattern of responses who are trying to highlight that Democrats utilize SuperPAC money, Dark Money, etc. and claim it's equal or more than Republicans. That may or may not be true. Here's the key point that supersedes that argument*: Only the Democrats have made a concerted effort to destroy the entire process.** Republicans widely have not and in fact only widened the speech inequality. I'm not trying to be partisan in saying this; that's just a fact. So ask yourself: If (a) Democrats are indeed benefiting more or equally from this process, why would they undermine their own advantage unless they cared about fixing the system? If (b) Republicans have the advantage, then Democrats are still correct to remove this disproportionate advantage which undermines the average citizens' voice.
FAQs
Q. Why Abolish the Electoral College? Wasn't it for helping smaller states?
A. To those arguing that this makes smaller states irrelevant, I'll explain why this is unnecessary:
The Framers already factored in the small-state disadvantage in their design of a Bicameral Congress. That is, small states have a massively disproportionate advantage of authority in the Senate.
Take the population of Wyoming — ~577,737 total residents in the state. They, like every state, get 2 Senators. In a State that has 0.177% (<--Note the decimal) of the nation's population, they get 2% (2 out of 100 Senators) of the nation's Senate power—a ~11.3:1 legislative-to-population ratio. One can see how California would be at a disadvantage with only 2 Senators, but a much larger population to represent: they have 12.8% of the nation's total population, leading to their Senator Power being: 0.16:1.
In a similar manner to the Senate, the Electoral College benefits smaller states disproportionately, giving greater "voting power" to each of its residents. Wyoming has 3 electoral votes due to its 2 Senators, and 1 House Representative. California has 55. 5.1 votes per million Wyoming citizens. California? 1.3 Electoral votes per million citizens. **If California residents had the voting-power of Wyoming residents, California would have 205 electoral votes. Add up all the small bible-belt/rust-belt states and you see why Republicans keep taking elections despite being in the minority. This is, by all accounts, minority rule.
The Electoral College only affects the election of a President, which is not state-dependent, it's national. In other words, all states are treated as one during such a popular vote for the Executive who is responsible for overseeing all states, combined. Imagine that all states are one when voting for the executive, in the same way all counties within a state have an equal say in electing a Governor:
The last two Republican Presidents won election without even obtaining the popular vote—they won despite having less individual votes than their competitor. Let that sink in.
We understand the State model is essentially a scaled-down model of the Federal model. That is:
When a state-wide official is elected to office, be it a Governor or Senator, do we dictate the voting-weight of an individual from one county to another within a state? NO.
So why in the WORLD, when electing the "Governor for the Country" do we arbitrarily determine that the voting Power of a Montana person is more important than the voting power of a California person? This is directly defiant to everything a Democracy stands for and deeply unequal. Add up all the small-states like Wyoming or Montana, and you find enough votes to influence the outcome of an election.
In a Democracy (We are a Representative Republic, but that's still a type-of Democracy), it makes little sense that someone can win the election without earning the popular vote. Call for abolishing the Electoral College.
To close, Aaron Swartz once said, "It's not a question of Freedom of Speech, it's a question of who gets heard." When everyone has a voice but certain voices drown out the rest, does freedom of speech really matter as much as being heard? Obviously a reasonable person can infer that the spirit of freedom of speech was forged with this very thought in mind -- for what is freedom of speech but an assurance of equality against corruption or authoritarian power?
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-presidential-debate-some-undecided-voters-see-disastrous-biden-night-2024-06-28/
https://www.axios.com/2024/06/28/joe-biden-replace-us-elections-2024
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-68999212
Foreign Secretary David Cameron tells the BBC the UK should focus on getting humanitarian aid into Gaza.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us-public-support-israel-drops-majority-backs-ceasefire-reutersipsos-2023-11-15/
U.S. public support for Israel's war against Hamas militants in Gaza is eroding and most Americans think Israel should call a ceasefire to a conflict that has ballooned into a humanitarian crisis, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.
https://www.reddit.com/settings/data-request
They must oblige within a certain time frame — even if your account has been suspended and I believe even if you've deleted your account. Curiously, this might be one effective way to protest. Golly I wonder what would happen if many people requested such reports simultaneously. It seems these must be processed manually by admins.
As a bonus, it's nice because all your comments and messages are searchable.
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/four-nigerians-rescued-brazil-survived-14-days-ships-rudder-2023-08-01/?
On their tenth day at sea, the four Nigerian stowaways crossing the Atlantic in a tiny space above the rudder of a cargo ship ran out of food and drink.
Yesterday I wake up early in the morning to my wife asking for help because our toddler just suddenly puked all over both my wife and herself in bed. My wife had gone into our kid's room to comfort her when she woke up in a coughing fit. Suddenly, projectile vomit.
So she has a stomach bug — big deal right? Get some fluids in her, let her watch cartoons, keep a bucket nearby and ride this sucker out. I'd be totally onboard with that except for some context:
She and I had been swimming in the pool nearly every day. Recently the pool's water quality dipped because we had our pool robot cleaner break, followed by a nasty storm that dumped a lot of debris in there. Finally the chlorine levels were dipping and I hadn't shocked the pool in a while. Not really thinking, we went swimming the day before. Swimming in a dirty, very warm, unsantized pool... Worse, she's jumping into the pool over and over again. Worse, I managed to fix the obstruction and get my cleaner working again, so it's kicking up more sediment from the floor.
So there I was, awoken by my frantic wife telling me that that my daughter is puking and my heart drops to the sense of dread. The entire morning I'm just a wreck, leaping to the worst conclusions: brain-eating amoeba. Why? Just recently I read a tragic story of a 2-year-old passing away from this nightmare and I thought it might now become my own. All it takes is the wrong drop of water up the nose.
Let me tell you, in the end even atheists get down on their knees and beg to some high power in moments of desperation so outside their control.
I can give my child the best diet for their health, protect them from the monsters in their room, and even most of the real ones out in the world... But I know the statistics on this thing are only just below rabies in terms of survivability. I was monitoring all the symptoms closely but I didn't want to tell my wife to make her panic until I was certain. I'm reading up every article I can find on this horror. Is the vomiting persisting? Does she have a worsening headache? Fever? All I could think of was that poor 2-year-old with tubes coming out of his mouth in the news article I read.
Mind you my wife is an experienced nurse who's seen some shit and is usually cool as a cucumber, but even her nursing senses were tingling at our daughter's strange behavior. After getting our daughter into the shower to clean up, she became incredibly lethargic and pretty non-responsive. Pukes again. I get my daughter out and take her down to watch her favorite cartoons, get a popsicle, snuggle up in blankies on the couch. Time to spoil her just to get some sort of familiar response out of our tough firecracker.... No luck. Worst, she seems confused. She's watching cartoons but with a sort of deadpan stare. I ask her an obvious question about who her favorite character is that would normally get a quick answer, but she responds slowly, "I don't know..." By this point, I was literally begging to come down with a stomach virus myself.
I started to track the frequency of her vomits... 10 minutes, 20, 20, 25, 30, 35... Then finally, 1.5 hours passed. Then 2 hours. She took a short 20 minute cat-nap and waking up began acting like her old self slowly while the vomiting completely stopped. Maybe she swallowed some pool water; she may have eaten something the previous day. Either way, she was feeling better and acting like her troll-like self. Apparently she was just plainly exhausted from lack of sleep and pain.
Moments like these help reset your perspective on what's important in life. Not like I didn't know before... But the doldrums of passing days leave you taking for granted things you think will always be there without question while your mind's attention wanders to more mundane crap.
So anyway... Life's not so bad.
Also that's the last time I slack on maintaining the pool.