The path to changing the system is the one Trump took, not the one Ross Perot did.

Americans are deeply frustrated with politics. They see the country heading in the wrong direction. They are regularly forced to choose between two candidates they don’t particularly like. Between 40 and 50 percent of the country identifies not as Democrat or Republican but as independent.

Here is what it takes to get on the ballot in Pennsylvania. Read through that, noting the difference between candidates for “political parties” and “minor political parties.” Imagine you are thinking about putting forth a challenge to an incumbent state officeholder but don’t want to run as a Democrat or a Republican. What are the odds that you get tripped up by the rules?

The problem, of course, is that Americans have strong views about specific things on which they are often not going to be willing to compromise. The Forward essay criticizes the far left for wanting to get rid of guns and the far right for wanting to get rid of gun laws. But that’s not where the parties are, because the parties are responsive to the coalitions they’ve built. If you simply take some independents and sit them down — much less partisans! — you’re going to very quickly find a lot of important issues on which there is not a reachable consensus. Then what?

  • Matt@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    We need an alternate voting system, not a takeover of a major political party. At least ranked choice voting or maybe STAR voting.

    • TheHiddenCatboy@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      I’m not going to totally disagree with you here, which is why I neither upvoted nor downvoted your comment. I think your chance for RCV or STAR increases if you take over a major party, because frankly, you’re going to need to counter the old, dead weight that will fight tooth and nail to tear down your RCV framework. As much as I like Governor Polis in Colorado, he’s still working with the people fighting to shut down RCV by making it so we have to jump through various hoops before RCV can be implemented State Wide.

      We also have to be careful at the Federal level. RCV can work nicely for House and Senate, but we have a Constitutional Problem at POTUS that will take serious coordination at the State and Federal level to patch out. I’d hate for our current House to pick our POTUS because Harris got 269 votes, Stein got 25, and Trump got the rest. That’s mandated by the constitution to go to the House, where Trump will be selected. We gotta fix that before we try to push RCV.

      Maybe it’s just because I’ve got a project manager’s mind and see all the dependencies that I’m not calling immediately for RCV, though I am a fan of RCV, for sure, and will be voting for it in November.

      • Baron Von J@lemmy.world
        0·
        2 months ago

        I think your chance for RCV or STAR increases if you take over a major party, because frankly, you’re going to need to counter the old, dead weight that will fight tooth and nail to tear down your RCV framework.

        Agree 100%. Get pro-election reform candidates in the major party primaries for local offices, and get them voted in. Then move up to state offices. It has to come from the states up, it will be rejected in the courts if it’s a push down from the federal level.