RE: WikiLeaks publishes searchable database of almost 20,000 emails from DNC.
July 26, 2016 at 11:36 am
(July 26, 2016 at 10:55 am)Whateverist the White Wrote: I don't see our de facto two party system as the most problematic aspect of our governmental system. Perhaps if we had more parties pushing a greater variety of agendas they'd have to stop avoiding all specificity. Perhaps. More likely the parties with the broadest backing would still obfuscate to avoid alienating supporters. I have to doubt that our largely uneducated electorate is going to suddenly become more shrewd just because there are more options.
I don't think anyone will get smarter from having more options. But I do think that a third-party which can craft an appealing message and start sucking votes away from the majors would force the two majors to review Message with an eye towards delivering public desires. I don't think voters will become more clever, but I do think that they are fed up with the status quo. The success of both Trump and Sanders is evidence of that, as is the higher profile of the Libertarian candidate this election cycle.
(July 26, 2016 at 10:55 am)Whateverist the White Wrote: A bigger problem is that power is difficult to wield in the US. Separation of powers is supposed to provide checks and balances. It simultaneously hinders actually accomplishing anything toward change. As a result "Separation of powers" and "checks and balances" become code for "preservation of the status quo".
Well, I think that the separation of powers is only a problem when you have those powers wielded not by individuals with the interests of the nation at the forefront, but rather the interests of their own party. Gridlock is not a fact because of separation of powers, it's a fact because neither party wants to give an inch on their ideology in the interest of good governance. The nation has a couple of centuries' experience showing how the separation of powers can indeed work.
It just takes civic-minded people, rather than the apparatchiks we have nowadays. It's not that the separation of powers produces a sclerotic government (the forty years between 1930 and 1970 show how dynamic our government can be) -- it's the manipulation of the system by functionaries whose allegiance to party outweighs their allegiance to country.
