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[–] 118 points 2 days ago (28 children)

Every couple of years we will flip flop between batshit crazy and somewhat less crazy. You need to move on from us. This is not healthy.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (26 children)

    In your opinion, what would it take for the US to push for electoral reform of some kind?

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  • [–] 50 points 2 days ago (8 children)
  • [–] 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

    Things will need to get much worse before that happens. Elections were meant to be bloodless revolutions, but we are shackled to the two party system. This make peaceful revolution almost impossible (almost).

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  • [–] 3 points 2 days ago* (6 children)

    Sadly, that’ll never happen. Americans only protests when it’s convenient, and they’ll never boycott the things they will not let go of.

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  • [–] [S] 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

    It’s funny that Americans laugh at the French joking they always surrender etc, but they sure as shit know how to protest, and protest about even the slightest reduction in personal rights. Americans are the weak ones.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 day ago

    I get what you’re saying, but I wouldn’t call it funny. It’s fucking insane. Americans (speaking from having been one for a looooong time) by-and-large won’t move a muscle if it comes at a cost of effort. But boy do we love being seen standing against all the things that we believe are bad.

    It’s a show. At the end of the day, they cannot be bothered to make the necessary sacrifices it would take to move the needle even an inch in their favor.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago (3 children)

    Unfortunately for many Americans, they don't have anything close to the level of safety nets the French have. When most of your population is a single day of missed work away from homelessness or not being able to afford something like insulin, it gets pretty fucking hard to do much.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    And how did the French get there... Do you think the guys that stormed the Bastille had sick leave and a 40 hour workweek

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  • [–] 1 point 19 hours ago

    Are you willing to sacrifice your kids and partner? Not so many people are. I'm the primary earner in my home and if I lost my job my wife and children would be homeless and hungry. If it was only me, sure, I'll burn down some data centers or storm a castle or whatever, but it's not and that's the reality for a lot of people. So, instead, we do what we can, by voting and trying to make some change. I agree that if everyone got up and did something all at once shit would change real fuckin' quick, but do you think you can convince most people that their loved ones are worth losing?

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  • [–] 16 points 2 days ago

    I don't remember the percentage of the top of my head, but in America a huge amount of people are one unexpected large bill away from poverty and a lot of people are living pay check to pay check. Once a significant portion of America can no longer afford bread, then we might see some change.... and likely deaths.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 days ago (6 children)

    There is an interstate pact that has 82% of electoral college votes required to subvert the electoral college and elect the president via a national popular vote. With the blue tsunami this week, it could in theory reach 100%, in which case the odds of the US ever having a Republican president again drop significantly since the majority of recent Republican presidental wins have actually lost the popular vote.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 day ago (5 children)

    problem is the pact is unenforceable. if a purple state in the compact swings red, there's no guarantee they'll vote with the popular vote.

    it needs a constitutional amendment

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  • [–] 5 points 1 day ago (3 children)

    Well, no. The entire premise is that the states pass laws giving their EC votes to the winner of the popular vote. It’s not just a pinky promise lol. Those laws would have to be overturned by their state legislatures in advance.

    The only part that makes it a pact is that none of the state laws go into effect until enough other states pass their laws.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 hours ago (1 child)

    Who enforces it when a state sends the wrong electors?? Scotus won't take jurisdiction over a matter exclusively within state law.

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  • [–] 1 point 55 minutes ago

    The state Supreme Court….

    So yeah sure, the state could entirely flip their legislature and state Supreme Court and send faithless electors and have it ruled as fine. But if they had the numbers to do that, they’d have the numbers to just repeal the law in the first place.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 days ago

    Probably getting rid of Citizen's United, taxing the wealthy correctly, getting rid of the electoral college, reworking the makeup of the Supreme Court, and ranked choice voting would do most of it. All hard but doable.

    Theoretically we could end the electoral college next year. There's a thing called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. We now have trifectas in enough states for it to go in effect, should a few more states join. We also have Congress too (needed because they'll have to approve it). It's unlikely the federal government can force the states to do ranked choice voting without a Constitutional amendment. But we could implement it on a state by state basis. The Supreme Court could be reshaped by the next President and a willing Congress - the needed precedent is already there in the circuit courts. Citizen's United is trickiest. The straightforward approach requires either a Constitutional amendment or the Supreme Court to overturn itself. But it's possible there's some tricky alternate paths to accomplish the goal. One of them is convincing enough states to ban corporate spending on political speech. Since corporations are a state creation, they alone have that sort of power. Problem is even one non cooperating state could possibly ruin that. But there might be other ways too.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 days ago

    I would say money out of politics is a good start. Citizens United needs to go.

    Beyond that though, American willingly voted in a man twice who said he grabs women by the pussy.

    1. A segment of the population was ok with that
    2. A segment of the population didn't care enough and either stayed home or still voted for him.

    Then there's all the other shitty things about him that were known for years prior to 2016.

    I don't know how you fix that. America shows us all who they are and how do you change who you are? A sexist, racist, money obsessed bipolar lunatic.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 days ago

    I'm unsure electoral reform by itself is going to happen. The problem is, we have a 250 year old constitution that hasn't modernized well, and old money has sunk its teeth deeply into the current system such that it's ineffective at real change. The idea of a 1 time, 5% wealth tax is the cutting edge of what's considered "radical".

    In my opinion, what it will take, is someone like Trump, or worse than Trump, finally shaking the country to a breaking point where the old system collapses. And I'll be honest - I'd love to see the change, but I'm not sure I'll survive the surgery to get there. But what I think it will take is the country finally reaching a point where they push for a constitutional convention, and in that setting, lay out reforms for our current electoral process. Anything short of that, and you're basically looking to get to a majority of people in power willing to vote to give up their own power. That's not impossible, but tends only to be true in rare cases, immediately after a huge shift in power like a revolution.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

    Since voting in the USA is controlled at the state level, it would require a different effort on each state to replace First-past-the-post voting and other crucial reforms. Alaska has Ranked Choice Voting actually, despite conservatives putting ballot initiatives to go back to FPTP voting every election cycle.

    The good news is that means electoral reform can happen easier at the state level then trying to push shit through at the federal level.

    The bad news is liberals in this country get rock hard when they yell and scream at those disenfranchised by the two party system. They adore their chains.

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