this post was submitted on 13 May 2025
583 points (97.6% liked)
United States | News & Politics
2857 readers
1294 users here now
Welcome to [email protected], where you can share and converse about the different things happening all over/about the United States.
If you’re interested in participating, please subscribe.
Rules
Be respectful and civil. No racism/bigotry/hateful speech.
Post anything related to the United States.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Can't do shit with the winner takes all, first past the post abomination that is the US system. We need hundreds more senators, absolute defeat of gerrymandering, a dozen more sc justices, ranked choice and the abolishment of the electoral college.
How about we start with a just few 3rd party congressmen? That can't be too hard, right? 3 or 4 congressmen not beholden to either party. I'm sure there's at least a couple districts out there that the majority could be swayed if enough focus was put on them.
Then we elect a few more.
Then maybe a senator.
Now suddenly this 3rd party starts getting some attention. It's still by no means a majority, but that's enough congressional votes to give them a seat at the table. When votes are so split and close these days, even a small number of votes can throw things out of order. Demands can start being made.
I'm with you on ranked choice, gerrymandering, and electoral college, but I don't really know how adding more government or senators or SC judges really fixes anything in the long term.
I think the people need to be given more power not the government.
For example, when any government official violates their sworn duties, that should be a much bigger deal than it is. we need to do a better job of holding people's feet to the fire. When Alito flew that flag on Jan 6, that should have been an automatic chance for the people of this country to schedule a vote and demand his removal. This SC justice for life shit needs some stipulations.
Part of the appeal for more sc justices/more house of rep members, etc is twofold:
It reduces an individual lawmaker's power and (in the house of rep's case) makes an individual rep much easier for the public to pressure as they will be beholden to fewer constituents per rep (less constituents, the less support you need in order to rally people to oust the incumbent).
It makes corrupting the government with money a little bit harder: more reps = more people you need to pay off, and it's not like every additional vote you need only costs $1 or smth, we're talking you need to get everyone enough money to keep them on board, which could be an extra couple million/billion than corrupting people now.
That being said: you're right, we need more than just that. We need avenues to hold votes of non-confidence (which will both allow us to get rid of bad/not helpful public servants, and also force politicians to stop straight-up lying on the stump). We need to institute public funding of elections to keep things both balanced and less-easily corrupted. We need to end gerrymandering. We need term limits.
You're right, but they said senators, not house reps, for a reason. I have to infer they want hundreds more senators in conjunction with proportional representation being introduced to the Senate. Right now it's two Senators per state which makes absolutely no sense on any level. The will of less than a million people in Wyoming is equal to the will of multiple millions in other states.