we become stuck in the age-old foil though: “i think many a politician needs to be voted out, but not mine!”

This post was edited by excellence on Jul 13 2020 08:10pm

Right and that's a reflection of how Americans feel about each other. We want everyone else to conform to our view as opposed to finding common ground. Our disdain towards Congress is really just an expression of our disdain towards people who think differently than us IMO.

Incumbents have a huge advantage. In reality they don't really represent yours or mine interests but their own. It's in their interests to adhere to the party because they know in 2 or 6 years they'll need that money and support.

Honestly if congress worked the way it should we would have many more Rand Pauls, Bernies, etc.

IMO, these are the worst kinds of legislatures and they make our system break. You NEED to find consensus for our system to work...that's the way it's designed. You need to be able to bend, but not break.

Obviously some form of ranked choice voting would be ideal but I think we need to take it a step further. I don't think we should be voting for PEOPLE but party platforms instead. Let's let the parties dictate who the representatives are through some sort of meritocracy.

I don't think that. Bernie has done well representing his constituents, and has often done selfless things like giving up co-sponsorship positions or authorship positions to get more people on board to legislation. He took a lot of shit for being against gun restrictions despite supporting it in principle because he thought it was more appropriate at the state level. Etc. etc. Bernie has been a pretty great representative for his entire career, which is why he kept getting re-elected while being independent.

Really I don't think that Bernie belongs in the same sentence as either of the Pauls. He's not some radical like the far right wishes he was.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Jul 13 2020 09:17pm

That's going to be a no for me dawg.

I'm opposed to most of Bernie's platforms but i do appreciate it that people like him and Warren call out crony capitalism which is reality in the US, in sectors it shouldn't be like healthcare and insurance.

Same with Paul, him calling out republican hawks on endless wars is awesome. 98% of the other stooges agree that the DOD budget needs to grow x% every year regardless of party, that for profit systems that should be non for profit are totally fine, etc.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Jul 13 2020 09:22pm

No matter your policy position Bernie is a top notch human. He was out marching for gay and civil rights way way way before it was any semblance of popular in the United States. Similarly he's by all accounts represented his constituents to the best of his ability, even on some cases that conflicted with his own beliefs when the support from his constituents merited it.

I think their views are fine in the House but don't make much sense in the Senate. Senators should represent the interests of the entire state which means you need to represent the most radical socialist to the most intense libertarian. Obviously those are fringe views so to me it makes sense to have a bunch of center-left and center-right people in the Senate. Some of the smaller states could probably have senators who are a bit more radical I suppose.

With ranked choice voting combined with multi-member districts, I think you would see a real rise in Libertarian and Dem-Socialist members. I'm not opposed to that.

We will never have a viable third party or a wide represented political spectrum without implementing some sort of voting system besides the one we have now. FPTP is always doomed to be a two party system.

Right, that's why I mentioned RCV and MMD. I have a feeling that RCV could be implemented well before MMD at the state level. People seem to like having a single representative as opposed to larger districts with multiple representatives. I think NH is the only state that uses MMD but it's only at the state level.