A lot of what we do is describing and explaining problems: political conflicts, protests, wars. The Atlantic Sentinel tries to help readers understand the news better, often by looking back and placing events in an historical or international context. But sometimes we have ideas to improve things. You’ll find those stories under better democracy.
Britain’s youngest political party is growing. The Independent Group (TIG) has attracted eight lawmakers from Labour and three from the Conservatives. A ninth Labour member of Parliament, Ian Austin, has left his party but not (yet) joined the new centrist group.
Polls give TIG between 8 and 14 percent support. Read more “Britain’s New Centrist Party Needs Electoral Reform”
The Financial Times argues that the big political story in Europe is not so much the rise of populism as the fragmentation of electorates and the parties that represent them.
This isn’t wrong per se, but I would like to offer two nuances. Read more “Don’t Fear Dutchification”
Few good things come out of Washington DC anymore, but today is an exception.
California, Illinois, New York and Texas have 30 percent of the American population between them. Yet because they are late in the primary calendar, they have almost no say in the selection of presidential candidates.
Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina have only 3 percent of the population, yet because they are first in line to vote they have disproportionate power in the process. If a candidate fails to win at least one of the first three primary states, he or she usually drops out.
How is that democratic? Read more “Give Superdelegates More, Not Less, Power”
Ezra Klein makes an excellent point in Vox: the stakes of Supreme Court nominations in America are too high.
Candidates serve for life — which, given modern life spans and youthful nominees, can now mean forty years of decisions — and no one knows when the next seat will open.
No other democracy in the world allows judges to serve for life. And in no other democracy is the process of appointing high-court judges so broken. Read more “America’s Supreme Court Has Become Too Powerful”
Dylan Matthews cautions in Vox that ending the Trump presidency will not fix, or even substantially ameliorate, most of the problems plaguing the American political system.
They were mounting for years before he took office — indeed, they made him possible — and they will continue to plague us for years after he leaves.
Matthews shares some of my ideas for fixing American democracy, including abolishing the Electoral College and moving toward proportional representation. He also suggests eliminating midterm elections and introducing public financing for elections.
Don’t tell conservatives, but what we’re talking about is making the United States more like a European democracy.
Are any of these reforms likely to happen? No. But even one or two would make a big difference. Read more “Removing Trump Won’t Fix American Democracy”
Scott Lemieux sees two problems with ending the two-party system in the United States:
As somebody who believes strongly in multiparty democracy (read my case for constitutional reform), let me respond. Read more “In Defense of Multiparty Democracy”
A Voice Of the People poll has found (PDF) majority support in the United States for introducing ranked-choice voting.
Also known as instant runoff, it would allow Americans to vote for third-party candidates without wasting their votes. Maine is the first state to consider it.
Another way to break up the Democratic-Republican duopoly would be to consolidate congressional districts.
I would support either. The two-party system has polarized Americans. We see in Europe that multiparty democracies are better at managing tensions. Read more “Americans Want Voting Reform, Analysis of Trump’s Attack on Syria”
Will Wilkinson of the libertarian Niskanen Center tells The Washington Post that expanding affordable housing in America’s major cities is the key to reducing inequality.
Wages have barely budged in decades, yet housing costs have soared due to restrictive zoning and land-use policies. Young and working Americans are now unable to save. Homeowners are getting richer.
Kevin D. Williamson, a conservative columnist who was recently hired and then fired by The Atlantic for his right-wing views (more on that here), has similarly argued in National Review that working-class Americans left behind in the Rust Belt need to move to the coasts. He partly blames them for staying put, but recognizes that policy plays a role.
Consider California, where so many of the jobs in the new economy are. Its housing crisis (you can buy a private island or a castle in Europe for the price of a San Francisco apartment) is entirely man-made, “a result of extraordinarily restrictive zoning and environmental codes and epic NIMBYism of a uniquely Californian variety.”
A Republican Party wishing to renew its prospects in California (which it once dominated) or in American cities could — and should — make affordable housing the centerpiece of its agenda for the cities.
More on why Republicans ought to compete in American cities here. Handelsblatt reports that Berlin fears San Francisco-style housing problems. Read more “The Rent Is Too High, Partisanship Versus Democracy”
Robin Dembroff has an elegant solution to the “gender war”: stop government recording gender altogether.
“Conservatives insist that the state should record what genitals I have,” Dembroff writes. “Liberals insist the state should instead record my self-identity.” Both assume that the state should be concerned with gender at all.
In so doing, each side — whether tacitly or intentionally — endorses the use of legal gender to reinforce its own preferred gender ideology.
Read more “Government Should Stop Recording Gender Altogether”
