Hi Lee, interesting piece, with your usual mix of data and well-written cleverness. However, in reading this, it struck me that if you stripped out the parts in the middle where you present the blizzard of data, there’s not much difference between your article and that of a right-winger saying “government is bad,” “the system is corrupt”, and “that’s why we need less government.” It’s always been one of the ironies of our political dilemma right now – one of our nations many Catch-22’s – that the Republicans win votes when government is seen as inept, ineffectual, sucking up taxes out of our pockets to pay for “those programs”, by portraying themselves as the party of "less government" even as the GOP tries to make the government more inept, ineffectual by cutting (or threatening to cut) the programs that actually help people.
So while your article was entertaining to read, I wonder if it doesn’t add to the steady drumbeat of negative information that tends to undermine the appreciation of government by Americans.
The reason why this is important – here’s the takeaway for you, as a proponent of reforms like proportional representation and fusion – is because if Americans don’t value government, they aren’t likely to care very much about the rules that elect government. And they aren’t going to value democracy. I feel that your article may inadvertently contribute to that spiraling-down dilemma. It's something to think about, I certainly have had to do so over my 30 yrs of advocacy for PR.
An alternative approach would be something like what another political scientist and PR supporter, Douglas Amy, pursued. Doug recognized that Americans are not going to support PR, and especially not support MORE parties or multi-party government, if they don’t value government and democracy (much less political parties). So Doug began writing about, and launched a website called “Government Is Good.” Here is a link to it, I encourage you to check it out https://governmentisgood.com/ .
I guess it’s a question of whether you think you can SCARE Americans into PR, or whether you are going to have to respect their intelligence and engage in the long term work of helping them understand why it would actually be good for them. It’s another fork in the road along the journey of political reform. All the best
Hi Lee, interesting piece, with your usual mix of data and well-written cleverness. However, in reading this, it struck me that if you stripped out the parts in the middle where you present the blizzard of data, there’s not much difference between your article and that of a right-winger saying “government is bad,” “the system is corrupt”, and “that’s why we need less government.” It’s always been one of the ironies of our political dilemma right now – one of our nations many Catch-22’s – that the Republicans win votes when government is seen as inept, ineffectual, sucking up taxes out of our pockets to pay for “those programs”, by portraying themselves as the party of "less government" even as the GOP tries to make the government more inept, ineffectual by cutting (or threatening to cut) the programs that actually help people.
So while your article was entertaining to read, I wonder if it doesn’t add to the steady drumbeat of negative information that tends to undermine the appreciation of government by Americans.
The reason why this is important – here’s the takeaway for you, as a proponent of reforms like proportional representation and fusion – is because if Americans don’t value government, they aren’t likely to care very much about the rules that elect government. And they aren’t going to value democracy. I feel that your article may inadvertently contribute to that spiraling-down dilemma. It's something to think about, I certainly have had to do so over my 30 yrs of advocacy for PR.
An alternative approach would be something like what another political scientist and PR supporter, Douglas Amy, pursued. Doug recognized that Americans are not going to support PR, and especially not support MORE parties or multi-party government, if they don’t value government and democracy (much less political parties). So Doug began writing about, and launched a website called “Government Is Good.” Here is a link to it, I encourage you to check it out https://governmentisgood.com/ .
I guess it’s a question of whether you think you can SCARE Americans into PR, or whether you are going to have to respect their intelligence and engage in the long term work of helping them understand why it would actually be good for them. It’s another fork in the road along the journey of political reform. All the best
Steven
www.Steven-Hill.com
DemocracySOS
https://democracysos.substack.com/