They need to be more invested in their primary, mid-term, and local elections. That is the time for people to decide for better than “meh” choices. Too many people sit out of such a large part of the process. That said, I am also for throwing out first past the post too.
People of all ages have a lot to do and very little extra time to devote to things like understanding political issues or learning about candidates. What America needs is “democracy day off.”
I think every Monday should be a demoncracy day: like the Sabbath, we keep it holy and do no work that makes a person or company money. Instead, everyone is required to pick one of a few available activities: meeting with local councils to discuss issues and vote, reading up on laws and candidates and issues (hopefully to report to a council about it), or civic improvements like park cleanup or elder care. This isn’t comprehensive, just trying to give the flavor of it.
Maybe if Americans finally learned how to do actual freedom we could let people choose their democracy day to spread it out through the week. The core idea is simply that we need to mandate and regulate that so many hours per person per month will be devoted exclusively to the project of maintaining our society.
Hell, once a month alone would be super helpful too. Curious about how many people would take advantage though. I get that many people have busy lives, but if we could even get the people who only vote every 4 years to vote in every election possible, that would be a huge uptick in participation.
I could compromise and start with 1 day a month. And yeah, obviously election days are extra democracy days that everyone gets paid time off from work to vote.
What kind of unserious country would force people to work slave’s hours to make ends meet and would then hold elections during the work week at times where millions of poor laborers would be unable to vote? That sounds like a fake democracy.
You’re not going to win by saying “the actual election is your obligation, if you had policies you were interested in you should have tried to get a different person in the primary”. The whole reason candidates change after the primary (often diving to the center) is to get votes from people that didn’t vote for them. That applies to primary voters for other candidates and people who don’t make politics a priority in their lives.
They need to be more invested in their primary, mid-term, and local elections. That is the time for people to decide for better than “meh” choices. Too many people sit out of such a large part of the process. That said, I am also for throwing out first past the post too.
People of all ages have a lot to do and very little extra time to devote to things like understanding political issues or learning about candidates. What America needs is “democracy day off.”
I think every Monday should be a demoncracy day: like the Sabbath, we keep it holy and do no work that makes a person or company money. Instead, everyone is required to pick one of a few available activities: meeting with local councils to discuss issues and vote, reading up on laws and candidates and issues (hopefully to report to a council about it), or civic improvements like park cleanup or elder care. This isn’t comprehensive, just trying to give the flavor of it.
Maybe if Americans finally learned how to do actual freedom we could let people choose their democracy day to spread it out through the week. The core idea is simply that we need to mandate and regulate that so many hours per person per month will be devoted exclusively to the project of maintaining our society.
Hell, once a month alone would be super helpful too. Curious about how many people would take advantage though. I get that many people have busy lives, but if we could even get the people who only vote every 4 years to vote in every election possible, that would be a huge uptick in participation.
I could compromise and start with 1 day a month. And yeah, obviously election days are extra democracy days that everyone gets paid time off from work to vote.
What kind of unserious country would force people to work slave’s hours to make ends meet and would then hold elections during the work week at times where millions of poor laborers would be unable to vote? That sounds like a fake democracy.
You’re not going to win by saying “the actual election is your obligation, if you had policies you were interested in you should have tried to get a different person in the primary”. The whole reason candidates change after the primary (often diving to the center) is to get votes from people that didn’t vote for them. That applies to primary voters for other candidates and people who don’t make politics a priority in their lives.