is this thing on? It’s been a while. With 40 days until Armageddon, I decided that I needed to post something.
My thoughts are on American Democracy and its teetering, wobbly institutional foundations.
Historically, democracies, no matter how liberal or limited, do not survive very long. Athenian Democracy fell to Alexander the Great of Macedonia and the Roman Republic fell to Julius Caesar.
Read this excellent article by Ryan Cooper in The Week titled “America is the Holy Roman Empire of the 21st century”, first and then come back. I’ll wait.
The United States today bears an uncomfortable similarity to that doomed empire. The American Constitution is the oldest in the world still operating, and has been obviously out of date for well over a century. Half the basic mechanics of government are either malfunctioning kludges or a gross betrayal of its own founding principles. Countries that fail to maintain themselves to this degree often do not survive.
theweek.com/...
It calls for the end of the Electoral College and banning congressional district gerrymandering. I think we should be more radical.
End lifetime appointments for the federal judiciary.
The answer, of course, is yes. A plan to fix the appointment process already has the support of the vast majority (77% of Americans favor restrictions on length of SCOTUS service vs. 23% against) of the American people: ending life tenure for future justices.
www.usatoday.com/...
Radically expanding the House.
When the First Congress convened, in 1789, it had 65 members, each one representing an average of approximately 60,000 people. (Many of those people—700,000 overall—were enslaved, which is to say they weren’t represented in any meaningful sense.) Even such relatively small districts were considered bulky. At the dawn of American history, one of the most common concerns with the new Constitution had nothing to do with the Electoral College or presidential power. Instead, the founding generation fretted that the House districts were too populous.
www.theatlantic.com/…
Fixing the Senate by making it representational to a state’s population. Take for instance that all of New England and New York State are about equal size but New England has 12 senators and New York has only 2, or even worse massive California versus tiny Wyoming. And of course, statehood for Puerto Rico and DC but we must not forget about the US Virgin Islands and Guam.
www.theatlantic.com/...