Let's talk of gerrymandering

[ddstory]

"America is not a democracy, it's a republic". I've heard this adage way too often, and it has boggled me at times, admittedly. I mean, what's wrong with direct democracy?

Let's look at this.

Comments

[htpcl]

From the last link:

"Did you know that in 48 states, a candidate can choose electors based on a pledge to vote for the opposing candidate, if the opposing candidate is in a better position than she or he is to win the Electoral College?"

*Scratches head*

We're still talking about democratic elections here, right?...

[ddstory]

It's present in the name of the party, so that must be the case.

[htpcl]

What's democratic about a superdelegate pledging their vote to Hillary well in advance to the election, if I've elected them to represent me, and I haven't made up my mind about whom to vote for yet? What's democratic about someone deciding for me?

[dexeron]

I still don't know if I could be convinced that direct democracy is really a good idea (even the convincingly successful Swiss model is a representative democracy, albeit one with a powerful and effective optional "direct" component to it.) But certainly the "representative" model at play in the U.S. (and many western nations) does not always do a good job of addressing the opinions of every citizen, and that is, of course, by design. As progressive as the U.S. Constitutional framers were for their time, many of them still held incredibly classist, racist, and sexist ideas about who should be able to vote (and indeed, one can read their other writings to see the disdain in which they held the so-called "mob" whose vagaries and easily manipulated emotions might cause harmful legislation to arise based on fear-mongering and rumor

[ddstory]

I still don't know if I could be convinced that direct democracy is really a good idea

It's a scary idea, isn't it? Especially for a society as heterogeneous as the American one (not that Switzerland is too homogeneous, but what does it matter).

[dexeron]

"It's a scary idea, isn't it?"

Indeed. I'm reminded of a line from "The American President."

"America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say 'You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.' You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the 'land of the free'."

We Americans talk a good game about the land of the free, and the home of the brave, but we're pretty quick to jettison freedom (and act very cowardly) the moment things get a little scary. (And before I'm accused of being a self-loathing American, I think this is not some unique American

[johnny9fingers]

We shouldn't do easy things, just because they're easy. We should do the right things, even if they're hard.

You paraphrase one of your slightly better Presidents here. Now all you need to do is get the modern equivalent of Marilyn Monroe to sing you Happy Birthday...or something similar.

You know, JFK and WJC had quite a lot in common, when you think about it. Oops, did I say that aloud?

[abomvubuso]

In order to have a working direct democracy, you'd need a society that is relatively intelligent, well-educated, mindful and responsible, politically active and experienced. And unfortunately, most societies are not like that - including ones of some economically advanced countries. In this sense, while direct democracy could be a useful tool for the most part in those few good occasions like the one that you're citing, in the majority of cases it's more like a dangerous weapon.

[unnamed525]

I wonder if direct democracy is only viable up to the certain population level. If so, you could build a representative system on top of by that selecting members of one level of representation by lots of the members directly below it.

[abomvubuso]

Sounds a lot like the Electoral College :)

[unnamed525]

How so?

[ddstory]

Does that look "geographic" to you?

[garote]

They'd never adopt it piecemeal, for reasons I explained below.

[garote]

Most of the time, when you hear the retort "it's a republic", it's because of the bickering that happens between the states. Once elected, state representatives are often measured by how well they can divert federal funds towards their state, or twist federal regulations to favor their state's economy. So it's not so much that the representatives are representing people on one side of the political spectrum or another, but their whole home state.

Nevertheless - even though the country is generally purple - even on a county by county basis within each state - there are way too many people who still perceive their home state as "all red with blue invaders" or vice-versa. So whether they honestly believe it or not, politicians have good reason to flame the fires of "red vs blue" in order to push voter turnout the way they wish, in the places they wish, and if possible to Gerrymander.

As a response, some states have created redistricting commissions with some form of political independence. It's a contested process almost by

[garote]

So, the electoral college is a systemic distortion that we're stuck with for as long as the states are rivals. It's representatives and districts, but at least it's without the possibility of Gerrymandering: State lines are nailed down quite thoroughly at this point, and electoral college allocations only change when the population shifts. And though it sucks having that distortion built in - those 4.8 million disenfranchised Californians who voted for Romney for example - at least the artificial zones created by state lines are actual zones, and that can be a good thing.

If we managed to build a system so efficient that 319 million people could vote directly for or against all federal legislation, with no representatives in the middle, there would still be the question of who authors the legislation, and what their motives are. As direct democracy scales up, differences in population density can create some really bad decisions. (Basic off-the-cuff example: Los Angeles versus the Owens Valley.) And with no representatives to