Would it be much of an issue if we insisted presidential powers were limited to what they were when the Constitution came into force? Today's presidents (both parties) greatly exceed the powers of Washington and Jefferson.
this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2024
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Washington is a bad example, the people wanted to king him, his salary was huge, and if he wanted to do so something all he had to do was ask.
The only reason we have it is because Republicans know that if we got rid of it, they'd never win the white house again without overhauling the whole party.
See Also: Why Puerto Rico and Washington DC are not states
"Hey, Puerto Rico is economically moderate and somewhat socially conservative! You should really want them as a state, right GOP?"
GOP: "Uh, it's just about the shade of... c-cultural differences..."
It's not a national election, but in Hong Kong, a 1,500-member Beijing-controlled electoral college elects the Chief Executive of Hong Kong and controls nearly half of the legislature.
Republicans are all anti college until you're talking the electoral one.
The Electoral College is outdated and should be dissolved. Another problem in the USA, the wealthy are admired and considered heroes. In the EU, nobody trusts the bastards and people will strike. I believe the French are the best when they disagree with their leaders and upper class because they would drag out the guillotine.
Do you think if the electoral college was banned that criminals would give up theirs? Wake up, the only thing that stops a bad guy with an electoral college is a good guy with an electoral college!
It is wild to have your state's vote almost predetermined before you cast it.
It's not just the electoral college. The US was the first big modern democracy, and all the democracies that have sprung up since took one look at its structure and said "nah". This includes democracies the US directly helped setup in their current form, such as Germany, Japan, and Iraq. Nobody wants to replicate that structure, including the US.
States as semi-sovereign entities rather than administrative zones? Nope. Every state gets two reps in the upper legislative branch? Nope. Those two reps plus at least one lower legislative rep means that the smallest state gets at least three votes in the Electoral College? What madness is that? Even the executive being separate from the head of the legislative branch is uncommon everywhere else.
Parliamentary systems, where the Prime Minister is both head of the legislative branch and the executive, are more common. Some of these split some of the duties of the executive off into a President, but that President isn't as singularly powerful as the US President. The US idea that the different branches would have checks and balances against each other was rendered pointless the moment the first political parties were developed.
Even the executive being separate from the head of the legislative branch is uncommon everywhere else.
The Presidential System (as distinct from the Prime Ministerial System) is common throughout Latin America and West Africa. Incidentally, it is also a governmental structure more vulnerable to coups and similar violent takeovers, as the President being in conflict with the Legislature often leads to these snap power grabs rather than more well-defined transitions of power after elections.
The US idea that the different branches would have checks and balances against each other was rendered pointless the moment the first political parties were developed.
Well, that's another big difference between the US system and systems in countries with more settled populations. Regional parties (the Scottish National Party being a large and distinct block of voters in the UK, the uMkhonto weSizwe as a Zulu nationalist group in South Africa, the Taiwan Solidarity Union as a Taiwanese nativist faction, or Otzma Yehudit in Israel which draws its doctrine from a single ultra-nationalist Rabbi Meir Kahane) can all exist in parliamentary systems in a way that a Mormon Party or a Texas Party or an African-American Party has failed to materialize in the United States.
The idea of checks and balances doesn't work when you're forced into coalition with one of the two dominant (heavily coastal) parties to have any sway in Congress or within the Presidential administration. And that goes beyond just "Voting for President". The Democrats don't nominate bureaucratic leaders (Sec of State, Attorney General, etc), the President does. This gives enormous influence to a singular individual who functions as both Party Leader and National Leader.
Compare this to Brazil or Germany or India or Israel, where power-sharing agreements between caucusing parties encourage the incoming Prime Minister to choose from the leaders of aligned party groups to fill cabinet positions. There's an immediate payoff to being the head of a small but influential partisan group under the PM system in a way that the American system doesn't have.
Now, do you want Anthony Blinken or Janet Yellen to have to hold a Congressional seat and act as Secretary of State or Secretary of Treasury? Idk. I've seen Brits scoff at this system as being its own kind of mess. But I can imagine a country in which a Yellen-equivalent head of the Liberals for Better Economic Policy Party has half a dozen seats and Blinken's Americans for NATO Party has half a dozen seats, and this is what Biden needs to be Prime Minister, so he appoints them to his cabinet as a trade-in for their support.
It all goes back to the negotiation at the start of the country: "We want to vote" vs. "We don't want those people to vote"
Well yea, this country is held hostage by the shitbag wealth class. Get rid of them. Tax them out of the wealth they lied, cheated, and stole via tax schemes, loopholes, and other criminal activity. We still have the power.
As long as they're able to mislead a bunch of stupid idiots to think that things that don't affect them, such as trans rights, they'll keep winning. Class solidarity is impossible when your fellow-poor believe that immigrants are the reason they're poor. Unfortunately, they've succeeded in keeping people stupid and uneducated.
What are you talking about, Bozos and Muskrat absolutely earned the 100 billion increase in their wealth over the last 10 years! They just Work Harder™ and are More Valuable™ than us!
/Wrist
Problem is that half the population is willing to keep the wealth class in power. And, ironically, many in that half of the population are among the poorest in the nation who believe the wealth will eventually trickle down to them.
This isn't news. I mean, even if it is just now true, the United States being a "Democratic Republic" that promised citizens the vote and then kept a body who basically sat around to subvert the popular vote when things got close was largely considered to be another aspect of the USA's rather f****d up interpretation of "freedom".
Goddamnedfascists
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