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this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2025
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What's even more unfair is area based voting, where your individual vote doesn't count to affect the government, you instead vote for a local representative which in turn effects the government. Your vote for president or prime minister should be direct, not a postcode lottery even without gerrymandering.
I don't think tiered representation is bad if 1: every person's vote is equal regardless of zip code 2: you have instant recall and can just have a representative replaced if they vote against their constituency wishes.
Instant recall would be huge in the US. People here have extremely short memories.
What are you saying, I don't understand...?
Anyway, what does this have to do with Sydney Sweeney's Nazi jeans, how are you not enraged by that?1?1!!!
You have to focus on the issues that matter, ok dummy?
/s/s/s
EDIT:
God fucking damnit, it happened again.
I made this comment as a joke, a day ago, and within 24hrs...
Republican representatives, offices directly under Trump, and of course Fox News...
Yep, they're all leaning into this, fanning the flames of this particular, latest culture war talking point, as an obvious distraction / rage bait tactic, basically trolling people with twitter posts and throwing red meat out to their core via Jesse Waters on cable TV.
flooding the news, firehood falsehood. you have the MSM thanks for that, to distract people, complements from RU.
That's just direct elections with extra steps.
No, because the lowest-level voter typically has less direct knowledge of higher level politician or policy than the guy who has to work with them.
You're just saying the extra steps are justified, not that they don't exist. Which is hogwash, of course. Indirect elections where the intermediate can choose the candidate regardless of people's choice is just regulated election fraud.
What your describing is called a Republic. There are several benefits to such a model.
The most relevant was well summarized in MIB as "a person is smart, people are stupid". A simple direct democracy is great until you are relying on an uninformed population to make a time-critical decision that requires expertise. If we instead elect people who are then expected to use tax dollars to consult experts, and then represent our interests by voting accordingly, we can theoretically avoid problems (such as the tragedy of the commons).
The downside happens when the representative takes advantage of the public's ignorance, fosters it, and wields it for personal/oligarchic gain. Ideally the people are just smart enough to see that happening and vote them out before it becomes a systemic issue...
Just FYI, this use of republic is not recognised in political science and as far as I've seen is only used by americans justifying why their system is undemocratic. Republic just comes from "res Publica" (public affair) and means the head of state is not a monarch but a member of the public. There are very democratic republics like Finland and there are very undemocratic republics like the PRC. The way you describe a republic would apply to countries like the UK or Sweden, which are constitutional monarchies, not republics.
Representative democracy is a better term for what you are talking about, where the population elects representatives who are able to advocate for them and take the time to become subject matter experts on running the country (idealy).
Or even better, the position of president or prime minister should have little power.
You don't want that. France tried that, a couple of times, it didn't work. Government ended up deadlocked and falling every 6 months. Our 5th republic granted more power to the presidency, and now it's a little better.
What you do want, however, is the head of state and the head of government to be two distinct persons. Which is not the case in the USA.
When having these roles be distinct, aren't the only pieces intrinsic to the head of state merely ceremonial?
No! France has a head of state (the president) and a head of government (prime minister).
They are both powerful, none of these role is performative.
But where are the divisions and do other instances of government with separation of these roles divide the power in the same places?
Which powers have to go to the head of state for it to really be considered the head of state in more than just name?
Oof, that's a tough question to answer in here. There is no really good way to generalise who has what power, and there is probably many ways to split the powers in a meaningful way.
You can read the articles on both positions specifically for France, which I do think in this case is a great example, on wikipedia, although if you want a more precise and complete understanding you'd probably have to read the french article and translate it.
The main advantage of this system is that when the president doesn't have the majority to support him in the parliament, most of the executive power de facto shifts to the prime minister, who is usually nominated (by the president) in accordance with the parliament's majority coalition. When that's not done, the parliament can move to "censor" the government and force the president to nominate a new prime minister, who then nominates the rest of the government.
That system is a good way to make sure the president doesn't do whatever the fuck they want if the parliament disagrees.
In theory the US Federal govt should be split into branches so that it has power, but the checks and balances between branches prevent any single branch from dominating. Which sucks when all 3 branches collude to hand all the power to the executive branch, which then wields the Federal govt to dominate the states.
For the record, a similar system where the states remain separate with a centralized governing body, but with less power than a Federalist one is called a Confederacy...so yeah, we tried that in the US once too. On the flip side, Switzerland's Confederation seems to be working out pretty great for them.
When the Senate's full of cucks, they let you do it
I mean, you could go the other way. Presidencies are bad on their face and the chief executive should be promoted from the party with a legislative majority (ie, Parliamentary system).
Then go after single representative districts and the obscenely high constituent to representative ratios.
Area based voting is a necessity for electing a local representative. But it shouldn't apply for national elections, on that I agree. The US is the only country I know of that applies area based voting in national elections.
And the UK, as the parliament is made up of local representatives. They should be two different people.
That is the Westminster system. It's fine in that the head of the executive only has power so long as they have the confidence of the elected members. If the elected members lose confidence then the government falls. The government is the house, so your vote does directly influence the government on either the government or opposition side. Don't get too jealous of the American system - it's a bloody mess in its own right.
The Government isn’t the house, it’s the around 140 ministers appointed by the PM, drawn from both houses, plus the whips. Opposite them is the opposition frontbench, which is the leader of the opposition and the shadow cabinet, and their whips. Everyone else in the Commons from those two parties are backbenchers.
"Government" has two meanings here. The oppostion has an official role in "governance" which is why they have offices, sit in committees, have research budgets, vote etc. In a minority government situation The backbenchers have a great deal of control over the process. Opposition included. The "GOVernment" controls the process to great extent.
This isn't like the American system where the minority partner is relegated to the sides. The opposition play a very strong role in the parliamentary process. It doesn't map well onto American politics at all.
the gop loves to use the 4th one, which always fucks up dem voters, and thats where you see voter turnout problems. plus they also suppress votes in the areas they control which has significant D voters too.
The whole reason a prime minister is different from a president is that they're not elected by direct votes. They're the leader of the party with the most representatives (more or less).