The thing is, I live in Spain, and we already did that 12 years ago (15-M Movement).
Housing, equality, liberation and so on, are part of our Constitution… and yet, those rights got trampled to a point that a large civil movement arose. First as a sort of “hippie” movement, then people started to form groups, started to organize, until a political party was formed, which got voted into government, to rule along the already existing much larger socialist party.
Then party leaders started behaving like party leaders do, the original smaller groups, while still present, started splintering and falling apart, while the right wing used every shortcoming to criticize and sow discord, with a far right populist party coming up and gaining more and more popularity over the years… to the point that in the recent municipal and regional elections the left has been pushed aside, and in most places the right is ruling along with the far right, already destroying years of advances in gender equality, tolerance, and social policies.
In slightly over a week’s time, we have national elections, with the right + far-right looking as likely candidates to take over the whole country.
So while I sympathize with all what you said, in practice what I see is that any system based on representatives gaining and amassing power, is still inherently doomed to have them save themselves, while leaving everyone else behind. Or like they say, “democracy is the worst kind of government, except for all the other kinds”.
What we really need, is to either for the representatives to have to endure the same fate as everyone else, or to be able to un-vote them as soon as they stop representing our interests (which is where technology could step in, but it isn’t all that clear whether it will be able to step in quickly enough).
We need ranked choice voting. Leftist parties dividing shouldn’t mean that pseudo-fascists win every election. This only happens because we use first-past-the-post voting systems.
The thing is, I live in Spain, and we already did that 12 years ago (15-M Movement).
Housing, equality, liberation and so on, are part of our Constitution… and yet, those rights got trampled to a point that a large civil movement arose. First as a sort of “hippie” movement, then people started to form groups, started to organize, until a political party was formed, which got voted into government, to rule along the already existing much larger socialist party.
Then party leaders started behaving like party leaders do, the original smaller groups, while still present, started splintering and falling apart, while the right wing used every shortcoming to criticize and sow discord, with a far right populist party coming up and gaining more and more popularity over the years… to the point that in the recent municipal and regional elections the left has been pushed aside, and in most places the right is ruling along with the far right, already destroying years of advances in gender equality, tolerance, and social policies.
In slightly over a week’s time, we have national elections, with the right + far-right looking as likely candidates to take over the whole country.
So while I sympathize with all what you said, in practice what I see is that any system based on representatives gaining and amassing power, is still inherently doomed to have them save themselves, while leaving everyone else behind. Or like they say, “democracy is the worst kind of government, except for all the other kinds”.
What we really need, is to either for the representatives to have to endure the same fate as everyone else, or to be able to un-vote them as soon as they stop representing our interests (which is where technology could step in, but it isn’t all that clear whether it will be able to step in quickly enough).
We need ranked choice voting. Leftist parties dividing shouldn’t mean that pseudo-fascists win every election. This only happens because we use first-past-the-post voting systems.