• nexguy@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    How could someone improve democracy and who would it be?

    Edit: weird that I would be down voted for asking who and how to improve democracy.

    • Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      8 months ago

      Okay, while I think the other person’s complaints are unreasonable and dishonest, I really need to answer this sincerely, because it’s genuinely important that people understand.

      Ways that American democracy can be improved:

      1. Eliminating lobbyists

      2. Capping how much money can be spent on political campaigns

      3. Capping individual donation sizes

      4. Capping donation frequency

      5. Implementing a cardinal or ordinal voting system (such as approval or single transferable vote)

      6. Making voting more accessible

      7. Removing the possibility of gerrymandering

      8. Outlawing political parties

      9. Making voting mandatory

      10. Several other things who’s scope mean they probably don’t count (like better education, which would help citizens perform democracy better, but also clearly falls outside the scope of the list) or that I am otherwise forgetting.

      Edit:formatting.

      Edit2: I never intended to answer “who” because that question doesn’t have a single answer; the president can’t do those things, and it’s silly to expect them to.

      • AA5B@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Unfortunately, I don’t see how any president can do any of those. The best he can do is appoint competent justices and try to persuade Congress

        • Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          8 months ago

          Correct; the president can’t do those things, hence why the other commentor’s complaints didn’t make sense. I was answering the question of how.

            • Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              8 months ago

              Personally, I don’t credit him with “saving democracy” however, putting Trump in the White House would endanger democracy as an institution because his faction would have enough control to implement their will without being checked.

      • nexguy@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        You didn’t answer who. Who is so much better than Biden that they would be able to do all of this.

        • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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          8 months ago

          Despite his age, Bernie Sanders is still the most qualified person to be president. He would get more done and made election reform a focus of his campaigns.

          • nexguy@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            I love Sanders but he couldn’t do all of that. He also supports Ukraine but is willing to sacrifice Ukrainians and Ukraine territory in a squabble over money to support Ukraine. This weakens democracy and strengthens Putin’s resolve to continue plowing through Ukraine.

        • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
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          8 months ago

          Not only did they not answer the question of “who”, they instead listed off a wish list of things no president is able to do unilaterally. Like, those are all good things, but blaming the current incumbent / candidate for not doing those is a completely ignorant take (if not intentionally moving the goalposts).

          We need better civics lessons both in K-12 and maybe some kind of adult education classes.

          • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Too many people’s expectations of our government are way too high. We can’t even feed hungry children in school, how are we going to outlaw lobbying?

            • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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              8 months ago

              Because they need to be in the opposite order. If we can’t outlaw lobbying, then lobbyists will simply pay to undo the school lunches.

              This is usually met with appeals to emotion - “how dare you sacrifice children, my child will starve to death tomorrow if you don’t trade everyone’s representation”.

          • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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            8 months ago

            The only unilateral goal in the meme was destroying “democracy” because Trump instigated January 6th. Everything else was a goal that required bipartisan support.

      • nexguy@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Great, a usual list of improvements but you didn’t answer who. Who will be so much better than Biden and would accomplish this?

        • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Lawrence Lessig…

          The problem isn’t that we don’t have solutions. The problem is that, collectively, we don’t have the will to implement them. It’s like effective Climate Change policy or Covid policies. At best, we’re getting half measures because people rather have their popcorn and circuses than saving their children. Biden doesn’t represent a solution, he represents a theater of a solution.