I know this answer isn’t what you expected. But countries that use systems like the one described are recognized as among the best-governed in the world with the happiest voters.

For a good number of robust, seat-winning parties w/ voices in legislatures & Congress, we need proportional representation to create a more fluid politics. Then, those more representative chambers need internal rule changes plus powers to elect and dismiss executives (Pres, govs, mayors).

If you appreciate your rights of free speech and assembly, you don’t want that solution. No-party and 1-party countries go totalitarian; more parties are fundamental. Our duopoly, where we can only have 2, still stifles representation. More is the answer, not less. Sweet spot: 4-7 group voices.

PP sent this out today. Any principled thoughts? paulepeterson.substack.com/p/will-mamda...

Our problem is acquiescent & unrepresentative city councils, county commissions, legislatures & Congress not fighting executive aggrandizement - from mayors to POTUS.

Yes ZM is a breath of fresh air, but now he must bring the city council & legislature (& governor) along. Our system is Backwards!

Whether “non-grata” parties are excludable is adjacent to the basic paradox of democracy - that it can be voted out of existence, in theory. Destroying democracy can’t be a valid subject for voting, or can it? Similarly, would refusal to accept adjudicated election results trigger non-grata status?🤔

SPAV, while producing very reasonable results, involves the complexity that only highly educated puzzle solvers can love, and then only if unfamiliar with (or in denial of) political parties. In short, some of the US “founding fathers” could have bought it.

Parliamentary rules can be made more proportional and consensus oriented, and less winner-takes-all, especially to reflect a PR-elected House.

Interesting the charter review committee thought they had to bake that policy into the city charter over the council’s head. Constitutionalism in operation. Anyway, I’m glad the electorate agreed.

Swiss cantons are said to enjoy initiatives /referenda (how ever they do them there).

Ballot initiatives are for when officeholders refuse to take “common sense” actions, e.g. create needed maps. Glad the initiative passed, but it raises the question, Why wouldn’t the city council authorize an obviously useful project for the common good on its own? Sounds like Developer Capture.

These were monumental errors of judgment IMHO, though based partly on the politics of the day.

It was also a central - albeit again highly flawed - rationale of Ds for opening relations with the Chinese at the expense of US labor - that business activity would moderate and westernize the Chinese government. (Rs just wanted the contracts; had fewer compunctions.)

As wrong as it is, it’s been a central tenet of Ds since Bill Clinton’s election (1992), and the “Third Way” or “New Democrats” he led, their “triangulation” strategy, and Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America in 1994. (It turns out they actually believed that stuff, if there ever was a question.)

Colossal error of judgment.

Harris said essentially the same thing in her Rachel Maddow interview on release of 107 Days - that she believed business would stand up for and save democracy if she lost the election because democracy has been good to business. youtu.be/p8OyMIen9d4?...