29 days
The RAND Corporation wrote a whitepaper that basically translates to “How to destroy Russia and take all their shit.”
Russia is more democratic than America, despite their defensive authoritarian tactics to stave off our own aggression.
Nuh-uh, this is what a real democracy looks like :
Anyway, unlike the disinformation of these russian propaganda medias(, that our democracy fortunately censored to preserve our freedom), i know that Putler will die of his multiple cancers anytime now, despite being one of the richest man on Earth.
Ukraine is clearly winning by killing ten times more russians each day, they only need to recruit a few more valiant soldiers, just don’t believe these fake videos online.
Alaska has it since 2022(, and Maine for federal elections).
However, a same ranked-choice voting election doesn’t mean the same outcome, since we also need to decide on the way to count the votes(, e.g., Ranked Pairs, Schulze, …, or even Borda count, STAR voting, …). Concretely, as a result of Alaska’s instant run-off system of “exhausted ballots”(, i.e., if a voter’s ranked candidates have all been eliminated, their ballot no longer contributes to the final round,) Nick Begich(Rep.) ended up eliminated first, despite being the Condorcet winner, since he would have beaten both Mary Peltola(Dem.) and Sarah Palin(Rep.) in head-to-head.
To be noted that, yesterday, alaskans voted in a referendum 51-49(, final results still unclear yet,) to keep the ranked-choice voting.
I’m very much in favor of real/direct democracy(, e.g. sortition to prepare the laws later submitted via referendum, as in ancient Greece), but in the meantime ranked-choice voting isn’t enough :
- We could/should counter this “winner takes all” through proportional representation, i.e., a party receiving 20% of the votes would receive 20% of the seats. Ranked-choice make it easier to vote 3rd party, but proportionality(, which Alaska doesn’t have,) increases the chances of them getting a seat ;
- There should be campaign-finance reforms, as well as an equal mediatic representativity ;
- an end to gerrymandering of course(, even though proportional representation would already reduce it) ;
- perhaps an open primary like in Alaska, where all candidates compete in the same primary, regardless of political party ;
- and more(, e.g., why should there be only one representative per congressional district ?)
The thing is that we all agree that there are problems, and we all agree that solutions exists(, better than the ones quickly sketched here), that these solutions would solve these problems. There’s a lack of will, just like the disparition of investigative journalism, which is a vital public service, as important as hospitals/firefighters/…, that should be financed by our taxes. Among other things for which there’s neither a lack of widespread complaints nor viable solutions.
Sam is running for congress, with a message that’s crystal clear : instead of bombing houses/schools/hospitals/… we should be building those things here
