Electoral reform

The choice of Electoral System is one of the most important institutional decisions for any democracy. Therefore, I believe it's important to achieve proportional representation, and I'd also prefer to have an election method that meets good criteria like independence of irrelevant alternatives.

The electoral systems commonly in use in the USA naturally lead to only having 2 choices where neither really represents the majority of the population. Any political activity that isn't focused on electoral (or constitutional) reform will, at best, manage to replace a party (but any institution replacing a party will become similar to the one it replaces in the process).

"First-past-the-post voting" has deprived us of a legitimate decision-making body. Without that, accomplishing other goals will be difficult.

Single-winner systems

Academics agree that the most important influence on proportionality is an electoral district's magnitude, the number of representatives elected from the district. Because of this, I suspect the method for electing representatives to the Senate of the USA should be changed (whether that be by increasing the number of senators, or changing the electoral districts for the Senate, or something else), and that the method for electing executives should also be changed.

A particular problem is posed by executives, since it seems natural that every system has one person that is at least slightly more important than all others. However, this is addressed to some extent by making sure that the primary executive is one that can be supported by a majority of the population, whether that be through a popular election using a system that selects the candidate that is offensive to the smallest number of voters, or investing executive power in a prime minister that must survive a vote of no confidence from a legislative body, or some other method.

I support any policy based on the idea that there is such a thing as too much.

I love all these points people have posted. I don't see much disagreement even though we all have our key issues that are deeply important to us for personal reasons. There's a real hunger for deep change out there.

You know what's really personal and also universal?

The feeling of vulnerability and humiliation that comes from someone higher up in the tree dropping a shit on you.

Excess wealth is the problem. Outside of our Lemmy bubble, there isn't even a general discussion on this, even though there seems to be widespread agreement that murdering people from your office desk is evil.

There's a significant cultural tendency of deifying and hating the rich. We are confused, case in point the huge groundswell of support for Luigi Mangione. People instinctively crave and are often simultaneously repulsed by wealth.

So my personal policy is to make it widely acceptable to express righteous anger at the way we are being soiled.

It is the memory of being shit upon that gives me anger, the anger acquires friends, together we issue a warning, It is by willful anger alone that we set this thing in motion.

prisons, MIC, rail, overuse of government contracting are all also worth addressing

Universal healthcare, including gender affirming care! Abortion rights! Freedom of, and from, religion!

Climate change reversal, funded (in part*) by upending Reaganomics (tax those who have too much; trickle-down is a myth and doesn’t help the >99% who’d need it).

Oh, and preventative measures against floods, droughts, storms, etc. and other infrastructural damages from climate change; since it’s already (partially) to late. This is mostly a global problem too.

*Also fundable by ending subsidies on any technology or practice emitting greenhouse gases, but that has to be done in consideration of production and not screwing over the working class, whether with regard to their job security or when buying groceries.

Very well put, thank you for your post

First and foremost, this should be about implementing a huge shift in economic policy.

We need to increase taxes on corporations and billionaires

Put an end to their various loopholes they use

Mandate that the federal minimum wage be set to be on par with what it should be, given the median output of the workers and keeping up with inflation. (Should be somewhere around 25 bucks an hour by now)

Hold accountable (civil forfeiture of all assets. Or death penalty) the billionaires who wrecked the climate and economy, fucked over the worker and rigged the system to make sure they stay in power.

Divest from fossil fuels

Outlaw the legal bribery of elected officials (lobbyists), anyone caught bribing or taking a bribe should be severely punished.

End the for-profit medical system

These are just a few things, and I want to build on the other points made here as well

Not in order, just quickly wrote these out:

• Supreme Court term limits. Nobody should be above the law
• More cost-effective public health insurance. Eliminate the middle-men and force big pharma to actually compete instead of robbing patients
• Repeal citizen's united and force elections to be grassroots funded, no more corpo doners owning candidates and their platform
• Federal gun control modeled after NY and VT laws with background checks, references required, magazine limits, and laws with real teeth for possessing illegal weapons (assault weapons banned)
• Free tuition to federally funded secondary education institutions
• Increase teacher and professor salaries at non-private schools & universities
• Federal elections all vote by mail and voting required by law enforceable with a tax penalty and audit by IRS
• end TurboTax and move to IRS version for all taxpayers making under $250K annually
• Defund the police and use that budget to fund a new department of public responders that handle non-emergency situations
• Invest in small modular nuclear reactors for base load power on the electric grid
• Bodily autonomy enshrined in the constitution as an amendment