Name recognition is the single most powerful thing a candidate can have. And again even though that’s dumb, I don’t think voters making poor choices means democracy doesn’t exist. Voters will inevitably make many bad choices in a democracy.
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When name recognition is rigged, a democracy that hinges on name recognition is de facto rigged, I don't get why this is controversial
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I just disagree with saying it’s “rigged” because voters had power but decided to use it poorly.
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Right, and they use it poorly with such consistency and reliability that presidents functionally get to choose their successors
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The VP is a very odd institution in many ways because of the specific way it's constitutionally enshrined without having defined responsibilities, making it tailor made for this purpose of "designated successor" But it's not like abolishing it would fundamentally change anything
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Nymphomachy and
Presidents would still pretty clearly be able to designate successors The Deputy PM position in other countries doesn't work like the VP position and they don't have primaries the way they do but it's still the obvious way to position yourself as the next PM
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Nymphomachy and
I mean look it's mostly that having term limits on the presidency is already, when you think about it, a "restriction on democracy" and one people obviously look for a loophole to get around The people who would've voted for Obama for a 3rd term openly looking for a surrogate
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Nymphomachy and
If you think that's bad and that this is just a way to enshrine political inertia because people don't like to think and are afraid of radical change, well, that's democracy The term limits themselves are an attempt at a check on democracy that give mixed results
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I am perpetually switching between two modes of "there has to be a way to implement democracy that maximizes emphasis on issues that matter, it's just an engineering problem" and "fuck democracy. let humanity burn"
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The whole reason we have representative democracy and not Athenian direct democracy is people are busy and don't actually want to spend all this time thinking about stuff, they want a leader they think is a good person to take care of it all for them
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Nymphomachy and
It's this whole paradoxical tug of war between democracy and meritocracy, like the one exists to be a check on the other (the hope is that the President will hire actual PhDs and experts with relevant domain knowledge to solve specific problems)
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Nymphomachy and
The idea is supposed to be that having the person actually in charge of everything have to win elections keeps them accountable, it keeps experts and institutions from becoming corrupt elites It doesn't seem to work very well, is the problem
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