Democracy

If you don't vote you can't get the sicker

Democracy is the only political system capable of maximizing the sense of freedom and self-determination experienced by the citizens.

“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” - Winston S. Churchill

Since all of the happiest countries are democracies, and there is no reason to believe that any of the inherently authoritarian alternatives would better serve their citizens in the long run, it's pretty easy to conclude that democracy represents a political best practice.

Democratic Best Practices

Within the realm of democracy, we can create Evidence-Based Best Practices that demonstrate which representation and voting systems produce the "best" government in terms of various metrics. These might include accurately reflecting the will of the majority, delivering government services efficiently and effectively, or implementing policies that successfully increase Gross National Happiness.

Forms of Democracy

The structure of democracy can take many forms. Direct, representative, parliamentary, etc.

Voting can also take many forms. First-past-the-post and ranked choice are two options currently being debated in the US, but others exist as well.

Lottery-based representation has also been shown to reduce the drawbacks of self-selecting candidates and self-promoting elections that tend to attract the most narcissistic over the most qualified.

Necessary for Freedom

The point is not that we need to allow every citizen to vote on every issue (direct democracy). It's that the people have a chance to vote, and the ability to replace the current political regime with another one when public opinion demands it.

This is a necessary part of freedom and balance of power. It also has to be possible in practice, not just in theory. When the levers of democracy are stacked too much in favor of entrenched powers, people lose trust in the institution of democracy even if there is a theoretical legal path to regime change.

Breaking the Two-Party System

In America, the two-party system seems to have created an insurmountably entrenched neoliberal establishment. This is one of the most common reasons given by those who choose not to participate in democracy and instead patiently wait for someone else to start a revolution.

What we often fail to realize is that the actual parties are made up of a handful of local volunteers in every locality across the nation. If a different handful of like-minded activists decide to join their local party organizations, they can quickly gain a majority and hence determine the future direction of that party.

We have already seen this happen in the Republican party, with the Tea Party of the Obama years moving them significantly towards libertarianism and anti-establishmentarianism, and then the MAGA movement taking over a few years later. The Republican party is completely different today because handfuls of highly motivated people across many localities joined their local party organizations and voted to change its direction.

Now, what if the sane people did that? Granted it's more difficult because they tend to have more friends, family that talks to them, and generally richer lives that leave less time for volunteering at the local precinct. Political grifters make this stuff their job, how can people with real jobs compete?

Before we can implement structural changes like ranked choice voting, banning gerrymandering, getting rid of the electoral college, and others that would fundamentally change the two-party balance of power, we must start by taking over the local party apparatuses and filling them with people who support these policies. If we don't have enough volunteers yet to accomplish this, then we need to have one-on-one conversations to spread this meme until we do.

In this video, Adam Conover makes a similar point. Civic organizations, unions, and party participation used to be how progress got made. We need to rebuild these communities to take the 2-party system back from the oligarchs.