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Or, hear me out: we abolish the presidency. There’s absolutely no need for so much power to be vested in one person.
Ok sure, fantastically realistic solution for 3 goddamn years from now. We will "just" eliminate the highest seat in our government. Problem solved. Thank you.
You’re welcome.
I think people are seeing now that our system of government is broken beyond repair. Maybe it will take more than 3 years but we need to change far more than who sits on the throne.
Lets divide the presidency into 3 roles. We can call it a triumvirate.
Tetrarchy or bust.
This won't end well.
I mean, at least a two way division between head of state and head of government is pretty common.
true. its actually not the most horrible idea on paper, but I was making a half-joke about the fall of the roman republic and is descent into the imperial era and autocracy. The use of a triumverate system during the republic era is cited as a big transition in the decline of the Roman republican system of government. It heralded the end of 500 years of democracy. Even the rich lost their political power eventually, and all that mattered is what an idiot emperor thought.
How unlikely is it at this point that Trump would try to appoint his successor, and that it'd be one of his kids? Seems possible to me.
Its a fine branch to have. But definitely needs an overhaul after Trump. He exposed the "good faith" loop holes we have and they need to get fixed
You could take a page from the book of your sister republic. 7 person executive council. Currently the members come from 4 parties, 2-2-2-1.
Which one is that?
I mean for a country that fought the monarchy you have sure been making the president the king. Your ceremonies for them have always reminded me of monarchy.
Even the constitution agrees with that. Just over the decades more and more powrr has been ceded to the president
Personally, I think that the USA should be divided up into four regional blocs - West Coast, Middle America, East Coast, and all of the external territories like Hawaii, Alaska, and others as an Outer Region. Each of them can have their own president elected by popular vote, and those four presidents select a previous president from one of the regions as a Figurehead President, who represents the nation as a whole - such as diplomacy with the EU, making public national policies the regions have agreed upon, and so forth.
This divides up the executive into branches. Each region can have their own house and court, with a supreme court & senate drawing an equal amount of members from the four regions. This means we get regional laws, and then a national version when 3 out of 4 regions manage to agree on something.
I feel that the root of America's issues comes from too few people representing too many people, which also means the few have too much power and no incentive to really care about folk.
The problem with this is you are screwing over liberal bastions (e.g. Chicago) in conservative zones. Or what about somewhere like New Mexico? We'd be grouped with Arizona and Texas? New Mexico is liberal and that'd kill us. The arrangement also gives even more power to sparsely populated sections of the country vs highly populated sections. It is almost like you are suggesting gerrymandering at a regional level.
Keep in mind that we already have regional representation - state governments. They don't work great because of the lack of attention they get vs presidental elections. The here part is that states need to have power, but there are things they are insane to declare as "states rights" issues. How do we divide them up? I don't know. We even have "majority agree" as you suggested via constitutional amendments.
I figure the division would resemble this picture. States with a fair chunk of territory straddling the dividing lines between regions can hold a popular vote, to decide which side they belong to. This roughly carves up the contiguous nation into 1/3rd portions, each having major centers in California, Texas, and New York. Obviously not perfect, but this should give all three some access to global trade and enough landmass to be useful. The important thing is for all three regions to be jockeying to be #1, but not quite succeeding, pushing each other to do better for their citizens, science, freedoms, and so forth.
In any case, my proposal makes a big assumption: that the current Constitution and Bill of Rights are replaced by a new version. It is my belief that it is likely for the United States to have a 2nd American Civil War. If that is the case, the political board as we knew it would have been overturned. Our Constitution is about 250 years old, invented in a time where the horse was the fastest mode of communication, and only 13 states existed. The framers were intelligent, but there was limits to their knowledge, simply because there wasn't much precedent for the political order they engineered. After all, they tossed out the Articles of Confederation because they weren't fit for purpose. The fitness and purpose of our current Constitution isn't good enough for today's world.
Rules to eliminate gerrymandering and the electoral college, formalizing popular voting, reworking the powers and limits of each branch, and so forth, would be needed.
I feel like this map must be some sort of trolling for people that have any understanding of the United States. I could write a doctoral thesis for how badly this would disenfranchise people, screw over others economically, and involves taking over territory that isn't even fully American.
Let's just talk about your "territories" region. It is somehow supposed to compete on the world stage when it has less population than New York? Far less accessible resources? Peoples that may not even want to be part of the US given a choice?
The Western area is taking over tons of Native American land and have no water.
The middle area has the same population problems (except Texas) and the territories. Plus, they largely rely on Federal tax dollars and that would dry up.
The Eastern section would be dominated by the North East and people in the South would rather die than be lumped in with them.
I could go on?
All of this for what? Some sort of global representation? Each state already represents itself globally. For smaller regions of representation? Well, these are still huge (and uneven) regions that ignore population.
The major issue is that land doesn't vote. Take away the electoral college and first pass the post voting and, suddenly, America works much better.
The big strength of the Outer Region, is politics and location - by occupying key spots far away from the American mainland, that inherently means that they are key points where trade, military basing, and other such things are concerned. Also, many territories don't have state rights - which should be corrected by making them into proper states, or releasing them from America's grasp. On top of that, the Outer Regions could get a special perk - any territorial acquisitions the US makes, by default goes to the Outer Region. If Cuba willingly joined the USA, that is where they would go. If Mexico was somehow conquered, that too becomes part of the Outer Region. This makes the mainland regions less willing to take the nation to war, unless it is important. If the rewards of conquest went to the smallest brother, the bigger brothers are less inclined to shake down nations.
Anyhow, I think the problem of territory and population count would start resolving itself as decades pass. Each region is meant to compete with each other, and by extension, that means effectively using their lands to house people, produce resources, and so forth. Thing is, people can still freely migrate anywhere within the states, so a badly lead region will have them losing population to other regions and the states therein.
Alongside my assumption of a reworked Constitution, is that economics itself will receive a dedicated section where UBI is guaranteed. This would allow people to have greater political and economic agency, since they are not tied down to land by work nor means. If they got free basic shelter, food, healthcare, and transport, citizens can just pick up stakes to find greener pastures. Without being able to hold people hostage through requiring work, each region needs to have good living conditions to attract people into their respective lands. This is not dissimilar to the times of the Black Death, where laborers had the freedom to choose the circumstances of work, because the lords had to jockey to get the skills of a limited supply of workers.
Doesn't sound too different from the parliamentary system we have in Canada, except we divide things much more finely than into 4 quadrants.
Basically, we're divided into "ridings" that can be a small section of a city if you're in a dense city or multiple towns where population is sparse. Each riding votes in someone as a member of Parliament (MP). The MPs then select someone to be the figurehead that represents us (i.e. the prime minister).
I figure that states would regulate their region - for example, if a president wants troops from their region, the individual states have to agree to supply the troops. This puts an onus on a regional president to negotiate terms with states and other regions if they want to do stuff. Mind, I think there would have to be an exception for natural disasters like hurricanes and forest fires, with a footnote that deployed troops have to be unarmed.
We want a certain degree of gridlock, where no one has too much authority, but not so much rigidity that nothing can be done. Kinda like how traffic lights and road layouts dictate how a city operates. Political divisions and systems are architecture designed to address chaos.
That would never work. So each state has their own army? What are the training standards? What about not giving any troops but then wanting help.
Trade. A state that is troop poor or reluctant to let them be borrowed, can instead offer money or some other assistance to get help from another state. The training standards would presumably be per state...but the regional government can hold a program. For example, "we train 6,000 of Colorado's state guard for 7 months, we get to rent them for X dollars, and for up to Y months at a time."
The important thing is to give states enough agency to say no, or to have fair terms with their regional president.
yeah, texas is never gonna agree to be in club with minnesota or michigan or wisco.
it’d be cool if they did, but yeah, no.
I definitely think the US needs to split up. What’s the point of having another president though? Won’t we just end up with the same problem over time?
I do not believe so. As I said, "Figurehead President". The way I figure, if the four regional presidents are in a deadlock about something, the Figurehead Pres can cast a tie-breaking vote. Seeing as that figurehead is elected by the four regional presidents, the figurehead should be relatively neutral. Impeachment of a bad Figurehead can be done through either popular vote of the entire nation, or three of the four regional presidents agreeing to remove the Figurehead.
IMO, the purpose of a Figurehead President is to give the appearance of a unified mission to people.
Oh just as a tiebreaker. Interesting.
Personally I don’t support any electoral system where leaders have any more or less voting power than the votes they receive, so I’m not sure how that would be workable in your system. For example, the outlying group would have way more electoral power per person if each leader gets one vote.
The vote is for cooperation between executive branches, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the Regional Houses, Courts, or the National Senate would agree to cooperate with executives. In any case, there is a 4th President - the Outer Region, which consists of Alaska, Guam, Hawaii, Djibuti, and other small yet significant territories. I am of the mind that with a lack of raw land and people, the Outer Regions should get some sort of outsized advantage to compensate. A president's vote being equal to their peers is probably simple enough to do the trick.
Abandon presidents, return to monarchy