Thanks for watching! Please consider supporting the channel by buying merch: teespring.com/stores/the-cynical-historian Or by donating to my Patreon: www.patreon.com/CynicalHistorian Click "read more" for corrections and bibliography. First, here are some related videos: Political Polarization series: ua-cam.com/play/PLjnwpaclU4wXxGRwtV4EGk_vuAH2VkODS.html Sectional Crisis: ua-cam.com/video/Ff2AKILyi0o/v-deo.html Party Switch: ua-cam.com/video/hBHHIJG8Rds/v-deo.html Culture War: ua-cam.com/video/tppeGYoWDxg/v-deo.html Neoliberalism: ua-cam.com/video/kBp69R_K1a0/v-deo.html Tech polarization: ua-cam.com/video/xHlBdebjpyQ/v-deo.html WILSOOOON! ua-cam.com/play/PLjnwpaclU4wXmCcEx0vfIim_jFMkgtLmS.html *[reserved for errata]* "Contract with the People," Progressive Party Platform, 1912: en.wikisource.org/wiki/1912_Progressive_Party_Platform
A good way of handling the district representative system is the pie chart method. Basically everyone votes for a party, including( 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc...) then you determine the amount of representatives from a party a state has based on how big of a percentage of the state supported that party, any remaining seats that don't fit into the larger percentages, such as a few run over votes and the like instead go to the party with the most votes and fewest seats, likely a third party or possibly an independent. Then the parties vote to decide who fills the seats they have in a sort of reverse primary. It isn't a perfect solution as it doesn't get rid of the parties, but it does allow for more equal representation as well as a larger proportion independent representation.
I like how it always comes back to Wilson. I went on Amazon to look for a critical autobiography on Wilson. Their did not seem to be one ? They all seem to be the best of, and his 14 points. As a History Major, your points on him are valid. His support of the Klan and other racist acts, are swept under the rug.
My own diatribe. I dropped out of the workforce 6 years ago to care for my aging parents so I don't have any income. They require care 24/7 and since I live in Texas they get little help from the state. One fourth of their income goes to supplemental insurance to cover what Medicare doesn't cover (like my dad's insulin). At one point the state sent out "help" which was a nurse who took vital signs and then sat and chatted for an hour and left. Mom finally told them to just stay away. The state took money that was supposed to be used for elderly care and used it to create a useless government job. Their food stamps were canceled for almost a year because my mom made a mistake on the college level paperwork they send out every year. You know, the one where they ask my 80 year old mother if she has gotten a job or became pregnant. Things are better since I took over the paperwork but I am 61 and I am finding it harder to keep up. In the US men over 65 are the most likely to die by suicide. There is a reason for this.
In interpersonal political discussions I also think a good rule of thumb is to remember politics is complicated and that you are wrong about something. You do not know what, which is why it is important to approach politcal topics humbly and not assume you are automatically correct. Also be comfortable saying "I don't know'. You aren't a politician. You don't have to worry about losing voter confidence by showing uncertainty.
There is a youtuber out there called Lord Bung, he doesn't produce much. However - he does a really nice retelling of Micromégas that highlights how important saying 'I don't know' is.
I still want them to bring back the the Civilian Conservative Corp for people who want to serve but are unable to actually enlist and help with rebuilding the infrastructure
Yeah, Woodrow really did untold damage that we're still suffering under to this day that continually cascades into new problems. Worst president ever. All of the horrible foreign policy decisions of later presidents are because of him. If it weren't for him, there would be no George Bush. No war on terror. No communist Russia, China, and other countries. No North Korea. No World War 2. No covid-19.
People who want to take politics out of history are really saying they don't want to teach history - they want fairytales and narratives. While I don't always agree with you, I sincerely respect you and your channel in its presentation of history. Keep up the good work.
To add its also a misconception in the pop sphere that history is seperate from politics even Modern politics simply because the past has a different culture and mindset as us today, just because the past is a different country that doesn't mean problems back then and today can't be connected, in fact almost every thing in history is very political from the Crusades to the Hundred years War ect. P.S almost every Historical film is political in nature. History isn't like Fiction as with Fiction an Author can divorce themselves from real world/modern day politics.
@@pebblepod30 true but that doesn't mean its not political even if the past has outdated politics. I mean Abortion while filpped on who is pro or not was still political and funnily enough the Church somehow was always at the center of it, During Roman times the Church was viewed as progressive because they were pro life (abortions back then were because of the Dads choice) ironically now the Church and religion as a whole is seen as backwards. Maybe one day the Purple dye headed people would be seen as backwards lol.
Preaching to the choir man. I'm fine with you expressing your political perspective since you link it with a good amount of history. I've learned a hell of a lot from your videos. Keep it coming man.
Fox News meaning the actual news broadcast is journalism however, the shows people love to watch with pundits is not journalism. It is editorials. And editorials are basically opinions which is what people think about facts or theories
It comes down to: What *is* "journalism"? And like what was hinted here, how does the modern definition account for journalism in America's past? After all, yellow journalism, is still journalism.
Nope. Fox couldn't open a 'Fox News' up here in Canada. We have pretty strict truth in broadcasting laws, and they would have had to call it 'Fox Entertainment'. It doesn't reach the bar to be considered news in Canada. Never been more proud. Even their news programming is mostly wishful thinking and convincing middle class white people that they're constantly under attack.
@@Hollows1997 I heard about that, british panel shows being my only television watching. Was Murdoch started that up, IIRC. The guys on Mock the Week were quite incensed.
If I may offer a critique on you last Political Polarized video. I believe in term limits but so long as money in politics exist a company can just wait for a term to end and pour money in the race to secure it. Its just going to increase corruption. So public finance elections is absolutely necessary as means before anything.
100%. I actually disagree with term limits solely for the reason that, if the person is the best for the job, they should be able to have it. FDR was one of our best presidents and I, and the voters at the time, thought he earned that 3rd term. While term limits would certainly help get some of the corrupt bastards in politics today, it wouldn’t mean much if the money in politics means they could just be replaced by an equally corrupt but slightly younger bastard. The system might improve, but I argue not nearly enough to sacrifice the ability to be able to elect truly great leaders for longer periods of time. Term limits are the band aid on the bullet hole, so let’s stop with the band aids and get on to surgery- getting money out of politics in the first place. It may sound impossible now, but if we can truly create a wave of progressive change like Roosevelt’s era before us, then I could see regulations on campaign finance, the weakening of the parties’ power (Cypher’s example of removing party indication from the ballots was fantastic), limits on donations, and even a constitutional amendment to finally stop treating corporations as people in courts of law could all be options on the table as goals to work towards instead.
I feel conflicted about term limits, because I believe that just turning over a seat to turn it over isn't better. But I'm also sick of these dinosaurs in congress digging in their heels, or running on "I'm on such and such committee and have power and influence! You don't want to get rid of me!" I want to see fresh blood yes, but throwing in some more radical young contender is not what I want to see, but that's what has been happening. When the Tea Party was getting big and the old guard Republicans were getting tossed out I wasn't sad to see them go. But I also wasn't happy with who replaced them. In many case the further to the right candidates who ended up being even more hard line. Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee were Tea Party candidates for example, and I wish we could get rid of them. But then Tea Partiers in turn got pushed out for Trump loyalists, so now we have a Q anon true believer in congress, which yikes! More than term limits, I just want to see people who aren't actively trying to sabotage everything all the time for political points with the most extreme wings of their party. I don't care if I disagree politically, I'd vote for a candidate who I actually thought would be a good representative over if they checked the party box, or some stupid litmus test for the extreme right or left.
@@andmicbro1 the Spartan constitution had a rule that after a term the person goes on trial on whether or not they did well in office and helped the public interest, even kings were not free from this. You can be for non consecutive term limits
@@akorn9943The president should have term limits I believe, especially since the prime concept of a president according to John Locke is that the executive should change. It's one person too, if the president doesn't have term limits, then we could see that play out as it did in 1970's Iraq. I do agree on term limits for Congress, if people are happy with their representative and senator, they should keep them
European here, I think the biggest issue for US politics is the voting system Almost every country in Europe (looking at UK and Hungary) has uses a proportional system and in most of them, it works fine or at least as good as in the US Multiple parties would mean coalitions, compromises and less of a stiff front between people You could even keep the current voting system for one of the two houses of Congress and it still would improve greatly (one house for the hole country, one represents individual states). It is even possible to directly vote for an regional candidate and make an house representitive of the total population with a two votes system I never grasped why the US never reformes the current system and it is just horrible, probably one of the worst voting system of a democratic country in the 21st century
@@dmwalker24 sadly, I fully agree, it would need pressure from most of the politicly active population of the US for a revolutionary change, which just won't happen. I am just confused, do the politicans and patriots which uphold their dear constitution really believe that when it was written, is was the greatest achievment of humankind and should never be changed?
You think we haven’t tried reforming our voting system and that we are somehow satisfied with the current 2 party system? The electoral college was almost reformed in the 60s and guess under whose administration it didn’t get passed? (Hint: his last name starts with N and ends with ixon) there’s been more recent push to recent push for voting reform even since 2016, but something you gotta understand about the US is how hesitant is the right (by “right” I’m referring to both the republicans and their voters) here with policies, especially those benefitial for society. Citizens of DC can’t have normal rights people in cities and states would normally get because rightist get worried about DC causing an imbalance in politics because always votes democrat Change is painfully slow is what I’m saying
Dude, whenever I hear Woodrow Wilson's name I INSTANTLY think of you and your "WIILLSSOOOOONNN!" and I say it right along with you. You are one of the best historian youtubers (and there is A LOT, I know; I watch many of them) Keep doing what you do, Cypher.
Term limits are not “working fine” on the state legislative level. Lobbyists run the legislatures without a say from an experienced public official. Look at the corruption in Ohio, which has gotten worse post term limits.
Same in Missouri. Instead of term limits lets make our elections more competitive by getting rid of gerrymandering, making ballot access laws fairer, completely overhauling our campaign finance system (overturn citizens united, buckly v. Valejo, etc), make it easier to vote, and reforming our election system through things like ranked-choice voting and proportional representation.
Alright you big fat loud blow hards, if ya gonna complain about the person in the video being wrong then I'm gonna need to see some evidence for that and I mean like some hard facts for that.
Ranked choice & compulsory voting in Australia has insured that extremes of politics is limited,l. It’s paired with government vote based funding which means more fringe parties (Greens for exsample) can be active, so ranking a fringe party 1st has a point. But most of all, our districts are allocated by VERY independent commissions, who will do their best to not favour one party over the other in district changes (due to population changes)…so a model is there & I like to think it kinda works on a voting level (higher level politics is another matter)
I always liked the idea of ranked vote ever since seeing a CGPGrey vid on it. It may not be perfect still, but it's bound to be miles better than first past the post policy we have now in the US.
I loved this series on the history of US Political Polarization. If I may offer my two cents, I think yes, bringing back a certain level of the old progressive era is important. What is more important is criticizing your own party (if you adhere to a political party), never 100% trusting the officials you elect into office, voting outside of the two parties, realizing that a government cannot do everything, and not demonizing the other side. At least that is things you can do on an individual level. I agree on a massive change in how things are run in this country's politics, but as long as those who abuse the system are in power, I have serious doubts that any changes will get made. But hey, maybe I am too much of a pessimist in this regard
I’m so glad you put all this information into an engaging and concise series. Your observations reflect what I’ve been wondering for years and I think your historical perspective astutely summarises the problems we face in todays society
Step 1: recognizing there is no right or wrong in finding a representative but its about finding mutually acceptable solutions. Step 2: hold Media accountible when they misinform for their own gains Step 3: stop demonizing "the other side" but Start calling out BS in your own political backyard Step 4: consider voting outside the big two parties
Step 1: Finding mutually acceptable solutions is near impossible, especially in currently polarized climate. And even if possible it's not a good thing. For example there are numerous issues in which "finding mutually acceptable solutions" (which would just mean compromising to republicans) isn't enough, like LGBT+ rights. There is no compromising on these issues like saying "Let's just give them half the rights", LGBT+ rights are human rights among many other issues. Step 2: Completely true but the issue of Media goes beyond that. Media currently is enormously powerful, Media dictates the current political polarization to political viability of candidates. Historically in recent decades the president candidate's who got the most media attention won their elections, not by being the best candidates but being on most TV broadcasts. Media right now has way too much sway on not just democracy but the public and political climate, and they don't even have to spread misinformation to get their way, they can choose to cover news, stories, etc... which they want to push a certain agenda, or ignore those which go against said agenda without ever having to lie or spread misinfo. Honestly I've got no idea how to fix this issue, first obvious step would be to punish obviously bad faith actors like Fox News. However past that it's really hard to deal with this as it would go into territory of government managing media (which I really don't like the thought of), having independent non partisan committees keeping Media in check through journalism would be really nice. Step 3: I respectfully have to say that this is incredibly naive. The notion of this idea would require that both A) both sides being about equally as bad, which is exceedingly not true, and B) That both sides would stop demonizing "the other side", which also is incredibly unlikely to happen. This comment is long enough as is so I'll try to summarize why I believe these two points as best as I can: A) Republicans are worse than dems in almost every way, but most notably they strip away human rights whenever they get the chance, like LGBT rights, Abortion, Racist policies (Dems do it too but not as blatantly or as often), Welfare, incredibly blatant voter suppression. Not to mention they will never vote for things Dems want to do (which would unquestionably help Americans), while Dems also use filibuster (not nearly as much or as long as Republicans did/ do) they sometimes vote for Republican bills and do in fact try to participate in democracy. Also Republicans live in different reality from us, the past year with "STOP THE STEAL", Jan 6 insurrection, Ivermectin, all the fucking conspiracy theories. And the difference between Dems and Reps is that Republican establishment supports and promote these extremists, Republican politicians are denying, downplaying or shifting blame for January 6 insurrection. The entire presidency of Donald Trump from the Muslim ban, to Neo-Nazi gathering at Charlottesville, to Trump acknowledging Proud Boys at the presidential debate. B) Republicans will literally bitch about nothing. Remember the racist conspiracy theory that Obama faked his birth ID which the republican establishment pushed and got away with? Or remember the tan suit Obama wore? Or the Pizza gate conspiracy where they said Dems are child eating demons? (Which is still popular in Q-Anon, which Trump pretty much endorsed) Trying to both sides Reps and Dems is incredibly naive and politically illiterate. Step 4: Sadly with the way first past the post works its nearly impossible in the current system, voting for any other party than the main 2 is pretty much wasting a vote. The way to help with this issue would be introducing measures like Ranked choice voting, and getting rid of the electoral college (which is the only reason Republicans win elections) and is fundamentally un-democratic. Why would an American in Wyoming get to have 4-5 times the voting power of an American in California? Are Californians less American than Wyomingites? Another incredibly important measure would be to deal with gerrymandering, as its destroying US democracy. Dems and Reps both do it but Reps are the ones who started it and do it around 2-3 times more than Dems if I recall correctly. The enlightened centrist position of saying "Both sides bad" is politically illiterate so don't be one.
@@thebgod8182 tldr sorry but not going to argue vs someone who thinks the basis of democracy is bad so he wants dictatorship as long its his Kind to dictate whats right or wrong, thats exactly the root of the Problem
@@thebgod8182 you do know Most of the World Sees US politics as a clownshow were both parties are shit? Because thats how it is none of them is without blame, even your be loved deocrats
Was watching one of the Avengers movies the other day and found myself really rooting for Captain America in a nostalgic and unironic way. We've never been perfect, we'll never be perfect, but we can do better if we wanted. Unfortunately there's too many people spitting in our gumbo.
I feel the same way. This country is built on some damn fine ideas. Way better than a lot of other ideas! Do we live up to those principles? No, but hey at least the guiding light is a virtuous one
Have you heard of worker co-op movements? I’ve personally thought that people don’t feel invested in politics or voting (our less than 65% voter turnout) when they don’t have a voice in their work (where they spend half their conscious life). It’s feels unless more people feel strongly enough to voice their opinions and demand to be heard nothing will be done, and people won’t speak up if they don’t feel empowered.
As a frequent co-operative group and Waitrose shopper, I think they are overhyped. They still suffer from the same issues of managerialism that other businesses do.
@@williamfrancis5367 true, but that is irrelevant. The point of a coop is that the employee's are also the owner's, and thus gain the full benefit of their labour. Managerialism is a product of the bureaucracy necessary in large groups, not socialism. Co-op's generally don't change the customer's experience much. Or shouldn't, anyway, imo.
@MX 3 Depends on the field. On most fields I have seen the opposite actualy happens, lower productivity and worse payment, etc. It is better to have different bussnes structures for different types of corporations.
Co-ops work well among small groups where every one has close to the same skill level, like, ranchers. But for things like, making and programing chips it would not. Engineers are more valuable than an assembly line worker. As an Engineers contributions and skills are more viable, they get paid more. Its like doctors get payed way more than nurses or house keeping, but that's not unfair.
I think the Fair Representation Act would go a long way to make America more democratic. It would institute the single transferable vote to elect the House of Representatives, and ranked choice voting for the Senate.
I registered as a Republican again in 2018 to vote in the GOP's closed primaries. I live in a Republican-dominated state, so many elections are decided at the primaries. But even if you don't have that excuse, I'm coming around to the idea that Democrats and progressives should register as Republicans and vote in Republican primaries, to eliminate Trumpers and insurrectionists from the general election ballot nationwide. If Republicans won't clean up their own party, we should do it for them. But it does mean leaving Democratic candidate selection up to Democrats. That's definitely a downside. And definitely don't feel obligated to vote Republican in the general election!
If you reinforce the US' democracy (more parties, rank choices voting, eliminating the electoral college, reduce inequality, regulate big Tech), you'd make the country stronger, more united and give the US' human rights talk more legitimacy. If the US is coherently organized and united, it will be stronger internationally. It is patriotic, social democratic and will make the US richer, stronger and better for everyone
This whole series needs to be trending on Netflix top 10, promoted on CNN and foxnews, and taught in the classrooms. Cypher for president. Speak softly and carry them likes.
Teddy called himself a conservative. Progressive Conservatism is a fairly standard concept abroad. He was pretty much the American counterpart to Britain’s Benjamin Disraeli and Germany’s Otto von Bismarck. They all acknowledged that some level of reform was necessary to keep society from tearing itself apart from labor unrest and restore a sense of stability. But they coupled it with conservative views when it came to their cultural attitudes and foreign policy. It’s only with presentist blinders one can look back on TR and claim he was some kind of hardcore leftist. His unrelenting advocacy for core family values, imperialist foreign policy and his own analysis of American history is completely out of step with even the mainstream Left of today. He actually got into public feuds in his win day with high-profile liberal activists in his day. With the anti-war campaigner Jane Addams over his 1912 platform which called for building up the navy and the pro-choice icon Margaret Sanger due to his moral crusade against abortion. The already quite liberal New York Times and Washington Post, despite lauding him now, at the time wrote excoriating stuff about him that you might expect them to say about Donald Trump today. Not that I’m even going to put those two on the same level by any means, but it is a point worth raising. He consistently denounced such prominent hardline reformers as William Jennings Bryan, Eugene V. Debs, John Peter Atgeld and yes even Woodrow Wilson as naive idealists if not dangerous radicals who would lead the country into chaos and ruin. And given his views on socialism he’d probably be uneasy, to put it lightly, with the association made between the allusion to Lenin in the video's name and his face on the title card I might add. He also refused to join the National Progressive Republican League that was spearheaded by the party insurgent Robert La Follette and supported by such undisputed progressive heroes as Louis Brandies on the grounds they were too radical. Brandeis wound up leaving the Republican Party when TR pushed La Follette, his choice, out of the running in the primaries and joined the Democrats. And he would, interestingly enough, collaborate with Wilson on writing his 1912 New Freedom platform. That’s not even getting into how his famous distant cousin Franklin actually even campaigned for Wilson instead in that election. Trying to place Teddy in the modern political landscape is tricky and perhaps futile. He in certain areas has some overlap with each one, but the differences are significant enough that they’d more than likely have been deal breakers. His mind for political and economic reform would clash with modern Republicans but his emphasis on traditional values and nationalism would be untenable to modern Democrats. Though of course you have to try and control for the different factors between the time he was alive and now to try and properly slot him. So there is indeed a legitimate debate to be had on the subject. But I’d argue that the ethos and logic from which he started and derived his political approach was largely conservative. And that certain fights he chose to take on were particularly vociferous so as to show something more than passive conformity to the standards of the time. Frankly, if he were around today he’d more than likely feel compelled to just go and start his own party again rather than throw in with either of them.
@@johnweber4577 good post. I was just pointing out I think of myself as a compassionate conservative. We should and can temper our capitalism with helping those whose need it. So they can become nice capitalists.
Thank you very much for this video. I appreciate the points you've made and agree heavily with you on pretty much everything in this video. Keep making amazing videos and being one of my favorite YT historians. BULLY!
1) worth mentioning that the Nebraska and Maine EC splits are based on congressional district and therefore vulnerable to gerrymandering. What we need is an actual division based on statewide percentage of the vote regardless of from where in the state thise votes come. 2) if winner take all remains, we at least need ranked choice voting so we can have more diversity of political thought without fear of the spoiler vote or 3rd party waste. 3) the EC wouldn't exist if not for Southern states wanting to count slaves for their voting power but not in their actual voting.
I believe in one of Mr. Beat's videos about Presidential Elections around 1880, one of the candidates campaigned on doing away with the Electoral College. That was around 1880. We're still stuck with it.
I have a bachelor's in History, a minor in Political Science, and am a conservative republican. And you are 100% correct. I'm only 10 minutes in. But yes, you are lile the only person who understands neoliberalism, understands macro level politics, and US history all at a deep level. Love your video
Ranked choice multi member districts is how I’d want to see the 2 parties broken up. I think partisan identification is a good thing and should be more prevalent. For a lot of local non partisan races, I can’t find good information on the candidates. If we had a multi party system with more partisan races I think it would allow for more coherent politics.
I found the series to be pretty great and really interesting and informative overall. I'm somewhat surprised that CH didn't really touch on immigration at all in his section on the culture war. Anxiety over demographic change since the 1960s has been a growing factor in Republican politics (less so in the Reagan/Bush era but more so in the Trump era). I also think CH should have touched more on the educational changes in the electorate. Working class (non college educated) white voters have been shifting from the Democrat to the Republican Party, and in more recent times, this trend has been mirrored in the Hispanic/Black electorate too. At the same time College educated voters have heavily shifted toward the Democratic party. This seems to be an important part of the cultural polarization of the electorate as well. I also do think CH somewhat overstates the effect of the Reagan revolution. Most of the main longterm New Deal/Great Society reforms (social security, medicare, medicaid, food stamps, etc) survived Reagan's presidency and those of his successors with some exceptions (such as Glass-Steagall), and his 1986 tax bill was more centered around tax reform by lowering brackets and eliminating deductions while much (around half) of the 1981 tax cut was repealed immediately afterwards. CH kinda just states that Reagan's policies drove wealth inequality without providing much evidence beyond just correlation graphs. I also think in general CH doesn't do a good job actually exploring what he thinks the harmful effects of wealth inequality are, he kinda just states that wealth inequality is higher than ever and that is bad.
To my left, one argues for me to join their tribe. To my right, another argues for me to join their tribe instead. Then I ask in return, "Why do I need either of you?" Then they both came after me. Yet I'm still alive...and you know what they say about what doesn't kill you.
The inclusive welfare you mention should be a UBI. If funded by things like a Value added tax, Robin Hood tax, Inheritance tax, Land Value Tax, carbon tax and data tax we can incentivize a lot of progress. Leading environmentalists believe the best allocation of carbon tax money is essentially a UBI - that that tax money should be evenly distributed so that it can make it easier for people to make greener short-term and long-term decisions. A UBI also incentivizes economic growth and innovation as it bolsters self-employment and small business as well as increase consumption in general. UBI has shown to reduce and eliminate the adverse effects of poverty as when people have less financial insecurity and coercion in their lives they tend to be healthier and happier. I truly believe it is a policy that’s worth getting behind.
This was a really great series; thank you! I'm like you a former Republican and now identify as something else (for me aggressively centrist or libertarian). One thing though, looking at this through a political science lens I wouldn't say the Electoral College is what failed in electing a demagogue POTUS in 2016. Instead, I think it is the result of opening primaries. While starting in the early 1900s the Progressives thought this democratized the way candidates were nominated and weakened the power of political machines (which it does) they inadvertently opened the door to insurgent candidates from outside the party. Which is how Trump got the GOP nomination. Just under half the country has an open primary for the presidency; which means in states like Missouri we do not register a political affiliation. Instead we ask for whatever party's ballot we want that day and get it; no gate keeping. Which is how Trump seized the nomination, this wasn't the party faithful showing up but people buying into his populist rhetoric. Up until 2016 Trump was neither R or D and donated to both sides as it suited his interest at the moment. Nor was this solely on the right. On the left you had Bernie Sanders who was not a member of the party almost win the Democratic nomination riding a similar populist wave of demagoguery. However, due to the existence of "Super delegates" the Democratic establishment was able to put their thumb on the scale on tilt the nomination to their chosen candidate. I don't think that "fixing" the EC to ensure it follows the popular vote will result in better candidates and election outcomes. Politicians will simply shift their attention and efforts to a handful of city centers where the money is flowing into their war chests already. What I think would be more effective would be to devolve power back to the states instead of concentrating in DC. That way it's closer to the people (true democratization) and it forces the corrupt to divide their attention between 50 state houses (plus DC) and 7,383 legislators instead of one Capitol with 535 legislators. However, it's not only elected officials who are the problem. Bureaucracies move from their intended purpose so much so that when an emergency happens that they were created to address: they fail. Additionally, bureaucrats will get promoted one or two levels beyond their competency and remain there until mandatory retirement. Often stifling innovation from younger, more able workers because new ways of operating just aren't the way things are done. (I've spent my adult life working for the government and I've seen this in action.) So not only do we need term limits for office holders, but maybe something so one person doesn't hold the same position in government service for 20 years either.
I think you're broadly right about these points, but I take issue with two of your ideas. I've worked in the Ohio Legislature for several years and was in campaign politics before that. We have term limits in Ohio for the state legislature, and I think it has a lot of unintended consequences. Primarily, there are positions in the political sphere that exist outside of elections. State administrators and lobbyists being the main two, and when the legislators know they have a clock winding down two things happen: 1. They never get enough expertise to be self-reliant and end up depending on lobbyists. 2. They keep an eye toward their next career, a career where maybe they don't have to worry about term limits, like lobbying! That's how it goes in Ohio anyway, and I think DC lobbying is only worse. Second, removing party ID is a good idea in theory, but in practice it leads to unpredictable outcomes. For instance, with judgeships and school board positions. Your average person may not have time to research those candidates, but they also may not leave the spot empty, and in a political atmosphere where things like the CRT and mask mandates are up for political debate in school, a party ID may be enough to signal to someone's preferences, whichever way they may be, and at least give them solace in the fact that their choice was at least somewhat informed
Agree. I see people all the time calling for term limits without thinking through the consequences. When you have a good representative you want to keep them in; term limits works against that. Also, term limits would likely lead to unmotivated representatives. Are they really going to put in any effort when they can't be voted out?
I disagree with the term limits thing, but everything else I agree with. I'd much perfer making primary challenges more viable and competitive, than remove a popular politician that does their job well.
I definitely agree that trying to put a label on one's politics is ignorant. No one can say for a fact that they only belong to one "side" because everyone has their own beliefs, biases, and just personality that isnt like everyone else's. I honestly think everyone is a mix. I agree that the two party system isnt great amd neither is the electoral college. Each state gets two senator seats despite the population. It should depend on the population. If a state has more people, it should get more senators.
Great video. I agree with many of your suggestions. Here are my key things we need to do shore up our democracy: 1. New tax system that is more progressive, economically neutral (i.e., spending decisions are not influenced by tax considerations), broader in scope, and reshores money from tax havens. 2. Term limits for state and federal elected officials, including judges. State and federal representatives to serve four-year terms, senators and presidents six-year terms, and judges 18-year terms. Any federally elected official must be out of office a minimum of 6 years before they may seek office again at any level. Any elected official may not act as a lobbyist for any entity for 12 years after leaving office nor act in any advisory position to coordinate lobbying. 19:30 3. Publically financed elections. No candidate may receive contributions from any individual or entity when running for office except for the publically financed amount. No individual or entity may run advertisements about candidates or elections from May 1 to the end of the general election week in November of the election year. 4. Change elections for local, state, and federal elections to require that no one running for office can announce their candidacy or engage in campaigning before May 1 of the year in which the election is held for the office they are running for. Require the primary election take place the second week in September and give voters an entire week to vote. Require the general election to take place the first full week in November and give voters an entire week to vote. All elections must take place during these two weeks. 5. Have overlapping districts, so that voters are represented by more than one representative at both the state and federal level. 6. Require ranked-choice voting. 7. Increase the number of representatives, so that each U.S. Representative represents no more than 500,000 people. 8. Change the Senate from being state based to being nationally based. Senators should represent 2,000,000 people, and senatorial boundaries should be drawn starting at the top of Maine and then expanding south and west from there to create districts of 2,000,000 people regardless of the state or city the people live in. The boundaries should be drawn contiguously. 9. Eliminate the Electoral College. 10. Require two years of public service by all Americans before the age of 30. People can join the military, a new Civilian Consent Corps, work in literacy programs, work on infrastructure projects, etc. Allow individuals at anytime after the age of 30 to participate in these programs for one or more years. 11. Require television and radio broadcasters to air a certain number of free ads for each candidate where the candidate must indicate why they are running for office, which office, and what they intend to do when elected. They may not mention other candidates specifically or by inference during the free ad. 12. Setup through colleges a program that requires anyone seeking office to complete before they are eligible for running for office. There should be different programs for different offices and be focused on the topics for a particular office. The program for anyone who wants to be a federal representative, senator, or the president 19:30 is to include an explanation of how governments work at all levels, covers the makeup of government at all levels, explains the requirements of all offices, explains basic economics, and covers the key areas of the economy and the issues facing them (e.g., healthcare, manufacturing, trade, immigration, financial sector, education, foreign relations, agriculture, environment, etc.). 13. Federally-elected officials and judges must put all assets in a specifically-created account, which pays a nominal interest, while they are in office. Elected officials and judges may not receive any gifts, trips, or remuneration from any individual or entity while in office. Any receipt of any gift, trip, or remuneration will result in automatic removal from office and forfeiture of the gift or fine for the monetary amount of the item/trip.
i actually came to this conclusion myself not to long ago while watching your videos. going over the basic principles that the Bull Moose party was founded on and the stuff Roosevelt did, i was like "damn we kinda need a New Progressive party"
“Reexamining the Institutional Effects of Term Limits in U.S. State Legislatures” is a recommended read on Term Limits. I would suggest voting reform, and campaign finance reform as better solutions.
Compulsory voting could potentially work to combat polarization. By making the 'apathetic center' actually turn up at the polls. Although this might be too incompatible with many Americans ideas of voting.
Before making voting compulsory, you should first try incentivizing people to vote. The best way to do that would be, in my opinion, to have people vote on concrete issues (direct democracy) at the same time as voting in elections (indirect democracy). I believe that people, when voting on an issue that they feel strongly about, would be very likely to cast a vote - in passing, so to speak - for some politician/representative (who they don't feel as strongly about and for whom they wouldn't otherwise show up at the polling place) as well.
I liked this video even though I disagree with all the solutions stated. It's good as part of the public discourse but I don't think these are the solutions that we need. Appreciate the series and video though.
Can you elaborate a bit more?.. I was going to comment also, but I agree with some points and disagree with others, but I was planning to actually say why I disagreed with the ones I disagreed with and what solutions would be good for the U.S. going forward.
Cypher has such good takes on politics that go beyond the partisan lines while avoiding the equation of both sides when it would be inappropriate. This goes to show that historians, not lawyers and reality TV stars should be in power. As far as I‘m aware that has never gone wrong… …🏐!!!!
Hey man, props to you being very clear your political stance is more complicated than 'blue good red bad'. We need more people willing to actually understand and apply critical thinking. I also grew tired of people trying to place baggage on me when I make a stand on any issue. 'Oh you are pro abortion? Don't take my guns away!' 'Oh you are pro freedom of speech? Stop promoting racism!' etc.
So much of these solutions are so common sense and fundamentally non partisan. It blows my mind that there are normal people who are against these kinds of reform.
Whereas you are ABSOLUTLY correct about the 'Term Limits', your idea about getting rid of districts completely negates the idea 'empowering' everyone within the state, rather than just a State's large population centers. It is the same 'solution' that scraping the 'Electoral College' purports to 'solve' yet it creates other problems that are never addressed.. First, it is already the case that the most powerful states politically are the most populous ones which are also the most wealthy. Therefore that 'solution' is to make those states MORE powerful, while forgetting that the rural resident currently doesn't possess nearly the same degree of political influence as they are fewer and tend to be less wealthy. Yet the 'solution' purports that taking what little power they do have and giving it ALL to others, who are already better off in power and wealth. An even more disconcerting and far reaching problem is the fact that scraping the 'EC' w/ a 'Nationwide' and/or 'Statewide' election will violate one of the fundamental precepts of any Democracy or Republic worth it's salt; 'There should be majority rule but only w/ minority consent.' Otherwise you create the tyranny of the majority and any tyranny is necessarily an evil. Finally, instead of striping a locality of it's political power by taking away it's 'local' voting rights for House Members perhaps we should first undo some of the damage that Wilson and his lot did by reversing the 17th Amendment. This would restore the State's power in Washington and therefore help to provide a bulwark against a runaway Federal Govt. Perhaps a better solution to the very real problem of 'gerrymandering' would be to mandate a scheduled but random 'shifting' of geometrically shaped districts that are assigned irrespective of who holds power.
@@CynicalHistorian What then of my suggestion of "a scheduled but random 'shifting' of geometrically shaped districts that are assigned irrespective of who holds power." ? Something like it maybe?
The Senate is the problem with the EC. A few states have only one Rep but each one has two Senators. So citizens in smaller states have a larger role in the EC.
@@kmaher1424 But the Senate's role in the Electoral College is fairly limited except for a tie vote. The idea of two senators was to make certain the larger states couldn't bully the smaller ones. Of course Wilson's generation damaged the design by making Senators run for popular election instead of guarding each state govt's interest in Washington DC.
No lie, my internet dropped out right after 10:45, where you mentioned potentially having competing cable providers. Spectrum sure didn't like that idea, as the sole provider in my area.
I strongly agree that regulation and antitrust for big tech (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft) is certainly a strong first step towards a New Progressive Era. In addition, it would be important to strongly regulate/limit lobbying and campaign donations. As for presidential elections, a two-round popular vote could suffice. (preferably a form of score voting) In fact, two-round systems should be adopted in all legislative elections, so the winner MUST have a majority, not a mere plurality.
I've absolutely loved your polarization series and the insight provided into why we've been like this for the past few decades, but your statement at around 2:03 perfectly underscores the one problem I have with it: dismissing the culture wars as pointless and irrelevant ignores the real harm that laws passed (almost entirely by conservatives) in the quest to undermine cultural liberalism have inflicted on marginalized groups, as well as our democracy as a whole. For example, the Texas law banning abortions is going to force many women who either cannot afford to or have work schedules that do not allow them to leave the state to have children they either do not want or cannot afford. I think it goes without saying that the numerous anti-LGBTQ laws that have been passed in certain areas of the country by people fighting the culture wars harm the LGBTQ community, and the changes to the Texas cirriculum in the wake of all this fearmongering about "Critical Race Theory" are going to leave a lot of future voters with a racist and warped understanding of our history (even more so than a lot of people have now). Other than this though, I really enjoyed the series, commend all the work you put into it, and I hope to see more content like this in the future!
People look for political solutions or passing laws in the category of "blue laws" to encourage or discourage a certain behavior , both are treating symptoms and not the problem. So, we will become completely polarized .
man hearing electoral college for me eans a very different thing. Here in Brazil, elections are mandatory and decided by vote of the people where every vote is counted. For us ellectoral college is simply the schools and colleges where the elections are held
Even before I could vote I viewed myself as Republican but later I found myself disagreeing with the party large about social issues. It wasn't until after reading the works of Hunter S Thompson and later learning more about FDR and Teddy Roosevelt's proposals that I start t really shape my political views.
As Bill Hicks said: I ascribe to Mark Twain's theory that the last person who should be President is the one who wants it the most. The one who should be picked is the one who should be dragged kicking and screaming into the White House. We need to drag Cypher into office to fix this mess
I absolutely love this video, as someone who adores history, and loves politics. I actually hope to be involved in politics, Congress is my goal, and I'd absolutely do every bit of what you said. Except I believe RCV would curtail the need for term limits, and one major issue we have is apportionment; we've had 435 seats in the House for over 100 years, I'm sure TR wasn't so fond of that. We meed to add to the House, but also i don't know how both that, and a lack of Congressional districts would work. Even now, California has 53 representatives, how could they elect that many people in just on day? Why would people want to also?
I can totally relate, I used to be a Republican as well. My first vote was for a Republican, and I voted Republican pretty reliably up until 2016. I have been growing more moderate over time, but it really was the advent of Trump and Trumpism that finally got to me. Trump clinching the GOP nomination was what sealed the deal for me. These days I can't bring myself to go Democrat, but I'll gladly vote for a Democrat if I think they are the best candidate. Truthfully, for the last two elections I've voted for a third party out of protest. But yeah, I confuse the hell out of people who assume I'm either a bleeding blue liberal, or a MAGA hat wearing Trumper. But in reality I'm politically homeless and registered as an independent. But I can't stand Republicans anymore, their arguments are increasingly unhinged and calling more for loyalty to a man than to any real idea. And morality means nothing as what is moral changes depending on who is doing any one thing. Trump does it? Moral. Biden does it? Not moral. It's not objective, it's not even logical. And no, I don't think Democrats are right. But when one side is literally storming the capitol to overthrow the government I'm not going to be complaining quite as loudly about Democrats doing stuff I find mildly irritating, or at worst doubles down on the status quo. I've been feeling that there needs to be a new conservative party, that there's a schism in the party that is dividing conservatives. Moderates like myself are being pushed out as Trumpers pretty much run the show. Heck if a new party came about that I could agree with I would jump on board. I don't even care of they don't win many elections to start, if they took a stand against the nonsense of the GOP and reasserted the Conservative values I thought I was raised on, but also worked across the aisle to compromise to get real work done, yeah, I would be on board for it.
You had me at reform. I have had my own ideas for reform, way too long to post here, but suffice to say, my ideas aren't like yours, but hey that's where discussion can be made. Also, on the advocating undoing Woodrow Wilson's problems, on the Electoral College, you'd be undoing what Jacksonians did. Just food for thought there.
We need political diversity in cabnets. instead of just appointing peopel based on politics, people should be apointed based purely off merit, not politics or identity. The more unique, sane viewpoints that are consulted, the better the outcome.
While I agree that Roosevelt's program is a good blueprint to build upon, I am curious as to how it will be solidified? How can we be sure those new programs won't get eroded over years and years while the working class exhausts all its political will trying to keep them? I personally think the US needs more than reversible reforms, though I am biased as I am both a socialist and not from the US, so I'm curious what y'all think.
You bring up great solutions like doing away with the electoral college and ranked choice voting, but I can't imagine that ever happening. Why would the ones in power enact those changes when they go against their own self interests?
If you have a Civil War where the battle lines can only be found on Social Media sites.... Do you really have a Civil War? Is that really something that can be made Virtual? However, I do want to say THANK YOU for the suggestion on dissolving districts as I keep wondering that too. They made sense when your nearest town took a day travel, but now people do that trip every day just for work....
I do agree that "Last week Tonight" is a commentary on other outlets reporting, but I feel like it's deeper than that. Would quoting an article from the past to cover a topic that is currently relevant be in the territory in journalistic investigating or still just commenting on things other outlets reported. I personally feel the use of multiple outlets to bring credibility to a story or show a theme is very close to journalism, but I would love to hear from anyone else. Edit: grammar
Political satire is age old form of journalism/ social commentary and similarly age old is political satirists shield of 'we are just humble comedians, not real journalists'. When you spend lot of time finding out facts so that "the joke is funny, because the punch line is true".... that is journalism. One just must under stand with the other point presented in the video: There is no _completely objective_ journalism. Everyone has their biases. It is then just matter of degree and how honest the outlet is about it. Far more important than trying to always be utterly 100% objective (which one can't do and claim for is hubris and a lie) is to be aware and honest of ones bias as journalist. There is so many subjective/value evulation based decision involved in journalism. What subjects one decides to work on. what one sees important to put journalistic resources and how much. Journalist can't be everywhere all the time, not even big outlet. Thus that is a value based choice what one works on, since one can't work on everything. What gets published, when with how deep vetting and with what uncertainty factor. With which visibility priority. Not everything can be the top front page headline, again it is choice what gets the front page at news stand or top listing on the front page of media website and so on. As such there is no 100% objective outlet. Good outlets just try to stay as factual as they can, are clear when they are reporting their own analysis and thinking in a story and are aware and honest about their biases and the potential sources biases. Like say being clear when something is "opinion piece" and who the source of opinion is so one can evaluate that persons opinion based on their biases and influences. Plus as media consumer.... never only follow single outlet or outlets from single source of interest. There in lies the silo.
One thing to consider is how the GOP is decoupling from big business lately, as corporate interests are increasingly aligned with the Democratic platform. That said, I think many will be surprised to realize in the years to come that the GOP will have become well positioned to push forward on a new progressive era (though I doubt they'll call it that) particularly considering populist strains will be given more free reign on the political Right. I think populism adds a certain elasticity and vibrancy to a movement, though it's admittedly playing with fire. That elasticity will strengthen the GOP during an era that calls for new ways of addressing our many challenges.
I don't know....it seems counter-intuitive that you could create a progressive party from a party that's been doubling down in its pandering to its reactionary base.
The GOP decoupling from big business? What? Are we talking about the same party here? The democrats are just about as aligned with big business as they have been the last couple decades (which is a lot don’t get me wrong) but to claim that the Republicans are decoupling from big business is just not true. They are still the party that seeks to lessen the tax burden of corporations and the richest people in the US while the Democrats “merely” allow most of the Republicans changes to stand. While it is very true that neither party (at least not the leading wing in the Democrats) is in any way anti-big business the Republicans are quite far and beyond them in bending over backwards to accommodate the corporations. And while populism has become somewhat of a dirty word in politics it is very true that it can give life to a movement. But when the power that the GOP gains from this populist fervor is merely used to continue to further the interests of big businesses, find new and “inventive” ways of stoping people from voting and other such fun stuff i can’t really see how that would in any way bring the US forward.
@@jeffhoward162 yeah, good point, but I think that it is that "reactionary base" that will be most interested, suited, and resolved to constitute a bloc that elects the "trust-busters" of a new era to go after big tech. The political right sees big tech as more of a direct and obvious threat (censorship as rallying cry), and is more likely to move to address it imo.
Wait, Cypher, are you admitting to: - A decent admiration for Theodore Roosevelt - A dislike of all things Woodrow Wilson - An admiration of Diogenes of Sinope/Classical Cynicism - general history nerdery Are- are you *me*?
Interesting video. I would have added in how the first few seasons of Game of Thrones could have been a good influence on our society in the notion of revenge and violence causing more problems than solutions (but given how shitty season 8 was, I think that destroyed that narrative). It could have been a good influence to change much of the society, because we’re at that point with politics altogether. It’s more about my team winning, and we can’t just do that, especially when the Teams are utterly pointless. That, and your solutions regarding the electoral college doesn’t get helped when the party primary system is so terrible. That’s the real key to everything. The primaries are horrendously rigged, extremely difficult to deal with, and ultimately the battles are won by less voters who are hyper-partisan. If you look at the long arc of history, I think we confuse “bias” with “partisan.” Bias is inherently and undeniable, for we are human and it is a part of us. And it showcases what we believe. The bias isn’t the problem. It’s the blatant hypocrisy of partisanship, especially in media, that is the crux of the issue. “It’s okay if my team member does this, but not yours!” (I.e. republicans defending Don jr meeting with foreign agents, democrats not caring that Hunter was on foreign corporate boards, etc) Until we differentiate between these things, I don’t think we can solve any of these problems. The binary process has rotted out much of critical thinking and forced us into camps that are, basically speaking, held together by parasitic notations. How many people would voluntarily vote Republican if the democrats no longer existed? And vice versa? Because the other party is there, people vote against their own interests to stop the “other party” from being in charge. They stand for nothing, and so, they fall for anything.
Districts exist because NoVa is going to have different interests than Appalachia. Removing districts is going to remove volume from rural voices, making people who already feel unheard (operative word is "feel") feel even more unheard and causing further tension.
The best way I can think of to describe History and Journalism is that a Historian's job is to document and make sense of the past whereas a Journalist documents and makes sense of the present. Today's Journalism is tomorrow's History. Expressing public opinion, good or bad, is part of the present that journalism reflects and will be important for future historians to gauge what our present was like. When people say "don't be so political", what they mean is "stop uncritically expressing views I don't like". Or is it? There are thousands of movies and TV shows and whatnot with themes most of the audience probably doesn't agree with, and yet most of them don't get criticized for being "too political". Why is that? What is the X factor that makes a philosophical disagreement political or not?
Dude! After I watched the Men Who Built America, and then the Ken Burns film on the Roosevelts I thought a very similar thing. In fact I told my teenage sons that what we need now is a nee progressive movement. Thank you for detailing what for me was just a general idea!!!
The ballot thing is a decent idea but would only work if some independent group provided a quick breakdown of the candidates to hand to voters. Even then, most Americans won't bother to read it.
The timing of this video with the Ahmad Arbery verdict is just perfect. After all, it always comes down to race. Just look at Georgia. This verdict is going to have major ramifications politically for both sides, since Georgia is such a majorly contested political hot-spot right now. Especially since the Rittenhouse verdict also just happened. Not to mention the Wisconsin parade attack. If it turns out that the driver was attacking whites in retaliation for Rittenhouse's acquittal, that's going to have major consequences in Wisconsin. I could see the Republicans using the verdict to energize a lot of infuriated white and conservative voters, and the Democrats touting it as a major win with the Black community. Regardless, this verdict is going to only deepen the political divide.
Instant run-off is a good idea, but there is still one central problem: in a contest for only one seat, fans of n-1 candidates are going to be disappointed no matter what. I don't think our two-party system is quite as big of a problem as people say, because both parties each behave like coalitions of smaller parties. So for example, when the Democratic Party is trying to pass something but the progressive wing is opposed, it's exactly what you'd see if it were the Democratic Coalition Of Parties trying to pass something but the Progressive Party (normally aligned with the Democratic Coalition of Parties) were opposed.
Hey Cypher, I was curious - I look at the failures of the many multiple party democracies in the 20th century as a inconvenient "fly in the ointment" for getting rid of the two party system. Weimar, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, etc. - all failing because of the parties being unwilling to caucus with each other and therefore all those governments couldn't govern giving rise to authoritarians. I see the same thing happening today in Israel, where they've had multiple elections and can still barely form a coalition to govern with and I'm hoping that it doesn't devolve further. Do you think that our politicians would be able to make a parliamentary system work? Or are the sides so polarized that we would struggle to form a government? From my perspective I would expect the far left to be unwilling to work with the center-left and the right to refuse to work with the left at all.
Those sound a bit like cherry picked examples of states that had lots of other problems preventing them from succeeding. How about the Netherlands, Germany after WW2 and Switzerland. All three have been ruled by coalitions of various parties for decades and i'm sure there are other examples.
@@andreaslaroi8956 Cherry picked examples? You mean examples of the thing I'm asking about specifically? How am I supposed to ask my question about multi party states that failed if referring to them by name is "cherry picking"?
@@dlamagdeleine Maybe i misinterpreted your question but it just sounded weird to me to ask if a multi party system is feasible and pointing out a few failures when multi-part systems are the default for lot of countries (including most of Europe, India, Indonesia, NZ). You made it sound like it's some quirky system mainly distinguished by it's failure . And your examples are IMHO outliers of countries that: came out of dictatorships, just lost a world war, just got rid of a monarch, had strong ethnic tensions, were on the brink of a genocide, ... etc. So i don't think a majority of multiparty systems fail. I might be a bit cynical, but usually politicians want power , i.e. to rule a country and they are willing to form coalitions if needed to do that. Unless most parties are tiny this usually works.
Weimar Republic actually is stable for most of its history due to the coalition between the SDP, the Zentreum, and other democratic parties. They only become unstable in concurrence with the Great Depression and the rise of political parties that DON'T want to form coalitions like the KDP and the Nazi Party...
Two things that I think would greatly benefit the political polarization in America would be not only allowing more parties being made mainstream but also ranked-choice voting. This way, not only do people have more choices that more closely align with what they want, but it allows for their votes to matter more.
Thanks for watching! Please consider supporting the channel by buying merch: teespring.com/stores/the-cynical-historian
Or by donating to my Patreon: www.patreon.com/CynicalHistorian
Click "read more" for corrections and bibliography. First, here are some related videos:
Political Polarization series: ua-cam.com/play/PLjnwpaclU4wXxGRwtV4EGk_vuAH2VkODS.html
Sectional Crisis: ua-cam.com/video/Ff2AKILyi0o/v-deo.html
Party Switch: ua-cam.com/video/hBHHIJG8Rds/v-deo.html
Culture War: ua-cam.com/video/tppeGYoWDxg/v-deo.html
Neoliberalism: ua-cam.com/video/kBp69R_K1a0/v-deo.html
Tech polarization: ua-cam.com/video/xHlBdebjpyQ/v-deo.html
WILSOOOON! ua-cam.com/play/PLjnwpaclU4wXmCcEx0vfIim_jFMkgtLmS.html
*[reserved for errata]*
"Contract with the People," Progressive Party Platform, 1912: en.wikisource.org/wiki/1912_Progressive_Party_Platform
A good way of handling the district representative system is the pie chart method. Basically everyone votes for a party, including( 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc...) then you determine the amount of representatives from a party a state has based on how big of a percentage of the state supported that party, any remaining seats that don't fit into the larger percentages, such as a few run over votes and the like instead go to the party with the most votes and fewest seats, likely a third party or possibly an independent. Then the parties vote to decide who fills the seats they have in a sort of reverse primary. It isn't a perfect solution as it doesn't get rid of the parties, but it does allow for more equal representation as well as a larger proportion independent representation.
But would this result in people in rural areas ignored ?They generally have less resources
I like how it always comes back to Wilson. I went on Amazon to look for a critical autobiography on Wilson. Their did not seem to be one ? They all seem to be the best of, and his 14 points. As a History Major, your points on him are valid. His support of the Klan and other racist acts, are swept under the rug.
My own diatribe. I dropped out of the workforce 6 years ago to care for my aging parents so I don't have any income. They require care 24/7 and since I live in Texas they get little help from the state. One fourth of their income goes to supplemental insurance to cover what Medicare doesn't cover (like my dad's insulin). At one point the state sent out "help" which was a nurse who took vital signs and then sat and chatted for an hour and left. Mom finally told them to just stay away. The state took money that was supposed to be used for elderly care and used it to create a useless government job. Their food stamps were canceled for almost a year because my mom made a mistake on the college level paperwork they send out every year. You know, the one where they ask my 80 year old mother if she has gotten a job or became pregnant. Things are better since I took over the paperwork but I am 61 and I am finding it harder to keep up. In the US men over 65 are the most likely to die by suicide. There is a reason for this.
Thank you for your thoughtful input and comments to and about our ongoing political conversation.
In interpersonal political discussions I also think a good rule of thumb is to remember politics is complicated and that you are wrong about something. You do not know what, which is why it is important to approach politcal topics humbly and not assume you are automatically correct. Also be comfortable saying "I don't know'. You aren't a politician. You don't have to worry about losing voter confidence by showing uncertainty.
There is a youtuber out there called Lord Bung, he doesn't produce much.
However - he does a really nice retelling of Micromégas that highlights how important saying 'I don't know' is.
@@lostbutfreesoul What scp is this?
To be fair one side is sometimes wrong, the other has all its heads buried in the toilets
I still want them to bring back the the Civilian Conservative Corp for people who want to serve but are unable to actually enlist and help with rebuilding the infrastructure
honestly good idea
That's a good idea. Would like to see that happen.
@@paulcroshier6708 Somewhat unclear why you chose to mention that when my picture is US Infantry and why you bring it up in this in general
omg! yes, i think this all the time, ever since i found out about them, which happened to be around the time of the great recession
Bechtel, Turner and AECOM want to know your location. You are coming for their profits.
While we may all have differences. At least we can all rally around a unanimous hatred for Mr. Woodrow Wilson. Keep it up man!
WILSON!!!
damn that Wilson!
I never knew til I got here, but I’m not well educated, I’m over here hating Reagan but I can make room for disdain for past politicians
Yeah, Woodrow really did untold damage that we're still suffering under to this day that continually cascades into new problems. Worst president ever. All of the horrible foreign policy decisions of later presidents are because of him. If it weren't for him, there would be no George Bush. No war on terror. No communist Russia, China, and other countries. No North Korea. No World War 2. No covid-19.
WILSON!!!
People who want to take politics out of history are really saying they don't want to teach history - they want fairytales and narratives.
While I don't always agree with you, I sincerely respect you and your channel in its presentation of history. Keep up the good work.
To add its also a misconception in the pop sphere that history is seperate from politics even Modern politics simply because the past has a different culture and mindset as us today, just because the past is a different country that doesn't mean problems back then and today can't be connected, in fact almost every thing in history is very political from the Crusades to the Hundred years War ect.
P.S almost every Historical film is political in nature.
History isn't like Fiction as with Fiction an Author can divorce themselves from real world/modern day politics.
@@pebblepod30 true but that doesn't mean its not political even if the past has outdated politics.
I mean Abortion while filpped on who is pro or not was still political and funnily enough the Church somehow was always at the center of it, During Roman times the Church was viewed as progressive because they were pro life (abortions back then were because of the Dads choice) ironically now the Church and religion as a whole is seen as backwards.
Maybe one day the Purple dye headed people would be seen as backwards lol.
Preaching to the choir man. I'm fine with you expressing your political perspective since you link it with a good amount of history. I've learned a hell of a lot from your videos. Keep it coming man.
Fox News meaning the actual news broadcast is journalism however, the shows people love to watch with pundits is not journalism. It is editorials. And editorials are basically opinions which is what people think about facts or theories
Didn't Fox News have to officially declare they weren't real journalists to a judge to get around a libel accusation
It comes down to: What *is* "journalism"? And like what was hinted here, how does the modern definition account for journalism in America's past? After all, yellow journalism, is still journalism.
Nope. Fox couldn't open a 'Fox News' up here in Canada. We have pretty strict truth in broadcasting laws, and they would have had to call it 'Fox Entertainment'. It doesn't reach the bar to be considered news in Canada. Never been more proud. Even their news programming is mostly wishful thinking and convincing middle class white people that they're constantly under attack.
@@Hollows1997 I heard about that, british panel shows being my only television watching. Was Murdoch started that up, IIRC. The guys on Mock the Week were quite incensed.
@@Hollows1997 Heh, the CBC is forever...
If I may offer a critique on you last Political Polarized video. I believe in term limits but so long as money in politics exist a company can just wait for a term to end and pour money in the race to secure it. Its just going to increase corruption. So public finance elections is absolutely necessary as means before anything.
100%. I actually disagree with term limits solely for the reason that, if the person is the best for the job, they should be able to have it. FDR was one of our best presidents and I, and the voters at the time, thought he earned that 3rd term. While term limits would certainly help get some of the corrupt bastards in politics today, it wouldn’t mean much if the money in politics means they could just be replaced by an equally corrupt but slightly younger bastard. The system might improve, but I argue not nearly enough to sacrifice the ability to be able to elect truly great leaders for longer periods of time. Term limits are the band aid on the bullet hole, so let’s stop with the band aids and get on to surgery- getting money out of politics in the first place. It may sound impossible now, but if we can truly create a wave of progressive change like Roosevelt’s era before us, then I could see regulations on campaign finance, the weakening of the parties’ power (Cypher’s example of removing party indication from the ballots was fantastic), limits on donations, and even a constitutional amendment to finally stop treating corporations as people in courts of law could all be options on the table as goals to work towards instead.
I feel conflicted about term limits, because I believe that just turning over a seat to turn it over isn't better. But I'm also sick of these dinosaurs in congress digging in their heels, or running on "I'm on such and such committee and have power and influence! You don't want to get rid of me!"
I want to see fresh blood yes, but throwing in some more radical young contender is not what I want to see, but that's what has been happening. When the Tea Party was getting big and the old guard Republicans were getting tossed out I wasn't sad to see them go. But I also wasn't happy with who replaced them. In many case the further to the right candidates who ended up being even more hard line. Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee were Tea Party candidates for example, and I wish we could get rid of them. But then Tea Partiers in turn got pushed out for Trump loyalists, so now we have a Q anon true believer in congress, which yikes!
More than term limits, I just want to see people who aren't actively trying to sabotage everything all the time for political points with the most extreme wings of their party. I don't care if I disagree politically, I'd vote for a candidate who I actually thought would be a good representative over if they checked the party box, or some stupid litmus test for the extreme right or left.
@@andmicbro1 the Spartan constitution had a rule that after a term the person goes on trial on whether or not they did well in office and helped the public interest, even kings were not free from this. You can be for non consecutive term limits
How about we set limits on both terms of office _and_ the amount of money candidates can receive in donations and/or spend on their campaigns?
@@akorn9943The president should have term limits I believe, especially since the prime concept of a president according to John Locke is that the executive should change. It's one person too, if the president doesn't have term limits, then we could see that play out as it did in 1970's Iraq.
I do agree on term limits for Congress, if people are happy with their representative and senator, they should keep them
European here, I think the biggest issue for US politics is the voting system
Almost every country in Europe (looking at UK and Hungary) has uses a proportional system and in most of them, it works fine or at least as good as in the US
Multiple parties would mean coalitions, compromises and less of a stiff front between people
You could even keep the current voting system for one of the two houses of Congress and it still would improve greatly (one house for the hole country, one represents individual states). It is even possible to directly vote for an regional candidate and make an house representitive of the total population with a two votes system
I never grasped why the US never reformes the current system and it is just horrible, probably one of the worst voting system of a democratic country in the 21st century
@@dmwalker24 sadly, I fully agree, it would need pressure from most of the politicly active population of the US for a revolutionary change, which just won't happen.
I am just confused, do the politicans and patriots which uphold their dear constitution really believe that when it was written, is was the greatest achievment of humankind and should never be changed?
@@bomschhofmann1644it is the greatest thing in mankind. The constitution led us to victory in ww1 and ww2
You think we haven’t tried reforming our voting system and that we are somehow satisfied with the current 2 party system? The electoral college was almost reformed in the 60s and guess under whose administration it didn’t get passed? (Hint: his last name starts with N and ends with ixon)
there’s been more recent push to recent push for voting reform even since 2016, but something you gotta understand about the US is how hesitant is the right (by “right” I’m referring to both the republicans and their voters) here with policies, especially those benefitial for society. Citizens of DC can’t have normal rights people in cities and states would normally get because rightist get worried about DC causing an imbalance in politics because always votes democrat
Change is painfully slow is what I’m saying
Dude, whenever I hear Woodrow Wilson's name I INSTANTLY think of you and your "WIILLSSOOOOONNN!" and I say it right along with you.
You are one of the best historian youtubers (and there is A LOT, I know; I watch many of them)
Keep doing what you do, Cypher.
Term limits are not “working fine” on the state legislative level. Lobbyists run the legislatures without a say from an experienced public official. Look at the corruption in Ohio, which has gotten worse post term limits.
Same in Missouri. Instead of term limits lets make our elections more competitive by getting rid of gerrymandering, making ballot access laws fairer, completely overhauling our campaign finance system (overturn citizens united, buckly v. Valejo, etc), make it easier to vote, and reforming our election system through things like ranked-choice voting and proportional representation.
@@balabanasireti We kind of went out why term limits are bad, so we shouldn’t do term limits.
Alright you big fat loud blow hards, if ya gonna complain about the person in the video being wrong then I'm gonna need to see some evidence for that and I mean like some hard facts for that.
Turns out: young corrupt guy is a lot like old corrupt guy, but with less experience.
Ranked choice & compulsory voting in Australia has insured that extremes of politics is limited,l. It’s paired with government vote based funding which means more fringe parties (Greens for exsample) can be active, so ranking a fringe party 1st has a point. But most of all, our districts are allocated by VERY independent commissions, who will do their best to not favour one party over the other in district changes (due to population changes)…so a model is there & I like to think it kinda works on a voting level (higher level politics is another matter)
"...insured that extremes of politics is limited..." Ok buddy
I always liked the idea of ranked vote ever since seeing a CGPGrey vid on it. It may not be perfect still, but it's bound to be miles better than first past the post policy we have now in the US.
Dude. You live in a police state.
@@readsomebooks666 - yeap, it must be a police state where elections are well, democratic
@@allancarey2604 Hm? Nothing?
I loved this series on the history of US Political Polarization. If I may offer my two cents, I think yes, bringing back a certain level of the old progressive era is important. What is more important is criticizing your own party (if you adhere to a political party), never 100% trusting the officials you elect into office, voting outside of the two parties, realizing that a government cannot do everything, and not demonizing the other side. At least that is things you can do on an individual level. I agree on a massive change in how things are run in this country's politics, but as long as those who abuse the system are in power, I have serious doubts that any changes will get made. But hey, maybe I am too much of a pessimist in this regard
I’m so glad you put all this information into an engaging and concise series. Your observations reflect what I’ve been wondering for years and I think your historical perspective astutely summarises the problems we face in todays society
Step 1: recognizing there is no right or wrong in finding a representative but its about finding mutually acceptable solutions.
Step 2: hold Media accountible when they misinform for their own gains
Step 3: stop demonizing "the other side" but Start calling out BS in your own political backyard
Step 4: consider voting outside the big two parties
Step 1: Finding mutually acceptable solutions is near impossible, especially in currently polarized climate. And even if possible it's not a good thing. For example there are numerous issues in which "finding mutually acceptable solutions" (which would just mean compromising to republicans) isn't enough, like LGBT+ rights. There is no compromising on these issues like saying "Let's just give them half the rights", LGBT+ rights are human rights among many other issues.
Step 2: Completely true but the issue of Media goes beyond that. Media currently is enormously powerful, Media dictates the current political polarization to political viability of candidates. Historically in recent decades the president candidate's who got the most media attention won their elections, not by being the best candidates but being on most TV broadcasts.
Media right now has way too much sway on not just democracy but the public and political climate, and they don't even have to spread misinformation to get their way, they can choose to cover news, stories, etc... which they want to push a certain agenda, or ignore those which go against said agenda without ever having to lie or spread misinfo.
Honestly I've got no idea how to fix this issue, first obvious step would be to punish obviously bad faith actors like Fox News. However past that it's really hard to deal with this as it would go into territory of government managing media (which I really don't like the thought of), having independent non partisan committees keeping Media in check through journalism would be really nice.
Step 3: I respectfully have to say that this is incredibly naive. The notion of this idea would require that both A) both sides being about equally as bad, which is exceedingly not true, and B) That both sides would stop demonizing "the other side", which also is incredibly unlikely to happen.
This comment is long enough as is so I'll try to summarize why I believe these two points as best as I can:
A) Republicans are worse than dems in almost every way, but most notably they strip away human rights whenever they get the chance, like LGBT rights, Abortion, Racist policies (Dems do it too but not as blatantly or as often), Welfare, incredibly blatant voter suppression. Not to mention they will never vote for things Dems want to do (which would unquestionably help Americans), while Dems also use filibuster (not nearly as much or as long as Republicans did/ do) they sometimes vote for Republican bills and do in fact try to participate in democracy.
Also Republicans live in different reality from us, the past year with "STOP THE STEAL", Jan 6 insurrection, Ivermectin, all the fucking conspiracy theories. And the difference between Dems and Reps is that Republican establishment supports and promote these extremists, Republican politicians are denying, downplaying or shifting blame for January 6 insurrection. The entire presidency of Donald Trump from the Muslim ban, to Neo-Nazi gathering at Charlottesville, to Trump acknowledging Proud Boys at the presidential debate.
B) Republicans will literally bitch about nothing. Remember the racist conspiracy theory that Obama faked his birth ID which the republican establishment pushed and got away with? Or remember the tan suit Obama wore? Or the Pizza gate conspiracy where they said Dems are child eating demons? (Which is still popular in Q-Anon, which Trump pretty much endorsed)
Trying to both sides Reps and Dems is incredibly naive and politically illiterate.
Step 4: Sadly with the way first past the post works its nearly impossible in the current system, voting for any other party than the main 2 is pretty much wasting a vote.
The way to help with this issue would be introducing measures like Ranked choice voting, and getting rid of the electoral college (which is the only reason Republicans win elections) and is fundamentally un-democratic. Why would an American in Wyoming get to have 4-5 times the voting power of an American in California? Are Californians less American than Wyomingites?
Another incredibly important measure would be to deal with gerrymandering, as its destroying US democracy. Dems and Reps both do it but Reps are the ones who started it and do it around 2-3 times more than Dems if I recall correctly.
The enlightened centrist position of saying "Both sides bad" is politically illiterate so don't be one.
@@thebgod8182 tldr sorry but not going to argue vs someone who thinks the basis of democracy is bad so he wants dictatorship as long its his Kind to dictate whats right or wrong, thats exactly the root of the Problem
Hey man the nazis and the dems are both bad. Stop demonizing the right wingers! /s
@@TheGahta Republicans are the ones that don't believe in democracy, trying to fight back against them is a democratic thing to do.
@@thebgod8182 you do know Most of the World Sees US politics as a clownshow were both parties are shit? Because thats how it is none of them is without blame, even your be loved deocrats
This is the first political video that legitimately made me happy and hopeful, thank you
I felt inspired and cried tears of joy.
I may be on the spectrum :3
Everything you said in this video is something I supported for years, thanks for making this video
It’s an honour to be educated by someone who I would almost certainly disagree with politically. Cheers Cynic
Beautiful statement cheers
Was watching one of the Avengers movies the other day and found myself really rooting for Captain America in a nostalgic and unironic way. We've never been perfect, we'll never be perfect, but we can do better if we wanted. Unfortunately there's too many people spitting in our gumbo.
It's not hard to be behind Captain America. He does have America's Ass.
I feel the same way. This country is built on some damn fine ideas. Way better than a lot of other ideas! Do we live up to those principles? No, but hey at least the guiding light is a virtuous one
Cap is absolutely worth rooting for. The fact his chief weapon isn't even technically a weapon, but a shield to defend and protect, says volumes.
Have you heard of worker co-op movements? I’ve personally thought that people don’t feel invested in politics or voting (our less than 65% voter turnout) when they don’t have a voice in their work (where they spend half their conscious life). It’s feels unless more people feel strongly enough to voice their opinions and demand to be heard nothing will be done, and people won’t speak up if they don’t feel empowered.
As a frequent co-operative group and Waitrose shopper, I think they are overhyped. They still suffer from the same issues of managerialism that other businesses do.
@@williamfrancis5367 true, but that is irrelevant. The point of a coop is that the employee's are also the owner's, and thus gain the full benefit of their labour. Managerialism is a product of the bureaucracy necessary in large groups, not socialism. Co-op's generally don't change the customer's experience much. Or shouldn't, anyway, imo.
Worker coops on avarage pay their employees less than normal bussneses and are pretty bad at doing international deals.
@MX 3 Depends on the field.
On most fields I have seen the opposite actualy happens, lower productivity and worse payment, etc.
It is better to have different bussnes structures for different types of corporations.
Co-ops work well among small groups where every one has close to the same skill level, like, ranchers. But for things like, making and programing chips it would not. Engineers are more valuable than an assembly line worker. As an Engineers contributions and skills are more viable, they get paid more. Its like doctors get payed way more than nurses or house keeping, but that's not unfair.
I love your content, as soon as I can find a decent job, I'm throwing your channel money for such great work and honesty. Keep doing what you do best!
I think the Fair Representation Act would go a long way to make America more democratic. It would institute the single transferable vote to elect the House of Representatives, and ranked choice voting for the Senate.
Yep. History is politics. I am with you.
2016 was a fantastic year to leave the Republican Party. I went independent that year, too.
went independent in 2017 lol. it’s good to finally leave that shitty party
I registered as a Republican again in 2018 to vote in the GOP's closed primaries.
I live in a Republican-dominated state, so many elections are decided at the primaries. But even if you don't have that excuse, I'm coming around to the idea that Democrats and progressives should register as Republicans and vote in Republican primaries, to eliminate Trumpers and insurrectionists from the general election ballot nationwide.
If Republicans won't clean up their own party, we should do it for them.
But it does mean leaving Democratic candidate selection up to Democrats. That's definitely a downside.
And definitely don't feel obligated to vote Republican in the general election!
If you reinforce the US' democracy (more parties, rank choices voting, eliminating the electoral college, reduce inequality, regulate big Tech), you'd make the country stronger, more united and give the US' human rights talk more legitimacy. If the US is coherently organized and united, it will be stronger internationally. It is patriotic, social democratic and will make the US richer, stronger and better for everyone
Perfect end to a incredible series. Well done.
You can see your political leanings shift if you watch old videos back to back
Watch 12 Angry Men, it was odd to see people so nice to each other when disagreeing
This whole series needs to be trending on Netflix top 10, promoted on CNN and foxnews, and taught in the classrooms. Cypher for president. Speak softly and carry them likes.
The fact that your first mention is Netflix is illustrative of the problem we face. Big tech controls the means of us getting these ideas out there.
We’re on UA-cam right now bro.
I call myself conservative and Teddy is my hero. I’m fine with all of this.
Welcome aboard, so to speak.
@@eldorados_lost_searcher and it goes without saying that Woodrow Wilson was the absolute worst.
@@ronaldmccomb8301
Of course, and that coming from someone who once defended Wilson by saying that he was a product of his time.
Teddy called himself a conservative. Progressive Conservatism is a fairly standard concept abroad. He was pretty much the American counterpart to Britain’s Benjamin Disraeli and Germany’s Otto von Bismarck. They all acknowledged that some level of reform was necessary to keep society from tearing itself apart from labor unrest and restore a sense of stability. But they coupled it with conservative views when it came to their cultural attitudes and foreign policy. It’s only with presentist blinders one can look back on TR and claim he was some kind of hardcore leftist. His unrelenting advocacy for core family values, imperialist foreign policy and his own analysis of American history is completely out of step with even the mainstream Left of today.
He actually got into public feuds in his win day with high-profile liberal activists in his day. With the anti-war campaigner Jane Addams over his 1912 platform which called for building up the navy and the pro-choice icon Margaret Sanger due to his moral crusade against abortion. The already quite liberal New York Times and Washington Post, despite lauding him now, at the time wrote excoriating stuff about him that you might expect them to say about Donald Trump today. Not that I’m even going to put those two on the same level by any means, but it is a point worth raising.
He consistently denounced such prominent hardline reformers as William Jennings Bryan, Eugene V. Debs, John Peter Atgeld and yes even Woodrow Wilson as naive idealists if not dangerous radicals who would lead the country into chaos and ruin. And given his views on socialism he’d probably be uneasy, to put it lightly, with the association made between the allusion to Lenin in the video's name and his face on the title card I might add.
He also refused to join the National Progressive Republican League that was spearheaded by the party insurgent Robert La Follette and supported by such undisputed progressive heroes as Louis Brandies on the grounds they were too radical. Brandeis wound up leaving the Republican Party when TR pushed La Follette, his choice, out of the running in the primaries and joined the Democrats. And he would, interestingly enough, collaborate with Wilson on writing his 1912 New Freedom platform. That’s not even getting into how his famous distant cousin Franklin actually even campaigned for Wilson instead in that election.
Trying to place Teddy in the modern political landscape is tricky and perhaps futile. He in certain areas has some overlap with each one, but the differences are significant enough that they’d more than likely have been deal breakers. His mind for political and economic reform would clash with modern Republicans but his emphasis on traditional values and nationalism would be untenable to modern Democrats.
Though of course you have to try and control for the different factors between the time he was alive and now to try and properly slot him. So there is indeed a legitimate debate to be had on the subject. But I’d argue that the ethos and logic from which he started and derived his political approach was largely conservative. And that certain fights he chose to take on were particularly vociferous so as to show something more than passive conformity to the standards of the time. Frankly, if he were around today he’d more than likely feel compelled to just go and start his own party again rather than throw in with either of them.
@@johnweber4577 good post. I was just pointing out I think of myself as a compassionate conservative. We should and can temper our capitalism with helping those whose need it. So they can become nice capitalists.
Thank you very much for this video. I appreciate the points you've made and agree heavily with you on pretty much everything in this video. Keep making amazing videos and being one of my favorite YT historians. BULLY!
great series!~ i watched the whole thing in two days! i usually am averse to really long videos, but yours are so packed with information.
This is brilliant. I remember reading about Teddy’s 1912 run and thinking it would work today.
Idk if this channel just has the best moderation team on yt but I really love how introspective, intelligent, and calm the comment section is
1) worth mentioning that the Nebraska and Maine EC splits are based on congressional district and therefore vulnerable to gerrymandering. What we need is an actual division based on statewide percentage of the vote regardless of from where in the state thise votes come.
2) if winner take all remains, we at least need ranked choice voting so we can have more diversity of political thought without fear of the spoiler vote or 3rd party waste.
3) the EC wouldn't exist if not for Southern states wanting to count slaves for their voting power but not in their actual voting.
I believe in one of Mr. Beat's videos about Presidential Elections around 1880, one of the candidates campaigned on doing away with the Electoral College. That was around 1880. We're still stuck with it.
Even before then andrew Jackson was against it
YOU DA BEST! #1 content on the tube. Was an incredible series, was hype when I saw the epilogue pop up in my feed. Appreciate all you do cypher 👌🏽
I have a bachelor's in History, a minor in Political Science, and am a conservative republican. And you are 100% correct. I'm only 10 minutes in. But yes, you are lile the only person who understands neoliberalism, understands macro level politics, and US history all at a deep level. Love your video
Edit: I have never disagreed so hard with anyone about the electoral college. The electoral college is perfect.
@@keithworthing7038 Make up your mind.
Ranked choice multi member districts is how I’d want to see the 2 parties broken up. I think partisan identification is a good thing and should be more prevalent. For a lot of local non partisan races, I can’t find good information on the candidates. If we had a multi party system with more partisan races I think it would allow for more coherent politics.
I found the series to be pretty great and really interesting and informative overall.
I'm somewhat surprised that CH didn't really touch on immigration at all in his section on the culture war. Anxiety over demographic change since the 1960s has been a growing factor in Republican politics (less so in the Reagan/Bush era but more so in the Trump era). I also think CH should have touched more on the educational changes in the electorate. Working class (non college educated) white voters have been shifting from the Democrat to the Republican Party, and in more recent times, this trend has been mirrored in the Hispanic/Black electorate too. At the same time College educated voters have heavily shifted toward the Democratic party. This seems to be an important part of the cultural polarization of the electorate as well.
I also do think CH somewhat overstates the effect of the Reagan revolution. Most of the main longterm New Deal/Great Society reforms (social security, medicare, medicaid, food stamps, etc) survived Reagan's presidency and those of his successors with some exceptions (such as Glass-Steagall), and his 1986 tax bill was more centered around tax reform by lowering brackets and eliminating deductions while much (around half) of the 1981 tax cut was repealed immediately afterwards. CH kinda just states that Reagan's policies drove wealth inequality without providing much evidence beyond just correlation graphs. I also think in general CH doesn't do a good job actually exploring what he thinks the harmful effects of wealth inequality are, he kinda just states that wealth inequality is higher than ever and that is bad.
The negatives of wealth inequality are obvious, it's normal to assume people aren't dumb enough to think it is a good thing.
I like ranked choice a lot.
To my left, one argues for me to join their tribe. To my right, another argues for me to join their tribe instead. Then I ask in return, "Why do I need either of you?" Then they both came after me. Yet I'm still alive...and you know what they say about what doesn't kill you.
The inclusive welfare you mention should be a UBI. If funded by things like a Value added tax, Robin Hood tax, Inheritance tax, Land Value Tax, carbon tax and data tax we can incentivize a lot of progress. Leading environmentalists believe the best allocation of carbon tax money is essentially a UBI - that that tax money should be evenly distributed so that it can make it easier for people to make greener short-term and long-term decisions.
A UBI also incentivizes economic growth and innovation as it bolsters self-employment and small business as well as increase consumption in general.
UBI has shown to reduce and eliminate the adverse effects of poverty as when people have less financial insecurity and coercion in their lives they tend to be healthier and happier. I truly believe it is a policy that’s worth getting behind.
hell yeah 💰💰💰
This was a really great series; thank you! I'm like you a former Republican and now identify as something else (for me aggressively centrist or libertarian).
One thing though, looking at this through a political science lens I wouldn't say the Electoral College is what failed in electing a demagogue POTUS in 2016. Instead, I think it is the result of opening primaries. While starting in the early 1900s the Progressives thought this democratized the way candidates were nominated and weakened the power of political machines (which it does) they inadvertently opened the door to insurgent candidates from outside the party. Which is how Trump got the GOP nomination.
Just under half the country has an open primary for the presidency; which means in states like Missouri we do not register a political affiliation. Instead we ask for whatever party's ballot we want that day and get it; no gate keeping. Which is how Trump seized the nomination, this wasn't the party faithful showing up but people buying into his populist rhetoric. Up until 2016 Trump was neither R or D and donated to both sides as it suited his interest at the moment. Nor was this solely on the right. On the left you had Bernie Sanders who was not a member of the party almost win the Democratic nomination riding a similar populist wave of demagoguery. However, due to the existence of "Super delegates" the Democratic establishment was able to put their thumb on the scale on tilt the nomination to their chosen candidate.
I don't think that "fixing" the EC to ensure it follows the popular vote will result in better candidates and election outcomes. Politicians will simply shift their attention and efforts to a handful of city centers where the money is flowing into their war chests already.
What I think would be more effective would be to devolve power back to the states instead of concentrating in DC. That way it's closer to the people (true democratization) and it forces the corrupt to divide their attention between 50 state houses (plus DC) and 7,383 legislators instead of one Capitol with 535 legislators. However, it's not only elected officials who are the problem.
Bureaucracies move from their intended purpose so much so that when an emergency happens that they were created to address: they fail. Additionally, bureaucrats will get promoted one or two levels beyond their competency and remain there until mandatory retirement. Often stifling innovation from younger, more able workers because new ways of operating just aren't the way things are done. (I've spent my adult life working for the government and I've seen this in action.) So not only do we need term limits for office holders, but maybe something so one person doesn't hold the same position in government service for 20 years either.
Good series. I watched all 5 videos. It did not disappoint. It was informative and entertaining. But informative... is more important in the long run.
I think you're broadly right about these points, but I take issue with two of your ideas. I've worked in the Ohio Legislature for several years and was in campaign politics before that. We have term limits in Ohio for the state legislature, and I think it has a lot of unintended consequences.
Primarily, there are positions in the political sphere that exist outside of elections. State administrators and lobbyists being the main two, and when the legislators know they have a clock winding down two things happen: 1. They never get enough expertise to be self-reliant and end up depending on lobbyists. 2. They keep an eye toward their next career, a career where maybe they don't have to worry about term limits, like lobbying! That's how it goes in Ohio anyway, and I think DC lobbying is only worse.
Second, removing party ID is a good idea in theory, but in practice it leads to unpredictable outcomes. For instance, with judgeships and school board positions. Your average person may not have time to research those candidates, but they also may not leave the spot empty, and in a political atmosphere where things like the CRT and mask mandates are up for political debate in school, a party ID may be enough to signal to someone's preferences, whichever way they may be, and at least give them solace in the fact that their choice was at least somewhat informed
Agree. I see people all the time calling for term limits without thinking through the consequences. When you have a good representative you want to keep them in; term limits works against that. Also, term limits would likely lead to unmotivated representatives. Are they really going to put in any effort when they can't be voted out?
I disagree with the term limits thing, but everything else I agree with. I'd much perfer making primary challenges more viable and competitive, than remove a popular politician that does their job well.
Andrew Yang believes in a primary that would be all parties involved. I think that could work
A good start would be explaining to certain republicans that land doesn't vote
I definitely agree that trying to put a label on one's politics is ignorant. No one can say for a fact that they only belong to one "side" because everyone has their own beliefs, biases, and just personality that isnt like everyone else's. I honestly think everyone is a mix.
I agree that the two party system isnt great amd neither is the electoral college. Each state gets two senator seats despite the population. It should depend on the population. If a state has more people, it should get more senators.
Great video. I agree with many of your suggestions. Here are my key things we need to do shore up our democracy:
1. New tax system that is more progressive, economically neutral (i.e., spending decisions are not influenced by tax considerations), broader in scope, and reshores money from tax havens.
2. Term limits for state and federal elected officials, including judges. State and federal representatives to serve four-year terms, senators and presidents six-year terms, and judges 18-year terms. Any federally elected official must be out of office a minimum of 6 years before they may seek office again at any level. Any elected official may not act as a lobbyist for any entity for 12 years after leaving office nor act in any advisory position to coordinate lobbying. 19:30
3. Publically financed elections. No candidate may receive contributions from any individual or entity when running for office except for the publically financed amount. No individual or entity may run advertisements about candidates or elections from May 1 to the end of the general election week in November of the election year.
4. Change elections for local, state, and federal elections to require that no one running for office can announce their candidacy or engage in campaigning before May 1 of the year in which the election is held for the office they are running for. Require the primary election take place the second week in September and give voters an entire week to vote. Require the general election to take place the first full week in November and give voters an entire week to vote. All elections must take place during these two weeks.
5. Have overlapping districts, so that voters are represented by more than one representative at both the state and federal level.
6. Require ranked-choice voting.
7. Increase the number of representatives, so that each U.S. Representative represents no more than 500,000 people.
8. Change the Senate from being state based to being nationally based. Senators should represent 2,000,000 people, and senatorial boundaries should be drawn starting at the top of Maine and then expanding south and west from there to create districts of 2,000,000 people regardless of the state or city the people live in. The boundaries should be drawn contiguously.
9. Eliminate the Electoral College.
10. Require two years of public service by all Americans before the age of 30. People can join the military, a new Civilian Consent Corps, work in literacy programs, work on infrastructure projects, etc. Allow individuals at anytime after the age of 30 to participate in these programs for one or more years.
11. Require television and radio broadcasters to air a certain number of free ads for each candidate where the candidate must indicate why they are running for office, which office, and what they intend to do when elected. They may not mention other candidates specifically or by inference during the free ad.
12. Setup through colleges a program that requires anyone seeking office to complete before they are eligible for running for office. There should be different programs for different offices and be focused on the topics for a particular office. The program for anyone who wants to be a federal representative, senator, or the president 19:30 is to include an explanation of how governments work at all levels, covers the makeup of government at all levels, explains the requirements of all offices, explains basic economics, and covers the key areas of the economy and the issues facing them (e.g., healthcare, manufacturing, trade, immigration, financial sector, education, foreign relations, agriculture, environment, etc.).
13. Federally-elected officials and judges must put all assets in a specifically-created account, which pays a nominal interest, while they are in office. Elected officials and judges may not receive any gifts, trips, or remuneration from any individual or entity while in office. Any receipt of any gift, trip, or remuneration will result in automatic removal from office and forfeiture of the gift or fine for the monetary amount of the item/trip.
i actually came to this conclusion myself not to long ago while watching your videos. going over the basic principles that the Bull Moose party was founded on and the stuff Roosevelt did, i was like "damn we kinda need a New Progressive party"
I often say that ;
"THEY{gop} AIN'T HAD A GOOD ONE IN THERE{executive} SINCE TEDDY" !
I like Ike
“Reexamining the Institutional Effects of Term Limits in U.S. State Legislatures” is a recommended read on Term Limits.
I would suggest voting reform, and campaign finance reform as better solutions.
I come for King Richard, but stay for the intelligent discussions. Bully.
Long live the King!
Ted Benvick,
Meow! 😸
Compulsory voting could potentially work to combat polarization. By making the 'apathetic center' actually turn up at the polls. Although this might be too incompatible with many Americans ideas of voting.
Before making voting compulsory, you should first try incentivizing people to vote. The best way to do that would be, in my opinion, to have people vote on concrete issues (direct democracy) at the same time as voting in elections (indirect democracy). I believe that people, when voting on an issue that they feel strongly about, would be very likely to cast a vote - in passing, so to speak - for some politician/representative (who they don't feel as strongly about and for whom they wouldn't otherwise show up at the polling place) as well.
Can’t argue with any of this. I love your opinion because it is sensibly built on real history!
You sir are an American hero. Please for the love of God keep up your amazing work
I liked this video even though I disagree with all the solutions stated. It's good as part of the public discourse but I don't think these are the solutions that we need. Appreciate the series and video though.
😏
Can you elaborate a bit more?.. I was going to comment also, but I agree with some points and disagree with others, but I was planning to actually say why I disagreed with the ones I disagreed with and what solutions would be good for the U.S. going forward.
Cypher has such good takes on politics that go beyond the partisan lines while avoiding the equation of both sides when it would be inappropriate. This goes to show that historians, not lawyers and reality TV stars should be in power. As far as I‘m aware that has never gone wrong…
…🏐!!!!
Hey man, props to you being very clear your political stance is more complicated than 'blue good red bad'. We need more people willing to actually understand and apply critical thinking. I also grew tired of people trying to place baggage on me when I make a stand on any issue.
'Oh you are pro abortion? Don't take my guns away!'
'Oh you are pro freedom of speech? Stop promoting racism!'
etc.
You know the series is complete once it has circled back to WILSOON!
thank you for including detailed solutions, hope, as you put it, and your point that politics is not distinct from history, excellent video essay
So much of these solutions are so common sense and fundamentally non partisan. It blows my mind that there are normal people who are against these kinds of reform.
I tell all the old conservatives in my life about RCV, they seem to like it a lot
Treats to the kitty and the algorithm.
Lenin: hey! I had a book called this already! You already know my answer
That's what I have been saying since 2010 or so. We do need another progressive era.
Since we did vote for him in 1912 here in MN :)
Whereas you are ABSOLUTLY correct about the 'Term Limits', your idea about getting rid of districts completely negates the idea 'empowering' everyone within the state, rather than just a State's large population centers. It is the same 'solution' that scraping the 'Electoral College' purports to 'solve' yet it creates other problems that are never addressed..
First, it is already the case that the most powerful states politically are the most populous ones which are also the most wealthy. Therefore that 'solution' is to make those states MORE powerful, while forgetting that the rural resident currently doesn't possess nearly the same degree of political influence as they are fewer and tend to be less wealthy. Yet the 'solution' purports that taking what little power they do have and giving it ALL to others, who are already better off in power and wealth.
An even more disconcerting and far reaching problem is the fact that scraping the 'EC' w/ a 'Nationwide' and/or 'Statewide' election will violate one of the fundamental precepts of any Democracy or Republic worth it's salt; 'There should be majority rule but only w/ minority consent.' Otherwise you create the tyranny of the majority and any tyranny is necessarily an evil.
Finally, instead of striping a locality of it's political power by taking away it's 'local' voting rights for House Members perhaps we should first undo some of the damage that Wilson and his lot did by reversing the 17th Amendment. This would restore the State's power in Washington and therefore help to provide a bulwark against a runaway Federal Govt. Perhaps a better solution to the very real problem of 'gerrymandering' would be to mandate a scheduled but random 'shifting' of geometrically shaped districts that are assigned irrespective of who holds power.
You aren't incorrect on districting being somewhat empowering, but only if it is done well
@@CynicalHistorian What then of my suggestion of "a scheduled but random 'shifting' of geometrically shaped districts that are assigned irrespective of who holds power." ? Something like it maybe?
@@KPC-123 :shrug: dunno
The Senate is the problem with the EC. A few states have only one Rep but each one has two Senators.
So citizens in smaller states have a larger role in the EC.
@@kmaher1424 But the Senate's role in the Electoral College is fairly limited except for a tie vote. The idea of two senators was to make certain the larger states couldn't bully the smaller ones. Of course Wilson's generation damaged the design by making Senators run for popular election instead of guarding each state govt's interest in Washington DC.
No lie, my internet dropped out right after 10:45, where you mentioned potentially having competing cable providers. Spectrum sure didn't like that idea, as the sole provider in my area.
EVERYONE: "This is unprecedented!" HISTORIANS: "Read a book."
I strongly agree that regulation and antitrust for big tech (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft) is certainly a strong first step towards a New Progressive Era.
In addition, it would be important to strongly regulate/limit lobbying and campaign donations.
As for presidential elections, a two-round popular vote could suffice. (preferably a form of score voting) In fact, two-round systems should be adopted in all legislative elections, so the winner MUST have a majority, not a mere plurality.
I've absolutely loved your polarization series and the insight provided into why we've been like this for the past few decades, but your statement at around 2:03 perfectly underscores the one problem I have with it: dismissing the culture wars as pointless and irrelevant ignores the real harm that laws passed (almost entirely by conservatives) in the quest to undermine cultural liberalism have inflicted on marginalized groups, as well as our democracy as a whole. For example, the Texas law banning abortions is going to force many women who either cannot afford to or have work schedules that do not allow them to leave the state to have children they either do not want or cannot afford. I think it goes without saying that the numerous anti-LGBTQ laws that have been passed in certain areas of the country by people fighting the culture wars harm the LGBTQ community, and the changes to the Texas cirriculum in the wake of all this fearmongering about "Critical Race Theory" are going to leave a lot of future voters with a racist and warped understanding of our history (even more so than a lot of people have now).
Other than this though, I really enjoyed the series, commend all the work you put into it, and I hope to see more content like this in the future!
People look for political solutions or passing laws in the category of "blue laws" to encourage or discourage a certain behavior , both are treating symptoms and not the problem. So, we will become completely polarized .
man hearing electoral college for me eans a very different thing. Here in Brazil, elections are mandatory and decided by vote of the people where every vote is counted. For us ellectoral college is simply the schools and colleges where the elections are held
Great video as always dude. Very solid points and great evidence to back up your opinions. Cheers 🍻
Hell yeah Teddy! His first rally of the Bull Moose Party was in my town!
:3 LET'S BRING IT BACK!!
This has been a really great series
I noticed that a lot of these are solutions Mr. Beat suggested, too. It's almost like there's merit to them or something.
or that we conspired together, mwahaha
Even before I could vote I viewed myself as Republican but later I found myself disagreeing with the party large about social issues. It wasn't until after reading the works of Hunter S Thompson and later learning more about FDR and Teddy Roosevelt's proposals that I start t really shape my political views.
I really like your vote reform recommendations. Thanks for the great videos as usual!
As Bill Hicks said: I ascribe to Mark Twain's theory that the last person who should be President is the one who wants it the most. The one who should be picked is the one who should be dragged kicking and screaming into the White House.
We need to drag Cypher into office to fix this mess
I absolutely love this video, as someone who adores history, and loves politics. I actually hope to be involved in politics, Congress is my goal, and I'd absolutely do every bit of what you said. Except I believe RCV would curtail the need for term limits, and one major issue we have is apportionment; we've had 435 seats in the House for over 100 years, I'm sure TR wasn't so fond of that. We meed to add to the House, but also i don't know how both that, and a lack of Congressional districts would work. Even now, California has 53 representatives, how could they elect that many people in just on day?
Why would people want to also?
I can totally relate, I used to be a Republican as well. My first vote was for a Republican, and I voted Republican pretty reliably up until 2016. I have been growing more moderate over time, but it really was the advent of Trump and Trumpism that finally got to me. Trump clinching the GOP nomination was what sealed the deal for me.
These days I can't bring myself to go Democrat, but I'll gladly vote for a Democrat if I think they are the best candidate. Truthfully, for the last two elections I've voted for a third party out of protest. But yeah, I confuse the hell out of people who assume I'm either a bleeding blue liberal, or a MAGA hat wearing Trumper. But in reality I'm politically homeless and registered as an independent. But I can't stand Republicans anymore, their arguments are increasingly unhinged and calling more for loyalty to a man than to any real idea. And morality means nothing as what is moral changes depending on who is doing any one thing. Trump does it? Moral. Biden does it? Not moral. It's not objective, it's not even logical.
And no, I don't think Democrats are right. But when one side is literally storming the capitol to overthrow the government I'm not going to be complaining quite as loudly about Democrats doing stuff I find mildly irritating, or at worst doubles down on the status quo.
I've been feeling that there needs to be a new conservative party, that there's a schism in the party that is dividing conservatives. Moderates like myself are being pushed out as Trumpers pretty much run the show. Heck if a new party came about that I could agree with I would jump on board. I don't even care of they don't win many elections to start, if they took a stand against the nonsense of the GOP and reasserted the Conservative values I thought I was raised on, but also worked across the aisle to compromise to get real work done, yeah, I would be on board for it.
Me, a European who doesn't understand American politics but watches CGP Grey: "NaPoVoInterCo! That's the Top Sneaky plan!"
4:40 I can’t define my political views either.
Great episode! You and king are the cutest!
You had me at reform. I have had my own ideas for reform, way too long to post here, but suffice to say, my ideas aren't like yours, but hey that's where discussion can be made. Also, on the advocating undoing Woodrow Wilson's problems, on the Electoral College, you'd be undoing what Jacksonians did. Just food for thought there.
We need political diversity in cabnets. instead of just appointing peopel based on politics, people should be apointed based purely off merit, not politics or identity. The more unique, sane viewpoints that are consulted, the better the outcome.
While I agree that Roosevelt's program is a good blueprint to build upon, I am curious as to how it will be solidified? How can we be sure those new programs won't get eroded over years and years while the working class exhausts all its political will trying to keep them? I personally think the US needs more than reversible reforms, though I am biased as I am both a socialist and not from the US, so I'm curious what y'all think.
You bring up great solutions like doing away with the electoral college and ranked choice voting, but I can't imagine that ever happening. Why would the ones in power enact those changes when they go against their own self interests?
Commenting to boost the algorithm!
If you have a Civil War where the battle lines can only be found on Social Media sites....
Do you really have a Civil War?
Is that really something that can be made Virtual?
However, I do want to say THANK YOU for the suggestion on dissolving districts as I keep wondering that too.
They made sense when your nearest town took a day travel, but now people do that trip every day just for work....
Considering social media companies are all located in California, that doesn't bode well for the state 🤣
Reporting can be unbiased journalism rarely can be.
I do agree that "Last week Tonight" is a commentary on other outlets reporting, but I feel like it's deeper than that. Would quoting an article from the past to cover a topic that is currently relevant be in the territory in journalistic investigating or still just commenting on things other outlets reported. I personally feel the use of multiple outlets to bring credibility to a story or show a theme is very close to journalism, but I would love to hear from anyone else.
Edit: grammar
Political satire is age old form of journalism/ social commentary and similarly age old is political satirists shield of 'we are just humble comedians, not real journalists'. When you spend lot of time finding out facts so that "the joke is funny, because the punch line is true".... that is journalism. One just must under stand with the other point presented in the video: There is no _completely objective_ journalism. Everyone has their biases. It is then just matter of degree and how honest the outlet is about it.
Far more important than trying to always be utterly 100% objective (which one can't do and claim for is hubris and a lie) is to be aware and honest of ones bias as journalist. There is so many subjective/value evulation based decision involved in journalism.
What subjects one decides to work on. what one sees important to put journalistic resources and how much. Journalist can't be everywhere all the time, not even big outlet. Thus that is a value based choice what one works on, since one can't work on everything.
What gets published, when with how deep vetting and with what uncertainty factor. With which visibility priority. Not everything can be the top front page headline, again it is choice what gets the front page at news stand or top listing on the front page of media website and so on.
As such there is no 100% objective outlet. Good outlets just try to stay as factual as they can, are clear when they are reporting their own analysis and thinking in a story and are aware and honest about their biases and the potential sources biases. Like say being clear when something is "opinion piece" and who the source of opinion is so one can evaluate that persons opinion based on their biases and influences.
Plus as media consumer.... never only follow single outlet or outlets from single source of interest. There in lies the silo.
One thing to consider is how the GOP is decoupling from big business lately, as corporate interests are increasingly aligned with the Democratic platform. That said, I think many will be surprised to realize in the years to come that the GOP will have become well positioned to push forward on a new progressive era (though I doubt they'll call it that) particularly considering populist strains will be given more free reign on the political Right. I think populism adds a certain elasticity and vibrancy to a movement, though it's admittedly playing with fire. That elasticity will strengthen the GOP during an era that calls for new ways of addressing our many challenges.
I don't know....it seems counter-intuitive that you could create a progressive party from a party that's been doubling down in its pandering to its reactionary base.
The GOP decoupling from big business? What? Are we talking about the same party here? The democrats are just about as aligned with big business as they have been the last couple decades (which is a lot don’t get me wrong) but to claim that the Republicans are decoupling from big business is just not true.
They are still the party that seeks to lessen the tax burden of corporations and the richest people in the US while the Democrats “merely” allow most of the Republicans changes to stand.
While it is very true that neither party (at least not the leading wing in the Democrats) is in any way anti-big business the Republicans are quite far and beyond them in bending over backwards to accommodate the corporations.
And while populism has become somewhat of a dirty word in politics it is very true that it can give life to a movement. But when the power that the GOP gains from this populist fervor is merely used to continue to further the interests of big businesses, find new and “inventive” ways of stoping people from voting and other such fun stuff i can’t really see how that would in any way bring the US forward.
@@jeffhoward162 yeah, good point, but I think that it is that "reactionary base" that will be most interested, suited, and resolved to constitute a bloc that elects the "trust-busters" of a new era to go after big tech. The political right sees big tech as more of a direct and obvious threat (censorship as rallying cry), and is more likely to move to address it imo.
@@enider i think you make some good points, but I also think that there is a political realignment underway that you may be underestimating. :)
@@based_yeoman9138 Ye the parties could switch again. Who knows. or a black horse third party might upsur one of the major parties.
Wait, Cypher, are you admitting to:
- A decent admiration for Theodore Roosevelt
- A dislike of all things Woodrow Wilson
- An admiration of Diogenes of Sinope/Classical Cynicism
- general history nerdery
Are- are you *me*?
Interesting video. I would have added in how the first few seasons of Game of Thrones could have been a good influence on our society in the notion of revenge and violence causing more problems than solutions (but given how shitty season 8 was, I think that destroyed that narrative). It could have been a good influence to change much of the society, because we’re at that point with politics altogether. It’s more about my team winning, and we can’t just do that, especially when the Teams are utterly pointless.
That, and your solutions regarding the electoral college doesn’t get helped when the party primary system is so terrible. That’s the real key to everything. The primaries are horrendously rigged, extremely difficult to deal with, and ultimately the battles are won by less voters who are hyper-partisan.
If you look at the long arc of history, I think we confuse “bias” with “partisan.” Bias is inherently and undeniable, for we are human and it is a part of us. And it showcases what we believe. The bias isn’t the problem. It’s the blatant hypocrisy of partisanship, especially in media, that is the crux of the issue. “It’s okay if my team member does this, but not yours!” (I.e. republicans defending Don jr meeting with foreign agents, democrats not caring that Hunter was on foreign corporate boards, etc)
Until we differentiate between these things, I don’t think we can solve any of these problems. The binary process has rotted out much of critical thinking and forced us into camps that are, basically speaking, held together by parasitic notations. How many people would voluntarily vote Republican if the democrats no longer existed? And vice versa? Because the other party is there, people vote against their own interests to stop the “other party” from being in charge. They stand for nothing, and so, they fall for anything.
Districts exist because NoVa is going to have different interests than Appalachia. Removing districts is going to remove volume from rural voices, making people who already feel unheard (operative word is "feel") feel even more unheard and causing further tension.
The best way I can think of to describe History and Journalism is that a Historian's job is to document and make sense of the past whereas a Journalist documents and makes sense of the present. Today's Journalism is tomorrow's History. Expressing public opinion, good or bad, is part of the present that journalism reflects and will be important for future historians to gauge what our present was like.
When people say "don't be so political", what they mean is "stop uncritically expressing views I don't like". Or is it? There are thousands of movies and TV shows and whatnot with themes most of the audience probably doesn't agree with, and yet most of them don't get criticized for being "too political". Why is that? What is the X factor that makes a philosophical disagreement political or not?
Dude! After I watched the Men Who Built America, and then the Ken Burns film on the Roosevelts I thought a very similar thing.
In fact I told my teenage sons that what we need now is a nee progressive movement. Thank you for detailing what for me was just a general idea!!!
The ballot thing is a decent idea but would only work if some independent group provided a quick breakdown of the candidates to hand to voters. Even then, most Americans won't bother to read it.
The timing of this video with the Ahmad Arbery verdict is just perfect. After all, it always comes down to race. Just look at Georgia. This verdict is going to have major ramifications politically for both sides, since Georgia is such a majorly contested political hot-spot right now. Especially since the Rittenhouse verdict also just happened. Not to mention the Wisconsin parade attack. If it turns out that the driver was attacking whites in retaliation for Rittenhouse's acquittal, that's going to have major consequences in Wisconsin.
I could see the Republicans using the verdict to energize a lot of infuriated white and conservative voters, and the Democrats touting it as a major win with the Black community. Regardless, this verdict is going to only deepen the political divide.
Instant run-off is a good idea, but there is still one central problem: in a contest for only one seat, fans of n-1 candidates are going to be disappointed no matter what. I don't think our two-party system is quite as big of a problem as people say, because both parties each behave like coalitions of smaller parties. So for example, when the Democratic Party is trying to pass something but the progressive wing is opposed, it's exactly what you'd see if it were the Democratic Coalition Of Parties trying to pass something but the Progressive Party (normally aligned with the Democratic Coalition of Parties) were opposed.
Hey Cypher, I was curious - I look at the failures of the many multiple party democracies in the 20th century as a inconvenient "fly in the ointment" for getting rid of the two party system. Weimar, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, etc. - all failing because of the parties being unwilling to caucus with each other and therefore all those governments couldn't govern giving rise to authoritarians. I see the same thing happening today in Israel, where they've had multiple elections and can still barely form a coalition to govern with and I'm hoping that it doesn't devolve further. Do you think that our politicians would be able to make a parliamentary system work? Or are the sides so polarized that we would struggle to form a government? From my perspective I would expect the far left to be unwilling to work with the center-left and the right to refuse to work with the left at all.
Those sound a bit like cherry picked examples of states that had lots of other problems preventing them from succeeding. How about the Netherlands, Germany after WW2 and Switzerland. All three have been ruled by coalitions of various parties for decades and i'm sure there are other examples.
@@andreaslaroi8956 Cherry picked examples? You mean examples of the thing I'm asking about specifically? How am I supposed to ask my question about multi party states that failed if referring to them by name is "cherry picking"?
@@dlamagdeleine Maybe i misinterpreted your question but it just sounded weird to me to ask if a multi party system is feasible and pointing out a few failures when multi-part systems are the default for lot of countries (including most of Europe, India, Indonesia, NZ). You made it sound like it's some quirky system mainly distinguished by it's failure . And your examples are IMHO outliers of countries that: came out of dictatorships, just lost a world war, just got rid of a monarch, had strong ethnic tensions, were on the brink of a genocide, ... etc. So i don't think a majority of multiparty systems fail.
I might be a bit cynical, but usually politicians want power , i.e. to rule a country and they are willing to form coalitions if needed to do that. Unless most parties are tiny this usually works.
Weimar Republic actually is stable for most of its history due to the coalition between the SDP, the Zentreum, and other democratic parties. They only become unstable in concurrence with the Great Depression and the rise of political parties that DON'T want to form coalitions like the KDP and the Nazi Party...
Two things that I think would greatly benefit the political polarization in America would be not only allowing more parties being made mainstream but also ranked-choice voting.
This way, not only do people have more choices that more closely align with what they want, but it allows for their votes to matter more.