An Idiot's Guide To What's Wrong With America

https://medium.com/ellemeno/an-idiots-guide-to-what-s-wrong-with-america-c1cc8c15a317

Why so many critics are wrong about how to fix what ails America and what it would take to actually do it

David Todd McCarty  Apr 22, 2023

 

America is in a bad place.

Which means the world is in a bad place. Say what you will, but American influence on world affairs is understandably disproportionate to what most would prefer or deem even remotely healthy. We have an outsized influence on any number of critical aspects of universal well-being regarding everything from economics to foreign policy, conflict to climate. Most of it would not be considered a positive influence, by anyone, except maybe us, and I wouldn’t even go there.

So it's entirely understandable that foreign governments, and indeed its citizens, would take an active interest in our affairs, and would have formed opinions about what is amiss, and possibly even a range of proposed solutions for how to fix the many problems we face. If thoughtful and insightful, we might even welcome such an approach. I would.

Unfortunately, almost everyone I read or hear, bases their understanding and proposed solutions on their understanding of how their system works, not ours. You’re not comparing apples to apples because it’s oranges and orangutans. This leaves most of you uninformed, ill-informed, or just plain wrong.

Even the ones who live here, from citizens to residents, should know better, but we don’t teach civics anymore, and it’s not something people casually pay attention to. The truth is, the vast majority of Americans are almost entirely clueless as to how our system works (or doesn’t), why it was designed that way, and what it would take to change it.

Normally, I’d take a much more conciliatory tone when it comes to throwing stones while in a massive glass house, but I’m sick of the condescension and arrogance mixed with ignorance and stupidity. This notion that Americans somehow lack the will to make difficult decisions, or the knowledge to understand what needs changing, is so reductive as to be insulting. But it’s also ironic because the criticism is coming from ignorance. How apropos.

So, now I’m going to give you the remedial course on the American political system, and I’m going to try to keep it as simple as I can. I’m not an expert, but I’ve done my best to explain it simply and clearly. It’s not an exhaustive definition, but I believe it to be fundamentally accurate for the purposes of understanding the nature of it.

It’s not the most exciting read, I’ll admit, even though I’ve tried to make it as uneggheady as possible. If you don’t feel like a history lesson on American democracy, which is entirely understandable, I simply suggest you keep your future uneducated opinions to yourself. Otherwise, come along for a magical mystery tour.

American Democracy For Dummies

The United States of America is a Constitutional Federal Republic, in which the Head of State, the Congress, and the Judiciary all share power. That's the fundamental structure of it, but it still doesn’t mean anything to most people. Let's break it down.

A constitution is a collection of fundamental principles that constitute the legal basis of a government or organizational body and confers specific powers to various entities, and sets any limitations for those powers.

America's constitution is what is known as a codified constitution, which means it is written down in one document and is the basis of all other authority. By contrast, the United Kingdom has an uncodified constitution, that is derived from various acts, laws, legal precedents, and treaties.

All laws created by the legislative branch are therefore assumed to be derived from the powers granted it by the constitution, and the judiciary is bound by the laws passed and powers granted (or withheld) by the constitution. The Constitution has complete supremacy over all laws, federal or state.

The Federal Government

A federal republic is simply a union of sovereign states with a republican form of government, which is itself nothing more than a country that is governed by elected representatives rather than a king. The federal government in America shares sovereignty with the state governments, and is divided into three equal branches: the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial.

The Executive

The Executive branch is headed by the president, who, in a single executive system, leads an executive branch that is separate from the legislative branch. The president is also the head of state, and cannot be dismissed by the legislature except in extraordinary cases. In this system, the president is not responsible to the legislature, and unlike a parliamentary system, where the head of government comes to power by gaining the confidence of an elected legislature, the president is elected, albeit indirectly, by the people. More on that later.

The Legislative branch is what is known as a bicameral legislative body because it is comprised of two separate chambers known as the Senate, the upper chamber, and the House of Representatives, the lower chamber.

The Legislature

The Senate is comprised of officials known as senators, each of whom represents a single state. Each of America’s 50 states is equally represented by two senators who serve terms of six years, for a total of 100 senators. Until 1913, senators were appointed by their state legislatures, then Congress ratified the 17th Amendment allowing for Senators to be elected by popular vote.

The Senate has various powers of advice and consent, which make it unique. These include the approval of federal judges, including federal Supreme Court justices, the confirmation of cabinet secretaries, federal judges, ambassadors, and various other regulatory and executive officials. The Senate also conducts trials of those impeached by the House.

The House of Representatives is made up of officials who occupy single-member congressional districts allotted on the basis of population as measured by the United States Census. Originally, the number was apportioned by population with no more than 30,000 persons per representative, but the Reapportionment Act of 1929 capped the size of the House at 435. The current size of the average congressional district is 750,000, which is 25 times the originally intended size.

The House is charged with the passage of federal legislation. Bills that are also passed by the Senate are then sent to the president for consideration. From the very beginning, Representatives in the House have always been directly elected.

The House also has exclusive powers: it initiates all revenue bills, impeaches federal officers, and elects the president if no candidate receives a majority of votes in the Electoral College.

The Senate has traditionally been viewed as the more prestigious of the two bodies due to its longer terms, more collegial size, and statewide constituencies. Compared to the more volatile House of Representatives, with its direct representation and shorter terms, the Senate was said to be designed to be the saucer that cooled the hot tea of the House.

The Judiciary

The Supreme Court is the highest court in the land and, therefore, “the court of last resort.” It has appellate jurisdiction over all federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point of constitutional or federal law. Appellate jurisdiction is that of hearing the appeals of lower courts concerning cases of original jurisdiction.

It has original jurisdiction over only a narrow range of cases, specifically “all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party.”

Article III of the Constitution requires the establishment of a Supreme Court and instructs Congress to create all federal courts, and gives them the power to place limitations on their jurisdiction. Federal judges are appointed by the president with the consent of the Senate, to serve until they resign, are impeached and convicted, or die.

The number of justices is determined by an act of Congress. There is no constitutional requirement governing the number of justices, and it has ranged from six justices to the present-day court of nine justices.

The early days of the Court were rather inauspicious, as it had no home, and justices were little more than itinerant judges traveling the thirteen circuit courts. But in 1801, Chief Justice John Marshall took office and single-handedly transformed the Court into a powerhouse worthy of standing up to the other two branches. It was Marshall who instituted the principle of judicial review, and established the Supreme Court as the final arbiter of what is and is not constitutional. Basically, the Court under Marshall decided they were the boss of all things constitutional, and Congress went along with it.

The constitution establishes no qualifications for service as a justice, allowing a president to nominate anyone they like to serve. The Senate may not set any qualifications or otherwise limit who the president can choose, but this has not stopped a recent Congress from refusing to consider a president’s nomination, a clear violation of the Constitution.

It’s worth noting that the Supreme Court has no enforcement function or powers. Their legitimacy is entirely based on the public trust that they are independent, impartial arbiters of the law. This trust has become an issue in the last few decades, as the court has become much more clearly partisan, and even the veneer of impartiality has disappeared.

Sovereign States

Just as with the federal government, state governments have three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. States also have their own constitutions, which mostly follow a similar structure to the national constitution, but typically offer more detail over a plan to govern. Below the state level, there are local governments. Each state is further divided by counties, townships, municipalities, and special purpose districts such as school districts.

The chief executive of each state is called a governor and is directly elected by popular vote. The governor typically holds office for a four-year term, although in a few states, the term is two years.

Every state but Nebraska has a bicameral legislature, with the upper chamber usually called the Senate and the lower chamber called the House of Representatives, the Assembly, or something similar. In most cases, state senators serve four-year terms, and members of the lower chamber serve two-year terms.

Unlike the federal government, which only has those powers granted to it in the national constitution, a state government has inherent powers allowing it to act unless limited by a provision of the state or national constitution. State governments have the power to make laws on all subjects that are not either granted to the federal government or denied to the states in the constitution, including things like education, contract law, and most crimes.

Political Parties

While political parties are not included in the constitution, and were, in fact, dismissed by the founders as problematic, the “two-party system” of dueling factions has been a fact of life since soon after the presidency of George Washington.

The current two-party system is made up of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, two parties that have won every U.S. presidential election since 1852 and have controlled Congress since 1856. Since the mid-20th century, the Democratic Party has traditionally been a center-left party, while the Republican Party has been center-right.

Third parties have occasionally been formed over the years, but because of the unique structure of America’s system of elections, where each state determines its electors in a winner-take-all format, they’ve never come close to winning the presidency. Third-party or independent candidates have won seats in Congress, and the governor’s offices. Currently, there are three independent senators (all of whom caucus with the Democrats), and no independent representatives in the House.

Political Polarization

Not so long ago, our political parties were not nearly so polarized because they were not so ideologically isolated. Both parties contained members who were both liberal and conservative. There was a lot more crossover, and party affiliation had a lot more to do with history and geography than ideology. In the last fifty years or so, the parties have become more and more ideologically pure so that even the most liberal Republican is far to the right of the most conservative Democrat, and vice versa.

The fairness doctrine, as instituted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1949, was a policy that required the holders of federal broadcast licenses to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that fairly reflected differing viewpoints. The fairness doctrine required licensed broadcasters to devote at least some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest, and to air contrasting views regarding those matters.

There was no requirement for equal time, and broadcasters were granted broad leeway to interpret how to provide information. In 1987, under President Reagan, the FCC abolished the fairness doctrine, which many cite as a contributing factor to the rise of polarization in the United States. This opened the door for partisan programming with the single goal of promoting a single ideological or political viewpoint.

In the early part of the 21st century, AM talk radio became fertile ground for conservative voices with personalities such as Rush Limbaugh, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck. These talk shows reached many rural communities and had a significant impact on the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004.

But it was Fox News that really changed the game. In 1996, Australian-American Rupert Murdoch created the new cable television channel to appeal to a conservative audience, and hired former Republican media consultant and CNBC executive Roger Ailes as its founding CEO.

It launched with access to 17 million cable subscribers and soon became a dominant force in cable news. By 2018, 87 million U.S. households, or 91 percent of television subscribers, had access to Fox News, making it the top-rated cable network, averaging 2.5 million viewers in prime time.

This past week, Fox News settled a record $787 million defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems, after Fox was accused of knowingly promoting false stories concerning the 2020 election, specifically that Dominion, which makes voting machines, had been involved in election fraud to deliver the presidency to Joe Biden. The court indefatigably held that the accusations that the election had been rigged were categorically untrue.

Elections In America

While the US Constitution does specify some framework for the election of federal officials, it is state law that governs most aspects of elections, both nationally and locally. As stated above, the members of the House of Representatives have always been elected directly by the people, while Senators were originally appointed by their state legislatures. Now all members of Congress are elected directly by the people.

The president, on the other hand, is constitutionally bound to be elected indirectly by electors appointed in relation to the number of representatives each state has as determined by the population. Therefore each state gets one elector for each Representative in the House and one each for their two senators. There are 435 Representatives and 100 Senators, plus three electors representing the District of Columbia, for a total of 538.

In 48 of the 50 states, the electors are awarded in a winner-take-all system based on the popular vote. In Maine and Nebraska, they choose one elector per congressional district and two electors for the ticket with the highest statewide vote.

The original purpose of the electoral college (not a term that appears in the Constitution), was to shield the election of the executives from the whims and folly of the people. It was considered too important a position to be left to the ignorant masses. It was determined that instead, the people should elect representatives that would then make their own choice as to whom would be best suited to the office. Initially, the Vice Presidency was awarded to the candidate with the second most votes, enabling the President and Vice President to be from competing parties.

Since 1836, statewide winner-take-all popular voting for electors has been the universal practice, with the exception of Maine and Nebraska. In 1804, the Twelfth Amendment stipulated that electors must cast individual votes for the President and Vice President, and in 1864, as a show of national unity during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln from the Republican Party and Andrew Johnson of the Democratic Party ran together on a single ticket. Since then, the President and Vice President have been elected on a single ticket.

By federal law, the election of the President and Congress occurs on Election Day, the Tuesday after the first Monday of November. These General Elections are held in even-numbered years, with presidential elections occurring every four years, and congressional elections occurring every two years.

The general elections held two years after the presidential ones are referred to as Midterm Elections. Elections for state and local offices are held at the discretion of the individual state and local governments, with many of these races coinciding with either presidential or midterm elections as a matter of convenience and cost-saving, while other state and local races may occur during off years.

America is one of only a few countries that select candidates through popular vote in a primary election system. Most democratic countries rely on party leaders to select candidates, which was the system in America until 1972. Now candidates are voted on in a primary election per state, based largely on rules governed by the political parties, not by the state.

The states do not vote all at once on the same day but in a complex sequence over the course of months, and decided on by the parties themselves. Depending on the state, you can have a closed primary, where you have to be a registered member of that party to vote in the primary, or an open primary, where any registered voter can cast a ballot for the candidate of their choice.

Citizens United

While not a constitutional issue per se, arguably no recent Supreme Court decision has had a larger impact on the demise of democracy in America than that of Citizens United v FEC. Argued in 2009 and decided in 2010, the 5–4 ruling opened the door for billions of dollars in corporate funding to enter the American political system.

The Supreme Court found that any restriction on campaign finance that prohibited corporations from participating in the political process was a violation of the First Amendment. In essence, it found that for the basis of free speech, corporations were people, and could not be prohibited from political speech.

The result was that politicians no longer had to rely on individual voters to fund their campaigns, thereby making them responsible to their wants and needs. Candidates could instead turn to multinational corporations, political action committees, and all manner of lobbyist groups for endless piles of dirty money. The balance of power shifted away from the average American and toward corporations. It made one-person, one-vote a charming relic of the past. Politicians were no longer accountable to voters. They were accountable to their billionaire donors.

Why Your Solutions Won’t Work

As I said at the beginning of this piece, with America’s outsized influence on world affairs, it’s only natural that outsiders recognize our many flaws and have opinions on how to fix them. Unfortunately, their solutions are almost always based on either the knowledge of how their own system of government works, or a misconception of how our system of government works. Let me walk through some of the most commonly proposed solutions and why they don’t work.

The Vaunted Third Party. Overwhelmingly, the most common faulty solution to what ails us is the criticism of the two-party system, and the advocacy for a third or more parties. Many people, both inside and outside the country, believe this is the crux of all our problems and the central reason for our dysfunction. Despite the fact that it’s worked relatively smoothly for over two hundred years, the fact that we have only two parties is most often cited as the reason for our troubles.

While this may be true, it’s not an easy fix here in the States. In a parliamentary system, the head of state is chosen by amassing support from the legislature. In this system, multiple parties can form coalitions, however temporary, to elect a leader and form a government. In the American system, no such option exists.

While political parties are not even mentioned in the constitution, and the framers had strong opinions against involving them, the nature of the winner-take-all electoral college is such that a third-party candidate is highly unlikely to ever win enough electors to win. While a local candidate need not be affiliated with a political party at all and still win, it’s statistically impossible on a national level. Even at a local level, it’s nearly impossible to get elected if you’re not the first choice of the dominant party.

Even if it were possible, I don’t see how it would solve anything. Let’s say a third party was formed. Everyone seems to think it would be a party they preferred, possibly a more moderate party of centrists. With no overlap in ideology between the parties, there’s not much to suggest there even is a middle ground in American politics.

But let’s say a party was created, and it peeled off voters from each party. As it stands now, turnout in national general elections is about 60%. Midterms and off years are even less, sometimes dramatically so.

At best, as it stands now, if half of the voters get their choice, only 30% of the population chose the president. If you added a third but equally strong party, that number would drop to 20%. Now you would have a situation where 80% of the population didn’t vote for the elected president. How happy do you think that would make everyone?

Create A Better System. Another oversimplified solution often proposed is that we simply get rid of the system we have and start over. Now I’m not an expert on my own form of government, and I certainly don’t pretend to understand anyone else’s, but my understanding is that most democracies have a constitution that dictates how their government will operate. Meaning that no one changes these things willy nilly

A lot has been made over the years concerning how countries have made big, positive changes through sheer power of will. For instance, after a series of mass shootings culminating in the Port Arthur massacre, where a single gunman opened fire in a crowded market, killing 35 and wounding 23, Australian prime minister John Howard called for new federal regulations to keep Australia from “going down the American path.” In addition to new legislation, a series of gun buybacks collected over a million weapons over the course of several years at a cost of half a billion dollars.

During that time, gun deaths, including suicides, did go down by as much as 47%, but research has been inconclusive as to how much effect the legislation had. Before the legislation, it was estimated that Australia had a total of about 3 million guns, 250,000 of which were unregistered and in the hands of criminals and gangs. Today there are still about 3 million registered guns, and 400,000 unregistered ones.

For comparison, it is estimated that the total number of civilian-owned firearms in America is roughly 435 million guns. While Trump was president, pandemic-related gun sales topped 40 million in a single twelve-month period.

 

Even if you believe that Australia’s efforts were a raging success, it’s important to recognize that all they had to do was pass a few laws in order to enact national change. America is unique and cursed to have firearm ownership even mentioned in our constitution, let alone a vocal percentage of the population, as well as a majority of the Supreme Court, who believe that ownership is constitutionally protected. No state can ban the sale or ownership of guns, and more than half of states are attempting to ease access to gun ownership, not curtail it.

If Australians wanted to amend their constitution for some reason, all they need is a national referendum with a double majority vote, meaning a simple majority of all votes, plus a majority of votes in a majority of states. A simple majority of a majority.

 

If Americans, on the other hand, wanted to change our constitution, an amendment must first be proposed either by Congress with a two-thirds vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, or by a constitutional convention called for at the request of two-thirds of the state legislatures. The amendment must then be ratified by either three-quarters of the state legislatures or by ratifying conventions conducted in three-quarters of the states.

To say that this is a high bar is a gross understatement.

The last Amendment passed in America was the 27th Amendment. It was proposed, along with ten other amendments, in 1789, but wasn’t ratified until 1992. It concerned an obscure reference to congressional pay.

If America has difficulty agreeing on even the most mundane things with a simple majority and the slightest margin, then attempting to garner two-thirds approval of both houses of Congress and three-quarters approval of three-quarters of state legislatures, seems utterly impossible. Even more so if the issue is remotely controversial and as polarized as America is right now, almost nothing in modern life has escaped partisan rancor.

It’s worth noting that Australia has a total population of roughly 26 million which is three million less than the state of Texas. California alone has 41 million people, and America currently boasts 331 million people. The point being that the larger your numbers, the less likely your chances of getting a majority to agree on anything, let alone two-thirds of your millionaire congressmen and three-quarters of state legislatures in three-quarters of all 50 states.

 

I’m sure those are not the only suggestions that get floated by the uneducated and misinformed, but they encompass the most common suggestions. So if those won’t work, what will?

How To Fix What Ails Us

If you’ve made it this far, you can probably comprehend that there are no easy answers for how to fix this country. You might even be reasonably liable to conclude that we’re royally fucked, and we should just stop talking about it altogether. But there is a way out of this mess, however slim and unlikely as it feels at the moment.

What follows are some of the current remedies at our disposal that don’t seem entirely out of reach or delusional in nature. I’m not trying to get into specific policy issues such as taxing the rich, gun control, or universal healthcare. If we can fix our government, those things will come naturally and democratically.

Abolish The Filibuster. The filibuster evolved as a senatorial procedural mistake that became a Senate rule. The result is that either party can choose to block a vote on the floor of the Senate unless a vote of three-fifths of the body (usually 60) can be mounted in order to achieve cloture. Constitutionally, the Senate only needs a simple majority to pass a vote, but due to the filibuster, even a slim majority by either party is not enough to get anything done.

For the first two hundred years, the filibuster wasn’t used. But in the 1970s and again in the 2010s, the filibuster was strengthened and weaponized. Today it is probably the most significant cause of congressional gridlock.

If the Democrats could achieve a more decisive majority in the Senate and voted to abolish the filibuster, that would open the door to a great many things, including passing voting reform legislation, universal healthcare, gun control, and codifying the right to an abortion.

One of the greatest ironies of the filibuster is that it has been a phenomenal tool for the minority party to complain about not being able to pass legislation they don’t actually want to pass. It’s why neither party has been in such a hurry to abolish it. It protects the majority party from actually passing party-line legislation, guaranteeing that only thoroughly bipartisan efforts have a chance. Neither party wants to pass unpopular legislation on its own, even if they think it’s the right thing to do. It’s a cowardly practice that needs to end.

Reform The Federal Courts. Once you abolish the filibuster, you clear the way to expand the Supreme Court from the current nine justices to thirteen. The thirteen district courts were originally devised based on the thirteen states. That should be expanded as well. Without the threat of an activist Supreme Court, you could right a lot of bad decisions and unconstitutional legislation.

There are other proposals to reform the court, including term limits and age restrictions, but the most needed reform would be a code of ethics with significant penalties for failing to comply.

Expand The House. The House of Representatives was supposed to be based on the population of the United States, with each member representing no more than 30,000 citizens. The current average is 750,000 for each representative, or 25 times more than the constitution allows. Greatly expanding the size of the House would help to make the lower chamber more representative of the population, giving each member considerably less power.

A New Fairness Doctrine. We have long since surpassed the limited power of 20th-century television and radio. It’s time for a new Fairness Doctrine that goes much further and requires broadcasters of all types, whether they’re broadcast, cable, or internet, to report fairly and honestly or suffer significant penalties. Knowingly promoting disinformation and lies would be punishable by loss of licenses and prohibitive fines.

Election Finance Reform. We have to get money out of politics, and we need to regain control of the election process. We need to ban lobbying, restrict campaign spending, and limit campaigns to a shortened allowable period. No more endless campaigning and the resulting need for cash. All campaigns would be federally funded, and everyone would get the same amount of money. Candidates would be prohibited from taking donations or even self-funding campaigns. If you want to eliminate gridlock, get rid of the easy graft and make the politicians accountable to the people again.

Banking Reform. This is bordering on policy rather than structural, but our banking system is so corrupt that I don’t see how we can expect to reverse decades of corruption without first fixing the massive financial fraud being perpetrated every day in America. Wall Street needs to be heavily regulated, big banks broken up, and the rating agencies nationalized.

Outlaw Gerrymandering. If we want competitive elections where the best ideas win, we have to abolish the practice of gerrymandering congressional districts. This is an artificial way to cut up districts in such a way as to give one side an artificial advantage over the other. It’s undemocratic and, more often than not, blatantly racist.

Government Ethics Reform. We need to clean house in our government by establishing a much more robust code of ethics with real punitive teeth for enforcement. Corruption is so rampant we barely even acknowledge it anymore. All three branches of government need strong oversight to enforce a code of ethics.

Fund A National News Service. America should have a national news service that is overseen by an independent, nonpartisan commission. It should be well-funded and beyond reproach. A strong code of journalistic ethics should drive the effort to provide non-sensationalized news to the American people.

 

As I said, this is not a comprehensive list, but it is a start. So many things need fixing, starting with actual infrastructure, nationalized healthcare, income inequality, abolishing private education, and criminal justice reform.

We need to rethink public safety and policing’s role in it. We need to stop criminalizing nonviolent behavior and stop incarcerating our people in such unreasonable numbers. We need to consider universal basic income, as artificial intelligence and robotics threaten more and more jobs. And we must create strong public safety nets for the poor elderly, handicapped, and mentally ill.

We need a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate and eradicate institutional racism in America and to consider reparations for millions of Black Americans for centuries of abuse.

There are a great many things we should and could do, but first, we need to fix a broken system. To do that, we need to have more votes for the side of compassion and personal liberty than those for fascism and greed. We need citizens to become engaged. We need them to pay attention, and we need them to vote.

The only way we will achieve this is by showing them what a better future could look like. The best way I know how to do this, is by telling compelling stories. This is always how we have explained ourselves to each other and shown the way toward progress. We need to tell the story of the country America was always meant to be.

Let’s get started.

 

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