Lex Anteinternet: Agitio ter consuli, gemitus britannorum . . .Repel...

Lex Anteinternet: Agitio ter consuli, gemitus britannorum . . .Repel...: 

Agitio ter consuli, gemitus britannorum . . .Repellunt barbari ad mare, repellit mare ad barbaros; inter haec duo genera funerum aut iugulamur aut mergimur.

So on this Sunday, 2024, I worked, contrary to God's injunction, like on so many others. As a result, I didn't really catch up with the horrific plight of Appalachia in the wake of Hurricane Helene.

It's awful.

Which makes this the worst, and best, time to note this.

We're headed into a legislative session, and an election season, in which the far right espouses a hatride of the Federal Government.  If you are in Appalachia, and vote for the populists, you are voting to handle this disaster on your own.  If you are in Wyoming, and voting populists, the same is true of the horrible fires we've experienced and are yet to.

If that is your view, don't ask for help, as stupid and cold as not asking for help would be.

We here are distributists, a philosophy that holds things should devolve to the lowest level possible. Here, that level is the Federal government.  Distributism works up, as well as down.

Additionally, how long will we choose to ignore the signs?  We've waited longer than we should have as it is.  There's still time to act, no matter how much it impacts your temrporary pocket books, with you being temporary as it is.

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. XLVIV. Fatigue.

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. XLVIV. Fatigue.: 

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. XLVIV. Fatigue.

September 3, 2023.

U.S. Rep. Cory Mills, R-Florida, and articles of impeachment, and issue/culture fatigue

Apparently, Rep. Mills has nothing to actually do.  Perhaps somebody can find something for him, so he has real problems to work on.

I can't help but note that District Attorney Willis in Georgia made a suggestion of that type to Representative Jim Jordan, expressing what is undoubtedly a widely held view that people are really tired of Congress acting like a bunch of children all the time.  

Most people are tired of this.  And by that, I mean a Congress that is monkeying around with bills that aren't going anywhere and are of the nature of throwing gasoline on a fire. We know that this impeachment is going nowhere. We know that a recent bill to do away with the Department of Education isn't either. We know that shutting the government down, which is going to happen soon, just causes the government to lose money.

Some people out in the audience of society may believe that all of this serves to get something done, but it sure isn't obvious.  Most people are simply tired.  Of course, this helps whip up a pre convinced base even though nothing is actually going to happen on a lot of these things.

Relating to fatigue, on another topic I posted on, that being the upcoming Synod on Synodality, I suspect a lot of Catholics are tired of this topic:

Dread and the Synod on Synodality.

At some point, constant change and the search to change things wears people down.  A good argument can be made right now that after Covid, and after a lot of people, would just like things to calm down for a while.  That's part of the reason, I suspect, that younger people are looking back to more traditional times, and maybe that the whole culture is, except in certain quarters.

That may explain why the leaders of the Church, or some of them, are keen on a synod on synodality, as difficult as it is to figure out what that means, while globably, in the pews, only at most 2% of Catholics participated in the survey process.  That alone should give the participants in the synod pause, as it may very well mean that the 2% that responded doesn't reflect anywhere near a statistically signficant number of Catholics.  It may well be that the maybe 5% or whatever of Trads in the parish this morning do.

Of course, part of the reason changed, including unwanted ones, occur is that most people are just busy living their lives. That means people who have what a lot of us do not, surplus time, tend to be reflected in change.  In some instances, that's because of the way that people are employed.  It's ofen noticed by some that institutions are resistant to change, but by the same token, change can be forced on members of an institution simply becuase somebody in charge wants to change things, and everyone else just has their shoulder to the wheel and can't really take note until the change arrives.

On people in different quarters, and obviously wanting things to be different, Saturday I was driving up a really busy city street and saw, on the sidewalk headed towards the center of downtown, which was far away, a young woman riding a bicycle.

She was probably around twenty, fairly thin, had a large tattoo running up her side, and was topless.

It was impossible not to see, and I wonder if she had done it before, as quite frankly she looked nervous.  She probably should have, as she wasn't like the late middle-aged woman, now deceased, who used to ride a Vespa around here topless.  It was always a shock to encounter her, but as impolite as it may be to say it, she wasn't attractive. This young woman was, and for any normal male, she was going to be noticed, an impact added to by the fact that she was well-endowed.

My guess is she was headed to David Street Station, where her breasts were going to be oggled at by many.  And the look on her face belied the fact that she no doubt would maintain that she was there to make some other point.

Another reason we really need to put the brakes on things until we take a look at Chesterton's Fence on all sorts of things.

There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."

Indeed, something of this type, although not quite of this type, lead commentator Amy Otto, in an Op Ed written some years ago, to maintain "Men Did Greater Things When It Was Harder To See Boobs".  The caption on the article, which was flippant but which addressed a serious topic, if not idential one, not too surprisingly went viral.

Also not too surprisingly, this is a topic that's been pretty widely studied and the entire observational nature of this is hard-wired into men.  That some don't get this is another defiance of science.

And one putting all the burden, I'd note, on men.  I don't really want to be in the position of taking note of some 20-year-old woman's bare breasts, and I don't want to be seeing something that only a spouse should.  But now I have, and I can't get that back, nor can she, nor can the probably hundreds of men, most with fewer reservations than me, that saw her on Saturday and whose thought went where every they let them go.

US Suicide Rates at all-time high

US suicides hit an all-time high last year

• By MIKE STOBBE - AP Medical Writer
• Updated 44 min ago
• 0

About 49,500 people took their own lives last year in the U.S., the highest number ever. That's according to new government data posted Thursday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not yet calculated a suicide rate for the year. But available data suggests suicides are more common in the U.S. than at any time since the dawn of World War II. Experts caution that suicide is complicated, and that recent increases might be driven by higher rates of depression or limited availability of mental health services. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention says a main driver is the growing availability of guns.

A horrific story, to be sure.

It occured to me for some reason that all things being equal, a record number would likely to be set every year, as the American population continues to grow.  Having said that, the rates are very high, which is referenced in this article.

Predictably, the reporter blames it on the "growing availability of guns", but firearms have been easy to get throughout American history. Availability has grown from the mid 20th Century, which saw a lot of gun control provisions come in which have later faded, in part due to being found unconstitutional, with the 1970s probably the high watermark of that, but if we go back prior to the 1930s, we'd find that things were, in most places, wide open.  Even children could buy firearms in most of the US prior to the 1950s.

What has really changed is a society within any kind of foundation whatsoever.  In the entire Western World, the culture built on Catholicism, but heavily impacted by the Reformation, has seen the foundation attacked and dismantled to be instead one that's now centered on radical individualism.  It's not healthy, and it's killing people.  Added to that, the increasing corporatist culture work in a box life throughout the developed world, that removes people radically from nature, is levying a toll. The combination of both is deadly.

Everyone claims to want to do something about this, which seems to amount to doing something about it sort of clinically, rather than existentially.

Storm Warning

At least 55 people died on Maui. Residents had little warning before wildfires overtook a town

• By TY O'NEIL, CLAIRE RUSH, JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER and REBECCA BOONE - Associated Press
• Updated 2 min ago
• 0

Maui residents who made desperate escapes from oncoming flames have asked why Hawaii’s famous emergency warning system didn’t alert them as wildfires raced toward their homes. Officials have confirmed that Hawaii emergency management records show no indication that warning sirens were triggered before devastating fires killed at least 55 people and wiped out a historic town. The blaze is already the state’s deadliest natural disaster since a 1960 tsunami. The governor warned the death toll will likely rise. Hawaii boasts what the state describes as the largest integrated outdoor all-hazard public safety warning system in the world. But many of Lahaina’s survivors said in interviews that they only realized they were in danger when they saw flames or heard explosions nearby.

I really have to wonder how long a large segment of American society, and the official leaders of the GOP, are going to continue to pretend there's nothing going on climate wise.  It's extremely difficult to grasp why they won't face reality on this, unless of course it's an example of worshiping money as if it was as religion.

People are now dying. Shouldn't this be taken seriously?

Without fail, one of our state's Congressional delegation comes on television or other media to promote fossil fuels and at least two out of the three like to talk about "Biden's radical climate agenda".  Keeping a natural climate isn't a "radical agenda" and simply refusing to discuss this topic is foolish.

Speaking of the Maui fires, some real goofballs are claiming that it was caused by a "direct energy weapons", which they also claim the last devastating California fires were.

It's scary to realize that people who believe something so idiotic have the right to vote.

Lil Tay is not dead.

I'd never heard of Lil Tay, aka Tay Tian, aka Claire Hope, aka Claire Eileen Qi Hope, but this line from her Wikipedia entry says a lot:

Tay's father and manager sought for Tay to become more focused on professionalism, suggesting a music career for her, though her mother and half-brother encouraged her to continue her original boastful character.

Keep in mind, she hit the music scene as a foul-mouthed rapper at age 9.

That's frankly sick, and not "sick" in the good pop culture lexicology way.  Her parents deserve a dope slap for letting that happen in the first place.

Whatever her legitimate name is, her story illustrates the poverty of values in the Western World.  Her parents were simply shacked up over a prolonged time, never married.  At some point, they separated and shared custody of the child.  Somehow, they allowed her to enter into the world of hip hop, which is marked for its celebration of criminal culture and high death rate. That made the stories of her death seem pretty credible.  Hardly a week goes by without some hip hop artist with a made up name dying young, in all the ways that tragic young deaths occur.  Just this week, it might be noted, one such artist was sentenced for shooting another, the victim of the shooting being Megan Thee Stallion (yes, that's a made up name).

When it was revealed she wasn't dead, I wondered if it was a PR stunt.  I'ts being claimed her social medial was hacked.  I see I'm not the only one who was speculating on the stunt possibilities, however.

Regarding Tay, even at age 9 to 14 she's an interesting example of a certain public pseudonym phenomenon.

Entertainers have always affected false names, often due to being required to do so by reporters.  Actors with Jewish names, for example, almost had to take another name early on. Paul Newman, an exception to so many rules in the acting community, is notable here as his real name actually was Paul Newman.

That's pretty much stopped as cultural prejudice of that type diminished.  A peculiar modern phenomenon has been people, particularly women, of mixed Asian and Euro-American heritage adopting their Asian mother's surname as a stage name.  It seems clear enough that Chinese American Tay was given the name at birth of Claire Eileen Qi Hope, i.e., Clair Hope, a pretty generic European name, and when she was drop-kicked into hip hop she became Tay Tian, or at least around there somewhere she did, taking her mother's last name. Priscilla Natalie Hartranft, a Korean American, took her mother's name Ahn, becoming Priscialla Ahn for the stage.  The surprising exception is the very successful Michelle Zauner (Michelle Chongmi Zauner) a Korean American born in Korea, who has kept her given name.  Zauner is the front for Japanese Breakfast, which is eclectically named, however, as Koreans are not particularly fond of hte Japanese.

I guess that takes us to Asian Pop, or maybe K Pop.  It's bad, but seems huge.  I don't know why.  Like a lot of Japanese group, K Pop tends to be very Kwaaii

But not all Japanese music actually is:

While I should not note it, by the way, I'm going to note it anyhow.  And what I'm going to note is that the children of European ethnicity people and Asian ethnicity people look very Asian as a rule.

It's simply an observation. But as a genetic observation, the genes that contribute to appearance are obviously dominant for the contributing Asian partner.

When I was in college, I knew a student whose father was British and mother Japanese.  He looked very Japanese.  Zauner looks Korean (and yes, I've been to Korea).  Ahn also looks Korean, and Tay looks Chinese.  This is merely an observation.

Last Edition:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. XLVIII. Library withdrawals.

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. XLV. Vulgar

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. XLV. Vulgar: 

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. XLV. Vulgar

From the Cowboy State Daily:

Hageman Says She Would Vote To Impeach Biden

So Harriet Hageman has stated that she'd join Insurrection Barbie in a move that brings the nation's perilous attachment to democracy four or five steps closer to the brink.

The sad thing is that Hageman, whom I'm sure when she was younger probably would have found this abhorrent, probably means it now.

What on earth happened?

Make no mistake.  Save for the last time it was attempted, every act to actually impeach a US President has been, frankly, stupid and ill-advised. This would be the stupidest.

People advancing such causes will regret it.  The lucky ones will regret it in this World. The unlucky ones in the next, when they cannot atone for it here.  But account for this we all will, including those who are in the stands watching the circus consume itself with horror.

Vulgar.

Missing Titanic sub crew killed after 'catastrophic implosion'

This is a tragedy.  May God rest their souls and may the perpetual light shine upon them.

There's something really wrong with diving on what is, after all, a massive grave.  Now the wreckage of this submarine befouls the grave.

I've been to plenty of locations where the dead lay, including battlefields. But there's something about this that is simply intrusive beyond all measure.

It really ought to stop.

Lex Anteinternet: A reminder that the last shall be first, and some of the people who figure they are in the front of the line, may not be in it at all.

Lex Anteinternet: A reminder that the last shall be first, and some ...: 

A reminder that the last shall be first, and some of the people who figure they are in the front of the line, may not be in it at all.

I earlier posted this item regarding certain people who profess to be Christians who are sitting in our legislature:

Lex Anteinternet: Hypocrisy?: Hypocrisy? Or just not really thinking things through? As noted here before, although it might not always be very obvious, I'm conservat...

I addressed in that, the bill to extend Medicaid, noting:

The bill to extend Medicaid, which only aids the poor, to mothers past 60 days to a year passed its committee, but barely.  

It was supported by Governor Gordon.

It was supported by physicians.

Deacon Mike Lehman, lobbyist for the Diocese of Wyoming, spoke in favor of it.

None of which kept some of the legislative guardians of public morals from speaking against it.  Jeanette Ward of Illinois spoke against it as an "entitlement program".

Eh?

Not hardly.

Deacon Lehman noted:“that not every government program is an inevitable slide into the fiery pit of Socialism.”  He further noted, according to the Cowboy State Daily: “We’re talking about a segment of the population that qualifies for Medicaid coverage while pregnant, then, when the mother and child are still extremely vulnerable, they no longer qualify.”

The physicians noted they were supporting it even though the program really doesn't pay them very well at all, just barely, in fact.

I don't know, I'd note, Ward's religious affiliation, but I’m sure she's some sort of Christian.  Prior to coming to Wyoming, she was very active in Illinois politics, where she was predictably controversial.  An example of that is as follows:

Do you know what your children are being taught: Muslims believe in the same God as Christians and Jews?

My 6th-grader came home with this assignment today. She was supposed to read the article and answer the questions. (She will not be completing this assignment). The full text of the article is below. Quiz questions are depicted in the pictures. This article is utterly incorrect and false on many levels. This is one of the many reasons I voted no on this curriculum resource.

Well, Christians, Muslims and Jews do in fact all worship the same God.  Their understanding of God's nature if quite different from each other, but they all worship the same God.

Are we really willing to deny this small class of women and their infants medical help?  Seems really mean.

It's also the sort of thing that causes some people to slam the Pro Life folks on the basis that they don't care at all once people are born.  That's actually completely false, and indeed many of the more dedicated pro lifers do indeed support helping mother and infant post birth.

Indeed, while often missed, there's a strong streak of liberalism in at least the Catholic pro-life crowd, which is not only opposed to abortion, but opposed to the death penalty as well.  It's not actually easy to politically pigeonhole it.

Which unfortunately doesn't appear to be the case for Ms. Ward.  She's pretty predictable.

So, frankly, this doesn't surprise me very much.

Without knowing more, I sort of guess that Ms. Ward is a fundamentalist of some type.  I don't want to pick on fundamentalist too much, as they are highly varied, and the term is one that is put on them, rather than one they adopt, but fundamentalist of any type, and there are Islamic Fundamentalist, Hindu fundamentalist, etc., risk reducing their religion to a set of sort of Pharisaic type rules and becoming mean thereafter.  Abortion is wrong because it is, premarital sex is wrong, aborting the results of premarital sex is wrong, but after that you are your own and if you get sick and die, well that's your problem.

I'm not saying that all fundamentalist of any type hold that view, but the fundamentalist of any stripe, and I'd note that for the Apostolic religions as well, run that risk.

Note, orthodox, and fundamentalist, are not the same thing.

There's a real element of solidarity and subsidiarity missing in that thinking.  Yes, just the other day I criticized free school breakfast and lunches, on the basis that it encouraged parents in irresponsibility, but here a different concern exists, which is helping the most helpless in the most efficient fashion.  I.e, both solidarity and subsidiarity apply here, and they argue strongly for extending Medicaid here.  To argue against it as an unwanted "entitlement" really misses the boat.

Now, I learn from the Casper Star Tribune, that Ms. Ward stated the following:

“Arguing that if you’re pro-life you have to be for the expansion of entitlement programs does not follow,” Ward said. “Cain commented to God, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ The obvious answer is no. No, I am not my brother’s keeper. But just don’t kill him.”

Yes, Ms. Ward, you are your brother's keeper. That was the very point, and to a significant degree, of the entire Christian Gospel.  And in terms of the Torah, that was actually the point of the lesson.  Cain was Able's keeper. That was his obligation, not merely not killing him.

If you cannot grasp that, you've missed the message of the New Testament.  If you cannot be your brother's keeper, at least on occasion, you're claiming a crown that may well be beyond your grasp, if that is truly what you believe.¹

Truly, this is such a shocking position, that a person would have to be either blisteringly ignorant of the entire point of Christianity, or such a flaming Calvinist that even John Calvin would find your position abhorrent.

Appalling.

And a calling to repent.

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’

Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?

When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?

When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’

And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’

Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’

Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’

He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’

And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Matthew, Chapter 25. 

Footnotes

1.  Indeed, there has been in recent years a Catholic Bishop, perhaps still living, who took his obligation to the poor so seriously that he always carried money so as to give to every beggar.  When asked why, he replied "How am I to know which one is not Christ?", recalling the Gospel line that Christ would recall that whenever you gave to the least, you gave to him.

Lex Anteinternet: Democracy in peril. . . maybe the fix is to amend ...

Lex Anteinternet: Democracy in peril. . . maybe the fix is to amend ...: 

Democracy in peril. . . maybe the fix is to amend the constitution. . .

The one thing, and seemingly right now the only thing, that Republicans and Democrats seem to agree on is that democracy in the United States is in extreme peril, although not for the same reasons.  Democrats have looked out stunned at the Republican failure to defend democracy in the wake of a Trumpist coup attempt and wonder what happened to the Grand Old Party.  Republicans, or at least many of them, seemingly not aware that they are a minority party whose membership erodes daily, have accepted the lie that it simply can't be possible that they lost, and are further revealed to basically hold Democrats in deep, deep suspicion if not outright alien enemies.  To some degree, that's a Republican response to a Democratic belief that Republicans are basically stupid, a view reinforced by the public face of the insurrectionist and the stunning acceptance of a patently false lie.

Now, it seems that Republican populist are set to attempt a second coup and the Republican establishment won't stand in the way of it, and Democrats have demonstrated themselves to once again be legislatively incompetent.  While I don't think we'll get there, lots of Americans believe we're about to drive democracy right over a cliff.

So what can be done?

Well, the Democrats do have a proposal, or actually two, in front of Congress to address this, one being The Freedom To Vote Act and the other being The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.  I don't know that either actually are aimed to address the problems we're now facing, however.  What would address them is taking on and amending The Electoral Count Act of 1887, which everyone agrees is a sloppy statute to start with, and which the hold out Democrats want to amend.  Mitch McConnell has hinted he'd like to take a look at it.  Of course, Chuck Shumer, for inexplicable reasons, doesn't, a typical boneheaded Democratic leadership position.

So let's start there, but let's get a little background.

The founding fathers, . . . they didn't always get things right.

Our Original System.

Whenever we get into this, we tend to get the American version of ancestor worship, with people sooner or later dragging out the Founding Fathers as if they took a break from giving recommendations to the Oracle at Delphi to draft the Constitution.  They didn't, and were just men, and therefore there's no reason to endow them with perfection, but nonetheless, let's take a look at  the system they created, so we can get a grasp of the structure that we largely still hold

This is how it worked.

The House of Representatives was based on the British House of Commons, and was directly elected by the citizenry.  The British system is based on ridings, where the voters  reside, and ours was based on districts organized in states.  It's a modified and actually somewhat less democratic variant of the House of Commons, as the Commons aren't organized into political subdivisions such as states.  But the Constitution was heavy on states, as we are after all the United States.  

We still have that system.

The Senate was elected by the State legislatures and was to represent the states as states.  It was not directly elected.

The President was elected by the Electoral College. This was as compromise between those who wanted the President elected by the state legislatures, directly elected, or elected by the Congress. The first President of the United States, who was not George Washington, was elected by the Senate.  Nobody liked that system much, and the Constitution proposed to give the Executive branch grater powers than he had under the Articles of the Confederation. The question was how to pick him. Radical democrats wanted the people to elect him.  Reluctant aristocrats weren't so keen on that, and after all we already had the House of Representatives. But then, we also had the Senate.  

So the Electoral College was come up with, with the original concept being that the people would vote for electors who were to vote for the winning candidate, with the second place person getting the Vice President slot, but with there being some room to say now if the people voted for a dud.

What we have now

The electoral college system proved to be problematic right from the onset, as did having the runner up end up Vice President. That just meant the runner up could spend four years throwing rocks as the President, so the system was modified to make the VP a slot that was tied to the President. 

By the time of the Compromise of 1877 (that again) it was clear that the Electoral College didn't make very much sense any longer as the President had been an office directly campaigned for nearly the entire time.  Moves existed to abolish it but Reconstruction made that problematic and instead the system was modified statutorily in 1887 to attempt to prevent a Constitutional crisis.  Early inklings that the nation was headed into a crisis over the College resulted in the House voting to approve an amendment to the Constitution in 1969 to abolish the Electoral College. It passed overwhelmingly in the House in 1969 but failed in the Senate in 1970.

So its still around.

In 1913 the Constitution was amended to make Senators directly elected.

So what's that all mean?

Well, what it all means is that we retain an Electoral College that's subject to influence of outside forces and which sets up a system in which a President can be elected after having lost the popular vote. This was regarded as being nearly impossible up until George Bush won over Al Gore, but now it's repeating.  In each instance, it's been in the case of very close elections, hence Trump's efforts to frustrate the mail-in vote and to "find" votes in Georgia.

It also means that the system which imagined the voice of the people coming through the House of Representatives and the voice of state governments coming though the Senate is completely torpedoed.  Frankly, all Senators are, really, is long serving Commons members from giant ridings.

So what?

Well, this system has slowly evolved to where the government isn't really functioning except through its long serving beurocrats.  Gerrymandering of districts has made most districts safe, so things don't change much.  Like it or not, the House is ineffective even though the Democratic Party outnumbers the Republican Party, as it splits pretty evenly most of the time anymore.  The Senate does the same.  There's not much change, and Senate rules designed for a collegial body operate to prevent any action in one that's pretty divided.

And with the Imperial Presidency first brought in by Theodore Roosevelt, an outsized Executive has powers far beyond that imagined by the framers, a fact that's aided by a Congress that hasn't been governing for nearly twenty years.

Can that be fixed?

Oh yes, it can.

Fix No. 1. Abolish the Electoral College.

If this was done, the entire crisis that we're now in, regarding the Oval Office, would not exist or at least it'd make it much harder to come about.

I used to support the Electoral College as, at one point, as George F. Will used to point out, it amplified the popular vote giving the illusion of a mandate in an election that's typically pretty evenly divided.  Now its not doing that at all,, but that frankly is its only remaining purpose.

The Presidency is the one office that is supposed to represent the opinion of everyone.  The Electoral College only existed as plutocrats feared that the people wouldn't install plutocrats.  We don't want to install plutocrats, however.  

We should do what Congress attempted to do in 1969, abolish the Electoral College.  There's no excuse not to, even though Republicans right now come out against it. The real reason they do that is they fear they can't win  the Oval Office if it's abolish, and in fact they would not have elected a President since George Bush I if it didn't exist. That, however, is a Republican problem they should fix. As they win state elections easily enough in spite of being a minority party, nationally, they can fix it.

The overwhelming majority of Americans are in favor of abolishing the Electoral College.  Abolishing it might not fix anything else, but if we are going to continue to have an outsized Presidency, we ought to at least make it one in which election mischief can't develop into a coup.

Fix No. 2.  Repeal the Seventeenth Amendment

Eh?  Have Senators elected by legislatures?

Yes.

Now, at first blush this would appear to flying the face of Fix No. 1, which I'd do at the same time. But it doesn't.

The Senate was always intended to be the voice of states, not of the people.  If it is a directly elected office, it actually serves no point whatsoever and should be abolished (which will be fix no. 3).  All the Senate is right now is a place for really long serving members of a Commons district with state boundaries. Why bother?

Indeed, because the Senate has retained rules from an earlier era, and because its nearly evenly split liek the House, it can't get anything done.  Right now, it's divided 50/50.

If Senators were chosen by legislatures, however, it wouldn't be.

This is a little tricky, but basically (but not really quite) the GOP controls 30 legislatures our of 50, or 60%.  If this was reflected in the US Senate, which it would not be perfectly, the Senate would be 60% Republican.

It'd likely be a little higher or lower than that, but the point is that the Senate would be cleanly the house of one party, the Republicans, reflecting its original purpose of representing the states.  And with those numbers, it could actually do something.

Yes, this is less democratic than the existing system, but it was intended to be. That was the point of the Senate.  And it would ironically function much better this way.

But if we don't like that, then;

Fix No. 3.  Abolish the Senate

If all the Senate is, is a giant House of Representatives, which is exactly what it is right now, just do away with it. We don't need it.

Indeed, right now, it's hard to see what the Senate actually does.  It has some Constitutional roles, to be sure, but they can simply be transferred to the House if it is just a big House with huge ridings.

This may sound radical, but this is how Nebraska's legislature works right now, and Nebraska has not descended into left wing anarchy.  If we really want a democratic senate, well, let's just not have one. The House reflects the vote of the people better and in a more cogent fashion.

That of course means that we'd be creeping up on a modified parliamentary system. Well, so what.  The British, who over the years have more and more sidelined the House of Lords, and most other democratic nations, work just this way.  

Indeed, if we did this, once again, much of the current drama wouldn't be there, as the Senate, which is serving as the blocker of things right now, wouldn't be in the way. Yes, Republicans would be upset, but if the Electoral College was also gone, they'd be working hard to appeal to the voters directly, rather than being mired in conspiracy theories.

Now, am I really in favor of this?  No, I'm not.  I'm in favor of the Senate functioning the way it was originally supposed to, but in the absence of that, this would be the next best thing.

Fix No. 4.  Do away with the quasi official nature of the parties.

Listen to any political discussion, and sooner or later you'll hear the falsehood that "the United States has a two party system".

It does not, at least not existentially.

It has a two party system as we became lazy and let the parties create one, and because of the operation of Duverger's Law which holds that plurality based deliberative institutions devolve into two parties, whereas as proportional institutions evolve into multi party institutions.

It nearly goes without saying that multi party institution are of course more democratic than two party systems.

The two party nature of our political culture has become so ingrained that Congress itself has organized itself accordingly, and in many state laws things have evolved to where boards are supposed to be made up of members of both parties. The Democratic Party and the Republican Party, therefore, while vying for control of the government, become, to some extent, arms of it.

This could, and should, be addressed by wiping out the aspects of our system which favor this.

The first thing to do would be to make all elections non-partisan.  The 49 member Nebraska legislature provides an example here again.  It's non-partisan.  Nebraska's Senators, which is what they are termed, are elected in a single non-partisan election. Get the top vote, and you are it.

That's  the way the elections for every elective office should work.  Yes, you could be a member of a party, and yes, you could let everyone know that, but there'd be no primary and whoever the top vote getter would be, would be the winner.

Taking that a step further, not only should that be how the larger US elections work, but in the national legislature itself the practice of having caucuses and Majority and Minority Speakers and Leaders should be abolished as official practices.  If the Republicans and Democrats, when they are out of power, want to gather in a basketball court somewhere and vote somebody their spokesman, have at it, but that person ought to get no special cred in the chambers of Congress itself. The Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader are real positions, to an extent, so they'd stick around, but no more organizing on party lines officially.

Would that make a difference?  I  think it would.

For one thing, you'll hear around here that Harriet Hageman came in third when she ran for Governor behind Gordon and Freiss. But not really.  Mary Throne, the Democrat, came in second.  If the race had actually been come all and come in, how would that have looked?  I suspect that Gordon would still have one, but I strongly suspect that probably Throne would have been second or third, giving the current reflection back on the state's Governor a considerably different one than we now have.  Indeed, in Wyoming politics, nearly every election would be pulled toward the center as the Democrats and the middle of the road Republicans would have more of a voice, which they should as they are part of the population. The primary system silences those voices.

And wiping out the party organizations inside of Congress itself would definitely have an impact on government.  Minority leaders could run around trying to martial opposition or support for something, but their impact would be much smaller.  Without the ability to control committee membership and the like by party, at least openly, a greater emphasis would develop on getting things done and getting along, rather than getting in the way.

Taking this to the Oval Office itself, if the Presidential election was the top vote getter, in one single election, there's no earthly way we'd have had the last several Presidents.  Trump would not have been President at all.  Nor would have Barrack Obama.  Nor would have George Bush II.  Only a long primary system lead to their rise.  One election, in November, would have no open winnowing system and now way to weed out people's real views.

Yes, that would mean that a President might frequently get in with only 30% of the vote. But that President would also be less imperial by default.

And yet?

Any of this stuff likely to happen?

Probably not.