You’re arguing about the Senate vs the House. I’m saying the Executive Branch is vastly too powerful relative to the Legislative branch, however we split the House from the Senate. The Executive should be mostly a figurehead, imo.
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I do think voting deters progress as we’re seeing now. Things can get stuck in limbo.
Dictatorship can work wonders, provided you have a good dictators. Empires and dynasties had prospered and perished through cycles of good and bad dictators.
Right now China has a smart dictator, and its prosperity will soon exceed that of the US, which is stuck in democratic limbo.
True, I was speaking directly to the senate. Although I was also talking about all Congress; certainly the greater reliance on executive orders over the last 20 years has made all Congress weaker.
But my point is simply that the particular situation means that weakening the executive doesn’t necessarily weaken populism, because the stronger executive is the effect of populist power, not the cause.
My sense is that in our case, the populist power starts with the fact that the republican party can win in a lot of ways with a minority vote. So this creates an incentive where the populist elements within it take more and more control. This is unlike the democrats, who must win a majority for almost any kind of win, and whose centrists dramatically took control with Joe Biden’s nomination (we’ll see how things continue.)
So I don’t see how the populist power in this case has much to do with the strength of the executive. Now that populist have power, they try to get more by strengthening the executive. I agree with that.
If we’re just king-mode fixing the whole system I wouldn’t be so focused on R vs D. I don’t think Rs are inevitably populist, I think they’ve just had great recent success with it and so are happy to take the votes. In addition to fixing the overpowered Executive I’d do countrywide rank choice voting to help reduce the power of the duopoly.
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Voting is a privilege. One that should be granted on a very wide basis. Essentially anyone who is a citizen, of sound mind, and not a felon who has not fulfilled all restitution/time served requirements should be allowed to vote. Asking for proof of ID to verify these things should be basic procedure.
(Part of me wants to require an IQ/knowledge test. But that sort of thing is too easily subject to abuse.)
I think teenager should be allowed to vote. They’re just as (un)reasonable as oldies.
Agree that populism isn’t bound to one party - AMLO in Mexico is an example of populism on the left.
Or the entire Progressive wing of the D party
I forgot to add 18+. (Maybe 21 given frontal lobe development times, but if you’re old enough to get shot at you’re old enough to vote.)
What a segway to talk about gun control
I think that’s an arbitrary criterion.
If we want that as a criterion, then we should also ban people from voting when they start to mentally decline at whatever the average age is. I’m guessing 60+
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that’s why we need an exam
Made me recall the George Carlin routine.
“Think about how stupid the average American is. Now consider that half the people are even more stupid than that.”
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with a smarter voter base, we’ll get smarter politicians. Win-win
Someone else posted that meme with Carlin’s picture, in one of the COVID threads today.
Well I’m still trying to figure out if John Kerry voted for or against the $87 billion, so… 
Unfortunately that’s largely because the Legislative branch has voluntarily ceded a lot of their power to the Executive branch.
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So, in addition to dead people voting (multiple times), Chicago now needs to extend the vote to toddlers?!
Need to have something to balance out the cemetery vote. 
Only if I get to write the questions.