The 2016 election, while entertaining to watch, made my generation realize that politics is a corrupt, exhausting, and frightening realm of society. A lot of us have lost hope, thinking there’s no way to fix this system. No way to make this government for us, by us. I have some proposals to accomplish this. The Media The media played a big role in this election cycle, and was caught red-handed for being biased and inaccurate. According to a Gallup poll, ⅔ of America have no trust in the media. Meddling with poll results, portraying their chosen candidate as an angel, quote-mining to make the opposition seem deplorable, and so much more. What can we do? We can boycott them. Stop watching them, stop listening to them. Boycotts will always scare companies into changing policy, as we’ve seen time and time again. Or, we can critically think about what they say, instead of blindly following their instructions. Fact check them ourselves. We can also push for the repeal of the Telecommunications Act, which allows mega corporations to attempt to create a monopoly on media sources. I support the existence of PBS, and we should apply the Fairness Doctrine to it. As a libertarian, I don’t believe in imposing the Fairness Doctrine upon other media outlets, because that is a violation of freedom of speech, but that doesn’t mean us, as consumers, can demand fair representation of alternative viewpoints on the networks. Debates We desperately need to put a nonpartisan organization in charge of the debates. The Commission on Presidential Debates is led by Michael D. McCurry (Democrat) and Frank J. Fahrenkopf, Jr. (Republican). It’s pretty evident that the two major parties control this commission, and that they deliberately oppose third party participation, because it’ll topple their control. Originally, the presidential debates were controlled by the League of Women Voters, which sponsored the debates from 1976-1984. Then the bipartisan Commission on Elections said control of debates should be transitioned to the two major parties, and that they should purposely not include third party candidates. Both Democrats and Republicans agreed, and that’s the way it’s been ever since. It’s time for a change. This election, we’ve seen the Republican debates turn into a joke, viewers just watching to see Donald Trump whip out his zingers against his opponents. We’ve seen Hillary Clinton get questions in advance, and a drastically unfair distribution of speech time. Here’s my proposal: Demand better debates from the parties, who shall be in charge of conducting their own debates. When it comes to general election debates, PBS shall conduct them, and include all the candidates that are either on enough state ballots to win the electoral college, or are polling at 5% nationally. Voting System Instead of just voting for a single candidate, I would love to see the implementation of ranked voting. How does this system work? I’ll let CPG Gray explain it. See? Doesn’t that sound beautifully democratic. “But Chris, America isn’t a democracy, it’s a Republic!” Democracy is one of the cornerstones of republicanism. Without it, we cannot elect, or at least feel content with electing, the representatives that actually participate in the inner workings of government. I would also support an abolishment of the electoral college system. Once again, here’s a video explaining that. Election Day I fully support early voting. This year, people early voted in record numbers. Every state should have early voting; it’s more convenient and allows people to participate in our democracy. Election Day should be a federal holiday, and shouldn’t be held on Tuesday anymore. It’s on Tuesday because the early American politicians knew most Americans would stay home on Sunday because of the Sabbath, so assuming Monday was used as a day to travel to the voting booth (remember, people were spread out and we rode horses and walked everywhere), we voted on Tuesday. This is an archaic and useless tradition that’s stuck around ever since. Make Election Day a Saturday or something, so people can actually afford to stay up for the results and more people can get off work.
Registered Voters The overwhelming concern for voting fraud was very hefty in this election, thanks to Donald Trump claiming that the race will be “rigged.” I’m sure he’s very concerned about that right now. We have to realize some things: voter fraud is not as rampant as you believe it is, and it’s nearly impossible to rig an election. That being said, we can have certain measures to prevent it. I do not support the requirement of an ID to vote, for it will disadvantage certain citizens, and fake IDs are created regularly. Consider this: men from the ages of 18-25 are automatically registered into Selective Service in multiple states. Why couldn’t we do this with voting? We should automatically register people to vote, so they wouldn’t have to worry about it. States should consider implementing affidavits to limit possible voter fraud. I support the classification of voter fraud as a felony, and the immediate deportation of any illegal immigrant committing it. Democracy is a valuable thing in society, and it shouldn’t be exploited. Education This is one of my biggest problems with American politics. The fact that people frequently ask me what’s the difference between a Democrat and a Republican is a sad reflection on our nation. The fact that people can’t properly define “the establishment” or explain how the Electoral College works, the fact that at least 42% of Americans can’t name the three branches of government. We need a better civics course. The fact that people don’t even know what else is on the ballot concerns me. We need to better inform the public. We need to get the citizens of the United States excited about voting, excited about our elections. America can do better than this. With a better informed population who are able to vote when they want to, without the feeling of guilt sparking from their choices, we can move towards prosperity. Improving the parties and the media, allowing people with different opinions to join the ring, these things will allow the citizens of the United States to be content with their choices.
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Christopher CaldwellJust some thoughts on current events and such. Archives
January 2017
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