That’s a message being shared online by @rejectingrepublicans.

That’s a message being shared online by @rejectingrepublicans.

Except… the democrats are not a solution.

The actual problem is the two party system. How can 2 parties possibly represent a nation as diverse as the United States?

More American voters vote for one party than the other. And that party is the winner.

But when they annoy too many voters, the other party begins to win more votes than the first party. So the other party becomes the #WinnerWhoTakesAll.

When democrats tell you they aren’t voting democrat because they’re democrats, they neglect to mention that they actually are democrats.

What they aren’t telling you is that you don’t have to vote democrat to vote out republicans… all you need do is elect third party candidates who will represent you.

Granted, I’m a Canadian, but it seems to me the reason it has become so hard to elect democrats is because democrats have spectacularly failed far too many Americans.

Some voters who used to vote democrat simply stopped voting.

Other voters who used to vote democrat began voting republican.

Not because they like republican policies any better than democrat policies, but because the democrats have spectacularly failed them.

Seriously, why don’t Americans have universal health care? President Obama was going to deliver it… which was why it was dubbed “Obamacare.” And yet the healthcare he delivered was hardly universal.

President Obama was sold as “hope” for positive change, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for getting elected. And yet, this president approved more drone strikes in his first year in office than President George W. Bush carried out during his entire administration. Obama had no trouble passing a law giving American Presidents the power to order extra-judicial killing of American Citizens abroad, but rolled over for the powerful Insurance Industry.

Seriously, why did the social movements “Occupy Wall Street,” an extended protest against economic inequality and the corruption of corporate law, and “Black Lives Matter” (seeking to address police brutality and racially motivated violence against black people), and the Standing Rock #NoDAPL Dakota Access Pipeline Protest movement, arise on President Obama’s watch?

Seriously, why is the quality of life for many Americans in parts of the United States equivalent to third world countries?

“In his new book, The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy, Temin paints a bleak picture where one country has a bounty of resources and power, and the other toils day after day with minimal access to the long-coveted “American dream.”

​"In his view, the United States is shifting toward an economic and political makeup more similar to developing nations than the wealthy, economically stable nation it has long been.”

The Obama “hope” was dashed by the harsh reality that American politics – American democracy – has been captured by special interests. The view from here, in Canada, suggests that Donald Trump is the ultimate protest vote. The people who elected him weren’t any better off under his presidency, but electing him sent a message the democrats chose to ignore.

The American people are not being well served because neither of the two parties represent “the people,” unless, of course, one considers serving the billionaire class to be serving the people. This time around, the Trump presidency is looking more like an existential threat than a middle finger salute to the elites. But re-electing the democratic party next time around is unlikely to change anything.

Much has been made of American democracy, but it has never been farther from delivering “government by the people, for the people” than it is now.

I’m certainly no expert on American politics, that country was built on a revolution intended to overthrow the control of foreign monarchy, but in many ways, the presidency has become monarchy 2.0 And yet, in the earliest years of that nation, there were no political parties at all. The directly elected president was given a great deal of power with which to govern, and their elected representatives that supported the president sat on one side of the aisle in the legislature, while those who disagreed with the direction of the president’s administration sat on the other.

And yet ordinary Americans might still vote themselves out of this mess, if only they abandon the two party system that’s abandoned them, and instead start voting third party for actual change.

But that means really voting them *all* out… republicans and democrats.

I wish our American friends the best of luck for the future.

Jason Kenney on Proportional Representation

“Does he have any regard at all for the fact that Canada is now the only multiparty advanced democracy in the world that has a system of voting designed in and for 16th century England when candidates really were non-partisan candidates elected for the purpose of representation?”
Jason Kenney, Alliance MP for Calgary Southeast, AB
February 20th, 2001 / 4:15 p.m.

The other night at the annual Fair Vote Waterloo Holiday Get-Together, there was some speculation about the upcoming Alberta election in which Jason Kenney seeks to reclaim the Alberta Government for his new incarnation of that province’s provincial Conservatives. I was surprised to discover not everyone was aware of Mr Kenney’s strong support of Proportional Representation back in 2001.  [Read Jason Kenney’s whole statement here.]

Proportional Representation is not and has never been a partisan issue.  It only becomes so when a party championing PR gets elected to disproportional power in a winner-take-all political system.  When that happens, the party starts to rethink the wisdom of adopting electoral reform to a voting system that will limit their future power to what they can earn in votes.

At the time Mr Kenney demonstrated his considerable understanding of Canada’s need for Proportional Representation in the Parliamentary debate referenced above, he was an elected Member of Parliament from a regional Alberta party that didn’t (and wasn’t likely to) achieve winner-take-all false majority power any time soon with First Past The Post.

Mr Kenney was initially elected as a federal Reform Party of Canada candidate. Until the Reform Party morphed into a the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance. That’s where he was when he spoke in that 2001 debate. But although the Alliance was able to gain regional traction and win disproportional power in Alberta in a First Past The Post System (much as the Bloc Québécois could in Québéc) he understood that before his party could hope to form government, Canada would need Proportional Representation.

Naturally, the Liberals who held phony majority power under PM Chrétien at the time did not like the idea of Proportional Representation, which would prevent future false majority power by limiting their power in government to what they could actually earn in votes.  Jason Kenney was not alone, in this, there was a lot of support for PR within the Canadian Alliance, up to and including Stephen Harper.  But the parties enjoying disproportional power are never very likely to make voting fair.

The Canadian Alliance had the power of regional concentration without much hope of forming government, while the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada could barely win any seats yet owned the name of one of Canada’s alternating governing parties, so the two merged into the Conservative Party of Canada.  Naturally with its own false majority, suddenly electoral reform was no longer something this new/old party wanted any party of.

During the Harper Government’s decade in power, Canada’s federal Liberals slipped to third place for the first time in history.  So Justin Trudeau ran on a platform of Electoral Reform, but Mr Trudeau’s appetite for electoral reform evaporated with his own false majority.  The BC Referendum was lost by the BC NDP who are convinced they’ll be re-elected, this time with a false majority of their own.

This may sound like bad news, and indeed it is in the short term, but the reality is that more and more Canadians are learning what Proportional Representation is, and just as important, why we need it. And because of this, Proportional Representation just isn’t going away.

Defenders of the Status Quo have been able to stave off Proportional Representation for so very long is because most of us have little experience or understanding of anything but winner-take-all politics.   The fact that 90+ countries use some form of PR is a blessing because there is so much information about how Proportional Representation works.  But it’s also a curse, because detractors can cherry pick the elements or examples of the application  of PR that will make it look the worst.  Because Canadians have so little or no understanding or experience of PR, when they spread misinformation most of us don’t even know they’re talking nonsense.  The moment any province adopts PR, we will see for ourselves that the sky doesn’t fall, and suddenly it will become much harder to sell us misinformation.

The issue is very much alive in Quebec and PEI, (soon to hold another Proportional Representation Referendum)  and Ontario’s Premier Ford is reminding Ontarians why a fair voting system is so important.

Not long ago the UK’s electoral reform referendum failed to even offer Proportional Representation as a choice. When it failed, the powers that be claimed this meant citizens were happy with the way things worked.  And the next referendum gave them BRexit.  Except the people didn’t think so.  Which is why Proportional Representation is back on the table there, too.   And why there is a new John Cleese Proportional Representation video.  Enjoy.

Regards,
Laurel L. Russwurm