A Most Equal Government
Pt. 2- Constitutional Changes- Election Changes and Party Adjustments
Governmental Changes
To begin, the basis of the American Constitution is inherently flawed, particularly surrounding democratic government. A constitution designed by the elite of their time was designed with one obvious purpose, to maintain that power, that elitism. While there is no question that the Founding Fathers of the United States set out with lofty and, at the time, radical ideas, these ideas were not what we would consider today to be equitable. As I said, they were designed to maintain the power of the elite and now we see this open and honest. Political parties now maintain their hyper-partisanship, the needs and wants of the people are used as ways to gather political capital and are oft-ignored to maintain the two-party system and the power that it grants them. There are no legal requirements in the US for the two-party system to exist nor is there a requirement for the primaries of the nation to be designed around the party system. This system as it stands exists to maintain control between few people. If the nation were to shift our electoral system away from the plurality system, the first past the post system, we could see growth to a multi-party system, one that would allow more people and options to be presented for the American population to choose from.
A Starred Election
There are essentially two options for a new electoral system to create an equal and more fair electoral system; preferential and approval voting. While ranked-choice voting has massive advantages to our current system on paper, it would eventually establish a two-party dominated system, rather than a purely two-party system. While this system would allow a larger voice for smaller parties, this would not be able to break the stranglehold. In some instances of ranked-choice, a voter may need to betray their favorite candidate and vote strategically. While this may seem natural to us now in our system, this is inherently detrimental to democracy. If one wants a fair system in which everyone can vote openly and honestly then we must ensure that the system that exists would snuff out the need for strategic voting. No one should ever vote against their political interests to not have the worst outcome. As such I recommend instead of ranked-choice voting, range voting.
Range voting allows each voter to rate each candidate, independent of each other, to decide who overall possesses the most support from the electorate. To not have any spoiler options in this system, all candidates would begin with a score of zero, and each voter would need to vote between keeping the ballot blank for each candidate, a score of zero, or providing a three-point scale in either direction, three levels of dissatisfaction and three levels of satisfaction. Treating this as a rating system from a negative three to a positive three stars would be the most simplistic way to ensure understanding and ease of voting. This system provides much more information about each candidate and ensures that no one will ever have to choose someone they don’t like, just to ensure that who they believe to be the worst option would not be elected. After all the votes have been tallied, an average for every candidate would be collected and the highest scoring candidate would win the election. This would be a universal system throughout the branches of government, including the judiciary, which will be discussed in the following sections.
An Eighth Party System
I would assume that there would be a large number of parties formed from looking at the caucuses and the marginalized individuals with popular ideas, I could only hope that the American party system would transition from a center-left party and a right party into a system with parties that run the gamut of the political spectrum. Due to the nature of the United States, there would be no far far-left party that would ever be able to maintain a large enough presence on the American field.
Today, one of the rising organizations within the left of American politics is the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). This organization could establish itself as a party with its own candidates rather than endorsing Democratic candidates, this would allow this party to be able to push its agenda rather than relying on a large system shifting their way. This would likely be a smaller party that would have similar viewpoints as both the Green and Christian Democrat Party, yet would be less willing to abolish markets and instead focus on increasing taxes and publicly funding many systems to a proper extent. This party would also push to abolish certain private enterprises and bring them into the sphere of the public domain, i.e., healthcare.
The Green Party would likely rise in power as many single-issue environmental voters would then be able to vote for the Green candidates and not have their vote be considered spoiled and even have members of that party take office. This party would also begin to be filled with eco-socialists, and its platform would be centered on environmental racism and classism and attempt to combat these. Likely endorsed by environmental groups, this party would find wide areas where it would be popular, but likely never be able to hold major offices, more often allowing other left-wing parties to take the spotlight as long as they were instrumental in developing environmental policy. The Peace and Freedom Party would likely find themselves being absorbed into this party as the ideals line up nearly perfectly.
The first center-left party in the US would be the Christian Democrats of America. This party would establish itself as a proper Christian Democrat party, this would likely collect the devout members of the Democratic party. This party would maintain their political views, maintaining a right to abortion but attempting to reduce the number as much as possible. Advocates of criminal justice reform, universal healthcare, as well as many other commonly held left views. The major difference between this party and other left parties would be the advocacy of Christian defense of said political values, as a center-left party, they would find themselves with a strong showing of support throughout the south and midwestern regions of the US. This party would likely be made up of more socially conservative union members and establish itself deeply throughout the Midwest and the South.
I believe that if this party system comes to be the Democrats would find themselves in the center of the aisle with a slight left lean. The focus towards government oversight of certain aspects of the market, but also defending free-trade and a free market, their tendency to agree with social reforms but not begin them would help this party maintain a centrist base. This party would likely find support in the more liberal and wealthy areas; Silicon Valley and other wealthy tech centers. All of the left-wing parties would likely push for and encourage gun control laws as well as being more pro-LGBTQ rights and civil rights in general, the Democratic Party would likely side with these concepts as well. The right-wing parties would likely support less government control of the economy but encourage the growth of the market and a focus on market and economic value, the Democratic Party would likely side here often as well.
To the right of the Democratic Party would lie the Libertarian Party, a center-right party, this party would continue their current arguments, a lack of governmental control in nearly all aspects. This party would push for pro-choice legislation, free-market legislation, and be pro-gun ownership. The party would be able to grow thanks to the splitting of the TEA party into three major groups because of Donald Trump’s presidency. Because of Libertarian values, more people would likely flock to this party and see it as a centrist party that would likely switch between allying itself with centrists and the right. This party would be instrumental in many aspects of legislation as the largest to swing back and forth.
To the right of the Libertarians would lie the American Solidarity Party. This party would adopt many of the more “centrist” Republicans of today. This party does exist today as one of the smaller American parties and maintains more conservative stances on many issues. This party is pro-life, it is pro-small government, pro-small business, and pro-union. This party does advocate for social changes but only to specific extents, as well as making the argument that the government should shift away from treating individuals differently regarding their own histories. A strong defense of traditional family values would find this party looking more towards more right-leaning parties to help with legislation rather than certain left parties. This party would be friendly with the Democrats and Christian Democrats in many areas but would absolutely advocate along more conservative lines in most cases. It would likely be that the TEA party would find themselves more in line here than in any other right-wing party as well as the pre-Trump establishment Republican Party.
The Republican Party would likely maintain the Christian values arguments and support the social views and will likely still focus on neoconservative economics and social aspects. Much of the Republican party line won’t change, they would maintain the pro-life stance, pro-gun, as well as a huge focus on deregulation and assistance to corporations. Likely made up of an amalgamation of evangelists, Southern Baptists, and other Christian groups that would find themselves opposing many social reforms. This party would advocate against LGBTQ rights, focus on “traditional family values.” This would be a deeply socially conservative party and would be able to garner support throughout the South and Midwestern states, and would be one of two right-wing parties.
The final party would likely be an American nationalist party, a right party that finds most of its policy through Donald Trump’s right-wing populism, likely becoming a Patriot Party or finding the current Constitution Party adopting these nationalists and views. Currently, the Constitution Party maintains an originalist view of the Constitution and is not far away from being a white Christian nationalist party. This party would likely be very strict on immigration, very pro-American industry, anti-globalist, and anti-free-trade. Like many of the right parties, this one would also heavily emphasize traditional social order, likely even going so far as to become anti-multicultural. This party may collect few candidates, but possess very vocal support, particularly among the remainder of the TEA party, a large majority of them. This party would hopefully find itself with little support with so many more conservative options, yet that could never be certain with the political climate.
There would also be a plethora of smaller parties with more identity-focused interests that may never be able to find themselves in nationwide offices. We could see a reborn Black Panther Party, an indigenous-focused party, separate parties focused on other religious concerns, a Latin American party/parties, etc. There would also be more niche political views that can form political parties, likely anarchists and communists would form parties and attempt to run candidates, even if they would likely not be able to amount to much representation within the halls of Congress. These would all be able to win local elections more often than not and even find their way into the House of Representatives, while only those with very strong local support, as in a possible Mormon Party in Utah, would be able to find their way into the Senate in many cases.