After reading my most recent article, How Our Voting Method Brings Out Our Worst, my son, Ian said, “Dad, they’re never going to change the voting method.”
He may be right, but if there was ever “a right time to do it” that time is now. If there was ever a time when the public is ready for change that time is now. In fact with the support of national organizations like FairVote, local governments across the country are trying out different voting methods in hopes of getting fairer elections. But local governments generally do not face the extreme polarization we see in national elections. National elections are what we need to fix and it’s already happening.
all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today.
We tend to think of polarization and divisiveness as symptoms of the current administration in the U.S. and maybe they will just disappear with future elections; well that’s not going to happen. This has been trending for over forty years and getting rid of Trump will not change this. Putin’s efforts to undermine the institutions of democracies around the world exploits this vulnerability, but this only highlights how bad it can get. With or without Putin’s help polarization will bring an end to many democratic regimes. 