The writers of the Constitution tried to accomplish this by limiting the power of the central government. They would be appalled if they could see what their vision has become.
That's hardly all they did. But whatever checks they put in, they did so on the assumption that political parties, if they exist at all, will be weak. A lot of their solutions work less well when you have just two parties, both highly centralized.
Was that a plug for your "the Constitution wasn't written by the finger of God" beliefs?
I didn't know my facts required a plug!
There's a spectrum of available solutions here. You can go all the way to making voting compulsory to more obvious tweaks to the first past the post system at play in the US.
The fundamental problem you're describing is that "one person one vote" is not in any way guaranteed or ensured. Solutions exist that address both broader representation AND ensure greater security. They all require better central governance, though.
Right, but see how bizarre this is. We're bemoaning that politicians stick to their campaign promises? Surely, that is a good thing.
If you have politicians who are sticking to their positions, because the structure of politics and the media today makes it hard for them to backtrack, that's a good thing.
What you want changed is not this accountability, but an ecosystem where politicians are not encouraged to make or rewarded when they make outrageous, maximalist promises without anything resembling a plan.
You both mention third parties above. That's great, but your political system is designed to penalize third parties. You've seen this dynamic play out before. You end up back with two parties, and there's good political science to explain why. It has very little to do with any particular individual or their greed. Those things play a role, but the vehicle for their success is the first-past-the-post election system that rewards investment and voter attention to be focussed on 2 choices, and then functionally reduces to just one choice in most geographies.
Solutions like ranked choice voting exist that promote multiparty candidacies. As far as I'm aware, with the notable exception of Alaska, most of the energy in experimenting with these kinds of elections is from the Left, and therefore doomed to be labeled as liberal power grabs.
Fixes like this at a national level, run through constitutional amendments, yet another out in the Constitution that is blocked. Why? Your two party system, the very problem you want to tackle. This is the area where I depart most sharply from Democrats. They have written of the Constitutional Amendment process after the ERA failure, and that's entirely on them.
I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this. How do you see a third or fourth party succeeding?
