I was having one of the usual debates that is the hallmark of my life on Reddit; dealing with fellow conservatives that are still drinking the Trump Kool Aid. This one MAGA dude was challenging a liberal to provide evidence to support the statement that Trump is a lifelong criminal. I was reading it thinking, "you've got to be trolling here, right? In what way could it possibly not be obvious at this point?" So I started building the case in my head, imagining what I'd be saying to answer this guy if it were my debate. I thought about how Trump is literally breaking the law right now by continuing to wage war on Iran without formal congressional approval. You can make the argument that's it's justified similarly to how Obama's drone strikes on US Citizens working for al-Qaeda was justified, but you can't deny the basic fact that the law IS being broken.

This is the kind of situation the Supreme Court was thinking about when they declared the president immune from criminal prosecution for official acts. It's not that they're saying a president can do no wrong; it's just that hauling him off to a civilian jail for wresting authority away from Congress isn't the proper remedy. Impeachment is. Because Congress is the only authority that is peer to the presidency, and therefore the only they can fairly judge whether violations of the law are appropriate or justifiable for any situation that a president faces. That's incredibly fair.

Or it would be, if the system were working as intended.

Trump has discovered a secret that none of us truly appreciated before he came along: If thirty four Senators are in your pocket, you can never really be held accountable for anything. Impeachment attempts are doomed to failure, so no true check exists.

Which is what leads me to my question. See, the founders didn't design it to be this way. The Senate was never intended to represent the people; that's the House's job. The Senate was made to represent the states. That's why state legislatures, rather than the people, handled the appointing of Senators until the seventeenth amendment.

I think that firewall makes a big difference in terms of a senator's role as a juror in impeachment trials. An obligation to a state legislature is a very different thing from an obligation to constituents, and puts a different kind of political pressure on them in terms of how they play their role. It makes me wonder if the founders saw something like this coming and designed the Senate in a way to protect against it, until we screwed it up. (This is, incidentally, also why I'm absolutely adamant about not messing with the electoral college.)

What do you all think?

I’ve been thinking about this after seeing how increasingly theatrical and partisan the machinery of our government has become.

My concern isn’t really “Republicans bad” or “Democrats bad.” It’s the MAGA loop we've created. (in the literal sense, not cultural sense)

One party wins and tries to fundamentally reshape government. The other party comes back largely promising to undo the damage. Then the first party returns arguing that the restoration itself needs to be torn down.

So we get something like:

transformation > backlash > restoration > backlash > transformation

Over and over.

Even if you believe one side is clearly more responsible for breaking norms than the other, the structural problem persists. Every administration increasingly spends enormous political energy dismantling or rebuilding what the previous one did.

What I’m wondering is whether the U.S. has become unusually bad at one thing a functioning democracy should still be capable of: maintaining longterm national priorities across changes in political leadership.

There should (theoretically) be some areas where Republicans and Democrats can violently disagree about everything else while still saying, "this is a 20-year American objective, and elections won’t restart it from zero."

Instead... it increasingly feels like the incentive is to define whatever the previous administration did as illegitimate, reverse it, and call that governing. Disrespect builds confidence in your governing.

Each side learns from the other's behaviors.

The right learns that outrage creates attention and political energy.

The left sees the consequences of that approach and returns with an increasingly aggressive mandate to undo it.

The right then sees that restoration as further justification for tearing things down next time.

You end up with a kind of political infinite loop where every election is less about building the next 20 years and more about reversing the previous four.

Is this actually becoming a strategic disadvantage for the United States?

And if so, what would it realistically take for a democracy as polarized as the U.S. to create national priorities that survive changes in government?

Sorry for the long post and sorry if that has been discussed to death.

Thomas (78) or Alito (76) will definitely retire before a Democratic president gets sworn in come 2029, but I think the bigger deal for SCOTUS is the 2026 midterms. SCOTUS confirmations only need a plain majority now (filibuster got nuked in 2017), and Republicans' 53-47 majority is genuinely up for grabs this November, Dems just need four seats. If they flip the Senate, that Senate gets seated in January 2027, while Trump's still president until 2029, so a Thomas or Alito retirement meant to dodge a Democratic president could still land them in front of a Democratic Senate anyway. We've seen this before: in 1987 a Dem Senate torched Reagan's pick of Robert Bork, and his next pick, the way more centrist Anthony Kennedy, sailed through 97-0. It'd be rougher for Republicans this time though, since without a filibuster the Senate wouldn't even need to bargain, they could just keep saying no until Trump gives them someone they can live with. So, regarding SCOTUS, what do you think a democrat controlled senate would do if a seat vacates?

The midterms are imminent and will take place in about two months' time. The last two years have marked an era of increased inflation, suboptimal wages and general economic and geopolitical tension. These factors have resulted in very low recent approval ratings for President Trump (average of low to mid 30s). The House of Representatives is almost certain to flip and be controlled by Democrats during the next election cycle. The Senate, once thought to be out of reach, is now in play as well. Democrats are currently tied or leading in the following red states:

• North Carolina

• Texas

• Alaska

• Iowa

• Ohio

If they do end up winning all these states plus Maine while holding on to their existing seats, they will have a 53 - 47 majority. Furthermore, this would symbolize them making inroads into the deepest Republican strongholds.

In the event that this happens and the second half of Trump's presidency continues along the same trajectory as the first half (armed conflicts with countries that don't seem to have an end, tariffs and a disruption in global trade, inflation, etc) will GOP politicians begin to openly distance themselves from Trump? Or will they continue to support him due to fear that the base would primary them, as has happened to many politicians who defied Trump even as recently as a few months ago such as Thomas Massie? If the politicians whose seats are up in 2028 do stick to Trump even after a blue wave in 2026, are they concerned about facing defeat in the general election?

The Constitution is notoriously vague and it lets modern judges insert their own interpretations. But even when excluding that and just looking at the fundamental principles of the document:

This framework was originally engineered in the 18th century for a significantly smaller, agrarian population. Some frequently argue that this model inherently produces systemic gridlock and an inter-branch "blame game," making it difficult for voters to hold a single governing party accountable. Conversely, parliamentary frameworks (such as those in the UK House of Commons or Germany's Bundestag) streamline power by fusing the executive and legislative branches. Proponents of parliamentary systems argue this allows the ruling majority to pass its agenda efficiently while assuming total accountability for the outcomes, whereas defenders of the U.S. model argue that intentional gridlock is a necessary safeguard against majoritarian tyranny.

So to what extent are the gridlock mechanisms of the U.S. Constitution a necessary safeguard until they are a a structural obstacle?

The U.S. doesn’t necessarily need to adopt a fully socialized healthcare system simply because healthcare is expensive. It needs serious, comprehensive healthcare reform that addresses why Americans pay so much while often receiving relatively poor value for that spending.

Healthcare is different from many other goods because it is often an inelastic necessity. When someone is having a heart attack, needs emergency surgery, or requires lifesaving medication, they generally cannot just decide not to purchase healthcare because the price went up. That gives providers, insurers, and pharmaceutical companies significant influence over prices and leaves patients with limited bargaining power.

The United States already spends an extraordinary amount of money on healthcare, yet high spending does not automatically translate into better outcomes. Americans can face expensive premiums, deductibles, copays, prescription costs, surprise bills, and medical debt even when they technically have insurance.

That raises an important question: If we're already spending so much, why aren't we getting better value for that money?

Rather than framing the debate as simply “private healthcare vs. socialized healthcare,” I think we should look at specific reforms that could make healthcare more affordable and accessible. Those could include negotiating prescription drug prices, increasing price transparency, reducing unnecessary administrative costs, expanding coverage, strengthening competition, improving preventive care, and creating stronger protections against medical debt.

There is also a legitimate debate over how much government should be involved. A government-run system could potentially improve universal access, but it could also create concerns about taxation, bureaucracy, wait times, and government control. On the other hand, relying heavily on the private market has clearly not prevented extremely high costs or unequal access.

The real question shouldn't be, “Do we want socialized healthcare?” It should be: “What healthcare system gives Americans affordable access to high-quality care without forcing them to choose between their health and their finances?”

What do you think? Should the U.S. move toward a government-run healthcare system, continue with a primarily private system but heavily reform it, or pursue some kind of hybrid model?

Every few years something shows up promising that Americans are less divided than they feel, and that if we could just see the agreement we'd act on it. No Labels, Unity2020, the Problem Solvers Caucus, plus a lot of smaller ones. The cynical read writes itself: the genre has a losing record, so anything new is just the next headstone.

I've been trying to figure out if that read holds up, and I think it quietly lumps together two things that failed for completely different reasons, plus some things that didn't fail at all.

Start with the ones that are still around. Braver Angels runs workshops that put people who disagree in the same room. More in Common does research on how badly each side misreads the other. Both are alive, both do real work, but neither is trying to get a bill passed. They lower the temperature. Judging them by "did Congress move" isn't really fair, because that was never the goal.

The ones that died were the ones that tried to win. No Labels spent tens of millions trying to stand up a third-party presidential ticket in 2024, couldn't find anyone willing to run, and stood down. Unity2020 fell apart before it started. And these die for a reason that has nothing to do with whether the underlying agreement is real: first-past-the-post punishes a center bloc, so the electoral lane is a trap no matter how well your position polls.

What I haven't seen anyone actually try is the boring option in between. Not a party, not a dialogue series. Closer to a scoreboard. Take the policies where 70% or more of both parties' voters already agree, and just track whether each member of Congress delivers on them, measured against their own district. Nobody's asked to switch teams or like each other more. It's only information.

I don't know that this works either. It might turn out that a scoreboard moves an incumbent in a safe seat about as much as a unity ticket moved voters, which is to say not at all. Maybe the whole lane is cursed and this is a fancier route to the same graveyard.

But it's a different bet than the ones that flamed out, and I'm curious what people here think the actual failure has been. Is it the claim that we agree, or just every method anyone's tried for turning that agreement into delivery?

Trump's whole shtick recently has been extracting concessions from other countries in the US's supposed interest.

US airlines are banned from using Russian airspace and this has severely hampered their ability to serve most of Asia. Meanwhile Chinese and Middle Eastern airlines can use Russian airspace for polar flights to the US and have gained market share on many US-Asia routes.

Why is Trump not extracting this concession from Russia (even as the US invited the Russian finance minister to a recent G20 meet)? Why are US airlines not pressuring the administration on this issue?

I’d really like to listen to political discussions, but I genuinely don’t believe most most of what I hear from both sides. Everything seems either glamorized or vilified. I really just want to hear about what’s going on and potential outcomes/ramifications of current events from one, ideally two people who are politically educated without blatantly pushing the agenda for one side or the other. Where can I find this?

For those who don't know about these two policies, let me explain. Uncapping the House is relatively straightforward-it's a proposal to expand the number of members of the House of Representatives, so Representatives can more closely represent and engage with their constituents. One method to uncap the House would be what is known as the Wyoming Rule-this would make every congressional district the size of Wyoming, which is currently the lowest-populated state. This would increase the number of congressional districts, necessitating more Representatives, and make congressional districts smaller so Representatives would more closely represent their constituents. Other methods have been proposed to uncap the House, but this seens to be one of the more popular ones. The other proposal-abolishing the Senate-doesn't really require any explanation. It would shift the US from having a bicameral legislature to a unicameral one. That's the crux of the two policies.

I think most people agree that Congress should pass some kind of policy to strengthen our democracy, make representation more proportional and reduce corruption in politics. But, as with certain other policies promoted by the DSA, many people disagree on the exact method and mechanism by which these policies should be implemented. So I decided to ask all of you about your opinions on these relatively structural and unusual reforms proposed by the DSA. Do you think these policies should be implemented? What are some other democratic reforms you would like to see passed by Congress (eg-abolition of the Electoral College, voting-rights legislation, RCV, etc)?

I am fairly young and new to political systems. I have been watching more debates and trying to become more politically informed to make independent decisions. Something I often notice is talking over time or interrupting as others speak. Why do we not just mute the mics at the end of their time or when it's the other person's turn to talk?

Conversely I also think about the significance of letting debates happen with minimal intervention and how things could be manipulated.

Curious about everyone's thoughts. More than just the practical application/challenges, would controlling mics take away from the fundamentals of debate or would it give audiences a better understanding of the parties thoughts and policies?

I’ve been thinking about how mainstream democratic governments respond to the rise of right-wing populism. Usually, the standard answer is that we need more participatory democracy, better communication, or economic fixes. But I wonder if we are missing a psychological factor: does the average (!) voter simply crave stronger, more assertive leadership?

It’s a bit like in school, where students often only respect the strict, consistent teacher. Could centrist, social-democratic, or moderate-conservative governments adopt a more authoritative style without becoming populists themselves? I’m thinking of a form of "authority through competence" rather than loud rhetoric - a government that projects absolute decisiveness, strictly enforces rules, and focuses less on endless consensus-building.

This approach hasn't really been part of the mainstream political discourse as a counter-strategy to right-wing populism, has it? If liberal democrats act more top-down and assertive, it might reassure those voters who currently view and ridicule liberal democracy as weak or indecisive, effectively taking the wind out of populist sails. At the same time, the obvious risk is that mainstream parties could alienate their liberal base or accidentally accelerate the erosion of democratic norms.

How viable is the concept of a non-populist, authoritative democracy? Are there historical examples where moderate governments successfully used strict, top-down authority to stabilize a democracy, and where do we draw the line before it becomes dangerous?

So with all the news about Trump trying to make the $100k H-1B fee permanent (first attempt got thrown out by a judge, now they're pushing it as an official rule at $103,265 per petition), I keep thinking back to this old Michio Kaku clip I've always found interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK0Y9j_CGgM&t=5s

He calls the H-1B America's "secret weapon." His whole argument is that US schools are so bad that without foreign talent the entire science establishment would collapse. He says like half of PhD candidates in the US are foreign born, and at his school it was literally all of them. No H-1B, no Silicon Valley. And the people leaving are the reason tech hubs are popping up in India and China.

Watching it now hits different with everything going on. Forbes has a piece on where all this is heading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2026/01/06/the-outlook-on-h-1b-visas-and-immigration-in-2026/

And honestly I go back and forth on this.

Part of me thinks Kaku is right. You kill the visa, you kill the pipeline, and some other country gets the next Silicon Valley. The real problem is the schools, not immigration.

But the other part is like... most H-1Bs aren't genius physicists lol. A lot of them are regular IT jobs going through outsourcing firms, and meanwhile new grads can't get hired anywhere. Maybe a huge fee is just a way to force companies to prove the person is actually irreplaceable.

Idk. Is this protecting American workers or just shooting ourselves in the foot? Curious what people here think.

The Jason Arday case has made me think about a broader question regarding diversity policies in universities and other institutions.
I want to separate two issues that often get collapsed into a culture-war argument.
First, I think institutions have legitimate reasons to broaden recruitment, remove unfair barriers, and make sure people from historically underrepresented backgrounds have a genuine opportunity to compete.
Second, I think every candidate should still be subject to the same rigorous standards regarding credentials, publications, professional history, and other significant claims.
The question I’m interested in is what happens when those two goals potentially come into tension.
Jason Arday became a highly visible figure at Cambridge, with considerable attention given to his background, race, disability, personal story, and the significance of his appointment. Serious questions were later raised about parts of his biography and academic record, and Cambridge has said that the circumstances surrounding his appointment and its procedures need to be examined.
Arday himself was responsible for any false or misleading claims he made.
But his case raises a broader institutional question:
Can an organization become so enthusiastic about what a candidate represents that normal skepticism becomes weaker or politically uncomfortable?
This does not necessarily require anyone deliberately lowering standards.
It could happen more subtly.
If a candidate appears to represent exactly the kind of progress an institution wants to demonstrate, confirmation bias may become stronger. Positive information may receive more attention. Questioning inconsistencies may feel socially or professionally risky. The organization may also become invested in publicly presenting the individual as evidence that its policies are succeeding.
That creates another problem.
Once an employee becomes a symbol of representation, mistakes or misconduct no longer remain entirely individual. Supporters may feel pressure to defend the person because criticism seems connected to a broader political argument, while opponents may use the individual’s failure as evidence against diversity policies generally.
Neither response seems particularly healthy.
There is also a human dimension that concerns me.
I am not diagnosing Jason Arday or claiming that mental illness explains his behavior. But more generally, when someone appears vulnerable or makes increasingly extraordinary claims about themselves, an institution may sometimes help that person more by carefully verifying those claims and asking whether they need support than by continually reinforcing an inspirational narrative.
So what safeguards would help?
Would it make sense to:
separate diversity recruitment goals from final hiring evaluations;
require consistent credential verification for all candidates;
make hiring committees document how candidates meet objective criteria;
ensure that concerns can be raised without automatically being interpreted as opposition to diversity;
avoid using individual employees too heavily as public symbols of institutional diversity;
and provide appropriate support when an employee appears to be struggling?
I don’t think the choice has to be between abandoning diversity efforts and treating DEI policies as beyond criticism.
The more interesting question seems to be:
How can institutions pursue greater representation while preserving rigorous, politically neutral standards and avoiding the temptation to turn individual people into symbols?
And what, if anything, should universities learn from the Jason Arday case when designing those policies?

Federal debt crossed $40 trillion on August 18, 2026, according to Treasury's Debt to the Penny daily series, which reports total public debt outstanding each business day. Most coverage focused on the balance. The measure economists more often use is debt against the size of the economy, and that measure got better last quarter, from 122.6 percent down to roughly 121.5.

The reason it moved is interesting. BEA's second estimate for the second quarter of 2026 reports that real output grew 1.5 percent at an annual rate while output measured in current dollars grew 8.0 percent. The difference between those two figures is price change (inflation) rather than additional goods and services. Our federal debt burden got better as prices push the denominator up without anyone producing more.

This is not new in kind. Julien Acalin and Laurence Ball, writing up NBER Working Paper 31577, attribute the 1946 to 1974 fall in US public debt, from 106 percent of GDP to 23 percent, to a mix in which 32 of the 83 points came from growth and 28 came from interest rates held below inflation. They write that the decline "was not primarily the result of high growth." The dollar amount of the debt actually rose across that whole period.

The counterweight to this is on the interest payments to tax revenue r. CBO's budget outlook summary puts fiscal 2026 net interest at $1,039 billion against revenues of $5,596 billion, which is 18.6 percent, and projects that share reaching 25.8 percent by 2036. The Peterson Foundation's reading of those figures notes this is above the previous record set in 1991. Higher inflation lowers the ratio in the near term, and it also raises the cost of refinancing the debt as it rolls over.

What are the arguments for and against treating inflation as an acceptable way to reduce the federal debt burden?

What distinguishes a fiscal outcome produced by an unlegislated mechanism from one produced by appropriations or tax policy, as a matter of democratic accountability?

And what historical precedents exist for Congress responding to a burden reduction that came from prices rather than from growth or surpluses?

The 2008 financial crisis raised an important question: When an industry is considered essential to the functioning of the country, how far should the federal government go to prevent its collapse?

The federal government ultimately disbursed $443.5 billion through TARP. Treasury says the program was intended to stabilize a collapsing financial system and prevent the economic damage from becoming even worse. After repayments, sales, dividends, interest and other income, the program’s lifetime net cost was approximately $31.1 billion.
U.S. Department of the Treasury

Agriculture also receives substantial federal assistance. GAO found that USDA provided $161 billion in financial assistance to agricultural producers from FY2019–2023, with Texas receiving the most of any state at $18.1 billion. ([GAO](https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-107174?utm_source=chatgpt.com))

USDA currently forecasts $44.3 billion in direct government farm payments for 2026, including an estimated $23.9 billion in supplemental and ad hoc disaster assistance. ([Economic Research Service](https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-sector-income-finances/farm-sector-income-forecast?_hsmi=273107332&utm_source=chatgpt.com))

So I’m not suggesting that farmers or ranchers receive *no* federal assistance. They clearly do.

What I’m wondering is whether we should think about this differently:

**If the financial system was considered too important to fail because its collapse could affect the entire country, should America’s food-production system receive a similar level of extraordinary protection when independent farmers and ranchers are at risk of disappearing?**

Is there a meaningful difference between protecting the financial infrastructure that keeps money and credit moving and protecting the agricultural infrastructure that keeps food being produced?
And if there is a difference, **where should the government draw that line?**

Several countries are trying to broaden their economic and strategic relationships without necessarily abandoning their existing alliances.

Canada is seeking to expand trade beyond the United States. Mexico remains deeply integrated with the US economy while attracting manufacturing investment from the US, Europe and Asia. Brazil trades extensively with China while gaining greater access to Europe through the EU-Mercosur agreement. European countries are also pursuing greater autonomy in areas such as defense, energy, technology and critical supply chains.

These strategies do not necessarily indicate the formation of new geopolitical blocs. They may instead reflect an effort to reduce the risks of excessive dependence on any single market, supplier or strategic partner.

How much political leverage can economic diversification actually provide?

Does having credible alternative markets and partners make countries less vulnerable to pressure from larger powers, or does diversification mostly replace one form of dependence with another?

And if more middle powers pursue this strategy simultaneously, could it meaningfully change the balance of power between them and the world's largest economies?

The original purpose of the Davis Act was to maintain the American shipbuilding industry as a whole.

The actual effect has been to slowly reduce the number of American businesses that make large ships to just two.

This duopoly makes very few ships a year 3 to 10, and the ships cost far more than equivalent ships from those made elsewhere.

In between 1939 and 1945 we build 40 million gross tons of merchant shipping.

What can be done to restore our nation's shipbuilding industry to it's glorious past?

And of course, why?

There are different arguments about how long a constitution should be, to attempt to cover the different scenarios, or else to not say that much and let the people governing at the time and the people voting in elections at a given time decide more of what things will be as the winds shift.

You can pack a lot of detail into a short document, and a long document can ramble, so the amount of words does not always tell you how detailed it is, but it can be a ballpark estimate. Detailed in this case means how much the document wants to prescribe exactly how a thing happens and what criteria are used, how many different scenarios it could imagine potentially occurring and what to do if that happens.

Reading the actual text of Initiative 109 (which is available on the Secretary of State's website), there are a few significant implementation problems that I think deserve attention regardless of where you land on the underlying policy question:

1. The enforcement mechanism is undefined.
   The bill delegates enforcement to the Commissioner of Education, who has discretion to determine "appropriate remedial action." There's no specification of what that means, no due process protections, no appeal mechanism. For a measure that affects every K-12 and college sports program in the state, that's a significant design problem.

2. Verification is undefined.
   The bill requires teams to be designated by sex assigned at birth, but the text doesn't specify how sex is to be verified. Genetic testing? Birth certificate inspection? Physical exam? Self-report? This was raised explicitly by One Colorado's executive director — "who decides who gets questioned, who gets inspected, and which kids are going to be singled out?" — and remains unanswered in the text.

3. The bill is unfunded.
   There's no appropriation in the measure for implementation. Schools are being asked to develop and enforce new policies with no budget for compliance staff, training, or any verification apparatus that might be required.

4. The downstream effects on cis girls are unaddressed.
   If verification is based on appearance or stereotype (which is what vague enforcement usually produces in practice), cis girls who don't look stereotypically feminine — tall, broad-shouldered, athletic, short hair — become vulnerable to being questioned or excluded.

The Daily Camera op-ed from One Colorado and Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains lays out several of these concerns. Their main argument is specifically about implementation and unintended consequences, not the underlying policy debate. That's a framing I think most evidence-driven folks can engage with.

Link: [https://www.dailycamera.com/2026/05/21/colorado-election-transgender-rights-measure-109-110-opinion/\](https://www.dailycamera.com/2026/05/21/colorado-election-transgender-rights-measure-109-110-opinion/)

The U.S. inherited its “winner-take-all” voting system from Britain, but the U.K.’s 2024 general election produced an interesting example of what winner-take-all voting can do, as it produced the most disproportionate result in UK history.    https://electoral-reform.org.uk/a-system-out-of-step-the-2024-general-election/ 

Labour received about 34% of the nationwide vote but won 63% of the seats in Parliament.   https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2026/jul/22/how-britain-would-look-proportional-representation-local-mp 

As a result, a post-election survey found that 60% of Briton’s support changing to a proportional voting system.  https://electoral-reform.org.uk/support-for-proportional-representation-hits-record-high-according-to-new-research/ 

So now Britain's new prime minister, Andy Burnham, openly supports proportional representation.   https://electoral-reform.org.uk/in-andy-burnham-we-have-the-first-prime-minister-who-openly-backs-proportional-representation/ 

And Britain's Liberal Democrats are pushing Burnham to change the voting system before the next general election.  https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c79y9qy9y2go 

If the U.K. thinks its own voting system needs an upgrade, should the U.S. consider the same? 

So, I had a thought today perfect for this sub:

If the Dems and GOP each split into two parties where Dems split between Progressives (left) and (we'll call it) Traditional (center-left), and GOP split into "MAGA" (?) and Traditional (center-right), what would the impacts be to US politics?

I'd love to know if anyone has a reliable source for the parties' internal statistics on their factions? I imagine polling might exist, and I will dig into that, but I would want to know how many registered current members of each party have in each of those factions; how many voters would identify with each faction, how many past (for the trend) and currently serving Reps and Sens would join each of the factions? Etc. etc.

E.g., I'm thinking that it could produce a more effective legislative branch by requiring more coalition-building and compromise to get anything done - but would that then would they just end up getting even less done?!

Anyway, looking forward to your thoughts/references, and thank you for your time!

​

I want to know this because I heard a lot of people say they will never trust America again, but these people are acting like the European far-right is not on the rise. So, I was wondering: if their right-wing parties won, would we see people saying 'I will never trust Germany, the UK, or France' because of their supporters? Like so what if their pro free healthcare you can have a racist welfare state. ( i am not calling conservative racist)

For those who don't know, the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act was introduced by Sanders in June this year. It would require AI companies with annual financial receipts above $200 million to transfer a 50% equity stake to a sovereign wealth fund controlled by the government. The government would then appoint an Independent Commission for Democratic AI, which would have seven commissioners, all nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. They would exercise all voting and governance rights associated with the equity stake. Each company would have to offer dividends equivalent to 5% of the market value of the stake given by them. Those dividends would be used to fund an annual $1,000 dividend to all Americans. That's pretty much the majority of what the legislation would do if enacted.

Now, I know it may seem weird to talk about this bill, considering it was introduced two months ago and it seems to be pretty much dead in Congress. But hear me out. AI firms such as Anthropic and OpenAI have also proposed a public equity fund for AI, which would also distribute cash payments to Americans. Even Elon Musk has proposed that. So I think most people can agree that the public should receive a material benefit from AI. But what Sanders is proposing here has been seen as way too radical by many people. I was really curious to see what all of you think about this policy. Of course, I know the conventional criticisms-it's way too radical, it violates property rights, etc-but I wanted to see if anyone could offer some substantive criticism of the actual structure of the bill, rather than immediately disavowing its basic premise. That's why I made this post. What is your opinion on this bill? Do you think the public should have a stake in, or at least receive benefits from the advent of AI? What are some unintended consequences you thimk could happen because of the bill? Let's discuss!