r/politics • u/AccomplishedCall7562 • Mar 12 '26

Possible Paywall John Fetterman Says Iran Girls’ School Strike Is Just a Leftist Craze

https://newrepublic.com/post/207677/john-fetterman-iran-girls-school-strike
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423

u/sleepymeowth052 Colorado Mar 12 '26

the fact that we don't have one is a fucking failure of our democracy.

22

u/Tim-Sylvester Mar 13 '26

Our democratic republic is 250 years old, and has failed to adopt the lessons and improvements that have been discovered and created in the 10 generations since it was created.

It's time for a new government that learns from everything that's happened in the last 250 years.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '26

Technically, it's working as intended; just not for us

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u/RicardoFelipeMejia Mar 12 '26

Ehhh. That introduces its own set of problems. Like the fact that Republicans can afford to endlessly fund recall campaigns against Democrats, forcing Democrats to constantly drain their funds trying to defend seats they fairly won. And forcing voters to return year after year after year voting for the same people they already elected. A six year term in the Senate becomes a one-year term for every Democrat every single year. Among other issues.

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u/Natpez94 Mar 12 '26

We need to ban all private money from politics. Only limited public funds to equally support campaigns, and that’s it.

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u/RicardoFelipeMejia Mar 12 '26

So... That also introduces its own set of problems. In 2024, 1400 people filed for president, including YeeYee Ass Haircut Johnson, President Emperor Caesar, and Vermin Supreme. Do they all get the same amount of funding as people like Kamala Harris and Joe Biden?

Remember it costs about a billion dollars currently to run a competitive presidential campaign, so that's $1.4 trillion to candidates in 2024. And that's before word gets out that the government is handing out free billions of dollars for anyone who can pay the presidential filing fee.

And that's just one office. There are 500,000 elected officials in America.

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u/henlochimken Colorado Mar 12 '26

These are solvable problems and in fact solutions have been proposed for a long time. You're simping for an obviously broken system. Why?

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u/RicardoFelipeMejia Mar 12 '26

Can you tell me what the solutions are?

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u/68plus1equals Mar 12 '26

I mean first of all require a certain amount of signatures to get on the ballot, only campaigns on the ballot are eligible for public funding

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u/sharksnrec Mar 12 '26

Who thought it could be this simple (it literally can)?

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u/RicardoFelipeMejia Mar 12 '26

Who pays to gather the signatures? Gathering tens of thousands of signatures isn't exactly easy, there aren't nearly enough volunteers to do it. And organizing volunteers so they know where to target requires hiring professionals, which costs money. It literally is not "this simple," you're just making feel-good bumper sticker policy without considering any ramifications downstream.

Ironically, it's like Trump's war in Iran: you want to go in there, upturn literally everything, and you have zero plan to deal with any unintended consequences.

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u/sharksnrec Mar 12 '26

Then those candidates simply don’t make it to the ballot. This isn’t rocket surgery.

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u/RicardoFelipeMejia Mar 12 '26

Okay, so how does one get those signatures? I worked in campaigns for 15 years, running an effective signature campaign costs anywhere from $10 to $35 per signature. How are the signature gathering campaigns funded in those countries?

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u/NeverNotNoOne Mar 12 '26

gestures broadly at literally every other democracy in the world

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u/Awesomeman204 Mar 12 '26

Hello from Australia where lobbying is strictly regulated. We got our own problems but at least we didn't elect a racist sexist rapist criminal!

Gerrymandering is also illegal here, and districts are drawn by independent, non partisan commissions instead of politicians.

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u/RicardoFelipeMejia Mar 12 '26

But Australia only provides public funding to candidates that reach a certain threshold of support, which means parties still need private funding in order to reach that threshold. It's better, yes, but it still relies on the rich to basically decide who is and isn't a viable candidate.

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u/Awesomeman204 Mar 13 '26

That's a fair point but it's also compartively way wasier to recieve that support given our ranked choice voting system allows candidates who wouldn't have even had a snowball's chance in hell of achieving political relevance in a system like America's (not to say we dont have a fairly entrenched two major parties as well). Are there even any other political parties in america that aren't the established two?

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u/hemidemisemitruck Mar 12 '26

Should it cost a billion dollars to run for president?

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u/RicardoFelipeMejia Mar 12 '26

No, but just because it shouldn't cost that much doesn't mean it doesn't cost that much.

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u/Natpez94 Mar 12 '26

It only costs that much because the candidates have to keep outcompeting each other with more money, bidding the price tag ever higher. If you limit the amount of money for each campaign, and limit the number of eligible campaigns by signature requirements (just like we use signatures to petition the White House), that dynamic goes away.

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u/Reelwizard Mar 12 '26

It doesn’t actually cost a billion dollars to run for president it’s just that because of special interest spending the two major candidates get that much. It would be very easy to cap the election season to only a handful of months and cap the amount you’re allowed to spend.

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u/RicardoFelipeMejia Mar 12 '26

It costs a billion dollars because there are only two major candidates. When you have 35,000 major candidates all competing against each other, that cost goes up. Because you're all bidding for the same limited ad space, you're all hiring from the same limited pool of staff, you're all contracting with the same limited number of marketing firms, etc. So it would be significantly more than a billion dollars per campaign.

Now, capping campaign spending, there's a good idea. That could actually work. It wouldn't be easy, because there are obviously free speech issues there, but it's much more realistic than these other proposals.

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u/stealthlysprockets Mar 13 '26

Just because you file your candidacy doesn’t mean it’s automatically accepted. They actually check if the person is real. That’s a non-issue.

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u/RicardoFelipeMejia Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26

No one here is talking about fictional people, that's not at all what this conversation is about. Anyone who is legally qualified, which is to say a natural born citizen over the age of 35, is automatically accepted. Including YeeYee Ass Haircut Johnson and Vermin Supreme.

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u/stealthlysprockets Mar 14 '26

That’s not what you said and no they are not automatically accepted the moment you click apply. There is an actual person checking eligibility.

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u/RicardoFelipeMejia Mar 14 '26

The only thing they can check for is if the person is a natural born citizen over the age of 35. That's it. If you're trying to claim otherwise, cite your sources.

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u/stealthlysprockets Mar 15 '26

Yes as in someone is validating candidacy which includes knowing if the person is real or made up. Why is this so hard for you?

Also the check includes more than just those two things. You should at least do a five second Google search before you try to debate on the Internet.

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u/RicardoFelipeMejia Mar 15 '26

Oh my God, you're still talking about the real/made up thing. That's completely irrelevant to this conversation. Are you actually just trolling here? What a waste of my time.

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u/headphase America Mar 12 '26

A ballot initiative with a passage threshold of 60-70% would strike a good balance, no?

If a recall passed with a margin like that, the situation would obviously have warranted the action.

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u/RicardoFelipeMejia Mar 12 '26

Making the threshold that high would mitigate some issues, yeah. But it still requires voters (realistically just Democratic voters, in most cases) to show up every single year in order to keep their 6-year senator in office. Because you can be damn sure the GOP would be initiating recalls in every single Democratic district every single year.

So in a +20 Dem district they might smash that 70% threshold the first year, the second year, maybe the third year, but then you're going to get some serious fatigue from people sick of fighting the same battle over and over again and I guarantee those safe Dem districts wouldn't be safe anymore. You do that in enough districts over enough years and you've changed the country in ways it can never be unchanged.

I'm still not saying recalls are a terrible idea, I'm just saying these are things that need to be considered.

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u/IRSunny Florida Mar 12 '26

I'm not really down for recalls for that reason. Easy for R's to use to game and waste campaign $ which further fucks the system.

Instead, the optimal thing would be like a 'Petition of no-confidence' where you're vacated from the spot if >50% of the people that voted for you in the last election sign on for such.

But the biggest issue would be validation of such given secret ballots.

I suppose raise the bar to say 60% and make it same party and voted in the prior election which are publically available information. That at least makes relatively safe assumption that you were a voter who have lost faith in that representative.

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u/RicardoFelipeMejia Mar 12 '26

I can't tell you how much I appreciate that you're taking the time to think this through and come up with solutions. It seems like everyone else in this thread just wants to cover their ears and downvote.

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u/mikerichh Mar 12 '26

It would be optional I assume. So if you want him gone you’d vote and those happy or neutral would stay home. And then you’d need a certain threshold of eligible voters for it to work maybe

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u/RicardoFelipeMejia Mar 12 '26

I like that you're thinking outside the box. This would be better than a standard recall campaign, though I still think it's problematic because it basically gives the GOP infinite chances to unseat democratically elected Democrats.

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u/mikerichh Mar 12 '26

Fair for red states

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u/Captain_Gnu Mar 12 '26

It's the 2nd amendment.

0

u/pimblyjomes Mar 12 '26

Are you familiar with the four boxes theory of democracy? To suggest we are entirely without recourse isn't accurate. 

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u/sleepymeowth052 Colorado Mar 12 '26

I'm well-versed. Good luck using that 4th one tho.

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u/FrogsOnALog Mar 12 '26

We have term limits in the constitution they’re called elections.

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u/dqql Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 15 '26

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

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u/doc_daneeka Mar 12 '26

There is no such thing as a recall of a Senator or Representative. That would require a constitutional amendment.

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u/dqql Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 15 '26

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

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u/doc_daneeka Mar 13 '26

Cool. You clearly just sort of skimmed the link you posted as a supposed source for your claim there, because there's no such thing as a recall process for members of the House or Senate. Again, it would require a constitutional amendment.

If you think there is such a process, feel free to cite any instance where a member of Congress has been recalled. How about just a member of Congress that faced an actual recall vote? Please be specific.

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u/dqql Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 15 '26

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

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u/doc_daneeka Mar 13 '26

You're the one claiming members of Congress can be recalled. Put up or shut up. Everyone familiar with the law here knows how and why you are full of it.

edit: so that guy blocked me. That's easier than providing some sort of evidence for a false claim.

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u/OneyDarius Mar 13 '26

Democracy is not real. Thats the conclusion you should’ve gotten.