The Great Sort pretty much precludes this. I think there are about 30 Congressional districts that are truly competitive. It is probably worse when you are talking about things like city council districts. Ideological conformity leads naturally to one party rule. Creation of new parties or factions to the left for Democrats or to the right for Republicans seem to be the only way to break up the monopolies. However, the nationalization of elections makes this most difficult.
Not entirely. Look at cases where moderate Democrats beat far left Democrats in primaries. San Fransisco is a good example, the city Prosecutor and Mayor are both of the moderate variety after voters lost trust in far left woke governance.
Hate to rain on any one's hope's and I certainly may be wrong , but we spent 25 years in the Bay Area. No one should hold their breath for real change . SF homelessness, arrived en mass, when SF stopped enforcing drug laws. Dealers came in droves, knowing they would never be incarcerated . Drug supplies soared, prices dropped. Usage went thru the roof. Everything is more expensive in SF, but illicit drugs. The guide books do not include that fact, but addicts know.
The only way to truly impact homelessness, is to incarcerate dealers and mules, en mass, for long periods of time. Supplies would lessen, prices would rise and usage would drop, as drugs became more expensive. That will never happen. The drug trade in SF has been controlled by undocumented Hondurans for decades. The will never be arrested, let alone prosecuted with maximum charges.
SF Progressive leaders assume everyone from the drug manufacturers, to the mules to the dealers on the street, are victims of their government or ours. They would especially never prosecute them now, when a felony drug conviction is nearly a guarantee of deportation. Moreover, so many prisons have been closed in CA, there is , literally, no where to put them.
During Covid, far more people ODed in SF, than perished from the virus. No one seriously tried to curtail drug use. They handed out clean needles and sandwiches. When the city stops handing out clean needles, addicts do not leave cheap dope, they use dirty needles.
Pollsters told Newsom he can not successfully run for President having destroyed America's crown jewel city, SF and State, CA. He is arrogant enough to believe he can now snap his fingers and clean up the cesspool, decades in the making. Good Luck Gavin.
They were moderate only by local standards in SF and Seattle. But it is theoretically possible for the far left to be good government advocates. During Cold War days, the Italian Communist Party had a lot of success in local elections by making sure that the garbage was picked up and (ironically) making sure the trains ran on time. It remains to be seen whether those people in West coast cities can deliver. A common failing and one that the Seattle schools demonstrates is a lot of places spent the one-time COVID money from the Feds on continuing base items like pay raises for the unions thus creating a fiscal crisis.
Maybe the Italian Communists were able to win local elections because they had competitive pressure, so they knew they had to deliver local services well in order to stay in power. West Coast cities these days have almost no competitive pressure, and the voters are perplexed that the good and wise Progressives they vote for seem unable to deliver safe, clean streets and good schools.
Local success is the road to regional and national success. National success is the road to complacency, which leads to lax local standards. Then someone else gets a turn -- that is, if democratic elections are still permitted.
it took a long time - finally the pendulum starts swinging back. As I posted yesterday, even Newsom is 'seeing the light' & making it a crime to have homeless tent cities & making it legal to force mentally ill & drug dependents into mental health care vs jail. That's sounding like a republican!!
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, proposed in a budget plan released Wednesday to end free health insurance coverage for illegal immigrants. Under the proposals, illegal immigrants who are enrolled in Medi-Cal, the state-sponsored version of Medicaid, would be required to pay a $100 monthly premium in 2o27, and new enrollment from illegal immigrants would be frozen as soon as next year. “While fiscal headwinds require tough decisions right now, our commitment to access remains,” Newsom said in a statement from his office. California currently faces a likely budget deficit of $12 billion next year and the governor’s office projects that this proposal will save $5.4 billion by 2028-29.
Only some---SOME---of the "toxic brand" comes from poorly run cities. This is the latest Democrat "moderate" talking point, that if you just "fix" cities all will be well. NO.
The toxicity comes from absurd alignment with Hamas/Palestinians at universities & the unwillingness to get rid of them; from the heinous criminal attacks on Catholics and ordinary white Americans by the Biden administration that sought to criminalize being a Republican; from the uber woke trans-ism that now has the leading "female" softball player in CA who is a man; from the STILL unrepentant allegiance to illegal criminal invaders swamping the cities. There is NO change without doing a 180 on all those. Then you get to the green chains that are binding AI, which the Tech Bros love, and this is another fatal split. I count no fewer than three major civil wars in the Democrat party, none of which (IMHO) are fixable. But overall, the "toxicity" appears because in each of these instances, Democrats are poised against the American people based on any poll you want to look at.
This discussion misses a critical point: these urban areas are governed not just by political machines but specifically by black political machines, even when black voters are in a minority. This is entrenched due to the civil rights act, which has been interpreted as requiring overwhelming racial majorities in those urban districts. As a consequence, none of those politicians actually face elections, they are effectively appointed in an inside game. Those politicians are the linchpin of the Democratic coalition, they are strong and cohesive and effectively control the House in any Democratic administration. (Consider how James Clyburn selected the party’s presidential nominee and exacted as his price the selection of a Supreme Court nominee). The Democratic party will not reform itself out of this. The only path is for the Republicans to put together a serious platform and organization to address urban issues and get the urban voters they have abandoned. Also not likely, but less unlikely than the other.
Today's article is 'spot on'!! As a conservative R, I will always look at urban, D controlled areas & say, nope, not for me. Then 'they', so many blue areas moving to the red areas, move to 'my' area & want to bring their politics w/ them???? There's a saying here: "Don't be a Dick!!!"
Why do you think that government exists to serve the needs of the governed? That's just theory. In practice, government exists to perpetuate the sinecures of the members of government. On the rare occasions that someone gets elected who actually wants to serve the needs of the voters, they get organized opposition from all of the interest groups that parasitically live off the existing system, from elected officials to bureaucrats to recipients of government largesse. These people have well-established organizational structures and are usually very capable of steamrolling the majority of voters who will benefit from the reforms they voted for but aren't organized to advocate for those reforms.
Incidentally, ranked-choice voting and "jungle primaries" are terrible ideas in practice. They almost always let the people on one side of the policy debate to game the system to keep electing their candidates. They rob the electorate of an opportunity to choose between two clear policy alternatives that they traditionally get with party primaries and plurality voting with runoffs to establish a real majority choice.
Nice cities like other countries would be nice, but the places Dems fall short is more on the national agenda for me anyway.
Supposedly the party of the little guy, they've left that all behind, and any new program is always either a welfare type gift that loses most money via administration, or else an outright pander to the upper middle class which is what we now call millionaires.
Upward mobility has been stymied. Look at the medicaid they're now fighting over. You either stay poor, and earn little, or you and your kids lose your health care. Some choice. Then there is a big skip, nothing for the second or third quintile, and student loan forgiveness for the fourth, and Teslas, mini split AC, and then SALT deductions for the fourth on up into the wealthy folks.
Yes our cities suck, and I guess voters in those cities are not happy, but there is a comprehension divide. Did you listen to Ezra's interview with Marie Gluesenkamp Perez? Mr. Abundance Klein couldn't even imagine why someone would rather chew barbed wire than live in one of our cities. Huge comprehension gap on Ezra Klein's part.
Ten years in a competitive manufacturing company (the education of a lifetime) taught me to see both sides of labor unions in the private sector. In the public sector, I believe unions should be prohibited. Why?
Because in the private sector, if unions obtain too much power and enforce outsized demands, the business will go to other providers - within the nation or outside the nation. In other words, actions are somewhat self-correcting.
In the public sector, there is no self correction mechanism. If unions in government entities garner too much power and receive outsized benefits, there is no competitor based self-correction mechanism.
This has the same effect as the single party governance discussed in the article above.
Does a free electorate have the understanding and vision to correct this? Inquiring minds want to know.
Spot on. Single party rule and monopolies are the road to ruin. 2 out of 3 kids in US public schools cannot perform at grade level. Try to imagine any other facet of life where Americans would tolerate a 66% failure rate. No MD, DDS, restaurant, auto mechanic, dry cleaner or dog groomer would stay in business long with that failure rate. Yet our educational monopoly, has produced that rate of failure in the public schools of the wealthiest nation, the world has ever known. The situation is slow national suicide. Yet, an entire political party is dedicated to maintaining the status quo.
I think much of the explanation is that we have created too many "little self-important Gods" stuffing too many people through the higher learning woodchipper who then come out the other side full of rhetorical ammunition driving their elitism expectations for being an "expert" but without any real productive job skills.
Just look at it.
Donald Trump who has built a business empire that employs 25,000 people, and AOC, the new darling Presidential candidate for the Democrats, that knows how to mix a drink and can tell you how to apply your makeup.
'One-party municipal rule leads to poor services, corruption, and dejected electorates.' My reaction, "no shit Charlie Brown". But we here in Modesto CA, city of about 200K, we don't have the R and D labels; we have to guess. Unfortunately the city is set up as a charter city. All the real estate taxes are collected by the county and most is sent to the state which in turn doles it out to the cities and Modesto gets a very small percentage back. Most goes to SF and LA because their legislators have the power vs the rurals. So we voted in a sales tax a few years ago to help maintain streets and our city forest. In the past sales tax increases never achieved what they were supposed to do. This last one has worked, but the city is so far behind in maintenance it will never catch up. But at least it is working. We also passed another bond issue for the city schools which in its literature showed black mold, crumbling walls and bathroom problems. Each school has a janitor but they can't nip the problems in the bud because they don't have the ability and they are not allowed to because that work has to be bid out to subcontractors and the district won't spend the money. So there are myriad problems easily solve but go undone until it's a crisis. problem with most governments.
The state is a one party rule that spends money on everything but infrastructure. Not sure a Republican governor will be able to do any better. We need a DOGE. Love to see Musk take the state on. Also a major problem here is voter apathy. With over 50$ of living units being rentals, it's hard to generate much political enthusiasm as much as we try.
Ranked choice voting is increasingly being used for city elections in the United States. It is most concentrated on the West Coast, including Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Oakland.
Many large U.S. cities hold non-partisan elections, particularly for mayoral and city council positions. This means that candidates' party affiliations are not listed on the ballot.
The intent of non-partisan elections is often to focus on local issues and individual candidate qualifications, rather than national party politics.
In red and purple areas, stronger unions would also help. There are pros and cons to antitrust, but more active competition between labor and management would be good for all of us.
This is a scatter-shot column having as its premise that "one party rule" is unhealthy.
Agreed ---- less clear is how to fix it.
Precinct by precinct is the answer.
The "abundance movement" is touted.
It is really not that complicated: Pass the laws you want, implement the policies, but don't screw yourself by writing "rules" that make it burdensome to take action because you are paranoid that "the bad guys" might use them to further their own interests.
And if they do....sue.
And the lawsuits stop you from doing what you want too.
The Great Sort pretty much precludes this. I think there are about 30 Congressional districts that are truly competitive. It is probably worse when you are talking about things like city council districts. Ideological conformity leads naturally to one party rule. Creation of new parties or factions to the left for Democrats or to the right for Republicans seem to be the only way to break up the monopolies. However, the nationalization of elections makes this most difficult.
Not entirely. Look at cases where moderate Democrats beat far left Democrats in primaries. San Fransisco is a good example, the city Prosecutor and Mayor are both of the moderate variety after voters lost trust in far left woke governance.
Hate to rain on any one's hope's and I certainly may be wrong , but we spent 25 years in the Bay Area. No one should hold their breath for real change . SF homelessness, arrived en mass, when SF stopped enforcing drug laws. Dealers came in droves, knowing they would never be incarcerated . Drug supplies soared, prices dropped. Usage went thru the roof. Everything is more expensive in SF, but illicit drugs. The guide books do not include that fact, but addicts know.
The only way to truly impact homelessness, is to incarcerate dealers and mules, en mass, for long periods of time. Supplies would lessen, prices would rise and usage would drop, as drugs became more expensive. That will never happen. The drug trade in SF has been controlled by undocumented Hondurans for decades. The will never be arrested, let alone prosecuted with maximum charges.
SF Progressive leaders assume everyone from the drug manufacturers, to the mules to the dealers on the street, are victims of their government or ours. They would especially never prosecute them now, when a felony drug conviction is nearly a guarantee of deportation. Moreover, so many prisons have been closed in CA, there is , literally, no where to put them.
During Covid, far more people ODed in SF, than perished from the virus. No one seriously tried to curtail drug use. They handed out clean needles and sandwiches. When the city stops handing out clean needles, addicts do not leave cheap dope, they use dirty needles.
Pollsters told Newsom he can not successfully run for President having destroyed America's crown jewel city, SF and State, CA. He is arrogant enough to believe he can now snap his fingers and clean up the cesspool, decades in the making. Good Luck Gavin.
They were moderate only by local standards in SF and Seattle. But it is theoretically possible for the far left to be good government advocates. During Cold War days, the Italian Communist Party had a lot of success in local elections by making sure that the garbage was picked up and (ironically) making sure the trains ran on time. It remains to be seen whether those people in West coast cities can deliver. A common failing and one that the Seattle schools demonstrates is a lot of places spent the one-time COVID money from the Feds on continuing base items like pay raises for the unions thus creating a fiscal crisis.
Maybe the Italian Communists were able to win local elections because they had competitive pressure, so they knew they had to deliver local services well in order to stay in power. West Coast cities these days have almost no competitive pressure, and the voters are perplexed that the good and wise Progressives they vote for seem unable to deliver safe, clean streets and good schools.
Perhaps but Italy's uniparty, funded by the CIA, was interested in national politics.
Local success is the road to regional and national success. National success is the road to complacency, which leads to lax local standards. Then someone else gets a turn -- that is, if democratic elections are still permitted.
it took a long time - finally the pendulum starts swinging back. As I posted yesterday, even Newsom is 'seeing the light' & making it a crime to have homeless tent cities & making it legal to force mentally ill & drug dependents into mental health care vs jail. That's sounding like a republican!!
He doesn't mean it. He says it because he thinks it polls well. If he meant it, he would have been doing it the past five years.
I agree however it has to be said & heard & I do believe the citizens are backing this
I hope that voters will choose a real Republican over Newsom's ersatz version.
hahaha - maybe Newsom will switch parties:
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, proposed in a budget plan released Wednesday to end free health insurance coverage for illegal immigrants. Under the proposals, illegal immigrants who are enrolled in Medi-Cal, the state-sponsored version of Medicaid, would be required to pay a $100 monthly premium in 2o27, and new enrollment from illegal immigrants would be frozen as soon as next year. “While fiscal headwinds require tough decisions right now, our commitment to access remains,” Newsom said in a statement from his office. California currently faces a likely budget deficit of $12 billion next year and the governor’s office projects that this proposal will save $5.4 billion by 2028-29.
I will add, as you say he's saying it because it polls well & he wants to run for POTUS
Only some---SOME---of the "toxic brand" comes from poorly run cities. This is the latest Democrat "moderate" talking point, that if you just "fix" cities all will be well. NO.
The toxicity comes from absurd alignment with Hamas/Palestinians at universities & the unwillingness to get rid of them; from the heinous criminal attacks on Catholics and ordinary white Americans by the Biden administration that sought to criminalize being a Republican; from the uber woke trans-ism that now has the leading "female" softball player in CA who is a man; from the STILL unrepentant allegiance to illegal criminal invaders swamping the cities. There is NO change without doing a 180 on all those. Then you get to the green chains that are binding AI, which the Tech Bros love, and this is another fatal split. I count no fewer than three major civil wars in the Democrat party, none of which (IMHO) are fixable. But overall, the "toxicity" appears because in each of these instances, Democrats are poised against the American people based on any poll you want to look at.
This discussion misses a critical point: these urban areas are governed not just by political machines but specifically by black political machines, even when black voters are in a minority. This is entrenched due to the civil rights act, which has been interpreted as requiring overwhelming racial majorities in those urban districts. As a consequence, none of those politicians actually face elections, they are effectively appointed in an inside game. Those politicians are the linchpin of the Democratic coalition, they are strong and cohesive and effectively control the House in any Democratic administration. (Consider how James Clyburn selected the party’s presidential nominee and exacted as his price the selection of a Supreme Court nominee). The Democratic party will not reform itself out of this. The only path is for the Republicans to put together a serious platform and organization to address urban issues and get the urban voters they have abandoned. Also not likely, but less unlikely than the other.
that's exactly how I thought Obama was initially elected in Illinois
And Hakeem Jeffries
Today's article is 'spot on'!! As a conservative R, I will always look at urban, D controlled areas & say, nope, not for me. Then 'they', so many blue areas moving to the red areas, move to 'my' area & want to bring their politics w/ them???? There's a saying here: "Don't be a Dick!!!"
Why do you think that government exists to serve the needs of the governed? That's just theory. In practice, government exists to perpetuate the sinecures of the members of government. On the rare occasions that someone gets elected who actually wants to serve the needs of the voters, they get organized opposition from all of the interest groups that parasitically live off the existing system, from elected officials to bureaucrats to recipients of government largesse. These people have well-established organizational structures and are usually very capable of steamrolling the majority of voters who will benefit from the reforms they voted for but aren't organized to advocate for those reforms.
Incidentally, ranked-choice voting and "jungle primaries" are terrible ideas in practice. They almost always let the people on one side of the policy debate to game the system to keep electing their candidates. They rob the electorate of an opportunity to choose between two clear policy alternatives that they traditionally get with party primaries and plurality voting with runoffs to establish a real majority choice.
Nice cities like other countries would be nice, but the places Dems fall short is more on the national agenda for me anyway.
Supposedly the party of the little guy, they've left that all behind, and any new program is always either a welfare type gift that loses most money via administration, or else an outright pander to the upper middle class which is what we now call millionaires.
Upward mobility has been stymied. Look at the medicaid they're now fighting over. You either stay poor, and earn little, or you and your kids lose your health care. Some choice. Then there is a big skip, nothing for the second or third quintile, and student loan forgiveness for the fourth, and Teslas, mini split AC, and then SALT deductions for the fourth on up into the wealthy folks.
Yes our cities suck, and I guess voters in those cities are not happy, but there is a comprehension divide. Did you listen to Ezra's interview with Marie Gluesenkamp Perez? Mr. Abundance Klein couldn't even imagine why someone would rather chew barbed wire than live in one of our cities. Huge comprehension gap on Ezra Klein's part.
Ten years in a competitive manufacturing company (the education of a lifetime) taught me to see both sides of labor unions in the private sector. In the public sector, I believe unions should be prohibited. Why?
Because in the private sector, if unions obtain too much power and enforce outsized demands, the business will go to other providers - within the nation or outside the nation. In other words, actions are somewhat self-correcting.
In the public sector, there is no self correction mechanism. If unions in government entities garner too much power and receive outsized benefits, there is no competitor based self-correction mechanism.
This has the same effect as the single party governance discussed in the article above.
Does a free electorate have the understanding and vision to correct this? Inquiring minds want to know.
The most common way that political parties build moats around their electorates is through gerrymandering.
Spot on. Single party rule and monopolies are the road to ruin. 2 out of 3 kids in US public schools cannot perform at grade level. Try to imagine any other facet of life where Americans would tolerate a 66% failure rate. No MD, DDS, restaurant, auto mechanic, dry cleaner or dog groomer would stay in business long with that failure rate. Yet our educational monopoly, has produced that rate of failure in the public schools of the wealthiest nation, the world has ever known. The situation is slow national suicide. Yet, an entire political party is dedicated to maintaining the status quo.
I think much of the explanation is that we have created too many "little self-important Gods" stuffing too many people through the higher learning woodchipper who then come out the other side full of rhetorical ammunition driving their elitism expectations for being an "expert" but without any real productive job skills.
Just look at it.
Donald Trump who has built a business empire that employs 25,000 people, and AOC, the new darling Presidential candidate for the Democrats, that knows how to mix a drink and can tell you how to apply your makeup.
I think this is maybe advocating for a tiger to change its stripes.
'One-party municipal rule leads to poor services, corruption, and dejected electorates.' My reaction, "no shit Charlie Brown". But we here in Modesto CA, city of about 200K, we don't have the R and D labels; we have to guess. Unfortunately the city is set up as a charter city. All the real estate taxes are collected by the county and most is sent to the state which in turn doles it out to the cities and Modesto gets a very small percentage back. Most goes to SF and LA because their legislators have the power vs the rurals. So we voted in a sales tax a few years ago to help maintain streets and our city forest. In the past sales tax increases never achieved what they were supposed to do. This last one has worked, but the city is so far behind in maintenance it will never catch up. But at least it is working. We also passed another bond issue for the city schools which in its literature showed black mold, crumbling walls and bathroom problems. Each school has a janitor but they can't nip the problems in the bud because they don't have the ability and they are not allowed to because that work has to be bid out to subcontractors and the district won't spend the money. So there are myriad problems easily solve but go undone until it's a crisis. problem with most governments.
The state is a one party rule that spends money on everything but infrastructure. Not sure a Republican governor will be able to do any better. We need a DOGE. Love to see Musk take the state on. Also a major problem here is voter apathy. With over 50$ of living units being rentals, it's hard to generate much political enthusiasm as much as we try.
Ranked choice voting is increasingly being used for city elections in the United States. It is most concentrated on the West Coast, including Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Oakland.
Many large U.S. cities hold non-partisan elections, particularly for mayoral and city council positions. This means that candidates' party affiliations are not listed on the ballot.
The intent of non-partisan elections is often to focus on local issues and individual candidate qualifications, rather than national party politics.
In red and purple areas, stronger unions would also help. There are pros and cons to antitrust, but more active competition between labor and management would be good for all of us.
As long as they are private sector unions. Plenty of public sector unions in red areas and as FDR said they are toxic.
as Richard said, private only. NO TEACHER'S unions, ie.
This is a scatter-shot column having as its premise that "one party rule" is unhealthy.
Agreed ---- less clear is how to fix it.
Precinct by precinct is the answer.
The "abundance movement" is touted.
It is really not that complicated: Pass the laws you want, implement the policies, but don't screw yourself by writing "rules" that make it burdensome to take action because you are paranoid that "the bad guys" might use them to further their own interests.
And if they do....sue.
And the lawsuits stop you from doing what you want too.
Ugh! What's a good populist to do!