I like were you are taking the conversation, Benjamin. See, you are a fantastic writer : - )
Humans have moved beyond the natural condition, for the natural condition for humans are groups normally the size of about 60 - 100 people, and by the time there are 125 the group splits apart.
The human brain developed an abstract level that allowed us to incorporate structures of far greater complexity, simply by 'letting go' of the specific details, making them less crucial. Using a different perspective, we are more tolerant of having complete strangers living with us in our natural environment.
We are natural creatures, but we did something animals likely do not do. The one experiment that comes to mind is of man-apes outperforming people in a task to click squares with numbers on a screen exactly as appeared before. The man-apes can do that in a perfect manner, whereas people make mistakes. Our brains do not follow each and every detail, so we have space left to consider other things.
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There is no single absolute model for democracy. Yet there are mediocre models and there are optimized models.
The Happiest nations in the world are all using some version of Thomas Jefferson's clean voting system. It optimizes happiness because it optimizes the voters' importance. Simply put, when valued, people are happier.
The UK and the USA make use of a divide-and-conquer aspect in their elections. It is elitist in essence. Voters are booted off the island (by other voters) and not only does this create a lower level of happiness, but a greater level of anxiety as well. With the winner-taking-all, the loss is an absolute loss and not a relative loss.
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I have to use the US Senate as example, and I believe I have shown this before.
Sixty percent of the voters pick the Senator, which means that 40% got nothing. This translates into the Red or the Blue Party winning control over the Senate when the right 30% of the voters pick these winners (half of 60% plus one vote/seat).
That means that 70% of the voters are not needed for the win.
In Sweden, 100% of the voters pick 100% of the representatives. The pie is cut up in pro-portion-al pieces. There are no losers, everyone gets a piece of the pie. The majority decision is 50% (plus one) of what the voters decided.
In the US, the majority decision is based on 30% (plus one) of what the voters decided.
Canada is lucky in that its system is less complex plus focused more on one prime political institution. Other aspects (French-speaking culture and folks stretched out across an enormously long border strip) enable diversification of the winners, this benefitting society as a whole.
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Germany shows us both why proportional voting is not good for large nations and how to get the beneficial aspects of proportional voting nevertheless in the results.
Interbellum Germany showed us how one-third of the population voted communist, one-third of the population voted fascist, and how in the center too many little parties could not hold that center. Instead of the example of Stalin, they went with the example of Mussolini -- it did not work out well.
After WW II, the Germans got the USA model but since it was not a fair system, they fixed it up to make it more fair. When California has 40 Senate districts and seats, for example, and the Green Party wins 10% of the votes, but no district, then seats are added to the Senate so 10% of the seats are for Green Party Senators. Goodbye gerrymandering, obsolete, truly unimportant how a district is shaped.
They calibrated the system to incorporate proportional outcomes, but they put a 5 percent threshold in place to not end up with too many (small) parties. Germany has the most experience with voting systems, and their latest version is pretty darn good for a large nation.
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Lastly, I will use the word fascist. I tend to not use it, but I felt better about it when Noam Chomsky used that term describing the USA more than once.
For me the word fascist means from a structural perspective that a single group is capable of dictating the direction for an entire nation. As such, I recognize communism as a fascist version of socialism. I know this sounds confusing, but fascism is for me the opposite of embracing diversity and instead moves forward with the agenda that fits one elitist group.
Viewed that way, we can see how the UK and the USA are more fascist than we ordinarily think they are. The UK dominance of the geo-economic world for three centuries is of course enough to show how fascist that nation was/is indeed. Their interest was nationalist in essence and not based on equality and embracing or valuing diversity.
The United States is very peculiar, because the Founding Fathers did study all kinds of government of the day and found examples in Switzerland and the Netherlands as (con)federations that established self-rule and to some extent tolerance. Yet where these nations were more or less limited to the size of small nations due to their governmental setup, the Framers inverted that model instead.
Where Switzerland and the Netherlands started from the bottom (cities/land, cantons/provinces, and the (con)federation), the US framework started with describing the national level first. They established a top-down level, yet they left much open so others would fill in what they wanted to fill in.
Where Switzerland and the Netherlands have/had 1, 2, 3, the United States has 3, 2 and then the magic trick by leaving out that 1 and instead replacing cities/land with "We the People". It was the only way to build a large nation.
It is brilliant. Except that the powers that be ran away with it. They turned it back into 3, 2, 1 because their brains did not recognize what the Founding Fathers had done. They inserted cities/land back into the game (controlled first at the State levels) and took specific control over cities/land via dictating how they had to function (how to hold elections).
That is the fascist aspect in the United States.
It is NOT at the Federal level, even though we see a restricted voting format. That was put in place because such a large nation needs a certain concentration of powers to remain a stable nation. It would not have survived otherwise.
It is at the State level that the fascist idea got a hold of power. Instead of following the text of the US Constitution, the States copied the behavior of the Federal level. They concentrated powers for State elections, plus they concentrated powers for local elections. The elite was totally fascist at the local level, not tolerating or valuing diversity but rather embraced that Egyptian pyramid at every opportunity. Not delivering us our pursuit of happiness that way; not valuing voters like they do in the Happiest nations.
I hope you see, Benjamin, why it is good to come down to the detailed level, because if we had spoken about American culture only, stayed with the generic concept, then we would not have seen the very important distinctions that play out at federal, State and local level, and how the three-leveled diktat pushes us toward Red and Blue only.
Where we should have had a full-colored outcome (at State and local levels), we ended up with fascist outcomes, even in the bluest cities of the US.
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I do have to make one more point because the fascist/nationalist nations that play divide-and-conquer end up being very strong in Red and Blue perspectives, and very weak in Yellow and Black perspectives (I hope you recognize the four colors of a color copier that can create full colored images).
By being very strong in Red and Blue, the other nations in the world are challenged because if they spend one dime on Yellow, or a quarter on Black, then they are outperformed by Red&Blue nations immediately. Investors will flock to Red&Blue nations because there will be greater returns coming their way when a nation does not have sidewalks, does not have bike lanes, does not have transit, does not spend lots of money on educating all, does not provide health insurance to all, does not support the homeless, does not regulate businesses to a normal level, does not have livable minimum wages, does not give voters the right to actual representation — just the chance to representation.
The USA is great if you are with the elite or within the lime light of what the elite desires. If you can, you can become a winner. But as a winner, you will either support the elite or become part of the elite. The game contains fascist aspects and suppresses wider aspirations.
The Land of the Free is for those that succeed. The rest is swept under the rug.
