How to fix America's broken political system?

I know.

To me the easiest to implement change that would have the most positive impact would be to greatly expand the size of the U.S. House of Representatives when redistricting is done after the 2020 census.

To at least 1,000 members, perhaps 2,000

This one thing would:

1) Greatly lower the number of people per House member which would
A) Make massive funding from lobbying groups less necessary
B) Encourage congressional candidates to engage in "retail campaigning" closer to their constituents.

2) Provide more opportunities for a greater variety of candidates with different viewpoints to be elected.

3) Decrease the power of the national parties in local elections.

4) Decrease the power of the national media to influence local elections.

And the thing is this doesn't require constitutional action at all. Congress can simply change the total number of Representatives.

The biggest problem is (literally) structural. Redesigning the House chamber to accommodate an extra 565 or 1,565 House members.

It could be done. Hell, they could dig the whole thing down a few stories and make it stadium seating or failing that rotate the people actually there and let the others teleconference in.

The thing is expanding the size of the U.S. House while one of the best ideas is probably one of the ones hardest to sell.

By and large Americans do not. like Congress (as a whole though they tend to be fond of their own congressman). It would be a considerable hard sell that the answer to disfunction in Congress is more congressman.

Which explains why you see so many Republicans who are keen on the idea. Even though the Senate is already naturally tilted in their favor, it's the only chamber on any level where they can't cheat their way to extra advantages, and that drives them crazy.

Step one: Construct a massive golden throne smack dab in the center of the country.

Step two: Grovel as I take my rightful place upon this throne.

Step three: Revel in the unprescedented prosperity I shall bring to my kingdom.

Just nuke the whole fucking thing.

Once the fallout has cleared we’ll send over another contingent of our fine European stock to start over.

Americaderci.

Sounds a bit Mexican for some'a y'all though.

You really want to be in Kansas though?
That F5 tornado's gonna home in on you as if you were a trailer park.

The golden throne shall not be a trailer.

It was a simile

ah, i misread, but still, threatening tornados shall be defeated by high explosives

It is kind of long but worth watching. I like what she is saying but I do wonder where her specific proposals are? Tell me exactly how you are going to break up the monopolies, which industries will you target first, and why. Yes, we all dislike the legalized bribery but how do you end It? Specifically.

If I had my way, I'd change the role of the Senate to be more like the House of Lords. Their approval wouldn't be required to pass legislation, but they would be able to make amendments and would hold a suspensive veto. The House would be elected by a proportional method like STV or MMP. Drop the presidency and have a prime minister instead so they'd have to be vetted by and accountable to their party.

I have zero interest in what those two have to say.

https://www.thenation.com/article/america-has-a-monopoly-problem-and-its-huge/

I do think the growth of monopoly power is a major driver of much of this country's problems. They are the ones who hire lobbyists and bribe politicians to write rules to protect their monopolies and prevent new competitors from forming. They are behind the lack of innovation, the decrease in productivity growth, inequality, and even depress wages in whole industries as there is little to no competition. They also are able to charge much higher margins thus hurting consumers.

This is one half of the problem with the other being money in politics (along with gerrymandering). You have to solve both of this problems.

You are really missing out when you refuse to even hear what the other side has to say. I dislike most Republican politicians but will listen to them even if in the end I disagree with what they said.

I don’t refuse to listen to arguments from the other side, just these two in particular, I can’t stand them.

Why? You said you never listen to them. Would it hurt you so badly to hear something?

I’ve listened to them in the past, anything short of socialism is what they want, I’m not interested in that.

Too many syllables?

Says the guy who runs away from any question or opinion he doesn't like.

Finally, something practical!

The cap on Reps is statutory, not Constitutional. Well, there is a Constitutional cap, but we could expand the House by a factor of 24 without running into it.

Yes, we have discussed that in the past here. Several of us supported removing the statutory limit as it really was just placed there because it would cost too much to remodel the house and we don't want to spend the money. If memory serves this was back in the WW1 era.

first and most importantly - publicly funded campaigns. A constitutional amendment that NO ONE can give ANYTHING to an office holder or candidate and that upon leaving office, they cannot work for any company or organization that has business before their office for a decade.

Take private money out of politics and it fixes MANY ills.

Socialism - as you suppose it to be - will never occur in the U.S. - or so far in the distant future as to be irrelevant to your concerns.

However, there's a lot of stuff that you would call "socialism" that are ideas entirely worthy of consideration.
We live in a mixed economy - we always will. It's a regulated capitalistic system mixed with targeted socialistic undertakings (such as public schools) - and it's perfectly reasonable to discuss what is the optimal balance of those elements.

But going "OMG SOCIALISM!!!!!" every time someone proposes, say, Medicare-for-All or some degree of free college is...unproductive and myopic.

it's not a bad idea but 1,000 or more is too high, unless you are willing to cross state lines. What you need to do is scale the number of people per rep to the population of the least populous state and re-figure with every census.

At the last Census, Wyoming had 563,767 counted. The country as a whole was slightly over 308 million. That divides close to 547 seats. Assuming you want an odd number of seats to avoid tie votes, and you want a sort of round figure for representation...
let us suppose that the set the base figure at 555,000 - that would produce, as it happens, 555 reps.
(If you went with 1,000 reps then you kind of unnecessarily have 2 reps from your smallest state and accelerate the pace of things getting out of hand)

So, in this example, California would have 67 seats instead of 53
#10 N.C. would have 17 instead of 13
#25 LA 8 instead of 6
AR and MS both get their 5th seat back
the last 4 stay at 1 seat apiece

Under this system, if we suppose that the next census finds 332m...and the scale is increased to 575,000...that would mean adding 22 seats.
So you'd need an arena and offices large enough to deal with the expansion every decade. Assuming that you could not implement this before the 2022 elections at the earliest that 577 would be your starting figure. so if you built for a potential capacity of, say, 800, you could go almost a century without getting crowded again.

(assuming the country lasts that long with a free government)

WRT post #57:

Your examples are more social democracy then socialism.

That's a mistake. The first story she tells is about a bi-partisan bill to make the hearing aid market freer. I think you'd be interested.