4 Comments
May 15, 2022Liked by Lindsay M. Chervinsky

My new goal is to directly quote your, "No one did petty like 18th-century Virginia cousins," into casual conversation, but that's beside the point for now. I really like the perspective you presented, and I think we could mitigate many of its negative effects through some reforms to our electoral system. Open primaries or rank choice voting could take some wind out of the sails of extremist politicians, though each comes with their own costs. More importantly, non-partisan commissions to draw congressional districts based on clear metrics and with a bias toward creating competitive districts that force politicians to adequately represent the wishes of their constituents. In short, create fair play rules to reduce the costs of politicians' human nature to citizens (an approach John Adams would likely have approved). The larger and more complex issue in my mind is how to mitigate the costs of Americans' tendency to binary thinking- lionizing 'their' politician and demonizing all others. I have no idea how to begin creating a culture and society that broadly values nuance and careful thinking over flashy judgments and us/them thinking.

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May 15, 2022Liked by Lindsay M. Chervinsky

The father of Poli Sci, Harold Lasswell more or less defined "politics" as "who gets what, when and how" . I'm a pragmatist so I agree with your thought provoking piece. However, I feel what is attempting to pass as just politics as we have known it, is now too often, really extreme ideological positions by many individuals in power who also have questionable temperaments and concerning ethics. We are confronted with demagoguery by many of them not just their politics. Yes they are only human and like all us influenced by our upbringing, personal experiences, education, etc but do so many of our elected and appointed officials have to be hardened ideologues constantly flirting with demagoguery? And more disturbing, what does it say about a country that elects them, and never holds them accountable?

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May 16, 2022Liked by Lindsay M. Chervinsky

I know it is easy for any of us to think current times are the worst something has ever been. but I feel like the game we play with nominations in today's time is creating problems that will be difficult at best to move back from. Making every Presidential election as do or die over Court nominations makes focusing on other issues nonexistent. With the Dred Scott case, we can see what a politically movitated decision can do to the country. The next 10-20 years could be interesting for historians to study, especially what seems to be our willingness to let a small number of politicans have great power over the rest of us when we talk about living in a democracy.

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May 15, 2022Liked by Lindsay M. Chervinsky

Of course the SCOTUS is a political entity. Otherwise, presidents wouldn’t be so ecstatic when they have a chance to nominate someone to the Court. Also, the fact that one need not be an attorney to sit on the Court says a great deal. Now that I mention this, perhaps lawyers should not be allowed to sit on the Court.

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