Citizen's Guide to Civics

I hope people understand that campaign finance/election reform is one of the biggest (the biggest in my opinion) issues of our time. If you've ever said they're all the same or my vote doesn't matter, and so on, without falling into false-equivalence—you're partly* right, and it's because of this.

*^{See my edit below addressing this asterisk}

There's a lot we could do in the realm of campaign finance/election reform, but the most ideal goals are:

• Reversal of Citizens United v. FEC (Corporations/Unions can donate) and SpeechNow v. FEC (these entities can donate unlimited amounts, effectively crippling the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, a.k.a McCain-Feingold Act) and redefining Buckley v. Valeo (Set no limit on campaign expenditures, setting a precedent to throw equality of political speech out and equating money with free-speech).

• Publicly funded elections to level the playing-field and not limit our pool of candidates to those who have deep pockets or friends with deep-pockets.

• Transition to an alternative voting system (such as IRV or Approval voting—both of which are far superior to FPTP). This allows for (1) independent tickets to run without running the risk of spoiling your vote (splitting tickets and ending up with your least-preferable candidate), (2) the victor has the largest possible majority, and (3) reduces the odds that a Gore v. Bush will repeat and someone without the popular vote will be elected. Countries like France and states like Maine employ this to great success.

• Abolition of the Electoral College

Finally, there is also the issue of gerrymandering. For addressing Gerrymandering, the most promising solution is a technical one. Computer algorithms can independently re-district locations as fairly and naturally as possible under the circumstances, all the while being overseen by an independent bipartisan committee who would intervene in exceptional cases or shortcomings of the software's redistricting algorithm.

Campaign finance/election reform also has bipartisan appeal among voters. When you look at the problems the right and left both have with government, the common denominator is money and a lack of representation. In fact, this is the easiest topic to bring people on opposite ends of the spectrum together at the same table. No other single issue transcends almost every other national issue in the U.S. Bear in mind that I am referring to the average electorate—not party officials.

Say what you will about former democratic candidate Lawrence Lessig (who? you might ask), but he was right to put his sole weight on this issue. We need more candidates willing to put this issue front & center.

So why is the system so broken and why is it so hard to change?

Big money tends to disproportionately help Republicans. As a result, they favor lax campaign finance laws. Gerrymandering is used by both parties for different reasons, but ultimately to diminish the effective representation of their opponents while artificially bolstering their own. This is counter to the interests of the American people as a whole, and serves to muddy the waters of discourse. For Democrats, it takes more money to offset this disadvantage in the wake of Citizens United and SpeechNow cases.

On the other hand, this is a way Republicans have now increased their natural advantage over Democrats. If you DON'T embrace the unleashed corporate financing of elections, then you are at a disadvantage. But if you want to play by the game in order to change the rules of the game in the end, then you'll be accused of being a hypocrite. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

If there was a single issue to vote on, Campaign Finance / Election Reform would be it. And if you don't believe the severity of this issue, first watch this short video, and then watch this short video from represent.us and connect the dots.

Bonus: If you have extra time, watch this quick 10-minute video after the first two (It's a bit quirky, but has some great explanations)

Edit: I want to be clear that when I'm making this "they're all the same argument," I'm trying to thread a needle between recognizing why some people feel defeated or disenfranchised with the status-quo of government not moving fast enough or listening to them, but at the same time without claiming that "each side" is equally-wrong/right substantively. While the latter simply is not true and it would indeed be a false-equivalence to say so, I think we can indeed find common-ground among both Democrats and Republicans (citizens, not party-officials) that there exists a lack of representation. The most passionate of the left feel the factual issues they have become watered-down by centrist solutions (causing them not to function as intended in the first place), while the right-wing feel their concerns frequently aren't adequately addressed by their own party—that it's better to be in a constant state of fear/anger/scapegoating for political-expediency of party leaders than it is to attempt to actually solve the issue. There's truth to both, and the solution is found within campaign finance/election reform.

In the past when I've posted this, I've seen a pattern of responses who are trying to highlight that Democrats utilize SuperPAC money, Dark Money, etc. and claim it's equal or more than Republicans. That may or may not be true. Here's the key point that supersedes that argument*: Only the Democrats have made a concerted effort to destroy the entire process.** Republicans widely have not and in fact only widened the speech inequality. I'm not trying to be partisan in saying this; that's just a fact. So ask yourself: If (a) Democrats are indeed benefiting more or equally from this process, why would they undermine their own advantage unless they cared about fixing the system? If (b) Republicans have the advantage, then Democrats are still correct to remove this disproportionate advantage which undermines the average citizens' voice.

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FAQs

Q. Why Abolish the Electoral College? Wasn't it for helping smaller states?

A. To those arguing that this makes smaller states irrelevant, I'll explain why this is unnecessary:

The Framers already factored in the small-state disadvantage in their design of a Bicameral Congress. That is, small states have a massively disproportionate advantage of authority in the Senate.

Take the population of Wyoming — ~577,737 total residents in the state. They, like every state, get 2 Senators. In a State that has 0.177% (<--Note the decimal) of the nation's population, they get 2% (2 out of 100 Senators) of the nation's Senate power—a ~11.3:1 legislative-to-population ratio. One can see how California would be at a disadvantage with only 2 Senators, but a much larger population to represent: they have 12.8% of the nation's total population, leading to their Senator Power being: 0.16:1.

In a similar manner to the Senate, the Electoral College benefits smaller states disproportionately, giving greater "voting power" to each of its residents. Wyoming has 3 electoral votes due to its 2 Senators, and 1 House Representative. California has 55. 5.1 votes per million Wyoming citizens. California? 1.3 Electoral votes per million citizens. **If California residents had the voting-power of Wyoming residents, California would have 205 electoral votes. Add up all the small bible-belt/rust-belt states and you see why Republicans keep taking elections despite being in the minority. This is, by all accounts, minority rule.

The Electoral College only affects the election of a President, which is not state-dependent, it's national. In other words, all states are treated as one during such a popular vote for the Executive who is responsible for overseeing all states, combined. Imagine that all states are one when voting for the executive, in the same way all counties within a state have an equal say in electing a Governor:

The last two Republican Presidents won election without even obtaining the popular vote—they won despite having less individual votes than their competitor. Let that sink in.

We understand the State model is essentially a scaled-down model of the Federal model. That is:

• Presidency = Governor
• Counties = States

When a state-wide official is elected to office, be it a Governor or Senator, do we dictate the voting-weight of an individual from one county to another within a state? NO.

So why in the WORLD, when electing the "Governor for the Country" do we arbitrarily determine that the voting Power of a Montana person is more important than the voting power of a California person? This is directly defiant to everything a Democracy stands for and deeply unequal. Add up all the small-states like Wyoming or Montana, and you find enough votes to influence the outcome of an election.

In a Democracy (We are a Representative Republic, but that's still a type-of Democracy), it makes little sense that someone can win the election without earning the popular vote. Call for abolishing the Electoral College.

To close, Aaron Swartz once said, "It's not a question of Freedom of Speech, it's a question of who gets heard." When everyone has a voice but certain voices drown out the rest, does freedom of speech really matter as much as being heard? Obviously a reasonable person can infer that the spirit of freedom of speech was forged with this very thought in mind -- for what is freedom of speech but an assurance of equality against corruption or authoritarian power?

NOTE: ORIGINALLY MADE BY REDDIT USER, TrumpImpeachedAugust

Republicans capriciously modify their viewpoints and policies depending on what will benefit the Party. They don't care in the slightest about actual policies, or their supposed "principles". They just care what the Party (and particularly Donald Trump) is in favor of at any given moment. Meanwhile, it's worth noting that Democrats maintain fairly consistent opinions about policy, regardless of which party favors it, or who is in power.

#The Party of Principles:

• Exhibit 1: Opinion of Syrian airstrikes under Obama vs. Trump. Source Data 1, Source Data 2 and Article for Context

• Exhibit 2: Opinion of the NFL after large amounts of players began kneeling during the anthem to protest racism. Article for Context (viewing source data requires purchasing Morning Consult package)

• Exhibit 3: Opinion of ESPN after they fired a conservative broadcast analyst. Article for Context (viewing source data requires purchasing YouGov’s “BrandIndex” package)

• Exhibit 4: Opinion of Vladimir Putin after Trump began praising Russia during the election. Source Data and Article for Context

• Exhibit 5: Opinion of "Obamacare" vs. "Kynect" (Kentucky's implementation of Obamacare). Kentuckians feel differently about the policy depending on the name. Source Data and Article for Context

• Exhibit 6: Christians (particularly evangelicals) became monumentally more tolerant of private immoral conduct among politicians once Trump became the GOP nominee. Source Data and Article for Context

• Exhibit 7: White Evangelicals cared less about how religious a candidate was once Trump became the GOP nominee. (Same source and article as previous exhibit.)

• Exhibit 8: Republicans were far more likely to embrace a certain policy if they knew Trump was for it—whether the policy was liberal or conservative. Source Data and Article for Context

• Exhibit 9: Republicans became far more opposed to gun control when Obama took office. Democrats have remained consistent. Source Data and Article for Context

• Exhibit 10: Republicans started to think universities had a negative impact on the country after Trump entered the primary. Democrats remain consistent. Source Data and Article for Context

• Exhibit 11: Wisconsin Republicans felt the economy improve by 85 approval points the day Trump was sworn in. Graph also shows some Democratic bias, but not nearly as bad. Source Data and Article for Context

• Exhibit 12: Republicans became deeply negative about trade agreements when Trump became the GOP frontrunner. Democrats remain consistent. Source Data and Article for Context

• Exhibit 13: 10% fewer Republicans believed the wealthy weren't paying enough in taxes once a billionaire became their president. Democrats remain fairly consistent. Source Data and Article for Context

• Exhibit 14: Republicans suddenly feel very comfortable making major purchases now that Trump is president. Democrats don't feel more or less comfortable than before. Article for Context (viewing source data requires purchasing Gallup's Advanced Analytics package)

• Exhibit 15: Democrats have had a consistently improving outlook on the economy, including after Trump's victory. Republicans? A 30-point spike once Trump won. Source Data and Article for Context

• Exhibit 16: Shift in opinion of the media's utility for keeping politicians in check. Democrats reacted a bit after Trump took office (+15 points), but Republicans had a 35-point nose dive. Source Data and Article for Context

• Exhibit 17: Republicans had an evenly split opinion in April regarding whether James Comey should be fired. After he was fired, they became overwhelmingly in favor. Source Data 1, Source Data 2 and Article for Context

Donald Trump could go on a stage and start shouting about raising the minimum wage, increasing taxes on the wealthy, allowing more immigrants into the country, and combating climate change. His supporters would cheer and shout, and would all suddenly support liberal policies. It's not a party of principles--it's a party of sheep. And the data suggest that "both sides" aren't the same in this regard. Republicans are significantly more guilty. #Caveats and Considerations:

Yes, the exhibits above paint a one-sided picture. I posit that this is because the reality truly is one-sided. However, there are several things to keep in mind.

• Democrats are not immune to this effect. But the degree to which they display it seems to be significantly less. Several of the exhibits above (e.g. 11, 15, and 16) demonstrate this. Democrats do sometimes react in this manner when their party takes power, but the reaction from Republicans under similar circumstances seems to be notably larger. It would be interesting to do a meta-analysis of these studies and compare the trend of swing among Democrats to the swing among Republicans.

• There were several circumstances under which I omitted graphs from this list. I omitted graphs which were not relevant. I omitted graphs that I could not source. I omitted graphs that did not show either side reacting more strongly than the other side.

• There are indications that certain demographics which tend to lean Democrat had strong negative feelings of health/well-being immediately after the 2016 election. It is very important to note that there was no data collected about party affiliation in this study, and it is only conjecture that the groups discussed are likely to lean left. It is also entirely likely that their change in well-being wasn’t a result of party identity, but broader societal fears regarding discrimination, etc.

• In the course of building this list, I have found only one graph that showed Democrats reacting strongly to their own party gaining power, while Republicans mostly held their ground. Here it is: Democrats developed a more positive outlook on the US succeeding in Iraq after Obama took office. Republicans were comparatively consistent. Source Data. However, this comes with its own caveat: after the 2008 election, many people with strong anti-war convictions stopped identifying with the Democratic party. Source Data.

• To that last point, the biggest potential criticism of the List of Exhibits is that the trends may not be driven by changes of opinion, but by changes in party affiliation. However, if the data in Exhibit 8 are to be trusted, this would seem not to be the case. Instead, the stronger someone identifies with the party, the more likely they are to willingly change their positions to be in line with their leadership. Furthermore, at least regarding data gathered since January 2017, it looks like there’s been little shift in party identity (until October, at least): Page 14 of this Fox poll

I would like to spread some of my copy pasta on being an informed citizen, here, as I think it's relevant. As much as we take issue with media, we also need to educate ourselves on how to seek out the hard-hitting journalism you describe:

Perceived Bias is NOT an indicator of truth or falsehood in itself.

We got to where we are today because the ludicrous and absurd is normalized along with the reasonable and factual. That is, certain media outlets are in the middle-ground; but don't confuse being in the middle-ground with being objective. What happens is outlets such as CNN purport a viewpoint knowing that it's factually incorrect, but giving it equal weight/time with something more factual. When climate change was the primary contentious topic a few years back, you would see news outlets propping up these fringe groups against an academic consensus of expert climatologists. This is the problem with false middle-grounds is it can muddy the waters.

It can be okay to be biased in the informal sense; a climate scientist is absolutely biased, but a pool of knowledge and expertise informs their judgement. Conversely, the Congressman who threw a snowball on the House floor to disprove climate change... Both have a perceived bias by respective groups, but only the former has the evidence and expertise to inform his "bias."

Both the truth and ignorance tends to have a bias; it's up to you as the critical thinker to distinguish which is which.

Speaking of consensus of experts

Bertrand Russell, famous 20th century philosopher and mathematician made what I believe is a very important point when it comes to seeking the truth and relying on experts:

>Nevertheless the opinion of experts, when it is unanimous, must be accepted by non-experts as more likely to be right than the opposite opinion. The skepticism that I advocate amounts only to this: (1) that when the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain; (2) that when they are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert; and (3) that when they all hold that no sufficient grounds for a positive opinion exist, the ordinary man would do well to suspend his judgment.

It is for this reason we submit to the consensus on things from climate change to vaccinations.

I am currently working on a guide to being an informed citizen; it's been an ongoing side project for years now. But a few of the basics:

Diversify Your News - You wouldn't write a research paper with one or two sources alone, why would you do that with obtaining information to inform yourself?

• Domestic/Mainstream Outlets: New York Times, USA Today (HQ'd in Switzerland), Time, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, C-SPAN (cable-provided as a service) etc

• Foreign Sources: Al-Jazeera English, BBC, CBC, Reuters, Der Spiegel, The Economist, UK Guardian, Deutsche Welle (DW)

• Publicly-Funded News: NPR, PBS, PRI, APM, The Associated Press (AP - Non-profit Cooperative), Duetsche Welle

• Indie-Sources: Truthout, ProPublica, VICE, The Intercept, Democracy Now!

• Fact-Checkers/Media Watchdogs: Politifact.com, Factcheck.org, NewsGuard, MBFC, MediaMatters, Fair.org

• Research/Statistics Centers: PEW Research Center, Gallup, 538.

• Photo-Blogs: National Geographic, The Boston Globe’s The Big Picture photo-blog, LIFE, The Atlantic's "In Focus"

• News Aggregators: Google News, Digg, Reddit

• Documentaries:(Find mostly on Hulu, Netflix, or Youtube). Fairly comprehensive list can be found here: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com and archive.org

• (And of course, please continue to read)

Each of these serves a particular purpose and are curated based on consistency, reputation, studies (analyzing reporting on pivotal events, how informed respective audiences are, where funding is coming from, etc.), and my own anecdotal experience with them over the years. The best defense against ignorance and tinting your own lens? Remain humble and reflect on the notion that you perhaps don't know it all. And two: tap into as many different sources as possible in order to garner a Big Picture perspective. If you feel the need, you can include the mainstream cable news outlets in order to get the perspective of who else is watching them, but I don't particularly advise them.

RSS Feeds are a great way to diversify your news. You can have them dump into one feed, or I have about 24+ RSS Feeds on my browser's toolbar.

Each year, PEW Research issues a "State of the Media" report that highlights how people receive their information, and associated with this there is a lot of valuable information on journalism and the quality of sources. Their reports along with others are a part of the baseline for which media outlets I choose. For example, some key research in recent years:

• Media habits along the political spectrum; who trusts which outlets?

• What is the demographic information of a variety of major news outlets, and how informed are their audience when tested on current events?

The above links are from 2014 and 2012, respectively. I highlighted those particular studies because I found them particularly pertinent to today. Here is an archive of every report. Remember, keep in mind that no single media outlet is perfect.

Also, a while back I made the case against Politifact's verdict on Jon Stewart saying, "FOX viewers are consistently the most misinformed." You may find the many links within informative.

Familiarize yourself with Logical Fallacies - Starter

... And the triangle of rhetoric

When you challenge the ideas of others and they challenge yours, it's important to maintain the focus on the mutual pursuit of truth and knowledge rather than the competitive aspect that is, winning the argument. This is easier said than done, but mutual respect can ensure a healthy discussion where both parties walk away with new information—even if their stances have not shifted.

Any questions, please ask! This is something I'm very passionate about. Since writing this, I've made a follow-up post to this, addressing some common questions

Edit: Updated 06/28/17

Edit: Updated 11/1/19 - Added MBFC, NewsGuard, Fair.org, 538; link to Part II Follow-up post, general clean-up.

Edit: 06/16/2020:

I've had some past criticism of a couple sources, and I wanted to address the background of my choice:

There was a time I even had Real News Network on there, and on review of the list (and noting how objective fact-checkers caution against it), I've been on the fence about why I left Truthout on but removed RNN (which has better scoring). If I'm honest with myself, I had left it on because years back it was a source that helped me see a different perspective than what I was used to seeing. They did a lot of critical reporting during the Bush Jr. administration and the Iraq War and transitioning into Obama's presidency.

Then there is The Intercept. That one is very perplexing to me, which is why I leave it on there for now. Greenwald's ethos to me have been called into question in recent years. I've listened to interviews he's done and read some of his articles; and boy, he's come a long way from the days of being a reputable Guardian journalist covering Snowden. I can't help but to wonder if there's some sort of blackmail going on behind the scenes with he and Snowden having been in Russia for so long.

Edit: 9/14/2020: Added Deutsche Welle, a publicly-funded German broadcast similar to PBS or BBC.