2024 Election - Thread #1

[Labster]

Every once in a while I think about the election of the Doge of the Most Serene Republic of Venezia:

New regulations for the elections of the doge introduced in 1268 remained in force until the end of the republic in 1797. Their intention was to minimize the influence of individual great families, and this was effected by a complex electoral machinery. Thirty members of the Great Council, chosen by lot, were reduced by lot to nine; the nine chose forty and the forty were reduced by lot to twelve, who chose twenty-five. The twenty-five were reduced by lot to nine, and the nine elected forty-five. These forty-five were once more reduced by lot to eleven, and the eleven finally chose the forty-one who elected the doge.

Election required at least twenty-five votes out of forty-one, nine votes out of eleven or twelve, or seven votes out of nine electors.

Got that? So obvious!

I think that's kind of ridiculously complex, but then I remember that the United States has the electoral college. And the primaries. And states with different election rules. The Iowa Caucuses, the New Hampshire primaries starring Dixville Notch.

And now we have Nevada, who held a primary election on Tuesday... and a Republican Party caucus today. Under party rules, any candidate who participates in the primary cannot participate in the caucus, and vice versa. And with two candidates left running, that means that Nikki Haley was the only one in the primary, and Donald J. Trump the only one in the caucus. Unlike candidates, voters can vote in both events. Oh, and in the primary, there was a "None of the Above" option which beat Nikki Haley by 30 points. Literally every step of this is fucking bonkers in multiple ways, the net result of which seems to be an embarrassment trap for Haley to lose to literally no one.

I'm going to go slightly off-piste by talking about Congress for a little bit, because it's an important bit of context about our system. After recently ejecting Kevin McCarthy for a more effective Speaker of the House in the person of Mike Johnson (most boring name ever), so how has that been working out? Well, after lambasting McCarthy for "giving up" for passing a temporary budget (continuing resolution), Johnson's Congress immediately passes another continuing resolution. They prioritize an impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas from the office of Director of Homeland Security, for the great, great high crime of letting hordes of migrants stream across the southern border, picking our vegetables, cooking our tacos, and many other heinous activities. Which is dumb enough, except then it proceeds to a floor vote, and then fails by two votes! Republicans are quoted on the record missing Nancy Pelosi, whose vote-counting ability they respect, if nothing else.

Meanwhile, in the Senate, leadership from both parties has just negotiated a bipartisan compromise, giving Republicans a lot of their demands on securing the border in exchange for foreign aid in Ukraine and Israel, including military aid. They announce this deal with great fanfare, and Donald Trump freaks out, and starts calling senators to kill this "bad deal" that lets Democrats have things. And so two days later, the deal is killed by the GOP leadership in the Senate. Who would assume good faith in any negotiations in the future?

The Supreme Court just heard argument on whether to disqualify Trump from office, given that he tried to exploit loopholes in the Constitution and staged an insurrection. Most likely, this will be decided on political grounds by our illegitimate Supreme Court.

And so when I think back to the Venetian process, I have to remember that they stayed a republic for a thousand years. This process that we have here, right now in these United States, is much crazier, and less likely to endure.