Here are two clips from the latest Real Time show: the introductory monologue and the longer comedy bit, which this week is on the interminable campaigning going on.
This 3½-minute intro is about the debate and Trump’s abysmal showing (he doesn’t forget to bring in Haitians and dogs). His imitation of Trump at the end is pretty good:
Here Maher beefs about how long elections are taking these days, suggesting that we start the campaigning on Labor Day at the earliest, for we can learn enough about the candidates within three months, especially given today’s short attention spans. (It’s long enough for debates, too!) Even heterosexual sex, he says, takes on average between three and seven minutes. The long campaigns, he claims, is due entirely to money. “It’s time we admit that the endless campaign exists only to enrich advertisers, political consultants, and what’s left of the news media.” He adds that the only things that last too long these days are campaigns–and streaming series.
The educational part is Maher’s description how much less time it takes other countries to have political campaigns–and the much shorter interval between someone being elected and taking office.
We used to have much shorter campaigns. Part of the length of modern campaigns is due to the primary system: It was easier in the days when you just needed convention delegates to choose you. Likewise, Inauguration Day used to be in March. As it is, I don’t think we could make the time from election to inauguration any shorter without seriously compromising the transition. At the same time, other countries seem to have universally adopted the Parliamentary form of government, which I think has nothing to recommend it, unless you are a fringe party or a professional politician.
Parliaments are usually pretty good at keeping fringe parties out the legislature as long as they stick with first-past-the-post in constituency elections. It’s proportional representation that causes all the mischief with fringe parties getting a few seats and demanding a voice in the minority coalition PR inevitably produces. In Canada, the Greens usually elect only their elderly leader from Vancouver where she is personally and sentimentally popular. When she hangs up her skates, the party will probably fold. A far-right (by Canadian standards) party has yet to elect a single MP. But both parties draw 5-10% of the vote nationally, enough to get them seats under PR. (I don’t mean to diss either party except to acknowledge that fringe they are.)
The big drawback in Parliaments is that the Commons (legislature) has, as the unwritten power of the Prime Minister has grown, become beholden to the executive Cabinet instead of the other way round as Responsible Government is supposed to work. The Commons can bring down the Government at any moment with a non-confidence motion but in practice it only ever does if the government lacks a majority, as now in Canada. It’s precisely when the government has a majority that you wish you had a brake on its dreams of tyranny, which we don’t.
Considering all the centrifugal forces acting after 1775 or so on what would become the United States, I think the founding fathers of the Republic did a pretty darn good job. And give Betsy Ross the credit for designing a flag that could accommodate Manifest Destiny with just a bit of seamstressing. (Kidding. I know the Ross story is sort of a myth.)
Ranked Choice Voting can also introduce strange people. A recent case in Alaska has a guy serving a 20 year prison sentence on the ballot.
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/wireStory/judge-allows-man-serving-20-year-prison-sentence-113571512
I’m in favor of ranked choice voting in Arizona. There’s a proposition that will appear on our November ballot trying to enact it. I’ve heard fierce fighting against it — usually from the two big parties and since they are the ones who keep offering up lousy candidates (locally and federally, for the most part… a bit of a generalization), I’m all for opening up the field of contenders.
When it seems the two parties aren’t much different I can see the value of newcomers.
Sports, TV/Hollywood, and politics, the three pillars of the entertainment system in the US. What would people do without them?
+1
The United States election system is full of relics that are no longer relevant, from holding elections in November (after the harvest) to having elections on Tuesdays (to avoid travel time on Sundays). Unfortunately, this country is to attached to archaic systems and will never give them up in favor of improving things. It’s kind of surprising that we’re not still using pounds, shillings and pence.
Did you catch the hopeful comment Maher made when he first sat down with his panel? He said he thinks tRump is toast! It shocked me because he’s usually pretty reserved with his predictions.