If an elected representative is going to fight for their supporters, they need time to learn how to conduct that fight, and to gather the resources to win that fight. Otherwise they end up pandering.
> "Longer-terms in office don't lead to good governance, but instead, electing left-wing governments leads to good governance."
I'm not the originator of the above objection, but I can't help notice your response to it -- though full of details that are important to know -- feels to me a bit like circular reasoning. Shorter terms did create the problems you described for leftist governments, but only because of the fear of a rightist government winning power. So for that sort of leftist, a more "on the nose" alternative to longer terms could be a system that prevents rightists from winning power. For example, in the U.S. the broad political left could be locked into power with two seemingly-neutral changes:
- Make D.C. a state, and also several dozen other large dense cities. This would stack the Senate with Senators elected by the demographic least likely to be rightist.
- Use large single-winner districts and a good Condorcet method, such as Ranked Pairs. Such methods create a strong tendency to elect someone at the political center of the district. Contrast this with the US's current method which tends to elect someone at the center of the district's largest party. Additionally, the political center of the district typically moves gradually, because the median is robust to shifts in outliers. Contrast this with PR systems in which crises often lead large blocs of voters to shift to more extreme parties. A sudden change in political winds would be all but ruled out, even as the clone-proof property of Ranked Pairs would allow any corrupt individual official to be thrown out.
There are some situations where more is generally better (such as a more educated citizenry, more civic associations, and more efficiency, etc.) Most people understand that more spending won't solve a problem which is why there is austerity and widespread concern about national deficits but the cost of running a technological society, uneven distribution of funding, and an aging population requiring more healthcare are part of what makes it difficult to reduce.
> "Longer-terms in office don't lead to good governance, but instead, electing left-wing governments leads to good governance."
I'm not the originator of the above objection, but I can't help notice your response to it -- though full of details that are important to know -- feels to me a bit like circular reasoning. Shorter terms did create the problems you described for leftist governments, but only because of the fear of a rightist government winning power. So for that sort of leftist, a more "on the nose" alternative to longer terms could be a system that prevents rightists from winning power. For example, in the U.S. the broad political left could be locked into power with two seemingly-neutral changes:
- Make D.C. a state, and also several dozen other large dense cities. This would stack the Senate with Senators elected by the demographic least likely to be rightist.
- Use large single-winner districts and a good Condorcet method, such as Ranked Pairs. Such methods create a strong tendency to elect someone at the political center of the district. Contrast this with the US's current method which tends to elect someone at the center of the district's largest party. Additionally, the political center of the district typically moves gradually, because the median is robust to shifts in outliers. Contrast this with PR systems in which crises often lead large blocs of voters to shift to more extreme parties. A sudden change in political winds would be all but ruled out, even as the clone-proof property of Ranked Pairs would allow any corrupt individual official to be thrown out.
There are some situations where more is generally better (such as a more educated citizenry, more civic associations, and more efficiency, etc.) Most people understand that more spending won't solve a problem which is why there is austerity and widespread concern about national deficits but the cost of running a technological society, uneven distribution of funding, and an aging population requiring more healthcare are part of what makes it difficult to reduce.