Trump 2024 ???

[Super Bee]

And here I thought it would be a Dem SOS.

 

[BugI02]

Why would a Dem take the heat when they can get a quisling to do it for them and make it look 'bipartisan' to boot

I wonder what he's being promised and by who

 

[Tombs]

And here I thought it would be a Dem SOS.

Now that's how you get people to take up arms.

 

[indyblue]

You're in luck, I saved it.

The page is still up, here's a text capture

A hand casting a ballot on which a question mark appears. The ballot box is emblazoned with an American flag.

Adam Grant

Dr. Grant, a contributing Opinion writer, is an organizational psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, the author of “Think Again” and the host of the TED podcast “Re:Thinking.”

Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning.

On the eve of the first debate of the 2024 presidential race, trust in government is rivaling historic lows. Officials have been working hard to safeguard elections and assure citizens of their integrity. But if we want public office to have integrity, we might be better off eliminating elections altogether.

If you think that sounds anti-democratic, think again. The ancient Greeks invented democracy, and in Athens many government officials were selected through sortition — a random lottery from a pool of candidates. In the United States, we already use a version of a lottery to select jurors. What if we did the same with mayors, governors, legislators, justices and even presidents?

People expect leaders chosen at random to be less effective than those picked systematically. But in multiple experiments led by the psychologist Alexander Haslam, the opposite held true. Groups actually made smarter decisions when leaders were chosen at random than when they were elected by a group or chosen based on leadership skill.

Why were randomly chosen leaders more effective? They led more democratically. “Systematically selected leaders can undermine group goals,” Dr. Haslam and his colleagues suggest, because they have a tendency to “assert their personal superiority.” When you’re anointed by the group, it can quickly go to your head: I’m the chosen one.

When you know you’re picked at random, you don’t experience enough power to be corrupted by it. Instead, you feel a heightened sense of responsibility: I did nothing to earn this, so I need to make sure I represent the group well. And in one of the Haslam experiments, when a leader was picked at random, members were more likely to stand by the group’s decisions.

Over the past year I’ve floated the idea of sortition with a number of current members of Congress. Their immediate concern is ability: How do we make sure that citizens chosen randomly are capable of governing?

In ancient Athens, people had a choice about whether to participate in the lottery. They also had to pass an examination of their capacity to exercise public rights and duties. In America, imagine that anyone who wants to enter the pool has to pass a civics test — the same standard as immigrants applying for citizenship. We might wind up with leaders who understand the Constitution.

A lottery would also improve our odds of avoiding the worst candidates in the first place. When it comes to character, our elected officials aren’t exactly crushing it. To paraphrase William F. Buckley Jr., I’d rather be governed by the first 535 people in the phone book. That’s because the people most drawn to power are usually the least fit to wield it.

The most dangerous traits in a leader are what psychologists call the dark triad of personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. What these traits share is a willingness to exploit others for personal gain. People with dark triad traits tend to be more politically ambitious — they’re attracted to authority for its own sake. But we often fall under their spell. Is that you, George Santos?

In a study of elections worldwide, candidates who were rated by experts as having high psychopathy scores actually did better at the ballot box. In the United States, presidents assessed as having psychopathic and narcissistic tendencies were more persuasive with the public than their peers. A common explanation is that they’re masters of fearless dominance and superficial charm, and we mistake their confidence for competence. Sadly, it starts early: Even kids who display narcissistic personality traits get more leadership nominations and claim to be better leaders. (They aren’t.)

If the dark triad wins an election, we all lose. When psychologists rated the first 42 American presidents, the narcissists were more likely to take reckless risks, make unethical decisions and get impeached. Add a dash of Machiavellianism and a pinch of psychopathy, and you get autocrats like Putin, Erdogan, Orban and Duterte.

Eliminate voting, and candidates with dark triad traits would be less likely than they are now to rise to the top. Of course, there’s also a risk that a lottery would deprive us of the chance to select a leader with distinctive skills. At this point, that’s a risk I’m willing to take. As lucky as America was to have Lincoln at the helm, it’s more important to limit our exposure to bad character than to roll the dice on the hopes of finding the best.

Besides, if Lincoln were alive now, it’s hard to imagine that he’d even put his top hat in the ring. In a world filled with divisiveness and derision, evidence shows that members of Congress are increasingly rewarded for incivility. And they know it.

A lottery would give a fair shot to people who aren’t tall enough or male enough to win. It would also open the door to people who aren’t connected or wealthy enough to run. Our broken campaign finance system lets the rich and powerful buy their way into races while preventing people without money or influence from getting on the ballot. They’re probably better candidates: Research suggests that on average, people who grow up in low-income families tend to be more effective leaders and less likely to cheat — they’re less prone to narcissism and entitlement.

Switching to sortition would save a lot of money too. The 2020 elections alone cost upward of $14 billion. And if there’s no campaign, there are no special interests offering to help pay for it.

Finally, no voting also means no boundaries to gerrymander and no Electoral College to dispute. Instead of questioning whether millions of ballots were counted accurately, we could watch the lottery live, just as we do with teams getting their lottery picks in the N.B.A. draft.

Other countries have begun to see the promise of sortition. Two decades ago, Canadian provinces and the Dutch government started using sortition to create citizens’ assemblies that generated ideas for improving democracy. In the past few years, the French, British and German governments have run lotteries to select citizens to work on climate change policies. Ireland tried a hybrid model, gathering 33 politicians and 66 randomly chosen citizens for its 2012 constitutional convention. In Bolivia, the nonprofit Democracy in Practice works with schools to replace student council elections with lotteries. Instead of elevating the usual suspects, it welcomes a wider range of students to lead and solve real problems in their schools and their communities.

As we prepare for America to turn 250 years old, it may be time to rethink and renew our approach to choosing officials. The lifeblood of a democracy is the active participation of the people. There is nothing more democratic than offering each and every citizen an equal opportunity to lead.

Adam Grant, a contributing Opinion writer, is an organizational psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, the author of “Think Again” and the host of the TED podcast “Re:Thinking.”

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 23, 2023, Section A, Page 22 of the New York edition with the headline: To Improve Democracy, Get Rid of Elections . Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

And the comments,

 

[Ingomike]

The page is still up, here's a text capture

And the comments,

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Thanks for the post…

 

[Route 45]

Now that's how you get people to take up arms.

 

[indyblue]

Anyhow, I thought this was interesting.

An Inconvenient Trump: Republicans Are Living an Enormous Lie - The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator | USA News and Politics

None of these candidates can win the nomination, and should the powers that be succeed in jailing Trump, not one can win the presidency.

spectator.org

The Democrats and the media run a constant clown show, but the Republicans play along as useless puppets, willfully participating in a system designed to destroy them. The Republican party is allowing itself to be rigged by playing by the rules of an old system that no longer exists. The Democrats, bureaucracy, and media are vicious apparatchiks. They are a dirty and obvious enemy who clearly need to be fought. The Republicans are worse because they don’t see their own participation in the Big Lie. They would rather step over Trump’s dead political body than save the republic. In so doing, they will never have power again, even if they regain it. They will be vassals of the state apparatus, nothing more … or else.

Why the all-out assault on Donald Trump? Because in a fair system, he wins — and he wins bigly

the Republicans are pretending that America and the Republican Party can return to a Bush-era neocon Republicanism that simply doesn’t exist anymore outside the beltway.

the lie was revealed by Vivek. He knows that the biggest issue facing the republic is the disintegration of the rule of law surrounding the persecution and baseless prosecution of Donald Trump and anyone who supports him. Vivek says he wants to win, but not like this

Truth has left the Republican Party, and it’s diminishing them, if that’s even possible. They can talk of the border. They can pontificate about the world-changing necessity of making Ukraine secure. They can tell everyone what they already know: Vladimir Putin is a bad guy. Noted. Now, how about something more pressing and closer to home? How about addressing the criminalization of free speech? How about addressing the conditions of Jan. 6 defendants? How about addressing using the justice system to bankrupt and persecute political enemies? How about addressing the raw, unchecked power being thrown around by the Biden administration?

Donald Trump is an inconvenient truth exposing the corruption of a corrupted elite. His persecution, and those of his followers, is putting the whole system on trial, and America is being found wanting. The Democrats, run by communists who would happily burn the system down in service to ideology, are being aided and abetted by Republicans who put personal ambition and hatred of Trump over love of country.

 

[Tombs]

The page is still up, here's a text capture

And the comments,

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Well, they're some good candidates for putting in prison when the pendulum swings the other way.


I mean they're into that sort of thing, so they should like it.

 

[DragonGunner]

The page is still up, here's a text capture

And the comments,

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Wonder how many of these people and comments come from real people vs how many come from a basement at a FBI office.

 

[jamil]

Well, they're some good candidates for putting in prison when the pendulum swings the other way.


I mean they're into that sort of thing, so they should like it.

We've historically allowed high level elected leaders to get away with some stuff, at least to avoid the appearance of weaponizing government against political enemies. But to the extent that the establishment has done that to their political enemies, it should be done right back. That's a question that should have been asked in the debate. Will you go after the elected people who abused their position to punish their opposition? If the answer to that is equivocal or no, that's a reason not to vote for that person.

Using political power to punish opposition should never be tolerated in a free society. The hard part is proving it to the satisfaction of the population at large, which is also necessary because the other side will naturally tend to think it's purely unfair political retribution.

 

[jamil]

Wonder how many of these people and comments come from real people vs how many come from a basement at a FBI office.

I was wondering the same. Some are certainly just sock puppets.

 

[Expat]

So they let all the white people bond out but keep the black guy in jai. Even if there are good reasons, it isn’t a good look.

Atlanta 69

 

[DragonGunner]

So they let all the white people bond out but keep the black guy in jai. Even if there are good reasons, it isn’t a good look.

Atlanta 69

Well Black democrats seem to hate Black conservatives above all else. The amount of hate from other blacks towards the Hogetwins who use to be democrats but left that plantation is amazing when they talk about it.

 

[BugI02]

Donald Trump is an inconvenient truth exposing the corruption of a corrupted elite. His persecution, and those of his followers, is putting the whole system on trial, and America is being found wanting. The Democrats, run by communists who would happily burn the system down in service to ideology, are being aided and abetted by Republicans who put personal ambition and hatred of Trump over love of country.

 

[KLB]

"are being aided and abetted by Republicans who put personal ambition and hatred of Trump over love of country."

This is where Trumpers turn off so many. You either support Trump or you obviously only care about yourself more than you love the country. If he wins the nomination, then they shouldn't be hating on Trump. Until then, he's just as fair game as anyone else running.

 

[KG1]

And here I thought it would be a Dem SOS.

I'm starting to see this disqualification under the 14th amendment sec 3 angle being talked about more and more these days. I'm seriously thinking they will try to do it. I believe they will try to do anything at this point to keep Trump off the ballot and it appears that some republicans are down with it as well.

 

[Tombs]

We've historically allowed high level elected leaders to get away with some stuff, at least to avoid the appearance of weaponizing government against political enemies. But to the extent that the establishment has done that to their political enemies, it should be done right back. That's a question that should have been asked in the debate. Will you go after the elected people who abused their position to punish their opposition? If the answer to that is equivocal or no, that's a reason not to vote for that person.

Using political power to punish opposition should never be tolerated in a free society. The hard part is proving it to the satisfaction of the population at large, which is also necessary because the other side will naturally tend to think it's purely unfair political retribution.

It not only should be done right back, it must be.

Otherwise it will be an endless spiral that leads to far worse things. Until both sides don't want the option on the table anymore, it's a significant threat to our own national interests.

 

[Super Bee]

Alright, which one of you crazy ****s did this?

 

[red_zr24x4]

Well, if a county DA can file charges on a former president, our state attorney should file charges on most of congress and the big guy...give him his 10%

 

[oze]

And here I thought it would be a Dem SOS.

Seriously, on what grounds?