this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2024
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Only when it's a first past the post system and one of the top two candidates is a fascist dead set on ending democracy and becoming a dictator. Outside that specific scenario it's much less cut and dry.
That is the overwhelmingly most common form of liberal democracy.
There's additional stipulations, the most crucial being the dictator thing. It's also much different in parliamentary governments, where you can vote for a number of parties that oppose fascism who can then form a coalition; most liberal democracies work that way. But it would be easier for the US to adopt ranked choice voting than to switch to a parliamentary system, so first past the post is what I chose to critique.
The perception of a particular office-holder as a "dictator" is a very relative thing. Go look up the history of a few of our more notorious governors - Brigham Young, Huey Long, Frank Merriam, George Wallace, my own home state governor Greg Abbott - and how they flagrantly abused their powers to impose their whims on their constituents. Depending on which side of the fight you're on, the label of "dictator" sticks firmly or slides right off.
You've also got your Lincoln and FDR types - folks who absolutely were "dictators" from a legalistic perspective, but were vital to the continuation of the nation as a whole.
The thing about dictators is that they're often very popular. Sometimes even popular for good reasons. So even without a FPTP system, a guy taking 50%+ of the base vote because the constituency wants a strong man with a plan in high office is going to get what they asked for.
It would be functionally impossible to adopt ranked choice voting, as this would require a supermajority in the legislature (who all won their seats FPTP) to approve it or a Constitutional Convention (a thing that has never happened in our 235 year history) to be called by a supermajority of state legislatures (who also all won their seats FPTP) to change the system by which they secured their seats in a manner you believe would put those seats at risk.
All this to get a system that will still produce dictators any time a right-wing media blitz shifts popular opinion too far in Trump's direction.
Except in this case Trump has promised to be a dictator: https://youtu.be/aX0iAmz9iLM?si=PbFCWr6CvpJ-nlXc
Also he was the first president in history to refuse a peaceful transition of power and attempted to overthrow the democratic process.
You don't go about it from the federal level. States control their own elections. We could use state-level ballot measures to let the public vote for ranked choice voting state by state.
So did his icon, Mussolini, who won office in a landslide.
But not first administration. Hoover's secretaries conspired towards the Business Plot, to remove FDR and replace him with Smedly Butler. Allen Dulles's CIA repeatedly undermined Kennedy after Kennedy fired Dulles in the wake of the Bay of Pigs invasion. The Saturday Night Massacre was all that kept Nixon from holding office in the face of impeachment. Eugene Debbs was imprisoned by political rivals in an effort to keep him from so much as campaigning. And that's not even mentioning the fucking Civil War, which erupted in direct response to Lincoln's successful presidential run.
Second verse, same as the first. Five states have banned ranked choice voting in the last two months.