I don't actually agree that our form of government is a winner take all system
If you get 50.1% of the votes the other 49.9% don't matter (or delegates or the specific counting system in play). You just become the elected official and everyone else goes home and gets literally nothing. No pity power, no X amount of seats based on votes. So those who win do take all, only limited by the checks and balances of the office itself (theoretically, we know it doesn't always work).
If you can't get elected into any office, then your ability to wield political power is either dependent on those who can win appointing you into a position or simply bribing with money (sorry "lobbying" is how they prefer to call it). And at that point, you are still working with and giving even more power to a political party at odds with your own, which undermines any principled position you claim to hold.
We are tumbling headfirst into Civil War 2 or The Collapse or a Race War or whichever thing you are most afraid of, very quickly. Slow building up of political infrastructure one position at a time doesn't have the longevity available to matter.
you get 50.1% of the votes the other 49.9% don't matter (or delegates or the specific counting system in play). You just become the elected official and everyone else goes home and gets literally nothing.
Look, I don't mind proportional representation either, but that's just not how power works. Acting like you have a mandate when you don't actually have one causes the political struggle that leads to you being removed, and causes other forms of political resistance.
If you can't get elected into any office, then your ability to wield political power is either dependent on those who can win appointing you into a position or simply bribing with money
This isn't true either. You can still have plenty of influence without bribes, and without being directly elected. Social and economic influence is a major way of influencing politics without being directly in it; it's one of the reasons the old 'robber baron' class were so interested in building cultural institutions. If your family owns most of the land and large businesses in the town, regardless of being elected, you have political influence.
We are tumbling headfirst into Civil War 2 or The Collapse or a Race War or whichever thing you are most afraid of, very quickly.
We're heading towards an economic collapse, but that ball is already set in motion, so not even Trumpist Super-Majority can avoid it. The question is how well can we adapt as it happens.
Longevitiy is still super-important because you're going to have to still have systems after The Collapse because it's not the end of history.
If you get 50.1% of the votes the other 49.9% don't matter (or delegates or the specific counting system in play). You just become the elected official and everyone else goes home and gets literally nothing. No pity power, no X amount of seats based on votes. So those who win do take all, only limited by the checks and balances of the office itself (theoretically, we know it doesn't always work).
If you can't get elected into any office, then your ability to wield political power is either dependent on those who can win appointing you into a position or simply bribing with money (sorry "lobbying" is how they prefer to call it). And at that point, you are still working with and giving even more power to a political party at odds with your own, which undermines any principled position you claim to hold.
We are tumbling headfirst into Civil War 2 or The Collapse or a Race War or whichever thing you are most afraid of, very quickly. Slow building up of political infrastructure one position at a time doesn't have the longevity available to matter.
Look, I don't mind proportional representation either, but that's just not how power works. Acting like you have a mandate when you don't actually have one causes the political struggle that leads to you being removed, and causes other forms of political resistance.
This isn't true either. You can still have plenty of influence without bribes, and without being directly elected. Social and economic influence is a major way of influencing politics without being directly in it; it's one of the reasons the old 'robber baron' class were so interested in building cultural institutions. If your family owns most of the land and large businesses in the town, regardless of being elected, you have political influence.
We're heading towards an economic collapse, but that ball is already set in motion, so not even Trumpist Super-Majority can avoid it. The question is how well can we adapt as it happens.
Longevitiy is still super-important because you're going to have to still have systems after The Collapse because it's not the end of history.