Proposals for Government
Alex Bäcker
1 min readThe current primary election system in the United States fails to produce optimal presidential candidates, leading to uninspiring choices for voters. This article proposes reforms to the selection mechanism, including ending automatic incumbency advantages, preventing the hand-picking of successors, and implementing multi-circle elections that prioritize the input of those most familiar with a candidate's qualifications.
With US elections looming on Tuesday and both sides predicting doomsday if the other wins, and without claiming moral equivalence between the candidates, because there is none, I want to make a non-partisan reflection. Without a doubt, neither of the presidential candidates are the best that the country of 346 million inhabitants that gave birth to Lincoln, to Teddy and Franklin D. Roosevelt, to Thomas Alva Edison, to Henry Ford, and to over 70% of all Nobel Prize winners can produce. Which means that the mechanism of primary elections that is used to produce Presidential candidates is badly broken. That is what we need to fix. If the mechanism selecting candidates produced inspiring candidates, we wouldn't have to choose between an uninspiring candidate and worse. I propose we spend the next three years fixing that, so that the next election can be between inspiring candidates that will move the US forward.
So what changes are needed?
Ending automatic candidacy: We cannot let an incumbent automatically become the party's candidate without primaries. In FIFA soccer, this problem has been solved; world champions now need to qualify just like every other team.
Preventing hand-picked successors: We cannot let an incumbent, much less one who's been deemed not fit to run, hand-pick his successor. That's the stuff of despots, not democracies.
Vetting by peers: The opinion of those who know a candidate best should matter. A candidate should not be able to progress to lead the nation if those who know them best think they are unfit to serve. This suggests elections in progressively wider circles, requiring a candidate to win in the smaller circle of people familiar with them before they can progress to a larger circle.