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Party Primaries, State Election Primaries, and the General Election
DiStefano laments the loss of the benefits of the party boss driven primary system. You've taken the position that elimination of gerrymandering, implementation of open primaries, and the use of rank choice voting are not a cure to the current of political polarization / binary political atmosphere. There is a solution in the mix, I think: eliminate party primaries from public involvement. Let the party primary process be the private affairs they once were. State primaries should be qualifying races for anyone who can get sufficient signatures from registered voters on a nominating petition - without any party affiliation noted on ballots. The parties would have a leg up in this process, obviously. But minor parties and political affiliations would be more competitive. With that adjustment, the parties could still exert their influence - with a dose of coalescing compromise built into the process, the primary process would serve the public - not just the parties, and rank choice voting would drive orientation in both the primary and general to the center rather than to the extremes. Knowing that the founders were extremely wary of political parties and their influence, I would like to hear some history on how the primary process was usurped by the parties and hear about efforts to curtail that usurpation. How did the parties hijack the primary process? --- Keep up the good work! The podcast is great and getting better.
Chinese Housing Market Collapse
Can you talk with a guest that can explain the issues with the Chinese economy? ~30% of China's GDP is related to their housing market which is collapsing, there are protests in China related to banking issues and the zero covid policy is keeping their economy in lockdown. The effects on supply chains are already being felt, but if the Chinese economy goes into a recession or depression, what are the knock on effects in the US, or Europe, or Africa?
Is This A Binary Moment?
During the latest chat with the always-delightful Frank DiStefano, Marshall stated that he thinks we're in a binary moment and so there's no evading those options and therefore alienating voters when you do. How much of the landscape of current and potential political issues does that cover? It seems like we hear about a particular range of issues, even assuming all are truly important, that have easy binary divisions because of the incentives in media and politics. That doesn't mean there aren't additional solutions which haven't bubbled up yet. What would you predict as being new issues emerging into politics--such as around technologies like VR, genetic engineering, AI, and cybernetics--that will mix things up or create new binaries in the coming years?
Pelosi/Taiwan
Isn’t it possible that the democrats are playing 4D chess with China? I certainly think that Pelosi is visiting Taiwan more as a vanity project, but wouldn’t it behoove the United States (in a defense perspective) to have the Speaker visit Taiwan with the President’s express disapproval? The PRC would be far more dismayed if Biden visited Taiwan, but Pelosi showing US support while the Biden signals to China that he disapproves almost acts like a shield so the US can still act as a superior nation afraid of no man? And even if it isn’t a 4D chess game, can’t it be a happy accident because tensions likely won’t ratchet up if PRC sees Biden against the visit?
Labor participation and the economy
I've been interested for a while about the gulph between economic metrics such as low unemployment and low public confidence in the economy. Even before inflation became a central issue, Americans reported low confidence despite the unemployment rate returning to pre-pandemic levels, which were at a historic low. The Labor Force Participation Rate is a less sexy metric, but seeing that this number is much further from recovering to pre-pandemic levels, perhaps this can help explain low confidence among Americans in the economy. Do you have any thoughts as to why these two metrics seem to be tracking a different trend? How can this help us better understand what's going on in our nation's economy?