Daniel Rose

Tap Room Tuesday, October 8, 2024

The gang got together this week to discuss the American Election process. The opening little discussion was realizing how old we were as we shared our first experience voting for president.

Recap

The conversation kicked off with a discussion about what we thought the country does well in the election process. You see, it’s too easy to dump on it and complain. As it turns out, we discovered quite a few things that we thought were done well. The ease and accessibility of voting was a common theme. I thought that the peaceful transition of power was something we did well. A couple intriguing items of note were that we tabulate votes well and that the process is largely transparent.

From there we engaged in a lively conversation about the things that we didn’t think the country does well. Our agenda was set by a quick whip around of what we didn’t like. Too long of an election cycle, campaign finance, the electoral college, lying in advertising, the loud electoral fringe, and the need for more debates.

We began with the question of campaign finance. There was a concern that only the wealthy have a true voice in politics. The push back was that small individual donors were the primary source of campaign financing. There was some discussion of public funded campaigning. This naturally lead into limiting the election cycle. There was significant push back that with a shortened cycle people would be ill-informed. Finally, we talked about the question of truth telling. This one was very difficult in that most everyone agreed that candidates ought not lie, but having a mechanism to stop it proved elusive. The question of free speech hung heavy and also trying to determine who would be able to watchdog the candidates honestly.

Reflection

If last week was frustrating, this week was amazing. I may have enjoyed our conversation this week more than any in quite a while. I think that the best part for me was that we were able to identify things that are genuinely good about the election process. It’s so easy to complain. It is often more difficult to see the good.

While our election process is not in any way perfect, it is pretty darn good.

Sitting around with a group of people who are all over the map politically it was good to hear that by and large all could agree on the positives and even the negatives. Where the disagreements lay are in the how to fix the issues. This was encouraging to me because it showed again that often in our disagreements, the roots are shared frustrations. If we could remember that, I think we would be much more kind in our interactions.

I’ll leave you with this skit from Saturday Night Live…