Happy Midterm Elections!

Every America of voting age should be required to listen to the new episode of Freakonomics: America's Hidden Duopoly which gives some serious reasons as to why the relatively rational Median Voter Theorem doesn't apply to America any longer-- the best way to imagine the Median Voter Theorem is to think of a long beach, which is the continuum of American voters-- and two ice cream vendors (with trucks) which represent the Democrat and Republican parties and while the vendors might position themselves at the far ends of the beach-- which indicates radical liberalism and radical conservatism-- then they can't capture much of the middle vote . . . the walk is too far, so naturally, the ice cream vendors should move towards the center because then they can capture more and more of the middle of the continuum because the radical voters on the far edges have no choice (in a two-party system) but to walk to get their ice cream . . . but this implies that if the ice cream trucks remain very far to the right or the left, then an ice cream truck can open shop in the middle and win the election . . . Tyler Cowen offers a number of reasons why this theory doesn't work, and this new episode of Freakonomics clarifies the argument; veteran business competition expert Michael Porter realized that our two party system is not a public service, it's a political industrial complex . . . and the thing the Democrats and Republicans are best at is not serving their constituents or serving the American people as a whole, the thing they are the best at is cooperating to create policy and protocol to prevent any outside forces from impinging on their duopoly; like the battle between Coke and Pepsi, the duopoly war gets great media coverage and generates its own feedback loop of coverage, but unlike Coke and Pepsi, there is no Dr Pepper . . . and the Democrat and Republican parties have done a great deal to ensure this; Porter cites five forces that could ruin a duopoly:

1) the threat of new entrants;

2)the threat of substitute products or services;

3) the bargaining power of suppliers;

4) the bargaining power of buyers;

5) and rivalry among existing competitors;

and the voting consumer is pretty much screwed in every category . . . neither party has to worry about an independent, and can often dissuade party loyalists merely by mentioning the spoiler effect-- if you vote for an independent, you're just throwing the election to the other party, which then has all the power and will use it to gerrymander maps and stymie any diplomacy or bi-partisan agreement; we've got no bargaining power as voters and only the extremists in each party are willing to supply money and people for the cause . . . it's basically two ice cream vendors who don't give a fuck about most people, provide shitty, biased ice cream, and exist by convincing people there's no reason to walk so incredibly far for ice cream and that that ice cream vendor is a terrible human and there's no chance of better ice cream along the way because they've convinced the town not to allow any other vendors . . . it's a bad situation, but the episode has some solutions-- we could vote the way Ireland does (listen to the new Radiolab for more on that) and use "rank choice voting" and then re-tally the votes until there's a consensus, tossing out extremely partisan choices that can't get fifty-percent of the vote . . . anyway, both parties love to say that our democracy is broken, but that's a ruse and they don't believe it-- our democratic system is fantastic at keeping Democrats and Republicans in power, something that worried John Adam . . . this system assures us that almost everyone who runs will be the same, that there will be no bi-partisan agreement-- there wasn't with Obama and there isn't with Trump-- and neither party cares because they know there's no alternative, so they cater to their base, knowing that the rest of the rational middle ground consumers have no bargaining power and have to make a choice between the lesser of two evils . . . there are bi[artisan groups working on solutions, but it is rough going because Democrats and Republicans alike don't want to cede any control to bi-partisan committees or non-partisan committees . . . they want to wait their turn and then take power back, the way we've been doing it for a while now . . . Seattle tried another interesting solution, which may not have worked perfectly, but it's a start . . .  anyway, happy mid-term elections and recognize that if you vote Democrat or Republican, you're really voting for the current political industrial complex and for more of the same bipolar vitriol and more of the same atrocious customer service.