One thing that gives me hope is that politics has always been a mess (there are some times of stability but they never last forever). Though I think a big thing we need to do is strengthen democracy in the US, get rid of first past the post elections, gerrymandering, the necessity of large donors required for campaigns, unequal representation in Congress, etc. I think if we break the two-party system politics in the US would look better.
The only way that can happen is if several red state legislatures agree to the Compact. This Compact is useless to replacing the Electoral College if only blue states sign up; these states would have voted blue in an election, anyway. It tips over to 270 if several red states sign up and allocate their electoral votes against the wishes of their own red state constituencies. Would that be democratic? It is obvious why the growth of the compact has stalled at 209 votes; it is irrational for a red state to join it. It is also true in the mirror image if it were a "red state 270 vote compact," no blue state would join it.
Restructuring the elections, congressional seat allocation, etc. would require Constitutional amendments. Unlikely to happen. It is baked in the cake that individual votes are weighed unequally between the 50 states of the Republic. The only other way to do it would be an organic mass migration of voters that equalizes the population in all 50 states. The Census would eventually reflect this and the seats and electoral votes would be equal in all states, as I understand it.
We already have a "third party" now in the sense the GOP is unrecognizable from 20 years ago; the old GOP died out, like the Whig Party.
> Restructuring the elections, congressional seat allocation, etc. would require Constitutional amendments. Unlikely to happen.
As a Brazilian, I think it's unfortunately more likely than you think. Here in Brazil, we got a completely rewritten constitution (the 1988 constitution) after our USA-backed military dictatorship ended. So if the current USA government becomes a dictatorship (which unfortunately does not seem unlikely enough right now), there's a good chance the USA will also get a brand new constitution after all that mess ends, hopefully one with better electoral mechanics.
> Restructuring the elections, congressional seat allocation, etc. would require Constitutional amendments.
That's not always true. Proportional representation in the House would help a lot, and that could be done by passing a regular law. (The current "one member per district" law is only from 1967: [0])
I agree, but we're essentially asking for a unicorn for each of those favors. Just getting one of those done with the current societal setup could easily be a decade+ of very heavy campaigning. I'm not convinced I'll see all 5 in my lifetime, and I'm not super old as is.
It is more possible now than ever though with unprecedented communication. But to paraphrase Warren Buffet a bit: "We (the rich) are a lot better at this and we're kicking your ass right now". Imagine if we could have even a fraction of the youth anger from Tiktok aimed at such issues above.
