An Independent Effort Says AI Is the Secret To Topple 2-Party Power In Congress
- Reference: 0180254941
- News link: https://politics.slashdot.org/story/25/12/02/0120200/an-independent-effort-says-ai-is-the-secret-to-topple-2-party-power-in-congress
- Source link:
> The rise of AI assistants is rewriting the rhythms of everyday life: People are feeding their blood test results into chatbots, turning to ChatGPT for advice on their love lives and leaning on AI for everything from planning trips to finishing homework assignments. Now, one organization suggests artificial intelligence can go beyond making daily life more convenient. It says it's the key to reshaping American politics. "Without AI, what we're trying to do would be impossible," explained Adam Brandon, a senior adviser at the Independent Center, a nonprofit that studies and engages with independent voters. The goal is to elect a handful of independent candidates to the House of Representatives in 2026, [2]using AI to identify districts where independents could succeed and uncover diamond in the rough candidates . [...]
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> ... "This isn't going to work everywhere. It's going to work in very specific areas," [said Brett Loyd, who runs The Bullfinch Group, the nonpartisan polling and data firm overseeing the polling and research at the Independent Center]. "If you live in a hyper-Republican or hyper-Democratic district, you should have a Democrat or Republican representing you." But with the help of AI, he identified 40 seats that don't fit that mold, where he said independents can make inroads with voters fed up with both parties. The Independent Center plans to have about 10 candidates in place by spring with the goal of winning at least half of the races. Brandon predicts those wins could prompt moderate partisans in the House to switch affiliations.
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> Their proprietary AI tool created by an outside partner has been years in the making. While focus groups and polling have long driven understanding of American sentiments, AI can monitor what people are talking about in real time. ... They're using AI to understand core issues and concerns of voters and to hunt for districts ripe for an independent candidate to swoop in. From there, the next step is taking the data and finding what the dream candidate looks like. The Independent Center is recruiting candidates both from people who reach out to the organization directly and with the help of AI. They can even run their data through LinkedIn to identify potential candidates with certain interests and career and volunteer history. ... The AI also informs where a candidate is best placed to win.
[1] https://slashdot.org/~Tony+Isaac
[2] https://www.npr.org/2025/12/01/g-s1-98267/ai-independent-candidates-congress-two-party-control
Cat got your tongue? (something important seems to (Score:4, Insightful)
> People are feeding their blood test results into chatbots, turning to ChatGPT for advice on their love lives and leaning on AI for everything from planning trips to finishing homework assignments.
are they really though? i mean, i'm sure someone is but has this reached a critical mass? or are lots people becoming increasingly tired of all this AI bullshit and just ignoring it except for the places where we don't have that option? i could certainly believe we've managed to birth a upcoming generation of the laziest non-learning students in possibly the history of education as a concept, and i can believe that the loneliest of the lonely are out there trying to fuck a chatbot, but how many folks are out there feeding blooodtests into Gemini?
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Well, I do... But I ignore at least half of the results I get from the thing.
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here's hoping you pick the correct results to ignore!
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> ... realizes
No .. no they don't. I mean, they certainly are, but they don't realize it. And chatbots are very stupid. They cannot reason, they cannot think, they cannot "hallucinate" or "lie" because they are weighted random word generators and have no intent. ... and most humans are dumber than that.
Change one word (Score:4, Informative)
It'll take an Amendment to happen, but the word, "Majority," needs to be removed from the Constitution. Replace it with, "Plurality," and we have a chance of a multiparty system.
As it stands right now, it's virtually impossible for an independent to be elected to the highest ranking office. If there is a three party Presidential race, the US House of Representatives makes the decision as to who wins. Unless we somehow get a large enough group of independents in the House of Reps, that'll be decided along party lines no matter what. Changing that one word makes it so the House doesn't make the decision, but the Electoral College does (I have problems there, too, but different topic).
Re:Change one word (Score:5, Informative)
The voting system is the problem. This does not require constitutional change:
> The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.
Each state can change their elections for the House of Representatives to something better, like ranked choice single transferable vote in multi-seat constituencies. Changing presidential elections would require constitutional change, but the main problem with American politics appears not to be the presidency, but that the house is completely dysfunctional, refusing to hold the presidency to account in some cases, being unable to pass budgets, parties taking absurd positions because they are the opposite of the position already claimed by the only opposition, etc.
Re: Change one word (Score:3)
I like approval voting. Nothing complicated, no ranking. Just "check all the boxes you would be okay with." Simple as that.
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The House would only be involved if none of the candidates broke 50%. A third party/independent candidate could absolutely win; it's just a lot harder because they don't have a Party infrastructure already in place.
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> The House would only be involved if none of the candidates broke 50%.
Yes...that's what a majority would absolutely mean. Literally the only two times in the history of the US that no Presidential candidate has had a 50%+ electoral college vote, the House has picked based upon party lines. The Bull Moose party was the closest to being capable as I recall and they didn't even really come close.
The two parties are not the problem anymore (Score:2)
Several years ago, my dad was complaining about all of the corruption that "came in with Bill Clinton." My dad was in federal law enforcement, and it's actually true that a huge swath of federal law enforcement (particularly the FBI) did start to become noticeably more corrupt in the 90s if you paid attention to police accountability and civil liberties stuff.
After letting him rant for a while, I pointed out to him that it wasn't Clinton but what Clinton represented which was a generational changeover with
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The church committee cleaned up the most egregious corruption in intelligence in the 70's. It just started to surface again in Reagan's years and under Bill it hit stride. Intelligence agencies have been corrupt from their inception.
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The Boomers were not a monolith. What they were was the first generation in some time to have a large contingent of far-left radicals. Worse, they were amplified rather than neutered by the presence of a foreign war. As they aged and moved into politics, they tried to implement radical changes and broke tons of stuff that didn't need fixing. That is precisely what Bill Clinton exemplified. He was a 60's radical who went on to seek political power. And for whatever reason, that's a course that is litte
How about getting rid of the first past the post? (Score:2)
The stupidest voting system for representational systems ever. Ok, it was the first - dating back to Magna Carta days - but why is it still being used today?
Pick almost anything else, and you get better results. My favorite would be Concordet, but any Single Transferrable Vote would probably work fine.
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There remain ways to alter the voting system from the "winner-take-all" approach that would increase engagement and allow better representation of the residents of the states. The approach I am recommending is the, oft-recommended, district-based system.
This approach, which is in use in a small number of states, allows congressional districts to choose electors, with the Senate counts continuing to be winner-take-all. This would serve to increase engagement in minority districts.
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This s honestly one of the most ignorant comments I have ever seen.
FPTP or simple plurarity voting systems have serious deficiencies in reflecting the will of the governed. They provoke strategic voting, e.g., "Don't vote for Candidate X because they're not going to win, so it's basically throwing your vote away."
Approval, ranked choice, and Condorcet voting methods are all objectively superior. I.e., it has been demonstrated mathematically.
Ranked Choice or go home (Score:1)
It is bloody hard enough explaining how Ranked Choice works now you want to complicate matters with more systems or different terms for the same thing? Guess what - you are killing off the prospect that any of them get adopted. In fact, a supporter of first-past-post might use this very strategy to keep it in place. Andrew Yang popularized Ranked Choice so stick with that.
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STV is just ranked choice with extra steps. Extra steps which happen transparently to the voters. That's fine.
Condorcet is better than FPTP because it better reflects the will of the governed, but there are weird situations in which it does not yield a winner. This makes it impractical and therefore unpalatable.
Already happened - Trump is not really Republican. (Score:1)
It has already happened...
Trump is really not a Republican - Reagan turns in his grave seeing what Trump is doing...
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la Presidenta is entirely Republican. You must recall that Reagan campaigned on Gov. is the Problem and more or less promised to tear it down. He didn't of course and taxes actually went up under Reagan. He also let the feral Christian Right into politics under the guise of Jerry Falwell and his ilk. They proceeded to destroy any freedoms that they could lay hand on since they were not contained in his Bible. After that, Gingrich proceeded to further destroy a functioning government and then campaigned on g
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He is a Republican, but he is more Populist than Conservative. I think that's what you're picking up on.
Re: Already happened - Trump is not really Republi (Score:2)
Reagan wasn't really a Republican either. Lincoln was probably turning in his grave when the GOP made Reagan their party mascot.
And I thought computer god was a daydream. (Score:3)
This firm faith in AI to solve all of humanity's problems is really, REALLY stupid to begin with, but thinking it's going to solve the two party gridlock we've suffered under here in the states? That's a step too far into the absurd. Somebody needs to bring these clowns back to reality. Or just figure out a way to have them fully consume the Kool Aide, upload themselves into their digital god, and get the fuck out of the way of those of us that just want to live a life in the real world.
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> This firm faith in AI to solve all of humanity's problems is really, REALLY stupid to begin with, but thinking it's going to solve the two party gridlock we've suffered under here in the states? That's a step too far into the absurd. Somebody needs to bring these clowns back to reality. Or just figure out a way to have them fully consume the Kool Aide, upload themselves into their digital god, and get the fuck out of the way of those of us that just want to live a life in the real world.
The Marching Morons meets destructive uploads? The pitch is, "We euthanize you, disassemble your brain, and upload you into the cloud so that you can live in paradise forever". But the reality is "we kill you, then an LLM trained on your email and posting history imitates you (badly, but with nice visuals)". It's would be the techbro equivalent of a cult mass-suicide.
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>> This firm faith in AI to solve all of humanity's problems is really, REALLY stupid to begin with, but thinking it's going to solve the two party gridlock we've suffered under here in the states? That's a step too far into the absurd. Somebody needs to bring these clowns back to reality. Or just figure out a way to have them fully consume the Kool Aide, upload themselves into their digital god, and get the fuck out of the way of those of us that just want to live a life in the real world.
> The Marching Morons meets destructive uploads? The pitch is, "We euthanize you, disassemble your brain, and upload you into the cloud so that you can live in paradise forever". But the reality is "we kill you, then an LLM trained on your email and posting history imitates you (badly, but with nice visuals)". It's would be the techbro equivalent of a cult mass-suicide.
Yeah, I can see it. Forget perfect upload capability. We'll train this constantly wrong LLM algorithm on your data and you'll live forever, bro! Granted, you're digital ghost will need to continue to pay $19.95 a month forever, or it will be deleted. No freeloaders in digital heaven.
Be careful (Score:2)
I've never seen a two-party system as democratic.
Yet for large and important countries like the US, UK and France it is a way to establish their influence on the world stage.
China and Russia manage with one party :)
What I like to warn against is a system like we have in the Netherlands with 15 parties in parliament, that's a recipe for instability.
Do like the Germans do and set a hurdle of, say, 5%.
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The Germans started WWII and killed a bunch of Jews.
How about we NOT do what the Germans do, eh?
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Uneducated fool.
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Why do you think the Germans have the 5% rule?
The 5 percent rule is basically a guardrail built after the Weimar failure, where dozens of tiny parties splintered parliament and helped the Nazis rise through chaotic, fractured coalitions. Modern Germany uses the threshold to prevent that kind of fragmentation again and keep extremist fringe groups from getting seats off tiny vote shares.
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Ah yes talking about extremists, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party is well over this threshold and definitely a danger to democracy.
So far most others don't want to get in a coalition with them.
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We don't have a two-party system in the US. That is just strong armed by both parties to maintain control.
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What's even the point of more parties? In every Parliamentary system, there are a number of left-wing parties and a number of right-wing parties. They tend to form coalitions that act as... two parties. At the very least, they vote like they were two parties. It's a great way to increase pork and log rolling, as it is costly to keep the coalitions afloat, but I don't see anything I'd call a benefit from increasing the number of parties.
Or we can look at it this way - there is a liberal perspective,
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> What's even the point of more parties?
Coalition governments that can ignore the lunatic fringe on both sides, and actually govern as moderates? The "Antifa", or whateverthefuck you want to call the far left idiots, and the MAGA, or whateverthefuck you want to call the far right idiots, can fuck off in the corner and bloviate about all the horrors that are destroying this country. Meanwhile the moderate right and left, whom are much closer in idealism than far too many people are willing to admit for some reason, can form a functioning governme
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In the end, what is the actual difference? How often do the Liberal Democrats find themselves at odds with Labour? Does the DUP tend to vote with or against the Conservatives?
How is it any different? I look at the Reform UK Party and think, "oh, so like the Freedom Caucus faction of the Republican Party?" Do the Democrats not have a strong faction analogous to the UK's Green Party? And are the outcomes any different? No, they aren't. The UK has two coalitions made up of one big party and a few sma
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Not "these days", that's the goal of every party and has been for quite some time. Possibly from the start.
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Since red Kool-Aid blue Kool-Aid both taste like bitter almonds, yeah, there's no difference. And that's been the case for at least a couple of decades.
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> Since red Kool-Aid blue Kool-Aid both taste like bitter almonds, yeah, there's no difference. And that's been the case for at least a couple of decades.
I believe the problem is over-reach, or at least one of them. Any time one or the other groups is in "power", the over reach starts.
If we look at the Republican side When in power, the reach is to become more conservative. This will continue until the populous has had enough. When you start talking about cutting out SS or Medicare, and doing silly stuff to your voter base like that, you end up losing support. In my state, there was an attempt to recall judges for not thinking right, so to speak. It faile
Guys, just do coalition government already. (Score:1)
No need for AI or other fancy stuff. Just redo your constitutional setup. Multi-party representative system, 5% barrier to entry for parliament, President becomes (largely) a ceremonial role, coalition government, independent non-private federal bank, independent default subsidized media, any member of a government that exceed 3% of debt per legislative period may not be re-elected ever again and a few more details and you're good for the next 250 years.
This isn't rocket-science. We all know what's broken a
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> Just redo your constitutional setup.
"Just"
It's super hard to redo our constitution. There's only two ways, one is with fire and the other requires consensus.
> It's not that the vast majority of people in the US ain't noticing that fundamentals of the US system have to change.
The vast majority of people in the US don't know shit.
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Sure, throw the separation of powers out the window and adopt a system that isn't doing the UK any favors? Do you know what the difference is between a two-party system and a coalition government? Neither do I. You still have two groups with shared political views arguing with each other, you just call them coalitions instead of parties.
Also, have you thought through your idea of an "independent non-private federal bank"? How is it to be all of those things when they contradict each other? If it is
Don't need AI (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't need AI to identify competitive districts. There are 435 congressional districts. About 400 of them are solidly for one party or another, through a mix of gerrymandering and genuine voter preference. That leaves 35 that probably could go either way (including my own) *, with another 30 or so that *could* flip for the right candidate
There, I've saved you $millions on doing "AI" research, just by 1) being an informed citizen, who 2) hears about this situation through a variety of news outlets pouring over polling and trends, and who in turn 3) get some of their information from the thousands of think tanks and PACs that spend every day looking at this stuff.
* competitive districts: AZ-01, AZ-06, CA-13, CA-22, CA-45, CA-48, CO-08, FL-23, IA-01, IA-03, MI-07, MI-08, MI-10, NC-01, NE-02, NJ-07, NJ-09, NM-02, NV-03, NY-03, NY-04, NY-17, NY-19, OH-01, OH-09, OH-13, PA-07, PA-08, PA-10, TX-28, TX-34, VA-01, VA-02, VA-07, WA-03, WI-03
What problems do independent ooliticians solve? (Score:2)
Any independent politician who acts totally by themselves will only be able to accomplish the most insignificant things, because it needs more than one person acting alone to exercise power. And the minute you have two or more people acting together, they heed a method to agree how they will work together... which is a political party, whether you wnat to call it that or not, and with all the compromises that brings. It's inherent to humans and how we get things done. We have to cooperate, and that means co
# of parties irrelevant (Score:2)
It doesn't matter how many parties you have, what matters is what set of social/political/economic (class) interests they represent. And given the general lack of imagination AI has demonstrated, any party it creates will echo/mirror/generally copy the parties it was trained on.
Yeah.... (Score:1)
Remember when AI tried to eliminate white people from the internet, so we ended up with black and lesbian Nazis? No mater how you try to fix the system, someone is going to try to gerrymandering it. AI isn't special. The same people will make the rules for AI. The solution is to literally remove all parties. No more pooling resources or party funds. Everyone runs on their own platform. It will make everyone look at what people claim they support rather than voting for a political tag.
Can AI overcome GOP gerrymandering? (Score:1)
Every week I read about yet another GOP-controlled state legislature redrawing the boundaries to eliminate districts that might vote for a party other than the GOP in time for the midterms. Indiana is the latest state to do this. I don't see AI overcoming this. It's truly interesting that this widespread, coordinated effort to eliminate democratic seats with a map is hardly a blip in the news media. They are talking about the dems taking back congressional power in the midterms but frankly it's not goin
What is needed.. (Score:2)
What is needed, besides a massive outbreak of common sense is to have a 3rd party. that way, the religious zealots can stay with GOP, while "regular" conservatives operate the third party.
GOP really needs to lose the Religious Right that Nancy Reagan brought in, at this point that contingent is a serious turn-off for any logical-thinking person.
Do that, and Conservatives may do better, free of the influence of those who belive in a magical sky daddy.
I'm a conservative in many ways, but i"m not for theolog
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Two? There's one option. The lie is believing any of those people are any different. Everything they do is acting and pandering for the cameras. They're almost all corrupt and 1/3 of them or more probably diddle kids. We're One Nation Under Blackmail.
You have two choices (Score:2)
You get to choose fascist-flavored imperialism or slightly embarrassed imperialism.
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In the 18th century the standard anti-democratic propaganda pushed by monarchists was "People are too stupid to govern themselves. Don't try."
In the 20th century the standard anti-democratic propaganda pushed by totalitarians was "All your choices are the same. Don't participate."
It's getting old. In the US alone, there are many easily-observed and well-documented differences between the policies of the two parties at the federal level alone, all three branches. Yeah there's some stuff that's the same t