The issues you call partisan aren't really partisan but they are made partisan by politicians and those with power.

A large majority of the country is for making marijuana legal at the federal level. Most people don't like corporations and billionaires funding our elections. Most people are against gerrymandering. Most people are for legal immigration. Most people agree that out healthcare system is broken and way too expensive. Most people want education to be affordable and effective. Most people care about the environment. Most people don't want people to be jailed for petty things or people wrongly convicted.

The things people disagree on are the way these issues are framed by politicians and the powerful and the proposed solutions. However it's easy to agree that all of these things are a problem. I'm not saying everyone agrees but a lot more people agree on things then you are lead to believe by those who benefit from keeping the country divided.

> The issues you call partisan aren't really partisan but they are made partisan by politicians

Literally what does an issue being “really partisan” mean besides there being a sharp distinction between (in a two party system) the major parties or (more generally) between some group of parties and some other group of parties on the issue?

“Not really partisan but made partisan by politicians” is a nonsense description.

It's a perfectly appropriate description. To take abortion as an example, most people are in the middle ground where abortion up to a certain point (~12 weeks iirc) is ok with abortion until birth allowed in extreme cases. This is also how things are in a lot of other countries. Yet the rhetoric is dominated by the extreme positions of either no abortions or abortions until birth because not properly addressing the issue is convenient for politicians (after all, they had 50 years to codify Roe v Wade rather than leaving it to legal precedent).

These extremists are the only people that show up and care enough to make sure the representatives they vote for actually represent them on this issue. If you don't care enough to do that, I don't know why you expect politicians to care either. It doesn't really matter what "most people" say in these no-stake questionnaires. If "most people" care about getting this middle ground passed, then there'll be enough of them to vote out anyone who sticks to an extremist position. So where are these "most people"? Because I can't find them anywhere in the electoral surveys that matter.

A more simple way to put it is that the politicians are hyper focused on the minor things we disagree on and complete ignore the things we mostly agree on. This division helps keep people hating each other and not focusing on important issues while also keeping their donors happy since they love the status quo.

Here's another simple way to put it: if politicians only focused on what you call "minor things we disagree on", voters can simply and easily vote them out. But voters don't think those are minor issues, it's just that you don't personally value them. Abortion, for example, is hardly a "minor" issue, for many it's a matter of life and death. You may think marijuana is a "minor" issue, but for others it's a critical crossroads that will determine the future of their community and country.

Politicians don't have mind control powers, there is no mechanism to make voters "hyper focus" on issues that voters themselves consider minor. If voters focus on something, it's not minor to them. All you're saying when you dismiss these politicians' focus as "minor things" is that you either don't know or don't respect the decisions of the voters they represent.

> Marijuana is a partisan issue

Every topic will have people on both (or many) sides, but the majority of both democrats and republicans want legalization with only 1 in 10 of all Americans opposing legalizing it for both medical and recreational use. Polarization isn't the problem. There is common ground and wide agreement on various aspects of these issues which are actionable even if it doesn't solve the entirety of the problem.

While of course there will be people who want to argue over specifics that's congresses entire job. To represent our disagreeing perspectives on how a problem should be addressed, work out solutions collectively, and put those solutions in place. No party is going to get everything done in the exact manner they want it, but as long as the issues do get addressed (one way, the other, or by some compromise) the system works. If nothing substantive can be done about the issues that the vast majority of the country agree we need to act on because of partisan bickering then the system is broken and broken systems should be replaced with something that is capable of actually working for Americans.

"people disagree so nothing can be done!" is not acceptable.

It's pretty obvious these people simply aren't voting or aren't voting for appropriate representatives. The US is an optional democracy. It doesn't really matter what you answer in these no-stakes surveys if you can't be bothered to show up for them when electing your representatives. If you sent out a survey asking if people wanted free money, you'll probably get a similarly high approval rate.

Your revealed preference when you don't vote accordingly is not "deep down I think Congress should legalize marijuana", it's "I don't care".

And let's not get carried away, not legalizing marijuana or establishing your preferred healthcare system does not mean the system is "broken". There are ways for people to express that they think the system is broken, but it usually takes more effort than voting accordingly if you're actually right that there is such a strong consensus.

The problem I see now is that neither party in our two party system have any interest in candidates who are willing to represent the American people. It's nice that in theory we can vote for anyone we want, but the impracticality of that makes it irrelevant. In practice we vote for who they tell us we can vote for. We are essentially not allowed to vote for appropriate representatives. We usually see the frustration with that reality expressed as some form of "Nobody votes for who they want in office, we all just vote against the person we oppose". The problem is widely acknowledged and there have been a number of suggestions like ranked voting systems which would make it more likely for people to be allowed to vote for the candidates they actually want in office, but as you'd expect those elected by our current system have no interest in implementing them.

The system may not be entirely broken (it has allowed for things to get accomplished in the past), but because today it consistently fails to represent our interests or meet our needs even over several election cycles there are clearly bugs to be worked out and I think the problems go beyond which particular asses are filling seats in the capitol building.

If we had the ability to simply vote our way out of this mess we'd have done it decades ago. That said, I'll agree that far too many people aren't participating in the process, and the longer this goes on the more I think that will change and in fact it has been improving (in presidential elections voter turn out hasn't been this high since the early 90s and for the 18-24 group it hasn't been this high since the early 70s), but that's also why we're seeing an increase in voter suppression.

Both parties in the two party system have primaries to choose party candidates. If people don't participate in primaries, they shouldn't be surprised when neither party pays attention to who they want. Anyone can run in primaries and they don't even have to win. The whole primary process is designed to signal to the party and the winning candidate what voters are willing to show up for.

"Nobody votes for who they want in office" is a natural result of high political polarization and the inherent polarization in any democracy, when that many voters hold competing and conflicting priorities then of course practically no one gets what they want. Spinning this as some kind of evidence that American democracy is broken makes no sense when this is said about practically every democracy, including democracies that use ranked choice. Ranked choice or any other voting system is not going to change this dynamic where the will of millions of disagreeable voters are condensed into a relatively small committee. Alternative voting systems are a trade-off like any other and at best will just move the needle a bit on a handful of issues. Voter suppression is yet another exaggerated bogeyman, it's largely a fight between two equally well-funded factions and the votes it accounts for pales in comparison to voluntary abstinence.

Of course the problems go beyond which particular asses sit in Capitol Hill, it goes right up to the asses that sit in the United States, including the people who promote the distracting fable that the system citizens repeatedly voted for (directly or not) is the fault of other people.

> Anyone can run in primaries and they don't even have to win.

Nope. You need to meet requirements which vary by state. Most require some mix of signatures (often thousands) and fees (can range from hundreds to tens of thousands). The high barrier to entry is another long acknowledged problem (example: https://www.cnn.com/2012/01/22/politics/newcomers-campaign-c...) which has only gotten worse. If you want to stand a chance to win (and you'd be a fool to spend the time and money to enter if you didn't) expect to spend many millions. (see https://mcfn.org/node/7427/2020-us-house-races-cost-868-mill...). Go ahead and count the number of people in congress who were living paycheck to paycheck before running for office. Most of them are not millionaires by chance.

It's also worth mentioning that primaries are not required to be fair, as we saw when the DNC colluded with Hillary's campaign to undermine her opponent and install their preferred candidate ahead of the 2016 primary election.

> Ranked choice or any other voting system is not going to change this dynamic

experts disagree with you, and for good reason. There's zero incentive to not vote for the candidate you want in office when your vote will go to your next choice if your preferred choice cannot win. The problem we have now is that we're forced to vote for who is most likely to win no matter how we feel about them. There is research showing it would increase voter turnout and it would also open the door for more than just two parties expanding our options. There are issues that come with ranked choice voting, but the biggest problem is that it confuses voters and that problem can be solved by education and acclimation.

> Voter suppression is yet another exaggerated bogeyman

Once again, experts disagree with you. I can provide sources if you like.

Gerrymandering and other forms of voter suppression have a significant impact on the outcomes of elections in opposition of the will of American voters. In short, people who would not have been elected into office are being elected because voters are silenced. Any scheme intended to prevent eligible American voters from having their votes cast or counted should be abhorrent to anyone who cares about democracy and research shows that the practice hurts voter turnout as well (people whose votes are being rendered meaningless unsurprisingly don't vote as often). For someone who seems so concerned about voter turnout you're awfully dismissive of things which would change that for the better.

I don't claim that the American people don't have a role in the decline of our democracy. We certainty have been complacent and we have allowed ourselves to become discouraged and conditioned to accept things as they are, but I can't pretend that the system hasn't been systematically refined over hundreds of years to limit the power of the average citizen to effect change or influence policy and anyone can see that what we have has not been working for us. You vastly overestimate the ability for the average citizen to enact change (see for example: https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi...) but the fact that we, that you, haven't been able to do it so far says it all. We all share a responsibility for how things got to where they are, and a responsibility to reform the system which is failing us, but if it's still possible to enact change with the system we have today it's going to be a very difficult fight.

Again, it's not just about winning. Any primary candidate that gets a share of votes shifts the platform, it's the campaign that matters, like Bernie Sanders who wasn't even part of the DNC yet shifted the party/presidential platform after the primary.

Sure, there are some minimum requirements for running, it doesn't fundamentally change any dynamics here, it just raises the bar. It's always convenient for primary losers to blame their loss on party favor like Hillary's case, even though it simply amounts to increased marketing and exposure which, as was evident in the 2016 elections, does not win elections. As with all marketing, it only works by increasing the reach of an already good product, it does not mind control voters. I'm going to assume you personally did not vote for Hillary in any primary, you had no trouble resisting this diabolical collusion yet I suppose the implication here is that everyone else is just too weak minded to self-determine their own votes in the face of increased campaign financing. The simple reason you need to be a millionaire is that any serious party always has one or more massively popular candidates that already represent the majority of issues that voters care about, there are rarely any major gaps in representation, the easiest way most candidates can distinguish themselves when the main issues are already represented is by increasing exposure. But if voters care about a major gap in representation, they will find you. If you completely solve this problem by lowering minimum requirements to zero, it will simply change the minimum size of these relatively small gaps which also lets increasingly small & fringe extremists into the party.

> The problem we have now is that we're forced to vote for who is most likely to win no matter how we feel about them. There is research showing it would increase voter turnout and it would also open the door for more than just two parties expanding our options.

You are not forced to vote for who is most likely to win, every candidate knows that if they don't represent certain issues it will depress turnout and lose them votes. That's because people are not forced to vote for who is most likely to win, in fact they don't have to vote at all. In the next sentence you even point out that it will just increase voter turnout. Again, I don't doubt that, but the votes it accounts for are insignificant compared to voluntary abstinence, it's a minor distraction. Like I said before, it will at best equilibrium on the most borderline issues but parties will quickly realign. The same is true for gerrymandering, it has a suppressive effect but it does not defend against a serious consensus among actual voters, it simply raises the bar for one by a certain amount. You simply don't have a serious consensus on issues like marijuana and healthcare. A serious consensus is formed by voters prioritizing it in the voting booth, not answering "yes I care" on any of these academic studies.

For someone who seems so concerned that the system is largely broken you're awfully focused on only fixing the tiniest of cracks in the face of voluntary abstinence. This is the equivalent of fussing over expensive & fancy gym equipment to fix your workout when your biggest problem is that you don't workout often. Americans have never needed the most theoretically optimal voting systems or the best anti-gerrymandering policies at the cutting edge of democracy. They have democracy at home, if they have any problems they just have to use it.

> It's always convenient for primary losers to blame their loss on party favor like Hillary's case, even though it simply amounts to increased marketing and exposure which, as was evident in the 2016 elections

For the record, it went far beyond "marketing". In this case it was the DNC prepping Hillary's campaign by leaking questions in advance of debates, denying the Sanders campaign access to critical voter data (which they only restored after he filed a lawsuit against them), strategizing with her campaign on ways to turn democratic voters against him (including the suggestion that they attack on the basis of his religion), changed party rules to increase the number of Hillary's delegates, and established a joint fundraising committee to secretly launder money into her campaign.

That's not to say "marketing" wasn't a part of it too. The DNC pressured the media (including MSNBC) to be favorable to Hillary's campaign and leaked information to reporters they hoped with hurt Sander's campaign. The DNC also leaked info they had on Sanders to Clinton's campaign staff and they paid people to attack his supporters online.

They didn't even deny they rigged the whole thing. In a lawsuit filed against the DNC over their actions the lawyers for the DNC stated that they had no legal obligation to follow their own charter and had every right to "go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way.”

Sure, and once again it is up to voters to hold their party accountable. The DNC chair has already resigned. The political fallout depressed turnout and Hillary Clinton ultimately lost. Primary favoritism, whatever form that takes, is not a legal matter, it is a democratic one. At a certain level legal protection doesn't make sense, you said yourself that the closest thing to legality in the DNC, which are party rules, were changed by the party anyway.

Senator Murkowski of Alaska lost her party's primary but ended up winning from write-in votes.

San Francisco's "mainstream media" could fill their front pages with as much praise and justification for the District Attorney as they want, it didn't stop him from being recalled with historic turnout. Getting the media to favor you doesn't mean squat if voters disagree.

The voters are always the biggest factor. Party leaders can pick bad candidates as much as their bosses - the voters - allow them to.