Referendums crude instruments if used crudely or cravenly

Asking the Right Question: Gallup found that when abolish-the-electoral-college question was replaced with an amend-the-constitution one, Americans were suddenly in favour. Even so, in 2016 the margin for reform narrowed to 2 percentage points. image xxx

Had the party campaigned in favour of capital gains tax, guaranteed minimum income, and legalisation of cannabis, Labour would be staring down the barrel of a one-year term.

Courage is not rewarded when a political party’s policy proposals face a significant popular headwind that the opposition is ideologically predisposed to exploit. Citizens’ assemblies, such as the United Kingdom’s Climate Assembly UK, are increasingly deployed deliberative-democracy mechanisms that are increasingly finding favour of parties to advance all-too-easily-mobilised-against policy.

Whereas direct democracy, used cowardly and crudely—as in Brexit—can severely injure the party that detonates referendum, deliberative democracy invites not just those assembled, drawn by lot, but the wider population, on a journey of learning and decision making. However, it still leaves for the government-leading party to wear much of the opprobrium of implementing or ignoring citizens’-assembly recommendations. But this is where direct democracy can be deployed, elegantly…

This yet-to-be notified embryonic article is a very early work in progress; please bear with…