Just a few things added to what I said already:
A thought experiment. You have two politicians.
One is Mr. Smith and the other is Mr. Cook. Mr.Smith is from the Blue mainstream party that you prefer and that party has mostly the right positions in their party program. But you also know that Mr. Smith has a low IQ, is corrupt and generally doesn't care about the promises he made last month.
On the other hand Mr.Cook is from the Green mainstream party that you don't like. On the other hand you know that Mr. Cook has a high IQ, is incorruptible, values holding his promises and generally does what he thinks is in the best interest of the country.
The policy differences between the parties as big as between the US Republican and the US Democratic party.
Which of those politicians would you rather want to have in office?
I listed keeping up promises as one of those things journalists are supposed to look out for. It's not the only one. There are a bunch of issues where everyone agrees that certain behavior of politicians is bad. It much more important to prevent that behavior than it is to have a politician favor policy A over B where there are good arguments for both A and B and 40% of the population might like policy A and 60% might like policy B.
I don't think the greatest thing about democracy is that the elected politicians do exactly what the voters want them to do. The greatest thing about democracy is that you have an efficient mechanism to get rid of bad politicians without having to run a violent revolution. That puts pressure on politicians to make good policy to stay in office.
I don't think the greatest thing about democracy is that the elected politicians do exactly what the voters want them to do.
I don't think so either. The VAA idea should go in tandem with the other ideas, intended to reduce voters' degree of selfishness and tribalism, and to enhance the quality of political debates. We want an electorate of rational and altruistic voters to rule.
It's an interesting topic. I might write a longer post about it later on.
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