>We can't get better policies until we elect better parties, but we can't elect better parties until we address campaign finance and fix the electoral system, but we can't address campaign finance and fix the electoral system until we elect better parties willing to pass better policies. And the merry-go-round goes on and on.
So you have to pick one and fix it. It's an engineering problem.
So for example, you have to fix campaign finance. The people in Washington aren't going to fix campaign finance in Washington because the system that exists is the one that got them elected. Ditto for the people in Sacramento, Albany, etc. But wait, you can have Sacramento and Albany fund the federal campaigns of Senators running in California and New York (and so on). State Senators don't get money from K Street, they get money from an entirely different set of lobbyists, so you can get the bills through by taking advantage of the regional weakness of the specific opponents. And then do it the other way around and have the federal government pass a national campaign finance bill for state-level offices.
That is obviously not a trivial undertaking, but we can't jut say "damn it, we're stuck in a cycle" and throw up our hands or it'll never get fixed.
I don't mean to suggest there's nothing people can do. However, it's facile and unhelpful to suggest that this is a simple engineering problem. The reason campaign finance is hard to fix is that the people who have the power to fix it are the very same people who benefit the most from the current system, i.e. the people who are most effective at securing the financing of wealthy benefactors.
That's a human problem, not an engineering problem. It can still be solved, but it won't be solved with an engineering approach.
So you have to pick one and fix it. It's an engineering problem.
So for example, you have to fix campaign finance. The people in Washington aren't going to fix campaign finance in Washington because the system that exists is the one that got them elected. Ditto for the people in Sacramento, Albany, etc. But wait, you can have Sacramento and Albany fund the federal campaigns of Senators running in California and New York (and so on). State Senators don't get money from K Street, they get money from an entirely different set of lobbyists, so you can get the bills through by taking advantage of the regional weakness of the specific opponents. And then do it the other way around and have the federal government pass a national campaign finance bill for state-level offices.
That is obviously not a trivial undertaking, but we can't jut say "damn it, we're stuck in a cycle" and throw up our hands or it'll never get fixed.