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That looks interesting, going to have to check that out

Wills is *extremely* good. the whole book is bursting with stuff like that. Lincoln at Gettysburg is also a masterpiece

G WILLS the GOAT. That book in particular BLEW MY GODDAMNED MIND when I read it in high school.

No quibbles with the highlighted passages, but the voting process does act sometimes fail, and can actually be improved. It’s going to be a marginal improvement, but sometimes tiny margins lead to huge differences in outcomes.

This is not in conflict with the claims in the passage. What the passage rejects is: tinkering with voting systems, even where failing, will secure liberty. The question isn’t whether “vote harder” occasionally helps, but whether it is sufficient to solve the morass we were/are in, in part or whole.

I speak not of "vote harder"; that's one of the civic virtues under discussion. I mean reforms like more spoiler-resistant methods than plurality or the two-round system, that let people more safely express their honest desire. Even multimember districts to weaken the power of gerrymandering.