INVENIRE

Both conservatives and leftists should be cautious of the Biden administration, albeit for different reasons.  When Bernie Sanders conceded the 2020 race for the Democratic nomination, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party was angry. On two consecutive occasions, the firebrand Senator for Vermont was ousted by an "establishment pick". Sanders, the left-wing populist, had run on the promises of Medicare for All; an end to corporate-funded political campaigns; a free four-year university education for all; and a radical response to the climate crisis - all to be funded by new taxes on a favourite target of his: "the billionaire class." Joe Biden was a stark disappointment.  For months, many of Sanders' supporters expressed a refusal to support the candidacy of Biden,  with many believing him to not be radical enough.  Urged on by the centrist wing of the party, many of them, albeit reluctantly,  backed Biden,  largely motivated by fears of a second Tru...

Americans love their Constitution. Its longevity and liberal emphases have given it an untouchable status in American politics. In no other country is so much political debate dedicated to the founding document. Even in Britain, with the debate regarding Brexit, the word "unconstitutional" has been the reserve of academics and judges. One of the aspects of the US Constitution praised most often is the separation of powers between the three branches of American government - legislative, executive and judicial. By ensuring that various elected bodies constantly check and evaluate each other, it is believed that the American people are protected against tyranny. Because of the checks and balances of the Constitution, many Americans will be surprised to learn where the real seat of power in their nation lies. It is not in the Capitol building, nor in the White House, nor in the Supreme Court: the real heart of American power is in Silicon Valley, in the hands of the ever-dominant...

 The 2020 Presidential Election is set to be the most expensive and most soughtly contended of all time. The incumbent has spent the past four years in the White House after a shock victory in 2016. His opponent, a veteran politician and the right-hand man of Obama, is projected, by most major pundits and news outlets to be the forty-sixth President of the United States, and by a comfortable margin. The Economist's  election forecast data , predicts, as of the 29th of October, that Biden will win the Electoral College with 350 votes to Trump's 188. FiveThirtyEight has projected a  347-191 victory for Biden. With respect to the noteworthy events of the year thus far, Invenire predicts a 279 to 259 victory for Trump (270 Electoral College votes are required to win the Presidency). In particular, Invenire believes that Trump will retain the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, despite it being Biden's home state. Map-maker courtesy of 270towin.com Arizona Once considered to be a re...

The Western world has rejected oligarchic and autocratic governmental structures. Foolishly, we have pushed them aside, denouncing them as immoral, favouring liberal democracies instead. Contradicting nearly all history, we view these two conditions (wealth and democracy) as inseparable. When we look to the poorest regions of the world, this ill-found sentiment is only reaffirmed; it is easy to look to a despot in Africa and shout, "Look! You need democracy to succeed." However, a simple review of the histories' of developed countries tells otherwise. Despite its seemingly successful practice in the Global North, democracy hinders the development of the Global South. Foremost, we must address the most obvious contention: it is true that nations like Taiwan, New Zealand and Norway are both developed and democratic. Furthermore, it is true that there are nations like North Korea and Chad that are both poor and under authoritarian regimes. However this correlation is mislead...

The Electoral College is as essential to maintaining American federalism as the Bill of Rights. The system for electing American presidents is fit for purpose. For the President of the United States to be effective, he must unite the Union. We must recognise that the United States is different from other nations in that it is not a nation in the traditional sense, the American culture is not derivative of one ethnicity. America was not settled with ideas of national unification in mind and so national unity must be fought for. If the President does not unite the Union, the effects are dire. In 1860, Lincoln, despite winning the popular vote, won less than 3% of the Maryland vote, less than 1% of the Kentucky vote, and received no votes in the South. Predictably, the Civil War followed. The primary area of concern with the Electoral College comes in its preference for voters who live in low-population states. In 2016, a Wyomingite had 268% more voting power than a Texan did, when el...

Those who answer affirmatively to the question would reason that those who have become privileged and prosperous under a system have a greater incentive to conserve the rules that protect their position. This position stems from the wider idea that ideologies are born for specific groups; it would similarly say that socialism is for the working class, that corporatism is for businessmen, that feminism is for women and so forth. This diminishes the intellectual case for conservatism; if conservatism is merely a defence for the privileged and prosperous, there is no rational defence for it. In order to answer the question, I will first define conservatism, and then see whether this definition would have it to be a defence of the privileged and prosperous. Conservatism, in the words of Heywood, is “defined by the desire to conserve, reflected in a resistance to, or at least a suspicion of change.” [1] This would explain why conservatives are more likely to be religious than their lef...

Democracy, usually in its representative form, is something of a sacred cow in Western societies. One of the primary arguments made by Brexiteers following the European Union referendum in 2016 is that leaving the EU is simply respecting democracy; respecting the will of the people, and fundamentally, the people themselves. Advocates for lowering the voting age to 16 argue that this will expand and strengthen democracy. But why do we hold it so sacredly? It doesn't guarantee better debate, or better decision-making. I will argue that democracy reduces the standard of democratic debate, ultimately reducing the possibility of good ideas being shared in the political arena. It is incredibly contradictory for us to both value the rigorous debate of political ideologies while also valuing democracy. The two are mutually exclusive. During election campaigns, politicians often compete (compete, not converse) in live, televised debates. Following the debate, we often hear complaints that...

Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party have defeated Labour in a convincing victory in the early hours of this morning, forcing Corbyn to announce future plans for resignation. The Labour Party lost a number of votes in leave-voting constituencies, due to their ambiguous stance on Brexit, in addition to Jeremy Corbyn's general unlikability. We will examine how devastating Corbyn might have been, had he won the election. The Conservatives have kept one of their campaign promises: Corbyn neutral by Christmas. In the tradition of all great socialists, Corbyn and the Labour Party have framed their economic policy as "social justice", attempting to appear somewhat moral. Nevertheless, Labour's policies, founded upon greed and economic ignorance, would hurt businesses severely. A strong example of this is their plan to give company profits to workers. Of course, they argue that they are giving workers "a share of the profits they help create". This statement, a...

Aristocracy has become a dirty word; I would argue rightly so, given its association with the landed gentry, unearned seats in government and regressive social hierarchies, such as pre-revolutionary France and  pre-Reform Act Britain . However, in its first usage, it referred to its literal definition; rule by the excellent. In theory, it refers to rule by an individual, or group of individuals, chosen for their excellence. All states are at some point aristocracies; the best of a people are chosen to be military and political leaders in times of crisis.  In The Republic, Plato describes rule by a philosopher-king, chosen for his wisdom and logical thinking. He defends the concept of vesting so much power in one person with his famous Ship of State analogy. The leader of the state is represented by the captain of the ship. Plato describes the current captain as being "a little deaf and having a little infirmity in sight". Consequently, the men on the ship begin to quarrel a...

Amidst the political and social division in the United Kingdom, many believe that the system is incapable of dealing with as great a constitutional crisis as Brexit. The issue has stoked debate as to whether true power is vested in Parliament or the people. To someone who thinks in purely theoretical terms, the answer is obvious: Parliament is representative of the people, therefore power is vested in both parties. However, to everyone else, the answer is not so clear. Despite MPs being sent to Westminster as representatives of their constituents, they have betrayed the people they supposedly serve, by disobeying the democratic mandate. While I am not a fan of tyranny by majority, representative democracies cannot choose when they would rather not carry out the demands of the people. I'll attempt to answer the question "Is Parliament efficient enough for modern Britain?". In this article, I will attempt to answer this question and compare the Britsh system of government ...

In 220 BC China, Qin Shi Huang became the first emperor, after uniting all the other the Warring States. In order to deceive those after him that he was the alpha of Chinese history, he, in 213 BC, burned hundreds of scholarly works, ranging from literature to history to philosophy. He created the illusion that only records produced by him and his administration were factual. In addition to this, he persecuted many intellectuals and writers, allegedly killing many of them. In 1258, the House of Wisdom, a prominent library in Baghdad, was destroyed by the Mongols in the Siege of Baghdad. The books from the House were thrown into the River Tigris; so many books were destroyed this way that the river ran black with the ink from the books. The effect of this was the end of the Islamic Golden Age, a period which had seen great advancement in scholarship by Muslim intellectuals. In the 1930s, Hitler and the Nazis burned all literature and art deemed degenerate. This included books that w...

Centre-Left. Far Right. Centre Right. Centrist. Far Left. The majority of people use one of the five aforementioned labels to describe the political beliefs of themselves and the beliefs of others. The broader categories of Left and Right stem from the French Revolution, where supporters of the monarchy would be positioned to the right of the king in the Estates-General, and whereas the revolutionary republicans would sit to his left. The staunch royalist loyalists were then known as conservatives; they wished to "conserve" the monarchy and all other traditions. In stark contrast, the republicans became known as liberals; they wished to "liberate" the French people from the hierarchical social order. Thus arose the beliefs that conservatives aimed to preserve the institutions of the past and that liberals aimed to change them. However, I believe that the one-dimensional political spectrum we have become accustomed to is not a useful one. It plots people on a sc...