Veterans Day flying over to Election Day is this Saturday’s Keynote, which rings in a resounding win for the silent supermajority. The problem is having to get off work to vote on election day, and long lines before and after your shift. The solution is to move the Veterans Day national holiday to Election Day.
Why
Care?
Moving Veterans Day to coincide with Election Day would be a profound fusion of honor and democracy.
Voting serves as a tribute to those who safeguarded our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
This shift promises to bolster participation in our democratic process, offering a day rich with patriotic spirit and reflection.
It ensures our gratitude for veterans is matched by civic action, intertwining the celebration of service with exercising our most cherished civil duty.
A single, powerful holiday would magnify national unity, amplify informed citizenship, and deepen the value of each vote cast and each service member remembered.
We rated moving Veterans Day to Election Day higher than moving Election Day to 11/11 because it can fall on any day of the week, including weekends which disrespects various sabbaths (that whole separation of church and state thin
More About Veterans Day
Veterans Day, originally Armistice Day, was to celebrate the end of the First World War, which happened at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. The last brave soldier to have served in that war has now passed.
But why not move Election Day to Veterans Day? That would mean that some years voting would be on the Sabbath, whatever day of the week that falls on, which disrespects religion (that whole separation of church and state thing). Voting could also be on the weekend, which is when most people are trying to enjoy family time. However, moving Veterans Day to Election Day has no such baggage.
We scored moving Veterans Day to Election Day higher than moving Election Day to 11/11 because more support would be lost from the latter needing the weekends for family and/or worship than picked up by the former keeping tradition.
Polls show voting on Veterans Day to have majority support from Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.
If Veteran’s Day was moved to Election Day, then voting would remain on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November and would become a national holiday—celebrations and voting during the day and mostly happy returns in the evening.
Those who
favor democracy…
want everyone to vote on everything; the majority should always rule. Moving Veterans Day to Election Day makes it easier for people to vote because they have the day off. It celebrates democracy in a practical way, potentially getting more voices heard in the election process, which is a win for the democratic principle of participation.
Those who favor
the republic…
think that elected officials and the judiciary should decide when it’s correct to impose the will of the majority or the minority on others—voting is just part of the process. There’s concern that simply increasing numbers at the polls doesn’t mean voters are informed.
While democracy types might welcome a larger, more diverse electorate, republic types might worry about shifts in voting patterns. Additionally, a surge of less informed voters could challenge overall decision-making quality, affecting both parties.
Summary
Metaphorically, it appears Election Day and Veterans Day have fallen in love but are having their first squabble over when and where the wedding should be. Move Veteran’s Day to Election Day —or- Election Day to Veterans Day? We scored the former because having election day occasionally on weekends and the sabbaths will lose more support than it gains.
What’s Our Shared
Politics 4.0 Political DNA (ACGT) says about Moving Veterans Day
Poetically, our Political DNA is also ACGT, comprised of Abundance, Commerce, Governance, and Thrift. See more about this below in the Methodology section.
Abundance
Abundance is more than just material wealth and includes resources, intellectual depth, and a generosity of spirit.
Support: Moving Veterans Day to Election Day could create an abundance of civic participation, enriching the democratic process with a greater diversity of voices and ideas. It also offers an opportunity to celebrate and reflect on the nation’s values, combining gratitude for military service with the enactment of citizen rights.
Counterargument: However, such an abundance in participation could overwhelm polling stations, potentially diluting the quality of engagement with a flood of uninformed votes.
Thrift
Thrift is not just spending less but also resource management, risk mitigation, and the principle of doing more with less.
Support: Consolidating two significant national days into one is a practice in thrift, reducing the number of holidays in an already overstuffed November. It also encourages a more efficient use of time, allowing individuals to honor veterans and fulfill their voting duties simultaneously.
Counterargument: This form of thrift might lead to a diminished observance of both events, as the reflective nature of Veterans Day could be compromised by the active, often contentious atmosphere of Election Day.
Governance
Governance is not only public sector activity but also synchronous decision-making, with liberty and justice for all.
Support: Uniting Veterans Day with Election Day underscores the importance of governance, highlighting the relationship between the rights and duties of citizenship with the recognition of those who have served to protect these freedoms. It could enhance synchronous decision-making, bringing collective focus to national values and policy directions on a single day.
Counterargument: The proposed merger could complicate governance, as managing the logistics of a dual-purpose holiday may strain public resources and dilute the solemnity of commemorating veterans with the practicality of conducting elections.
Commerce
Commerce covers not only the private sector but also asynchronous decision-making (decisions not made simultaneously but at different times by different people), competition, and innovation.
Support: Merging these holidays could stimulate commerce by encouraging a patriotic surge in consumer spending, and it could foster innovation in how businesses engage with and support civic activities. It also blocks the possibility of Election Day becoming a holiday of its own resulting in too many holidays and overtime in November.
Counterargument: The confluence of Veterans Day and Election Day could result in consumer-friendly legislation being passed that heaps even more red tape onto small business owners.
This Week’s
Flight of Articles
If you’d prefer first to role-play this week’s puzzle, then swoop on over to the…
Puzzle of the Week
Puzzle Drop Introduction
MONDAY
Should Veterans Day Move to Election Day?
Tiebreaker
TUESDAY
Ironing Out the Wrinkles of Moving Veterans Day to Election Day
Politically Strange Bedfellows
WEDNESDAY
When Veterans Day Met Election Day
Political Digital Twin
THURSDAY
Your Digital Twin’s Take on Veterans Day Voting
BOX Score
FRIDAY
Veterans Day Ballot BOX Score
Conclusion:
LEADERBOARD
WORTHY
The US Public Policy Leaderboard (US-PPL) ranks solutions so ‘us people’ can keep track of what’s most important to the silent supermajority. Political parrots hate it when we think for ourselves.
Moving Veterans Day
Nonpartisan Score
POLI had support as NEAR CONSENSUS. Our editors were a bit less convinced. Nevertheless, we predict a 79% ±2% (6 roles) VAST SUPERMAJORITY of roles in this country to support Moving Veterans Day to Election Day, including a majority of each of the four sides of the political table, making this US Public Policy Leaderboard (US-PPL) worthy idea.
90% and up Near Unanimous
80% – 89% NEAR CONSENSUS
75% -79% VAST SUPERMAJORITY
67% – 74% Strong Supermajority
60% – 66% Supermajority
50% – 59% Majority
By Contrast
SCOTUS’s approval rating is 40%,
the media is 27%, and
Congress is 13%.
The average score of the policies on the PolicyKeys™ US Public Policy Leaderboard (US-PPL) Sweet Sixteen is 76%, with many above 80%—Politics 4.0 is already a 2x to 5x better model of US political sentiment and direction than politics as usual.
Methodology
Politics 1.0 is each party wanting to be a one-party system. Then, Politics 2.0 is the two-party gridlock that blocks the silent supermajority from getting what it needs. Next, Politics 3.0 is all the noise from special interest groups trying to influence us to see things their way. Finally, Politics 4.0 ranks solutions with a nonpartisan score and lets the best ideas rise up the leaderboard so people can choose.
The Four Laws of
Public Policy Formation
The First Law of Public Policy Formation is that people with short-term focus will naturally protect their wages, jobs, status, profits, and wealth.
The Second Law of Public Policy Formation is that people with a longer-term focus place bets to make life better, longer, easier, or different.
The Third Law of Public Policy Formation is that the clash between the short-term and long-term causes noise, angst, conflict, and harm.
The Fourth Law of Public Policy Formation is to take into account the various leading solutions’ nonpartisan scores before making up your own mind.
One-Page
Narrative Tool
Uses the following ground truth:
“There’s a time to save
and a time to spend,
a time for freedom
and a time for laws.
Where can we agree?”
This yields four legs of the political table: Abundance, Thrift, Governance, and Commerce, poetically our Political DNA, ACGT.
A Level
Playing Field
The four sides of the table are…
Abundance Governance (AG)
National Public Sector and NGOs,
Abundance Commerce (AC)
Technology and New Businesses,
Thrift Government (TG)
Local Municipalities, Guilds, and Consumers, and
Thrift Commerce (TC)
Established Supply Chains and Jobs.
Each side has a bias for change and a bias for the status quo. We scan these eight Information Walls for Key YES and NO Reasons, no cherry-picking.
Treasure
Hunt
The Political Parrots have a Key reason they don’t want us to know about because it ruins their argument. We search for these, like a treasure hunt, and sort them using our EMIT format: Emotions, Money, Information, and Timespan. We listen for these key signals in the political noise.
Key Reasons can look similar, so we edit for redundancy and look for errors, omissions, and innovations.
We search for solutions with the highest hypothetical nonpartisan rating. Something that would solve 80% of the problem with the simplest 20% solution. The Pareto principle, hence a parrot-topia.
Definition of
Political Parrots
Are you making up your own mind or marching to the beat of a political parrot?
- Political Parrots get paid to squawk the same thing over and over again.
- They don’t listen if you’re not paying.
- They don’t fully understand what they’re saying.
- They are charming and sport every color.
We look to filter out the GRIFTERS, Gaslighting, Red-herrings, Idolizing, False-dilemmas, Tunnel-vision, Exclusions, Reductions, and Straw-man arguments.
We think you can think for yourself. Where can we agree?
Birds of a Feather
AI
Once the Key Reasons are set, we prescore the puzzle using the Birds of a Feather AI for loose ties to beliefs, attitudes, values, and ethics. Over 16 million combinations are possible for the 128 roles. The game board starts balanced at zero, with an equal bias for change and the status quo.
We then prescore the puzzle using 56 arch-type roles that best embody each of the 56 loose ties. This yields a general bias for change or status quo and reveals ties.
The editors break the ties, and review all 128 roles for specific reasons, and overrule the general AI where necessary. These are noted in the Tuesday Tiebreaker article.
Then, we score the puzzle on all four sides of the Political Table: eight Information Walls, sixteen Subcultural Windows, sixteen Bias Columns, and sixteen Influence Rows.
SAT9
AI
When the scoring is done, a second AI looks for inconsistencies using the SAT9 AI filter (Situational Assessment Tool). This is 256 ‘supreme courts’ where each role is the chief justice in a presumed 5-4 and 4-5 bench. This generates a ± error margin.
The engine for the AI is our One-Page Narrative Tool (OPNT) which we gamified for role-playing at policykeys.com. We call our AI, POLI for Political Omnibus Leadership Initiative.
You can read more about PolicyKeys™ in the upcoming book, Politics 4.0: How Gamification, AI, and National Idea Leaderboards Can Help You Depolarize the World. The Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI) at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has recognized PolicyKeys™ for digital engagement.
Weekly
Puzzle
A new PolicyKeys™
Where Can We Agree?® puzzle
drops every
Monday at 7 a.m. Eastern at PolicyKeys.com.
PolicyKeys™ Where Can We Agree? is a real-life role-playing game. Each week, there are sixteen sets of eight ‘rival’ roles. Sit awhile in each of their eight chairs and predict whether a majority of people in those roles would say Yes or No to the week’s question.
The best ideas land on the US Public Policy Leaderboard (US-PPL) if a majority of each of the four sides of the political table agree.
YOU CAN PLAY THIS WEEK’S PUZZLE AT POLICYKEYS.COM.
Cue the
Patriotic Music
Imagine an America not paralyzed by political squawking. A Parrot-otopia oasis in a desert of division. Where the sounds of the silent super-majority drown out the droning of the hyper-partisan parrots.
We’ll be freed from the cages of entrenched ideology to fly higher in the big sky of American beliefs, attitudes, values, and ethics. To boldly go where no political parrot has gone before—rating solutions with a nonpartisan score.
Anthem
Where Can We Agree?
(Why Don’t You Want To Know?)
Fly
higher
Empower Voters 2.2
American Academy of Arts and Science
Armistice Day (Veteran’s Day)
Wikipedia
Combine Election Day with Veterans Day and give democracy a boost
CNN: Opinion
Move Voting Day to Veterans Day
Politico
OPM Announced Paid Time Off for Federal Employees to Vote
OPM
The Changing Face of America’s Veteran Population
Pew
Last U.S. World War I Vet, Dies at 110
History.com
Make Election Day a National Holiday
Brookings
Bipartisan Bill to Make Election Day a National Holiday
Press Release
Should Election Day Become a National Holiday
ProCon.org
Nineteen States Have A Holiday for Election Day
Represent.us
The Effect of Making Election Day a Holiday: A Study
Bringham Young University
Five Reasons Election Day Should Be a National Holiday
Global Citizen
Views of Election Policy Proposals
Pew
Election Day Should Not Be a National Holiday
Inc
ABA survey finds support for election holiday, expanded polling hours, voter IDs
American Bar Association
Why Tech Companies are Making Election Day a Holiday
Tech Crunch
Election Law
Cato
It takes guts to see things from all four sides of the political table.
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