The electoral college will exist until the day Texas turns blue and suddenly the “EC stops big states from dominating small states” talking point will disappear. I’d be happy if we could at least...
The electoral college will exist until the day Texas turns blue and suddenly the “EC stops big states from dominating small states” talking point will disappear.
I’d be happy if we could at least turn the EC into a proportional allocation of votes for each state instead of winner take all. It makes improvement in any state matter. Rather than 7 winner take all swing states that should just have their votes split 50/50 to represent the actual opinion of their populations.
I wouldn't say that. Obama actually had an EC edge over Romney in 2012 - that's right, Democrats benefited from the EC, a little more than a decade ago. It's not like Republicans removed the EC...
I wouldn't say that. Obama actually had an EC edge over Romney in 2012 - that's right, Democrats benefited from the EC, a little more than a decade ago. It's not like Republicans removed the EC right there and then either.
In the end, it's hard to change things so entrenched.
Obama still won the popular vote. Edge or not. If we’re really getting into electoral reform let’s revisit the number of congressional districts per state and the distribution based on population.
Obama still won the popular vote. Edge or not.
If we’re really getting into electoral reform let’s revisit the number of congressional districts per state and the distribution based on population.
Expanding the number of seats in the House of Representatives to a number that actually makes sense for our large population is probably the easiest (aka doesn’t require a constitutional...
Expanding the number of seats in the House of Representatives to a number that actually makes sense for our large population is probably the easiest (aka doesn’t require a constitutional amendment) path to a better EC and competitive elections generally.
Since EC votes per state are determined by the number of representatives + senators, adding more representatives automatically also improves the representation of the electoral college.
We do re-allocate house representitives with every census. California and New York both lost a rep. However, its not exactly easy to get better proportions,because the last time I remember going...
We do re-allocate house representitives with every census. California and New York both lost a rep. However, its not exactly easy to get better proportions,because the last time I remember going down this rabbithole, in order to still allow Wyoming to have a representative proportionally, we'd need to expand to something like 1000 house representatives. This becomes a logistical nightmare unless we want to move the physical location of Congress.
Imagine taking this further. Why not have 10,000 representatives who vote remotely? It would not be much like the House of Representatives as it exists today. Each of those people would still...
Imagine taking this further. Why not have 10,000 representatives who vote remotely?
It would not be much like the House of Representatives as it exists today. Each of those people would still represent thirty thousand voters. They would probably still be divided up by party. But I wonder how well it would work?
Lobbying them by talking to each of them one-on-one would not work, because they'd be scattered across the country and there are too many of them. It would be more like a mini-campaign.
It won't happen, but it seems like an interesting thought experiment.
Because this would make the current committee structures nearly impossible to manage. While Congress should be expanded, imagine trying to get 3000+ people to agree on which bills to advance...
Why not have 10,000 representatives who vote remotely?
Because this would make the current committee structures nearly impossible to manage. While Congress should be expanded, imagine trying to get 3000+ people to agree on which bills to advance through committees. The actual meat and potatoes of legislating would be unmanageable with our current systems.
If you're aware of any countries with that many legislators which haven't devolved into the executive setting policy, I'd be curious to learn.
With a radical change like that, you can't change just one thing. I imagine that the committee structure would get blown up too. Whoever decides which bills to vote on has a lot of power, and it's...
With a radical change like that, you can't change just one thing. I imagine that the committee structure would get blown up too. Whoever decides which bills to vote on has a lot of power, and it's probably going to be a smaller number of people.
Maybe it could work something like getting a referendum on the ballot, where you need a certain number of signatures from other members before it gets voted on, and some kind of limits on proposals per member?
At this point we're imagining a very different form of government. Though, with enough party discipline, maybe it works out to be the same thing in the end?
I think having one person in 30,000 thinking about legislation all day is better than all of us doing it. But it would be easier to get your representative's attention.
I think having one person in 30,000 thinking about legislation all day is better than all of us doing it. But it would be easier to get your representative's attention.
Much like now, most people would probably tune out unless an issue was particularily important to them. I like the idea of a direct democracy with a transferable (and overridable) representation...
Much like now, most people would probably tune out unless an issue was particularily important to them.
I like the idea of a direct democracy with a transferable (and overridable) representation system. 'I trust John to represent my interests' means John's vote weighs double, but since that representative could be anyone, there is a lot more room for involvement. Especially if there were a way to split vote weights among different representatives.
Maybe you get paid and mandated to politic full-time ala Jury duty if your representation weighs over a certain threshold.
That paired with mandatory voting (or investment of your vote) is a system I'd be most interested in seeing play out. Another, that would probably have catastrophic growing pains, would be...
That paired with mandatory voting (or investment of your vote) is a system I'd be most interested in seeing play out.
Another, that would probably have catastrophic growing pains, would be something like how my brother described WoW DKP points. Politicians are given some sort of voting currency which they spend (possibly blind/anonymously) over the course of the term to determine whether actions pass or not.
Some legal mechanism for enforcing campaign promises would also be interesting, including things like "I will vote in alignment with the majority of participating constituents on bills related to issue Y".
I’ve sometimes thought about how such a system might work. Maybe something like you need to get 25k votes to be a representative and representing more people doesn’t give you more formal power...
I’ve sometimes thought about how such a system might work. Maybe something like you need to get 25k votes to be a representative and representing more people doesn’t give you more formal power above 100k or so, which discourages too much centralization.
It seems like this tends to result in smaller changes, not blowing things up and starting over. For example, one result of the crisis leading up to the Capitol Hill riots was the Electoral Count...
It seems like this tends to result in smaller changes, not blowing things up and starting over. For example, one result of the crisis leading up to the Capitol Hill riots was the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022.
I could see setting a maximum age to be elected to federal office, depending on how things turn out.
While I agree that's more likely if stability holds, if Trump wins and we have US military being deployed internally, or Trump loses and he convinces a sizable portion to start armed uprisings, my...
While I agree that's more likely if stability holds, if Trump wins and we have US military being deployed internally, or Trump loses and he convinces a sizable portion to start armed uprisings, my money is on big (albeit not neccessarily better) changes.
Ultimately he doesn’t need to do much. He’s got a lot of loyal supporters who are willing to do just about anything for him. The one saving grace is that Trumpism is a charismatic movement, highly...
Ultimately he doesn’t need to do much. He’s got a lot of loyal supporters who are willing to do just about anything for him.
The one saving grace is that Trumpism is a charismatic movement, highly dependent on Trump the man. Once he passes (he is 78 after all), I suspect it loses a lot of steam because of infighting and lack of him as a central figure.
I don't have that kind of faith. While Trump is uniquely bad for a variety of well-documented reasons, he's just the end result of decades of propagandizing and radicalizing a base. They've been...
I don't have that kind of faith.
While Trump is uniquely bad for a variety of well-documented reasons, he's just the end result of decades of propagandizing and radicalizing a base.
They've been beating the anti-minority, anti-gay, anti-woman drum for some time now. The tune isn't gonna change just because their guest lead singer went off the rails for a few shows.
Most of the rhetoric about dangerous woke "enemy within" liberals will still remain. The Republicans will certainly not stop voter suppression efforts or further peeling back civil rights. Or trying to revert course on climate change.
Sure, there won't be a narcissistic maniac at the helm, but the march towards evil moves onward. If anything, it'll be worse because all the 'moderates' will flock back to business as usual.
That ship quite obviously sailed in 2008, when Republicans fully dug in their heels and went full into 'deny Democratic policy at all costs.' They weaponize government shutdowns for gods sake... a thing that only happens when Congress is completely shitfucked and refuses to do one of their most basic primary duties.
That's how Trump got the Supreme Court so stacked. And if Democrats don't do something big to fix it before 2028, we're fucked.
Yeah, the reason Trump is dangerous isn't some sort of unique thing to him. It's because he's popular enough with certain swaths of the population to get elected and he'll sign off on all the...
Yeah, the reason Trump is dangerous isn't some sort of unique thing to him. It's because he's popular enough with certain swaths of the population to get elected and he'll sign off on all the horrifying legislation that the generally vile and disgusting Republican party wants him to. Trump dying before getting a second term would be useful because it denies them that opportunity, not because Trump himself is some particularly egregious brand of evil. He's just useful.
Trump got big initially on low-propensity voters (the “I last voted for Ross Perot in 1992”). While there’s plenty of true-believer NatCons who love him, those low-propensity voters are still...
Trump got big initially on low-propensity voters (the “I last voted for Ross Perot in 1992”). While there’s plenty of true-believer NatCons who love him, those low-propensity voters are still important to his margin of victory. Take them away, and whoever his successor is loses. And none of the proposed replacements (DeSantis, Vance, Ramaswamey) have proven to have the same level of charisma.
I'm not convinced they need the same level of charisma. All those people failed because Trump is still around and in opposition. I'm not sure someone like DeSantis fails or does so poorly without...
I'm not convinced they need the same level of charisma. All those people failed because Trump is still around and in opposition. I'm not sure someone like DeSantis fails or does so poorly without Trump to contrast or even with Trump's backing. The fact that Trump can't share a stage metaphorically or literally with any sort of grace is a sort of protective factor.
The only evidence I need is that Mitch McConnell, Rick Santorum, Mike Pence, and Ted Cruz were all elected well before Trump. They all support most of the vile platform, if not the more outwardly...
The only evidence I need is that Mitch McConnell, Rick Santorum, Mike Pence, and Ted Cruz were all elected well before Trump. They all support most of the vile platform, if not the more outwardly visible lawbreaking. A lawful evil more than a chaotic evil if you will.
While the downward slide will be slower, it's not gonna change course. The policy agenda has been laid bare, and most...if not all of it will remain. We will hopefully avoid the full-blown "end democracy" badness, but the general erosion of civil rights will be main.
TBH the Senate is exponentially worse of a problem, and why it makes a lot of sense to merge pretty much any state with less than 3 house reps into their nearest neighbors. Merge Wyoming, Montana,...
TBH the Senate is exponentially worse of a problem, and why it makes a lot of sense to merge pretty much any state with less than 3 house reps into their nearest neighbors.
Merge Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Delaware into Maryland. Merge Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Conneticut. West Virginia into Virginia. Merge Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico (giving them proper citizenship) into the 'Remote States'.
By lopping off that bottom tier of population, you've improved representation in both the house and senate for everyone (except for those people that had far excessive representation).
If Wyoming deserves 2 Senators, Philadelphia alone deserves 6.
Because there still will be a pretty vast difference between the largest states and the smaller states. California still has 50+ house reps, wheras Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico would be on the...
Because there still will be a pretty vast difference between the largest states and the smaller states. California still has 50+ house reps, wheras Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico would be on the order of < 10. But it would allow for a better distribution as populations continue to flock to urban centers. Having the Senate still provides a check against full 'tyranny of the majority', while not having the thumb on the scale quite so hard.
Also, having Senators elected every 4 years and House reps every 2 means that there's a different dynamic, and kind of functions as a Senior/Junior level filter.
6 years for Senate, but the point still stands. You do have me wondering how some hypothetical at large Congress-like body would work. As of now, I can’t think of a way to feasibility elect 100...
6 years for Senate, but the point still stands.
You do have me wondering how some hypothetical at large Congress-like body would work. As of now, I can’t think of a way to feasibility elect 100 positions in the same nationwide race. Not unless we vote for parties and the parties then select the actual representatives. I preemptively reject that. Party influence should be minimized in the election process in whatever small ways we can.
Doh, yea I forgot that. To be fair to party selection, how many people know more than a cursory understanding of what politician they're voting for when they pull the D or R lever for every...
Doh, yea I forgot that. To be fair to party selection, how many people know more than a cursory understanding of what politician they're voting for when they pull the D or R lever for every position other than President? Could they pick them out of a lineup?
Voting for party then letting the party decide for national positions (ideally if not limited at the state level).
That's also why most state and local elections aren't meaningfully competitive, or the "real" election is the primary. I'd definitely become a voter of extremely niche and joke parties under such...
To be fair to party selection, how many people know more than a cursory understanding of what politician they're voting for when they pull the D or R lever for every position other than President? Could they pick them out of a lineup?
That's also why most state and local elections aren't meaningfully competitive, or the "real" election is the primary.
I'd definitely become a voter of extremely niche and joke parties under such a system. I neither trust nor respect party committees to pick the right people for legislating (I do expect they'd do a marginally better job than primary elections at choosing who can win the general election). At least with a primary election, one can say, "The people have spoken , the morons" when they pick a losing candidate or one that fails to excite the mildly apathetic voters.
So I was curious about this, and looked at some numbers. According to the Census Bureau, the percentage of Americans living in urban areas was 80% in 2020. With a total 2020 Census population of...
So I was curious about this, and looked at some numbers.
If you look at the (as best as I can tell) swing states for the 2024 US presidential election, they and their populations are:
State
Population
Arizona
7,151,502
Georgia
10,711,908
Michigan
10,077,331
Nevada
3,104,614
North Carolina
10,439,388
Pennsylvania
13,002,700
Wisconsin
5,893,718
Total
60,381,161
I think it's funny that the rural population (20% of total population) and the swing state population (18.22%) are so close.
Now, obviously a normal electoral-college-election will necessitate different priorities for candidates than a pure popular-vote-election would. So the swing state population coincidentally being so close to the rural population doesn't mean anything (probably).
However, 20% of the population is a lot. I don't think rural voters would be totally ignored by candidates. (This is pretty much the end of my response to your comment. You can stop reading here if you aren't interested in my ramblings)
I also wondered, how many people lived in the ten most-populous cities in the United States according to the 2020 Census:
City
Population
State
New York
8,772,978
New York
Los Angeles
3,889,834
California
Chicago
2,741,730
Illinois
Houston
2,300,027
Texas
Phoenix
1,611,345
Arizona
Philadelphia
1,601,005
Pennsylvania
San Antonio
1,438,227
Texas
San Diego
1,385,394
California
Dallas
1,303,234
Texas
San Jose
1,010,908
California
Total
26,054,682
So that's six different states, with two states, California and Texas, represented three times, with a total population of 26 million people, or 7.86% of the total population of the United States.
How many cities, in how many different states, would it take to reach the same population count as rural America (about 66-ish million people)?
I stopped counting after 100 cities:
City
Population
State
New York
8,772,978
New York
Los Angeles
3,889,834
California
Chicago
2,741,730
Illinois
Houston
2,300,027
Texas
Phoenix
1,611,345
Arizona
Philadelphia
1,601,005
Pennsylvania
San Antonio
1,438,227
Texas
San Diego
1,385,394
California
Dallas
1,303,234
Texas
San Jose
1,010,908
California
Austin
963,121
Texas
Jacksonville
950,463
Florida
Fort Worth
922,592
Texas
Columbus
905,860
Ohio
Indianapolis
887,382
Indiana
Charlotte
876,747
North Carolina
San Francisco
870,014
California
Seattle
738,172
Washington
Denver
717,630
Colorado
Washington
690,093
District of Columbia
Nashville
689,248
Tennessee
Oklahoma City
682,760
Oklahoma
El Paso
678,598
Texas
Boston
674,272
Massachusetts
Portland
652,388
Oregon
Las Vegas
643,292
Nevada
Detroit
638,176
Michigan
Louisville
632,037
Kentucky
Memphis
631,326
Tennessee
Baltimore
583,132
Maryland
Milwaukee
576,301
Wisconsin
Albuquerque
564,648
New Mexico
Fresno
542,159
California
Tucson
541,859
Arizona
Sacramento
523,416
California
Kansas City
507,932
Missouri
Mesa
505,860
Arizona
Atlanta
499,586
Georgia
Omaha
491,168
Nebraska
Colorado Springs
480,213
Colorado
Raleigh
467,425
North Carolina
Long Beach
464,759
California
Virginia Beach
459,373
Virginia
Miami
441,889
Florida
Oakland
439,341
California
Minneapolis
429,014
Minnesota
Tulsa
412,629
Oklahoma
Bakersfield
403,401
California
Wichita
397,117
Kansas
Arlington
393,985
Texas
Aurora
386,580
Colorado
Tampa
383,980
Florida
New Orleans
383,282
Louisiana
Cleveland
372,032
Ohio
Honolulu
349,800
Hawaii
Anaheim
347,089
California
Lexington
322,403
Kentucky
Stockton
320,745
California
Henderson
319,055
Nevada
Corpus Christi
317,852
Texas
Riverside
314,655
California
St. Paul
310,942
Minnesota
Newark
310,350
New Jersey
Cincinnati
310,113
Ohio
Santa Ana
309,888
California
Orlando
307,603
Florida
Irvine
306,389
California
Pittsburgh
302,777
Pennsylvania
St. Louis
300,528
Missouri
Greensboro
297,808
North Carolina
Jersey City
291,927
New Jersey
Lincoln
291,383
Nebraska
Anchorage
290,637
Alaska
Plano
286,668
Texas
Durham
284,400
North Carolina
Buffalo
277,908
New York
Chandler
277,556
Arizona
Chula Vista
276,466
California
Toledo
270,041
Ohio
Gilbert
269,206
Arizona
Madison
268,846
Wisconsin
North Las Vegas
264,216
Nevada
Fort Wayne
264,169
Indiana
Reno
264,116
Nevada
St. Petersburg
258,658
Florida
Lubbock
257,882
Texas
Irving
256,873
Texas
Laredo
255,336
Texas
Chesapeake
249,679
Virginia
Winston-Salem
249,349
North Carolina
Glendale
248,797
Arizona
Garland
245,478
Texas
Scottsdale
241,933
Arizona
Norfolk
237,591
Virginia
Boise City
235,829
Idaho
Fremont
231,673
California
Spokane
228,850
Washington
Santa Clarita
228,487
California
Richmond
226,670
Virginia
Baton Rouge
224,480
Louisiana
Total
64,953,035
So we're still short about 1.3 million people, but I think it's good enough.
This is the spread of states represented in that list:
Count
State
Place
17
California
1
13
Texas
2
7
Arizona
3
5
North Carolina
4
5
Florida
5
4
Virginia
6
4
Ohio
7
4
Nevada
8
3
Colorado
9
2
Wisconsin
10
2
Washington
11
2
Tennessee
12
2
Pennsylvania
13
2
Oklahoma
14
2
New York
15
2
New Jersey
16
2
Nebraska
17
2
Missouri
18
2
Minnesota
19
2
Louisiana
20
2
Kentucky
21
2
Indiana
22
1
Oregon
23
1
New Mexico
24
1
Michigan
25
1
Massachusetts
26
1
Maryland
27
1
Kansas
28
1
Illinois
29
1
Idaho
30
1
Hawaii
31
1
Georgia
32
1
District of Columbia
33
1
Alaska
34
So that's 34 total "states" represented in the list, counting Washington D.C.
I don't think this data proves that presidential candidates would have to campaign in more states, and more diverse settings, to be elected in a popular-vote-election. However, I certainly don't think this data helps the opposite argument either (that campaign priorities would somehow stay the same, or even be less diverse).
I think to make a strong case either way, you would need to tie this data in with recent political party election trends.
For example, New York is the most populous city in the country, but if (for example) it leans super heavily towards Democrats, then maybe their presidential candidate wouldn't need to bother campaigning there much, if at all. Is that a correct assumption to make? I don't know.
I do think, in a popular-vote-election, the political leaning of any given location matters less, since every single vote has the same 1:1 "power" as every other, anywhere else (versus the electoral college system).
This is where I approach the limits of my "election knowledge" though, so I'll let someone else ride off this comment to provide their own insight if they wish.
Tagging @Eji1700, because I originally started putting this comment together a few days ago as a response to your comment on another topic. Specifically, this part:
I don't see how it's going to be any better when they only focus their time on a couple of cities.
You mean like Pennsylvania? Highly divergent interests are nothing new...basically every single city in a red state. At the end of the day, you just have a phase-in plan where initially all the...
You mean like Pennsylvania?
Highly divergent interests are nothing new...basically every single city in a red state.
At the end of the day, you just have a phase-in plan where initially all the state laws become county laws, give a bit of grandfathering in, form a new state constitution, and let all the overlap between state laws 'bubble up' to the new state. Once you unify the tax code it'll become pretty manageable.
It's not like there isn't any process to create a new state....just one we haven't used in several decades. Our traditional method is to throw away the old laws of the people who lived there, but since we have a more robust federal government, there's no reason that merging states would need to be an impossible task....they would just fallback to a default 'federal-only' jurisdiction ala Washington DC until they sort out the details.
I don't know anyone who supports the Electoral College, but I find the racism angle a little suspect. Not that there's definitely no one for whom racism is a motivator, but that there's another...
I don't know anyone who supports the Electoral College, but I find the racism angle a little suspect. Not that there's definitely no one for whom racism is a motivator, but that there's another explanation: cognitive dissonance. The Electoral College (currently) benefits Republicans, so, in order to avoid cognitive dissonance, Republican voters are motivated to believe that it is a good thing. So they start with that position and then find reasons to believe it.
It's more of a historic thing: EC votes are assigned based on population, not vote counts. Since enslaved people were counted in population ("the three-fifths compromise") but were unable to vote,...
but I find the racism angle a little suspect
It's more of a historic thing: EC votes are assigned based on population, not vote counts. Since enslaved people were counted in population ("the three-fifths compromise") but were unable to vote, slave states had an advantage in elections.
I understand that historical racism is part of why the Electoral College exists in the first place, and I agree that its continued existence is a form of systemic racism, but the piece...
I understand that historical racism is part of why the Electoral College exists in the first place, and I agree that its continued existence is a form of systemic racism, but the piece specifically says that personal racial animus is the reason why people still support it today.
I do believe that much of the "the cities aren't real America" and the way that "urban" is basically a synonym for "black" are built from that same racial animus. Chicago is talked about as a...
I do believe that much of the "the cities aren't real America" and the way that "urban" is basically a synonym for "black" are built from that same racial animus. Chicago is talked about as a hellscape of violence and during a recent incident in my general area, it was absolutely a case of locals saying "they" needed to stay in "the city" (and many other comments were explicitly racist rather than just implicitly).
There is deep racism embedded in these former sundown towns.
I also get the sense that some number of invididuals living in rural, semi-rural, and suburban parts of the country, even parts that have traditionally been less racist, consider citydwellers to...
I also get the sense that some number of invididuals living in rural, semi-rural, and suburban parts of the country, even parts that have traditionally been less racist, consider citydwellers to be incomprehisible and borderline an entirely different species. It might sound ridiculous but I've seen it myself, having grown up and/or lived in those areas.
I've spent most of my life in the small city/ suburban Midwest, hours from any major city, lots of corn. Believe me I've heard it all. But I've learned over time how often "go back to Chicago" is...
I've spent most of my life in the small city/ suburban Midwest, hours from any major city, lots of corn. Believe me I've heard it all.
But I've learned over time how often "go back to Chicago" is said alongside references to the jungle, animals, savages, and all but the N word. (Usually.) The city of STL is much the same, vs the county. Not sure about Indy or the cities that get smaller from there, but mostly because Chicago takes up so much of the local attention.
It really is crazy in Illinois how many rural people don't seem to (consciously) understand how (proportionally) insignificant they are. I'm sure part of the problem is that they do get it, but...
It really is crazy in Illinois how many rural people don't seem to (consciously) understand how (proportionally) insignificant they are. I'm sure part of the problem is that they do get it, but refuse to consciously wrap their minds around it because when you read comments on news articles or Facebook posts, the hot takes are absurd.
They act like it's unfair how much focus Chicago gets and how those city folk are a bunch of idiots who [insert complete nonsense]. But Illinois is one of the most urbanized states and Chicagoland alone makes up, I believe, over ⅔ of the state population and something like 80% of the state's wages.
Now, I won't say the rest of the state isn't ignored and that certain areas, especially in the south and west of the state aren't even deprived, but man, they act like they make up a majority of the state just because there's a lot of empty land. It's really baffling if you're from the city.
But realizing that a lot of people in the state really have no context to wrap their head around how huge the population of Chicagoland is starts to explain it. It can be hard to admit how insignificant you are, but it's a lot easier when you know you live around 9 million other people than when you know all 400 people in your town and constantly hear about how those city folk are doing things you've been raised your whole life to know are wrong because the Bible says so (even though it doesn't).
Well and I'm talking cities of 50-150k, not even tiny towns though I live in a village technically now I think (idk there's townships and villages and it's weird). Even there there's an...
Well and I'm talking cities of 50-150k, not even tiny towns though I live in a village technically now I think (idk there's townships and villages and it's weird).
Even there there's an anti-Chicago angle that's at least 50 percent racism and at least 50 percent because they're Dem leaning and maybe 10 percent about corruption. Even in Springfield. (These cities themselves tend to turn their county's blue in elections but there's still a large amount of this and the racism is not limited to one side.)
Meanwhile I have a couple of siblings in Chicago now, and their neighborhoods are safe, I use city rules for parking (no valuables visible in the car) and never feel unsafe. But my hometown has a "omg you'll get shot there" reputation too and I've lived in a bigger city for college so I just don't feel so phased or intimidated by the propaganda.
Yeah I'm from Chicagoland originally and where I live now it's insane what the people believe about the City. They are absolutely astonished when I tell them how pleasant and safe it is and how...
Yeah I'm from Chicagoland originally and where I live now it's insane what the people believe about the City. They are absolutely astonished when I tell them how pleasant and safe it is and how often I go there. They legitimately think it's burning and falling apart. It's so close they could visit literally every single weekend. I just don't get it!
This urban/rural divide is the easiest example of what I had in mind when I made my earlier reply saying that “just combine small states” won’t work. It’s how you get local elections where all...
This urban/rural divide is the easiest example of what I had in mind when I made my earlier reply saying that “just combine small states” won’t work. It’s how you get local elections where all viable candidates promise “we will not enforce the new law here”—because said law was passed by the urban majority to address city problems.
I keep toying with the idea that the strip along Lake Michigan between Gary and Milwaukee ought to be sectioned off from Wisconsin & Illinois and become an independent federal district (if not outright new state).
No thank you, please do not remove the financial backbone of my state and leave me alone with reps like Mary Miller. This has been proposed by a bunch of conservative assholes around here, once...
No thank you, please do not remove the financial backbone of my state and leave me alone with reps like Mary Miller.
This has been proposed by a bunch of conservative assholes around here, once again due to racism and the like, and No Thanks.
Also, all the corn farmers depend on Chicago financially, not just because of the tax money, but because Chicago is the center of the global derivatives and commodities market. The prices of their...
Also, all the corn farmers depend on Chicago financially, not just because of the tax money, but because Chicago is the center of the global derivatives and commodities market. The prices of their corn and soybeans are literally set in Chicago. Why would they want to lose their only link to that???
I mean they'd definitely expect interstate Chicago trade to have zero negative outcomes to them whatsoever. This isn't logical, racism isn't really based on logic, but a lot of anti-city attitude...
I mean they'd definitely expect interstate Chicago trade to have zero negative outcomes to them whatsoever.
This isn't logical, racism isn't really based on logic, but a lot of anti-city attitude is based on racism
All those damn urbanites with their inferior violent culture preventing them from succeeding and tainting our women and children with their rap music and the devil's weed. ...I'm betting almost...
All those damn urbanites with their inferior violent culture preventing them from succeeding and tainting our women and children with their jazz rap music and the devil's weed.
...I'm betting almost all of that city hate is racism, if not intentionally, definitely via the lens of white privilege and "colorblindness."
The only exceptions being noise, pollution, and lack of privacy. Those are the main legitimate reasons to hate city life (that are not direct result of bad policy).
There's a difference between hating living in a huge city (I wouldn't love it, personally, there's just a lot of people and they're so horribly inaccessible in so many ways), and hating the city....
There's a difference between hating living in a huge city (I wouldn't love it, personally, there's just a lot of people and they're so horribly inaccessible in so many ways), and hating the city.
But yeah at the least since the Great Migration, I'd say the urban v rural divide is a lot about racism. (Probably before that with immigration and free Black folks and just New Orleans being New Orleans probably too).
I guess I'm one of the few people online who would still advocate for the electoral college. Most of the problems people associate with the electoral college today have to do with winner take all...
I guess I'm one of the few people online who would still advocate for the electoral college. Most of the problems people associate with the electoral college today have to do with winner take all systems, plural intentional. The constitution dictates that states will send electors proportional to their congressional representation but that is all, the rest is left up to the states themselves as far as how the run elections, count votes, and allocate electors. In fact, two states still currently divide their electors by the proportion of votes the candidates receive. The solution doesn't need to be to abolish the electoral college but rather to reinstate proportional elector allocation, abolish winner-takes-all systems.
I look back on the intentions set forth by the creation of the electoral college and largely agree with them:
Forming a deliberative body of experts to elect the best candidate in line with the will of the general populace
Slower and less reactive systems are generally a good balance for governments and while not optimal are arguable better than more reactive systems. A properly administered electoral college could add deliberateness and contemplativeness to elections
Giving smaller states a larger voice in the governing of the country as a whole (often derided but I find this is often a misunderstanding of what a federal system is and why it's a good thing)
I wish that we could walk back the party ticket system, there is rational as to why the runner up to the election should be the presiding officer of the senate and have the tie-breaking vote
The electoral college has been confirmed to have overrode the popular vote only four times in the existence of the US and all of them are attributable to the winner-takes-all systems in place, again the problem does not lie directly with the electoral college
Decisive political environments are exactly the times when direct elections are more dangerous and not as desirable
In short, no electoral system is or will be perfect but the long stability of the US does lend credence to the arguments that government systems which are slower acting, more balanced with power sharing, and with circuit breakers in place (separation of powers) to calm the populace and stop any one faction from usurping power are better for the country in the long-term. Of course there are disadvantages to the electoral college but I would argue they are outweighed by the advantages, if the system were correctly administrated and later reforms were reconsidered and repealed
Aren't those two things contradictory? Faithless electors are incompatible with proportional representation. And if we're going to have proportional representation, why not just cut out the middle...
The solution doesn't need to be to abolish the electoral college but rather to reinstate proportional elector allocation, abolish winner-takes-all systems.
Forming a deliberative body of experts to elect the best candidate in line with the will of the general populace
Aren't those two things contradictory? Faithless electors are incompatible with proportional representation.
And if we're going to have proportional representation, why not just cut out the middle people?
Yes, they're contradictory but deliberately so. Direct democracy can be dangerous (i.e. tyranny of majorities or the election of demagogues) so the system was designed that the will of the people...
Yes, they're contradictory but deliberately so. Direct democracy can be dangerous (i.e. tyranny of majorities or the election of demagogues) so the system was designed that the will of the people should generally be followed but the electors can override their choice when necessary and after great internal deliberation. I wouldn't choose to use the word contradictory in this case, rather, complimentary.
But weakening democracy risks creating a tyranny of the minority, a.k.a. plain 'ol tyranny. Ultimately I find safeguarding our democracy against populism by making it less democratic to be a...
But weakening democracy risks creating a tyranny of the minority, a.k.a. plain 'ol tyranny. Ultimately I find safeguarding our democracy against populism by making it less democratic to be a losing proposition, as that allows populist policies to be implemented without even having a bare majority.
At any rate, consider me dubious that the electoral college will save us from populism or tyranny when it is currently being exploited by the populist tyrant-aspirant.
I think that's a hard position for me to accept as the entire United States government was created on the basis explicitly not to be democratic. It's a cliche at this point but...the United States...
I think that's a hard position for me to accept as the entire United States government was created on the basis explicitly not to be democratic. It's a cliche at this point but...the United States is an elected representational republic, not a democracy and this system was explicitly chosen as another link in the checks and balances system. Reducing democratic action certainly does limit populism when slim majorities are unable to use governmental force for tyrannical or other populist purposes. Stopping a slim majority from doing something is not the same as forcing the same constituency to do something, so I'm not seeing how are system as it currently exists is leading to widespread force as you allude to. Can you please give me some examples of positive action i.e. the government forcing people through law where a majority wasn't present?
when it is currently being exploited by the populist tyrant-aspirant
Please explain this, I don't understand how anyone is currently "exploiting" the electoral college system. I've already argued against winner-takes-all but even in that case, either you have the votes or you don't. What exploitation are you referencing?
America is also referred to as the "American experiment", as it was the first modern attempt at a democracy. We shouldn't treat everything that the founders did as sacrosanct; otherwise there...
I think that's a hard position for me to accept as the entire United States government was created on the basis explicitly not to be democratic. It's a cliche at this point but...the United States is an elected representational republic, not a democracy and this system was explicitly chosen as another link in the checks and balances system.
America is also referred to as the "American experiment", as it was the first modern attempt at a democracy. We shouldn't treat everything that the founders did as sacrosanct; otherwise there wouldn't be 16 Amendments to the Constitution beyond the Bill of Rights. Indeed, a few of those Constitutional Amendments exactly undermine your contention that the United States is better off as a republic: the 17th Amendment ensured that Senators are elected by popular vote; the 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th Amendments expanded the right to vote beyond the white, wealthy, and landed gentry, who at the country's founding considered themselves the "deliberative and contemplative" electorate, to borrow your words. With respect to the electoral college, in the majority of states it is required that electors vote for the candidate for whom they pledged to vote [1]. So with respect to your claim that the electorate college
Form[s] a deliberative body of experts to elect the best candidate in line with the will of the general populace
that is explicitly not how the electorate college works. If the electoral college were to elect a candidate other than the one they'd been selected to elect, a Constitutional crisis would surely follow.
Can you please give me some examples of positive action i.e. the government forcing people through law where a majority wasn't present?
Sure, 1825-29, 1977-81, 1889-93, 2001-05, and 2017-21 -- the five Presidencies in American history where the majority of the population voted for someone other than the President-elect, and yet that person still took the Presidency. We could also include every election prior to 1971, that is, before the 26th Amendment was ratified and every American adult was given the right to vote.
And this is before considering how Senate Republicans have disproportionate representation in the government despite representing a significantly smaller portion of the population (in the 2022 election, 36% less [1]), as well as how that disproportionality propagates to a disproportionality in the composition of the federal judiciary.
Please explain this, I don't understand how anyone is currently "exploiting" the electoral college system.
In your words, the electoral college is a "deliberative" and "contemplative" body meant to protect us. Yet the electoral college does not contemplate; it merely votes as it is pledged, with a few exceptions that have had no bearing on the eventual outcome. Nevertheless, the electoral college has in the past 2 out of 6 elections allowed a minority voice to ascend to the highest office in the United States, and in 2016 elected the least qualified candidate in American history. That is the exploitation I am referring to -- a body meant to prevent populism and tyranny has done nothing to prevent that but instead made it easier for a populist authoritarian sympathizer to seize power.
I think we've both made our points but there are a few inaccuracies I'd like to address, since they partially misconstrue what I said. A republic is a form of government where the people or their...
I think we've both made our points but there are a few inaccuracies I'd like to address, since they partially misconstrue what I said.
Indeed, a few of those Constitutional Amendments exactly undermine your contention that the United States is better off as a republic.
A republic is a form of government where the people or their elected representatives control power and not an autocrat or king. Nothing in the constitution undermines that the US is a republic, this must either be a fatal misunderstanding of the amendments cited or a misunderstanding of what a republic is. Either way I never said the US was a Republic period, I stated that the US is an elected representational republic. Nothing about who was allowed to vote when or who elects senators changes that fact, which is a fact while America being referred to as an "experiment," while being true is not a fact. There is a difference.
17th Amendment ensured that Senators are elected by popular vote
Again, this has absolutely nothing to do with my argument so I don't see why it's brought up but without digressing too far, the 17th amendment was a big mistake and caused more problems than the one it was trying to fix
Form[s] a deliberative body of experts to elect the best candidate in line with the will of the general populace
I never said this and you've even marked where you edited the quote itself. The actual quote is:
I look back on the intentions set forth by the creation of the electoral college and largely agree with them: ... Forming a deliberative body
I never claimed our current Electoral College system is a deliberative and contemplative body. In fact, I don't believe it is. I'm going to assume that you misread what I wrote and that it was not intentional.
With respect to the electoral college, in the majority of states it is required that electors vote for the candidate for whom they pledged to vote
Most states impose mere fines for being a faithless elector and in fact there have already been a few examples of this happening within recent memory, there is no actual force that can compel the electors to vote a certain way. At the end of the day, an elector can still vote his or her conscience regardless of what the state law says.
Can you please give me some examples of positive action i.e. the government forcing people through law where a majority wasn't present?
This question was speaking on government majorities and force in general and not about the Electoral College or elections. It was in response to your previous comment as well as mine having widened the field of question beyond the scope of the electoral system in the US. In any case, even if we narrow it to elections: Only four elections were confirmed to have ever been overridden by the Electoral College, not five, and bringing up votes previous to when we had universal suffrage has nothing to do with the fact that the electorate was the electorate despite who was allowed to vote. It changes the argument 0% when discussing how the electoral college functions.
And this is before considering how Senate Republicans have disproportionate representation in the government despite representing a significantly smaller portion of the population (in the 2022 election, 36% less [1]), as well as how that disproportionality propagates to a disproportionality in the composition of the federal judiciary.
This is a very telling statement that reveals a deep misunderstanding on constitutionality and the federal government as a whole. Attacking the equal representation of the senate, while a worthy debate, cannot be separated from the existence of the US itself. The entire basis of the creation of the US is that states would receive equal representation, without that there would be no US today. So important was this that the constitution specifically forbids any amendment that would change the equal representation of the Senate, you can literally amend anything in the US constitution except for that one thing. To even talk about reforming the senate we're discussing drafting an entirely new constitution and form of government. While you are correct that the senate is not representational population-wise it is fully fairly representational state-wise and the senate itself is made to represent state governments, not the people, so any claim that there is a lack of majority in the senate is not only offset by the fact that the senate does not work unilaterally but also that the senate by definition is equally weighted - as it should be.
In your words, the electoral college is a "deliberative" and "contemplative" body meant to protect us
Again, I never said this
That is the exploitation I am referring to
That is not exploitation. The electorate is the electorate, and the electoral college is the system it is. Taking a wholly neutral stance on the issue: the system works completely as intended and subsequently modified, either you have the votes to win in the Electoral College or not. No one is exploiting the system, they are simply acting within it. The system sucks, I agree, but I find most fault with the winner-takes-all provisions and think that the immediate conclusion to eliminate the system rather than reform it are shortsighted but even as much as the system sucks as it currently is, no one is exploiting it
To be honest, I don't understand the point you're trying to make. I think my point is clear enough: if the Electoral College is meant to protect us against populism and tyrannical forces (i.e. act...
I never claimed our current Electoral College system is a deliberative and contemplative body. In fact, I don't believe it is. I'm going to assume that you misread what I wrote and that it was not intentional.
To be honest, I don't understand the point you're trying to make. I think my point is clear enough: if the Electoral College is meant to protect us against populism and tyrannical forces (i.e. act as "a deliberative body"), then it has clearly failed; instead it appears to aggravate these forces by allowing a bare minority to impose their unpopular, undemocratic mandate on others.
You seem to be defending the Electoral College based on some idealization of it rather than how it actually functions. Maybe I've misunderstood you, but it seems to me that your argument boils down to: We are a democratic republic; therefore the Electoral College is good. But this strikes me as a non-sequitur. How does the Electoral College provide better outcomes than direct democracy for Presidential elections? If we already elect members of Congress by popular vote, why should we not elect the President that way, too? What republican duty does the Electoral College actually serve?
So let me recenter the conversation by returning to your original post.
Forming a deliberative body of experts to elect the best candidate in line with the will of the general populace
As we have both acknowledged, the Electoral College does not do this.
Slower and less reactive systems are generally a good balance for governments and while not optimal are arguable better than more reactive systems. A properly administered electoral college could add deliberateness and contemplativeness to elections
Again, the Electoral College does not do this.
Giving smaller states a larger voice in the governing of the country as a whole (often derided but I find this is often a misunderstanding of what a federal system is and why it's a good thing)
I agree that the Electoral College serves this purpose.
I wish that we could walk back the party ticket system, there is rational as to why the runner up to the election should be the presiding officer of the senate and have the tie-breaking vote
I don't agree, but this point is irrelevant with respect to the Electoral College.
The electoral college has been confirmed to have overrode the popular vote only four times in the existence of the US and all of them are attributable to the winner-takes-all systems in place, again the problem does not lie directly with the electoral college
This appears to undermine your own argument: if the popular vote is the benchmark, then we should consider some of those incidents in which the results diverged, for example the 2016 election which gave the Presidency to Trump. How did the Electoral College yield a better result than the popular vote in this particular case?
I agree that winner-takes-all is an issue, but from my perspective the Electoral College exacerbates it.
Decisive political environments are exactly the times when direct elections are more dangerous and not as desirable
Hard disagree. Divisive political environments are exactly when you want power to be diffuse, not concentrated in the hands of a few people; that's how democracies becomes dictatorships, as evidenced throughout history from Caesar to Hitler to Putin.
Most, if not all, of the electors are popularly elected.... That's part of the problem with reactionary opinions on the electoral college, a fundamental lack of understanding by the general people...
Most, if not all, of the electors are popularly elected....
That's part of the problem with reactionary opinions on the electoral college, a fundamental lack of understanding by the general people on how it actually works.
Also, no election has ever been decided by faithless electors and in the whole history of the United States 99% of electors have voted as pledged.
I see you mostly describing the intentions of the Electoral College. In reality, these intentions have little to no positive effect. I do agree that winner-takes-all has the biggest effect, but...
I see you mostly describing the intentions of the Electoral College. In reality, these intentions have little to no positive effect. I do agree that winner-takes-all has the biggest effect, but both need to go to have fair elections.
I tried taking this at a line by line serious breakdown of the discussion and then just realized I was wasting my time. There's so much that's wrong with this but quite frankly i'm tired of it....
I tried taking this at a line by line serious breakdown of the discussion and then just realized I was wasting my time.
There's so much that's wrong with this but quite frankly i'm tired of it. The Electoral college is not a great system. It's not even a good system. Pure popular vote for the president likely will be just as bad if not worse in 4-10 years after passing, and yes it is never going to happen anyways for both good and bad reasons.
There are LOTS of sane ways we could do elections, but pure popular vote isn't one of them, and "well i refuted a bunch of MAGA voters points" doesn't really make the argument.
I've still found very few people who would advocate for the removal of the electoral college with popular vote if it didn't benefit their side/candidates, and if you're coming at it from that perspective, you're already looking at it wrong. I'm just so tired of people assuming that because you dare to defend what idiots are in favor of that you must also be a racist maga voting shithead, so what's the point of even discussing it.
What would you rather have than a popular vote for president? I'm struggling to think of issues with the president being a popular vote. Rurals already get outsized representation in the Senate....
What would you rather have than a popular vote for president? I'm struggling to think of issues with the president being a popular vote. Rurals already get outsized representation in the Senate.
I'm in favour of democracy, and I view the electoral college as antidemocratic, simple as.
If we’re keeping the EC, the first necessary reform is to ban states from allocating their electors in a winner-take-all manner, but that’s already been discussed here. However, what I would like...
If we’re keeping the EC, the first necessary reform is to ban states from allocating their electors in a winner-take-all manner, but that’s already been discussed here.
However, what I would like to propose is an alternative option for states with 5 or more electors to allocate their votes. This option must be on the ballot and voted in referendum in the same election as the presidential vote. Yes, this timing is deliberate to make it harder to strategize campaigns.
The option is to assign one vote for the winner of each House district, plus the two “Senate” votes for the overall winner of the state’s popular vote. Ideally, ranked choice or approval would be used—the choice between those two is fine to be mostly set & forget, perhaps have a referendum every 10 years during redistricting whether elections for the next decade use approval or ranked choice.
Also, uncap the House. That would lessen the distortions of empty states.
The electoral college will exist until the day Texas turns blue and suddenly the “EC stops big states from dominating small states” talking point will disappear.
I’d be happy if we could at least turn the EC into a proportional allocation of votes for each state instead of winner take all. It makes improvement in any state matter. Rather than 7 winner take all swing states that should just have their votes split 50/50 to represent the actual opinion of their populations.
I wouldn't say that. Obama actually had an EC edge over Romney in 2012 - that's right, Democrats benefited from the EC, a little more than a decade ago. It's not like Republicans removed the EC right there and then either.
In the end, it's hard to change things so entrenched.
Obama still won the popular vote. Edge or not.
If we’re really getting into electoral reform let’s revisit the number of congressional districts per state and the distribution based on population.
Expanding the number of seats in the House of Representatives to a number that actually makes sense for our large population is probably the easiest (aka doesn’t require a constitutional amendment) path to a better EC and competitive elections generally.
Since EC votes per state are determined by the number of representatives + senators, adding more representatives automatically also improves the representation of the electoral college.
We do re-allocate house representitives with every census. California and New York both lost a rep. However, its not exactly easy to get better proportions,because the last time I remember going down this rabbithole, in order to still allow Wyoming to have a representative proportionally, we'd need to expand to something like 1000 house representatives. This becomes a logistical nightmare unless we want to move the physical location of Congress.
Imagine taking this further. Why not have 10,000 representatives who vote remotely?
It would not be much like the House of Representatives as it exists today. Each of those people would still represent thirty thousand voters. They would probably still be divided up by party. But I wonder how well it would work?
Lobbying them by talking to each of them one-on-one would not work, because they'd be scattered across the country and there are too many of them. It would be more like a mini-campaign.
It won't happen, but it seems like an interesting thought experiment.
Because this would make the current committee structures nearly impossible to manage. While Congress should be expanded, imagine trying to get 3000+ people to agree on which bills to advance through committees. The actual meat and potatoes of legislating would be unmanageable with our current systems.
If you're aware of any countries with that many legislators which haven't devolved into the executive setting policy, I'd be curious to learn.
With a radical change like that, you can't change just one thing. I imagine that the committee structure would get blown up too. Whoever decides which bills to vote on has a lot of power, and it's probably going to be a smaller number of people.
Maybe it could work something like getting a referendum on the ballot, where you need a certain number of signatures from other members before it gets voted on, and some kind of limits on proposals per member?
At this point we're imagining a very different form of government. Though, with enough party discipline, maybe it works out to be the same thing in the end?
At that point you might as well go to direct democracy, with all the advantages and pitfalls that entails.
I think having one person in 30,000 thinking about legislation all day is better than all of us doing it. But it would be easier to get your representative's attention.
Much like now, most people would probably tune out unless an issue was particularily important to them.
I like the idea of a direct democracy with a transferable (and overridable) representation system. 'I trust John to represent my interests' means John's vote weighs double, but since that representative could be anyone, there is a lot more room for involvement. Especially if there were a way to split vote weights among different representatives.
Maybe you get paid and mandated to politic full-time ala Jury duty if your representation weighs over a certain threshold.
That paired with mandatory voting (or investment of your vote) is a system I'd be most interested in seeing play out.
Another, that would probably have catastrophic growing pains, would be something like how my brother described WoW DKP points. Politicians are given some sort of voting currency which they spend (possibly blind/anonymously) over the course of the term to determine whether actions pass or not.
Some legal mechanism for enforcing campaign promises would also be interesting, including things like "I will vote in alignment with the majority of participating constituents on bills related to issue Y".
I'm all for it! Love me a good DKP system.
I’ve sometimes thought about how such a system might work. Maybe something like you need to get 25k votes to be a representative and representing more people doesn’t give you more formal power above 100k or so, which discourages too much centralization.
It’s all fantasy though.
Depends how politically stable we are in the next 8 years. Nothing like a constitutional crisis to re-evaluate.
It seems like this tends to result in smaller changes, not blowing things up and starting over. For example, one result of the crisis leading up to the Capitol Hill riots was the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022.
I could see setting a maximum age to be elected to federal office, depending on how things turn out.
While I agree that's more likely if stability holds, if Trump wins and we have US military being deployed internally, or Trump loses and he convinces a sizable portion to start armed uprisings, my money is on big (albeit not neccessarily better) changes.
I think if Trump wins he's too old to do much, but let's hope we don't find out.
Ultimately he doesn’t need to do much. He’s got a lot of loyal supporters who are willing to do just about anything for him.
The one saving grace is that Trumpism is a charismatic movement, highly dependent on Trump the man. Once he passes (he is 78 after all), I suspect it loses a lot of steam because of infighting and lack of him as a central figure.
I don't have that kind of faith.
While Trump is uniquely bad for a variety of well-documented reasons, he's just the end result of decades of propagandizing and radicalizing a base.
They've been beating the anti-minority, anti-gay, anti-woman drum for some time now. The tune isn't gonna change just because their guest lead singer went off the rails for a few shows.
Most of the rhetoric about dangerous woke "enemy within" liberals will still remain. The Republicans will certainly not stop voter suppression efforts or further peeling back civil rights. Or trying to revert course on climate change.
Sure, there won't be a narcissistic maniac at the helm, but the march towards evil moves onward. If anything, it'll be worse because all the 'moderates' will flock back to business as usual.
That ship quite obviously sailed in 2008, when Republicans fully dug in their heels and went full into 'deny Democratic policy at all costs.' They weaponize government shutdowns for gods sake... a thing that only happens when Congress is completely shitfucked and refuses to do one of their most basic primary duties.
That's how Trump got the Supreme Court so stacked. And if Democrats don't do something big to fix it before 2028, we're fucked.
Yeah, the reason Trump is dangerous isn't some sort of unique thing to him. It's because he's popular enough with certain swaths of the population to get elected and he'll sign off on all the horrifying legislation that the generally vile and disgusting Republican party wants him to. Trump dying before getting a second term would be useful because it denies them that opportunity, not because Trump himself is some particularly egregious brand of evil. He's just useful.
Trump got big initially on low-propensity voters (the “I last voted for Ross Perot in 1992”). While there’s plenty of true-believer NatCons who love him, those low-propensity voters are still important to his margin of victory. Take them away, and whoever his successor is loses. And none of the proposed replacements (DeSantis, Vance, Ramaswamey) have proven to have the same level of charisma.
I'm not convinced they need the same level of charisma. All those people failed because Trump is still around and in opposition. I'm not sure someone like DeSantis fails or does so poorly without Trump to contrast or even with Trump's backing. The fact that Trump can't share a stage metaphorically or literally with any sort of grace is a sort of protective factor.
The only evidence I need is that Mitch McConnell, Rick Santorum, Mike Pence, and Ted Cruz were all elected well before Trump. They all support most of the vile platform, if not the more outwardly visible lawbreaking. A lawful evil more than a chaotic evil if you will.
While the downward slide will be slower, it's not gonna change course. The policy agenda has been laid bare, and most...if not all of it will remain. We will hopefully avoid the full-blown "end democracy" badness, but the general erosion of civil rights will be main.
TBH the Senate is exponentially worse of a problem, and why it makes a lot of sense to merge pretty much any state with less than 3 house reps into their nearest neighbors.
Merge Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Delaware into Maryland. Merge Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Conneticut. West Virginia into Virginia. Merge Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico (giving them proper citizenship) into the 'Remote States'.
By lopping off that bottom tier of population, you've improved representation in both the house and senate for everyone (except for those people that had far excessive representation).
If Wyoming deserves 2 Senators, Philadelphia alone deserves 6.
At that point, why bother having a senate?
Because there still will be a pretty vast difference between the largest states and the smaller states. California still has 50+ house reps, wheras Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico would be on the order of < 10. But it would allow for a better distribution as populations continue to flock to urban centers. Having the Senate still provides a check against full 'tyranny of the majority', while not having the thumb on the scale quite so hard.
Also, having Senators elected every 4 years and House reps every 2 means that there's a different dynamic, and kind of functions as a Senior/Junior level filter.
6 years for Senate, but the point still stands.
You do have me wondering how some hypothetical at large Congress-like body would work. As of now, I can’t think of a way to feasibility elect 100 positions in the same nationwide race. Not unless we vote for parties and the parties then select the actual representatives. I preemptively reject that. Party influence should be minimized in the election process in whatever small ways we can.
Doh, yea I forgot that. To be fair to party selection, how many people know more than a cursory understanding of what politician they're voting for when they pull the D or R lever for every position other than President? Could they pick them out of a lineup?
Voting for party then letting the party decide for national positions (ideally if not limited at the state level).
That's also why most state and local elections aren't meaningfully competitive, or the "real" election is the primary.
I'd definitely become a voter of extremely niche and joke parties under such a system. I neither trust nor respect party committees to pick the right people for legislating (I do expect they'd do a marginally better job than primary elections at choosing who can win the general election). At least with a primary election, one can say, "The people have spoken
, the morons" when they pick a losing candidate or one that fails to excite the mildly apathetic voters.The EC benefits the political parties. It means they only need to worry about the purple states.
With out it they’d only need to worry about populous areas.
Compared to now where they only care about populous areas in swing states
So I was curious about this, and looked at some numbers.
According to the Census Bureau, the percentage of Americans living in urban areas was 80% in 2020. With a total 2020 Census population of 331,449,281 that means rural Americans numbered approximately 66,289,856.
If you look at the (as best as I can tell) swing states for the 2024 US presidential election, they and their populations are:
I think it's funny that the rural population (20% of total population) and the swing state population (18.22%) are so close.
Now, obviously a normal electoral-college-election will necessitate different priorities for candidates than a pure popular-vote-election would. So the swing state population coincidentally being so close to the rural population doesn't mean anything (probably).
However, 20% of the population is a lot. I don't think rural voters would be totally ignored by candidates. (This is pretty much the end of my response to your comment. You can stop reading here if you aren't interested in my ramblings)
I also wondered, how many people lived in the ten most-populous cities in the United States according to the 2020 Census:
So that's six different states, with two states, California and Texas, represented three times, with a total population of 26 million people, or 7.86% of the total population of the United States.
How many cities, in how many different states, would it take to reach the same population count as rural America (about 66-ish million people)?
I stopped counting after 100 cities:
So we're still short about 1.3 million people, but I think it's good enough.
This is the spread of states represented in that list:
So that's 34 total "states" represented in the list, counting Washington D.C.
I don't think this data proves that presidential candidates would have to campaign in more states, and more diverse settings, to be elected in a popular-vote-election. However, I certainly don't think this data helps the opposite argument either (that campaign priorities would somehow stay the same, or even be less diverse).
I think to make a strong case either way, you would need to tie this data in with recent political party election trends.
For example, New York is the most populous city in the country, but if (for example) it leans super heavily towards Democrats, then maybe their presidential candidate wouldn't need to bother campaigning there much, if at all. Is that a correct assumption to make? I don't know.
I do think, in a popular-vote-election, the political leaning of any given location matters less, since every single vote has the same 1:1 "power" as every other, anywhere else (versus the electoral college system).
This is where I approach the limits of my "election knowledge" though, so I'll let someone else ride off this comment to provide their own insight if they wish.
Tagging @Eji1700, because I originally started putting this comment together a few days ago as a response to your comment on another topic. Specifically, this part:
Thats why we should just merge all the tiny states until they have enough population to equal a medium-sized state.
The problem there is it may create incoherent states with internal partisan conflict because the components are too different to be stable.
You mean like Pennsylvania?
Highly divergent interests are nothing new...basically every single city in a red state.
At the end of the day, you just have a phase-in plan where initially all the state laws become county laws, give a bit of grandfathering in, form a new state constitution, and let all the overlap between state laws 'bubble up' to the new state. Once you unify the tax code it'll become pretty manageable.
It's not like there isn't any process to create a new state....just one we haven't used in several decades. Our traditional method is to throw away the old laws of the people who lived there, but since we have a more robust federal government, there's no reason that merging states would need to be an impossible task....they would just fallback to a default 'federal-only' jurisdiction ala Washington DC until they sort out the details.
I don't know anyone who supports the Electoral College, but I find the racism angle a little suspect. Not that there's definitely no one for whom racism is a motivator, but that there's another explanation: cognitive dissonance. The Electoral College (currently) benefits Republicans, so, in order to avoid cognitive dissonance, Republican voters are motivated to believe that it is a good thing. So they start with that position and then find reasons to believe it.
It's more of a historic thing: EC votes are assigned based on population, not vote counts. Since enslaved people were counted in population ("the three-fifths compromise") but were unable to vote, slave states had an advantage in elections.
I understand that historical racism is part of why the Electoral College exists in the first place, and I agree that its continued existence is a form of systemic racism, but the piece specifically says that personal racial animus is the reason why people still support it today.
I do believe that much of the "the cities aren't real America" and the way that "urban" is basically a synonym for "black" are built from that same racial animus. Chicago is talked about as a hellscape of violence and during a recent incident in my general area, it was absolutely a case of locals saying "they" needed to stay in "the city" (and many other comments were explicitly racist rather than just implicitly).
There is deep racism embedded in these former sundown towns.
I also get the sense that some number of invididuals living in rural, semi-rural, and suburban parts of the country, even parts that have traditionally been less racist, consider citydwellers to be incomprehisible and borderline an entirely different species. It might sound ridiculous but I've seen it myself, having grown up and/or lived in those areas.
I've spent most of my life in the small city/ suburban Midwest, hours from any major city, lots of corn. Believe me I've heard it all.
But I've learned over time how often "go back to Chicago" is said alongside references to the jungle, animals, savages, and all but the N word. (Usually.) The city of STL is much the same, vs the county. Not sure about Indy or the cities that get smaller from there, but mostly because Chicago takes up so much of the local attention.
It really is crazy in Illinois how many rural people don't seem to (consciously) understand how (proportionally) insignificant they are. I'm sure part of the problem is that they do get it, but refuse to consciously wrap their minds around it because when you read comments on news articles or Facebook posts, the hot takes are absurd.
They act like it's unfair how much focus Chicago gets and how those city folk are a bunch of idiots who [insert complete nonsense]. But Illinois is one of the most urbanized states and Chicagoland alone makes up, I believe, over ⅔ of the state population and something like 80% of the state's wages.
Now, I won't say the rest of the state isn't ignored and that certain areas, especially in the south and west of the state aren't even deprived, but man, they act like they make up a majority of the state just because there's a lot of empty land. It's really baffling if you're from the city.
But realizing that a lot of people in the state really have no context to wrap their head around how huge the population of Chicagoland is starts to explain it. It can be hard to admit how insignificant you are, but it's a lot easier when you know you live around 9 million other people than when you know all 400 people in your town and constantly hear about how those city folk are doing things you've been raised your whole life to know are wrong because the Bible says so (even though it doesn't).
Well and I'm talking cities of 50-150k, not even tiny towns though I live in a village technically now I think (idk there's townships and villages and it's weird).
Even there there's an anti-Chicago angle that's at least 50 percent racism and at least 50 percent because they're Dem leaning and maybe 10 percent about corruption. Even in Springfield. (These cities themselves tend to turn their county's blue in elections but there's still a large amount of this and the racism is not limited to one side.)
Meanwhile I have a couple of siblings in Chicago now, and their neighborhoods are safe, I use city rules for parking (no valuables visible in the car) and never feel unsafe. But my hometown has a "omg you'll get shot there" reputation too and I've lived in a bigger city for college so I just don't feel so phased or intimidated by the propaganda.
Yeah I'm from Chicagoland originally and where I live now it's insane what the people believe about the City. They are absolutely astonished when I tell them how pleasant and safe it is and how often I go there. They legitimately think it's burning and falling apart. It's so close they could visit literally every single weekend. I just don't get it!
This urban/rural divide is the easiest example of what I had in mind when I made my earlier reply saying that “just combine small states” won’t work. It’s how you get local elections where all viable candidates promise “we will not enforce the new law here”—because said law was passed by the urban majority to address city problems.
I keep toying with the idea that the strip along Lake Michigan between Gary and Milwaukee ought to be sectioned off from Wisconsin & Illinois and become an independent federal district (if not outright new state).
No thank you, please do not remove the financial backbone of my state and leave me alone with reps like Mary Miller.
This has been proposed by a bunch of conservative assholes around here, once again due to racism and the like, and No Thanks.
Also, all the corn farmers depend on Chicago financially, not just because of the tax money, but because Chicago is the center of the global derivatives and commodities market. The prices of their corn and soybeans are literally set in Chicago. Why would they want to lose their only link to that???
I mean they'd definitely expect interstate Chicago trade to have zero negative outcomes to them whatsoever.
This isn't logical, racism isn't really based on logic, but a lot of anti-city attitude is based on racism
All those damn urbanites with their inferior violent culture preventing them from succeeding and tainting our women and children with their
jazzrap music and the devil's weed....I'm betting almost all of that city hate is racism, if not intentionally, definitely via the lens of white privilege and "colorblindness."
The only exceptions being noise, pollution, and lack of privacy. Those are the main legitimate reasons to hate city life (that are not direct result of bad policy).
There's a difference between hating living in a huge city (I wouldn't love it, personally, there's just a lot of people and they're so horribly inaccessible in so many ways), and hating the city.
But yeah at the least since the Great Migration, I'd say the urban v rural divide is a lot about racism. (Probably before that with immigration and free Black folks and just New Orleans being New Orleans probably too).
I guess I'm one of the few people online who would still advocate for the electoral college. Most of the problems people associate with the electoral college today have to do with winner take all systems, plural intentional. The constitution dictates that states will send electors proportional to their congressional representation but that is all, the rest is left up to the states themselves as far as how the run elections, count votes, and allocate electors. In fact, two states still currently divide their electors by the proportion of votes the candidates receive. The solution doesn't need to be to abolish the electoral college but rather to reinstate proportional elector allocation, abolish winner-takes-all systems.
I look back on the intentions set forth by the creation of the electoral college and largely agree with them:
Forming a deliberative body of experts to elect the best candidate in line with the will of the general populace
Slower and less reactive systems are generally a good balance for governments and while not optimal are arguable better than more reactive systems. A properly administered electoral college could add deliberateness and contemplativeness to elections
Giving smaller states a larger voice in the governing of the country as a whole (often derided but I find this is often a misunderstanding of what a federal system is and why it's a good thing)
I wish that we could walk back the party ticket system, there is rational as to why the runner up to the election should be the presiding officer of the senate and have the tie-breaking vote
The electoral college has been confirmed to have overrode the popular vote only four times in the existence of the US and all of them are attributable to the winner-takes-all systems in place, again the problem does not lie directly with the electoral college
Decisive political environments are exactly the times when direct elections are more dangerous and not as desirable
In short, no electoral system is or will be perfect but the long stability of the US does lend credence to the arguments that government systems which are slower acting, more balanced with power sharing, and with circuit breakers in place (separation of powers) to calm the populace and stop any one faction from usurping power are better for the country in the long-term. Of course there are disadvantages to the electoral college but I would argue they are outweighed by the advantages, if the system were correctly administrated and later reforms were reconsidered and repealed
Aren't those two things contradictory? Faithless electors are incompatible with proportional representation.
And if we're going to have proportional representation, why not just cut out the middle people?
Yes, they're contradictory but deliberately so. Direct democracy can be dangerous (i.e. tyranny of majorities or the election of demagogues) so the system was designed that the will of the people should generally be followed but the electors can override their choice when necessary and after great internal deliberation. I wouldn't choose to use the word contradictory in this case, rather, complimentary.
But weakening democracy risks creating a tyranny of the minority, a.k.a. plain 'ol tyranny. Ultimately I find safeguarding our democracy against populism by making it less democratic to be a losing proposition, as that allows populist policies to be implemented without even having a bare majority.
At any rate, consider me dubious that the electoral college will save us from populism or tyranny when it is currently being exploited by the populist tyrant-aspirant.
I think that's a hard position for me to accept as the entire United States government was created on the basis explicitly not to be democratic. It's a cliche at this point but...the United States is an elected representational republic, not a democracy and this system was explicitly chosen as another link in the checks and balances system. Reducing democratic action certainly does limit populism when slim majorities are unable to use governmental force for tyrannical or other populist purposes. Stopping a slim majority from doing something is not the same as forcing the same constituency to do something, so I'm not seeing how are system as it currently exists is leading to widespread force as you allude to. Can you please give me some examples of positive action i.e. the government forcing people through law where a majority wasn't present?
Please explain this, I don't understand how anyone is currently "exploiting" the electoral college system. I've already argued against winner-takes-all but even in that case, either you have the votes or you don't. What exploitation are you referencing?
America is also referred to as the "American experiment", as it was the first modern attempt at a democracy. We shouldn't treat everything that the founders did as sacrosanct; otherwise there wouldn't be 16 Amendments to the Constitution beyond the Bill of Rights. Indeed, a few of those Constitutional Amendments exactly undermine your contention that the United States is better off as a republic: the 17th Amendment ensured that Senators are elected by popular vote; the 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th Amendments expanded the right to vote beyond the white, wealthy, and landed gentry, who at the country's founding considered themselves the "deliberative and contemplative" electorate, to borrow your words. With respect to the electoral college, in the majority of states it is required that electors vote for the candidate for whom they pledged to vote [1]. So with respect to your claim that the electorate college
that is explicitly not how the electorate college works. If the electoral college were to elect a candidate other than the one they'd been selected to elect, a Constitutional crisis would surely follow.
Sure, 1825-29, 1977-81, 1889-93, 2001-05, and 2017-21 -- the five Presidencies in American history where the majority of the population voted for someone other than the President-elect, and yet that person still took the Presidency. We could also include every election prior to 1971, that is, before the 26th Amendment was ratified and every American adult was given the right to vote.
And this is before considering how Senate Republicans have disproportionate representation in the government despite representing a significantly smaller portion of the population (in the 2022 election, 36% less [1]), as well as how that disproportionality propagates to a disproportionality in the composition of the federal judiciary.
In your words, the electoral college is a "deliberative" and "contemplative" body meant to protect us. Yet the electoral college does not contemplate; it merely votes as it is pledged, with a few exceptions that have had no bearing on the eventual outcome. Nevertheless, the electoral college has in the past 2 out of 6 elections allowed a minority voice to ascend to the highest office in the United States, and in 2016 elected the least qualified candidate in American history. That is the exploitation I am referring to -- a body meant to prevent populism and tyranny has done nothing to prevent that but instead made it easier for a populist authoritarian sympathizer to seize power.
I think we've both made our points but there are a few inaccuracies I'd like to address, since they partially misconstrue what I said.
A republic is a form of government where the people or their elected representatives control power and not an autocrat or king. Nothing in the constitution undermines that the US is a republic, this must either be a fatal misunderstanding of the amendments cited or a misunderstanding of what a republic is. Either way I never said the US was a Republic period, I stated that the US is an elected representational republic. Nothing about who was allowed to vote when or who elects senators changes that fact, which is a fact while America being referred to as an "experiment," while being true is not a fact. There is a difference.
Again, this has absolutely nothing to do with my argument so I don't see why it's brought up but without digressing too far, the 17th amendment was a big mistake and caused more problems than the one it was trying to fix
I never said this and you've even marked where you edited the quote itself. The actual quote is:
I never claimed our current Electoral College system is a deliberative and contemplative body. In fact, I don't believe it is. I'm going to assume that you misread what I wrote and that it was not intentional.
Most states impose mere fines for being a faithless elector and in fact there have already been a few examples of this happening within recent memory, there is no actual force that can compel the electors to vote a certain way. At the end of the day, an elector can still vote his or her conscience regardless of what the state law says.
This question was speaking on government majorities and force in general and not about the Electoral College or elections. It was in response to your previous comment as well as mine having widened the field of question beyond the scope of the electoral system in the US. In any case, even if we narrow it to elections: Only four elections were confirmed to have ever been overridden by the Electoral College, not five, and bringing up votes previous to when we had universal suffrage has nothing to do with the fact that the electorate was the electorate despite who was allowed to vote. It changes the argument 0% when discussing how the electoral college functions.
This is a very telling statement that reveals a deep misunderstanding on constitutionality and the federal government as a whole. Attacking the equal representation of the senate, while a worthy debate, cannot be separated from the existence of the US itself. The entire basis of the creation of the US is that states would receive equal representation, without that there would be no US today. So important was this that the constitution specifically forbids any amendment that would change the equal representation of the Senate, you can literally amend anything in the US constitution except for that one thing. To even talk about reforming the senate we're discussing drafting an entirely new constitution and form of government. While you are correct that the senate is not representational population-wise it is fully fairly representational state-wise and the senate itself is made to represent state governments, not the people, so any claim that there is a lack of majority in the senate is not only offset by the fact that the senate does not work unilaterally but also that the senate by definition is equally weighted - as it should be.
Again, I never said this
That is not exploitation. The electorate is the electorate, and the electoral college is the system it is. Taking a wholly neutral stance on the issue: the system works completely as intended and subsequently modified, either you have the votes to win in the Electoral College or not. No one is exploiting the system, they are simply acting within it. The system sucks, I agree, but I find most fault with the winner-takes-all provisions and think that the immediate conclusion to eliminate the system rather than reform it are shortsighted but even as much as the system sucks as it currently is, no one is exploiting it
To be honest, I don't understand the point you're trying to make. I think my point is clear enough: if the Electoral College is meant to protect us against populism and tyrannical forces (i.e. act as "a deliberative body"), then it has clearly failed; instead it appears to aggravate these forces by allowing a bare minority to impose their unpopular, undemocratic mandate on others.
You seem to be defending the Electoral College based on some idealization of it rather than how it actually functions. Maybe I've misunderstood you, but it seems to me that your argument boils down to: We are a democratic republic; therefore the Electoral College is good. But this strikes me as a non-sequitur. How does the Electoral College provide better outcomes than direct democracy for Presidential elections? If we already elect members of Congress by popular vote, why should we not elect the President that way, too? What republican duty does the Electoral College actually serve?
So let me recenter the conversation by returning to your original post.
As we have both acknowledged, the Electoral College does not do this.
Again, the Electoral College does not do this.
I agree that the Electoral College serves this purpose.
I don't agree, but this point is irrelevant with respect to the Electoral College.
This appears to undermine your own argument: if the popular vote is the benchmark, then we should consider some of those incidents in which the results diverged, for example the 2016 election which gave the Presidency to Trump. How did the Electoral College yield a better result than the popular vote in this particular case?
I agree that winner-takes-all is an issue, but from my perspective the Electoral College exacerbates it.
Hard disagree. Divisive political environments are exactly when you want power to be diffuse, not concentrated in the hands of a few people; that's how democracies becomes dictatorships, as evidenced throughout history from Caesar to Hitler to Putin.
Tyranny of the majority is dangerous, but tyranny of unelected electors can be even more so.
Most, if not all, of the electors are popularly elected....
That's part of the problem with reactionary opinions on the electoral college, a fundamental lack of understanding by the general people on how it actually works.
Also, no election has ever been decided by faithless electors and in the whole history of the United States 99% of electors have voted as pledged.
My favorite faithless elector was the guy who accidentally voted for John Ewards.
I see you mostly describing the intentions of the Electoral College. In reality, these intentions have little to no positive effect. I do agree that winner-takes-all has the biggest effect, but both need to go to have fair elections.
I tried taking this at a line by line serious breakdown of the discussion and then just realized I was wasting my time.
There's so much that's wrong with this but quite frankly i'm tired of it. The Electoral college is not a great system. It's not even a good system. Pure popular vote for the president likely will be just as bad if not worse in 4-10 years after passing, and yes it is never going to happen anyways for both good and bad reasons.
There are LOTS of sane ways we could do elections, but pure popular vote isn't one of them, and "well i refuted a bunch of MAGA voters points" doesn't really make the argument.
I've still found very few people who would advocate for the removal of the electoral college with popular vote if it didn't benefit their side/candidates, and if you're coming at it from that perspective, you're already looking at it wrong. I'm just so tired of people assuming that because you dare to defend what idiots are in favor of that you must also be a racist maga voting shithead, so what's the point of even discussing it.
Wait what? Why?
What would you rather have than a popular vote for president? I'm struggling to think of issues with the president being a popular vote. Rurals already get outsized representation in the Senate.
I'm in favour of democracy, and I view the electoral college as antidemocratic, simple as.
Mirror: https://archive.is/kUXqG
If we’re keeping the EC, the first necessary reform is to ban states from allocating their electors in a winner-take-all manner, but that’s already been discussed here.
However, what I would like to propose is an alternative option for states with 5 or more electors to allocate their votes. This option must be on the ballot and voted in referendum in the same election as the presidential vote. Yes, this timing is deliberate to make it harder to strategize campaigns.
The option is to assign one vote for the winner of each House district, plus the two “Senate” votes for the overall winner of the state’s popular vote. Ideally, ranked choice or approval would be used—the choice between those two is fine to be mostly set & forget, perhaps have a referendum every 10 years during redistricting whether elections for the next decade use approval or ranked choice.
Also, uncap the House. That would lessen the distortions of empty states.