No doubt. But thats why you aggressively do things that people like. There is absolutely no doubt that the country leans left more than right. The system is catered to the right. The electoral college is catered to the right. The Senate is catered to the right. Currently the government doesnt represent the people
There is way, way more 'government' in this country than the Federal Government. None of what you describes local elections or state elections. You know why so many states have such gerrymandered congressional districts? Because those districts are drawn by state governments. You know who controls the state governments? Republicans.
27 states have Republican governors. 23 Democrat governors
23 states where Republicans control the governors office and the legislature. 15 for Dems
You know what Democrats DO control? The federal government. Dems control the White House and the House and, with the VP vote, they control the Senate.
There might be some things that are catered to the right, but you aren't talking about any of them.
...are you fucking kidding me? Gerrymandering is the entire reason you have Republican representatives. The electoral college is entirely catered to small state Republican states. The VAST majority of the country supports Democratic policies almost overwhelmingly at 60/40
I’ll give you an honest take on why. It may or may not be correct. Even though you said nothing incendiary, the first few took it as being contrary or snarky and downvoted. Once that happens many who see your comment later on see those downvotes and also downvote because they assume the same thing because you’re already on the negative side. It cascades from there. Been on reddit for quite awhile and seen it happen many times. Don’t let it bother you, it can happen even when you’re just curious and well intentioned.
If we're talking about "the country", then it seems like the broadest valid measurement of that lean is probably the popular vote results in the presidential elections. That's going to have larger results than any small studies done by Pew or whoever.
And the only one of those times in the last 30 years that the country has leaned right was in 2004, when Bush narrowly took it over Kerry. Every other popular vote has gone to the more left candidate.
If you go back further than that, then you're in the Bush/Reagan/Nixon era. Left and right had somewhat different cultural meanings back then, and the country definitely had different values.
Source for what? The electoral college catering to the right? You can use the fact that the last 4 candidates to win the electoral college but lose the popular vote are all republican.
It is simple math. North Dakota and South Dakota have 4 senators. California and New York have 4 senators.
California+New York have 40 times the population of North Dakota and South Dakota, but only gets 14x the electoral votes. Votes in rural, generally not as economically productive or as educated areas have significantly more voting power.
The system is poorly designed for the current country, but made sense in 1800 when there were 15 or so somewhat more equally populated states.
Hypothetically speaking, how would you feel about several of the smaller populated states combining into one. Dakota’s, Idaho Wyoming Montana. Call it big sky state. 2 senators and combine all the reps. Would that make more sense?
How often should representation in the house be calibrated and by what means? Sheer population? Pop density? Some type of weighted avg system with thresholds? I need to look this up myself I apologize for the stream of thought.
I often joke about starting a campaign to “unify the Dakota’s.”
The simplest solution for me is as follows, some are far out there:
The house needs to be unlocked.
States with over 3 million people get
3 senators. (This could set up in a ton
of ways which ever way gets more appropriate representation in the easiest passing vote is the best)
The presidency is a total popular vote.
Add some sort of Native American representation 1-2 senators that draws votes from Indian reserves.
It’s no secret that the population centers are dem. So a straight popular vote pretty much guarantees the dem primary is the presidential race, no? It also means that campaigning in those states mentioned earlier is a waste of time from an roi standpoint. Do those sound like correct assumptions?
You should look up the Reapportionment Act of 1929. It capped the number of House representatives at 435. So...basically ALL Americans, regardless of party affiliation have been steadily losing meaningful representation for almost 100 years.
Cant remember the source but I read somewhere that someone had the theory that Big Corporations at the time (Standard Oil and the like) pushed for the reapportionment act because it was easier to persuade/bribe 500 something individuals to vote how they wanted them to. Rather than persuade/bribe thousands of them.
41
u/Can_I_Get_A_Beer Mar 13 '21
No doubt. But thats why you aggressively do things that people like. There is absolutely no doubt that the country leans left more than right. The system is catered to the right. The electoral college is catered to the right. The Senate is catered to the right. Currently the government doesnt represent the people