So your argument is "The system sucks so we should just continue to let it suck"?
I didn't say it sucked that small states get disproportionate influence.
No, you aren't saying it sucks. It DOES suck. You just think the suckiness should continue.
Some people don't want the system to suck.
People who would benefit from a popular vote favour a popular vote. This is very surprising.
Yes, at this point in time, Democrats would benefit from efforts to make the political system line up better with the popular vote.
That does not mean that doing so is necessarily the wrong thing to do, nor is doing so based purely on politics. Its a case where its the right thing to do, and it
coincidentally helps the republicans.
If, in some future day, Republicans start to adopt policies with more popular appeal, then THEY will get more power.
As an analogy... this is like a hockey game where one team has 6 skaters on the ice and the other has 5. "Maybe we should have an equal number of players". "But its not fair because we are losing our advantage of having an extra player and would lose more often".
Sure you could. You could also make an algorithm to give greater power to urban communities. Or an algorithm to give greater power to the wealthy. Or an algorithm to give greater power to people who have the letter X in their name. But then you would have to justify why any one particular group (such as the rural voters) DESERVE that extra power.
That's the trivial part.[/quote]
If its so trivial, then why have you )or anyone else) provided a convincing argument why areas of the country with more cows than people deserve more political power than those that are urbanized?
Saying "It was done that way in the past" is not a valid reason.
It's not apolitical if it aligns with one political vision rather than another. You are under the delusion that your sides moral assumptions are universal moral truths.
The declaration of independence says "all men are created equal". The idea that no particular group should have more political power stems from that concept.
Its not comparing to "Democrat standards", its comparing it to a generic system where no particular party is given any advantage just because of district boundaries.
The founding fathers who set up the US didn't seem to think that was of such overwhelming importance when they set up the relative power balance between voters in different states.
What the "founding fathers" thought should not be held up as some sort of set-in-stone, "message from god" that you seem to think.
First of all, their idea of democracy back then was restricted largely to white males.
Secondly, the U.S. has changed substantially since the 1700s.... an increased number of states, a migration from rural to urban areas, greater disparities between the biggest and smallest states by population, improved transportation and technology. Even if some of the things the founding fathers did >200 years ago made sense at the time, they are largely out of date now.
Lastly, the nature of democracy has changed over the centuries, and many of the current problems facing the U.S. were not the result of things that the founding fathers did, but are the result of more recent events. (For example, gerrymandering did not start with the first elections, and there is nothing in the constitution about the filibuster.)
And its a dirty tactic which is, at its heart, anti-democratic. The fact that they have managed to get away with it is a flaw in the system that should be fixed, rather than accepted as "just politics".
The medicine is often worse than the disease with these kinds of things.
And sometimes the medicine is better than the disease.
Your statement about "medicine is often worse" is just empty rhetoric. You have given no reason why anyone should actually think "this won't work".
Other countries have found a way to make their democracies better.
Currently, the U.S. is not listed as a "Full democracy" by the Economist. Instead it is listed as a "flawed democracy". (The CIA has likewise downgraded the U.S.) And its ranking has been dropping steadily for over a decade. It is now trailing countries like Chile and Uruguay (countries that were at one point considered "banana republics".)
See:
Wikipedia
The fact that it NEEDS to be fixed doesn't necessarily mean that it WILL be fixed. And the fact that it likely won't be fixed doesn't mean there are no problems... it just means that the U.S. is going down the drain.
Will the federal government come in and set up the rules for elections? Will it just prevent gerrymandering, or will they change other things at the same time?
There are a lot of problems that need to be fixed... gerrymandering, voter suppression, the effect of "big money" in politics, foreign influence (mostly Russian)... Whether these issues could be tackled individually or simultaneously doesn't necessarily mean that the problems don't deserve attention.
Is the federal government apolitical? Republicans seem to think that Democrat border policy is bringing in hordes of future Democrat voters
The U.S. needs immigrants in order to sustain its population base and maintain its economy. Its not just "bringing in new (democratic) voters".
Except of course the idea that "most votes wins" and "don't create a situation where people can get power without widespread support" is much more consistent with democracy than "Screw the voters, we're getting power by drawing electoral boundaries that benefit us".
"Without widespread support" is a tricky one.
Errr... not really.
Lets look at some facts, shall we? In the past ~2 decades, there have been 6 presidential elections (3 republican victories, 3 democratic), and roughly twice as many midterms. Of those elections:
- The republican presidential candidate lost the popular vote twice, yet still managed to win the presidency. And in the only presidential race where they did win the popular vote, their margin of victory was smaller than the average margin of victory for the democratic winners
- For the past few years, republican senators representing fewer voters than democratic senators have had the ability to control the legislative process
Yet in that time, the republicans have been able to place 5 justices on the supreme court, and the democrats only 2.
If any other country showed such a lopsided trend of "We don't get votes but we have power", they would probably be labelled a banana republic.
What do you mean? A plurality, a bare majority, or quite a bit more than that? The popular vote is no guarantee of anything more than a plurality. As to what is consistent with democracy, the word isn't sufficiently well defined to answer the question. In the UK it is possible to come to power without winning the majority of the votes, is the UK not a democracy either?
Yes, in the U.K., you can win power without winning a majority. Its the same way here in Canada.
The differences are:
- Canada and the U.K. are both multi-party systems, so vote splitting is going to result in that sort of problem. But even if they don't win a majority, the winning party usually at LEAST has a plurality. Compare that to the United States, which 1) is for the most part a 2 party system (3rd parties are typically not viable), so you can't blame vote splitting, and 2) as I pointed out, the problem is that republicans are regularly gaining power despite not gaining a plurality
- Other factors do not affect Canadian/U.K. elections. We use independent organizations to draw electoral boundaries (so that gerrymandering is not an issue), and our voter registration methods ensure a lot more completeness than in the U.S. (i.e. no "voter suppression")
Canada sits at 5 on the democracy index. United Kingdom sits at 16. Both full democracies. United states sits at 25. A flawed democracy. And its getting worse.
The original system set up by the founders is quite explicitly not based on the popular vote, so presumably the US has never been a democracy? You seem to be making quite a radical proposal for changing the US election system.
Actually not really all that radical.
- Multiple states already use independent commissions for determining electoral boundaries. (e.g. California, Washington, etc.) It wouldn't be that difficult to require all states to follow suite.
- The U.S. already HAD voting rights laws that limited voter suppression, so that's not exactly all that radical either
- Laws already exist that are supposed to limit foreign election interference. The U.S. was just stuck with corrupt republicans that were not interested in pursuing the issue.
The only "radical" shift would be to make the presidential election dependent on the popular vote. But, there is already work being done towards that end...
See:
National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (Wikipedia)
Of course, even if these changes were seen as "radical", they are still
necessary, since a failure to follow through will see the U.S. fall further in the democracy index, until wide-spread confiict occurs.
Your argument for the popular vote doesn't convince me. Let me know when you come up with an argument for it that is convincing to anybody who isn't already in favour. I've explained already, a reason not to go with a popular vote in all these things is the practical need not to have great tracts of the country who feel their views are never represented. That is a recipe for a country falling apart. There are other reasons, but I think that is enough.
