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If Trump seriously wants to have term limits, limits on lobbying, then I would support him on those points.
The idea of taking more money away from public schools is pretty bad since it's going to further divide and segregate kids and some will get bad educations out of it while others will get incomplete/religious-y education in place of proper education. Meaning some kids will get put into private schools that teach creationism and such. And lots of parents will won't have the means (even with vouchers) to get their kids into well-funded schools because of distance and other problems. Better to just fund public school to an adequate level in the first place like we haven't been doing.
Because they contain very large numbers of people and, despite some individuality, people from the same areas and backgrounds tend to share the same political views. If you were playing on a game show where the objective is to successfully guess people's political affiliation and/or social views, would you not have have different guesses for a man from Los Angeles than one from rural Kentucky?
Indeed Obama did win the popular vote. While I can agree about states having shades of purple, cities in particular tend to be deep blue. Think of San Francisco and NYC.
San Francisco has almost a million people and NYC has many millions. Why should the people of those cities have less of a voice just because they live in a more concentrated area? That makes no sense.
I live in California and so, proportionally, my vote in the election is worth the least because of how populous the state is. There are 39,144,818 people in California and our state gets 55 electoral votes. That's 1 electoral vote for each 711,724 people. Now, take Wyoming. That state has 586,107 people and they get 3 electoral votes. That's 1 electoral vote for each 195,369 people. Their vote is worth over 3.5 times my vote. That is not fair at all.
San Francisco has almost a million people and NYC has many millions. Why should the people of those cities have less of a voice just because they live in a more concentrated area? That makes no sense.
I live in California and so, proportionally, my vote in the election is worth the least because of how populous the state is. There are 39,144,818 people in California and our state gets 55 electoral votes. That's 1 electoral vote for each 711,724 people. Now, take Wyoming. That state has 586,107 people and they get 3 electoral votes. That's 1 electoral vote for each 195,369 people. Their vote is worth over 3.5 times my vote. That is not fair at all.
Democracy is the antithesis of minority rights because rules are, by definition, voted by the majority. The electoral college helps protects minorities (not talking about race here necessarily) by helping minority people (such as rural farmers) have more of a say. It equalizes the playing field, so to speak.
Democracy is the antithesis of minority rights because rules are, by definition, voted by the majority. The electoral college helps protects minorities (not talking about race here necessarily) by helping minority people (such as rural farmers) have more of a say. It equalizes the playing field, so to speak.
To an extent, this is....somewhat relatable, though I don't really agree to it.
This following speal is not my personal viewpoints, but rather my observation of culture. I believe the phrase is "don't shoot the messenger."
In my home state of California, I live in a rather rural county in NorCal. NorCal is largely different from SoCal in that rural counties are less densely populated than the urban cities and they absolutely hate how because of density representation, pretty much every one of the decisions in California are decided largely by urban voters, despite NorCal and Central Valley being the primary manufacturers and providers of agriculture, water, building materials, and in some places even technology. Farmers, factory workers, mines, lumber mills and tree farms, hunters, construction workers, fishers, survivalists, small business owners, etc. They traditionally form the backbone of American production and infrastructure and they rely on that to provide for their families.
When urban areas who reap the benefits of their labor act snooty and arrogant and claim moral superiority and dictate their lives through sheer numbers in their small areas - regulating rural companies out of business, placing restrictions on farming and water operations - and decide to act like they are more tolerant, less racist, more educated, and more inclusive than them.....it's a slap in the face to them. For many rural counties in California, church is not an excuse to be a bigot....it's a way to meet people, network for jobs, and get the latest hearsay. You could say "internet" but it's not that simple....because of the way America's telecommunications is set up, urban densely populated areas get more access to internet for way cheaper while rural counties have to make do with outdated technology because regulations in the telecommunications market prevent start-up companies that can compete with the big leagues so they're stuck using copper cables instead of fiber-optic. The end result is less access to internet and by extension more limited communication.
Because cities are apparently more important because more people are there. And they're "more educated" because the system thinks them more important and more worth attention. Especially under an establishment liberal system who's supporters tend to congregate more in cities.
Just like the genuinely xenophobic sexist trash that do live out in some of these areas need to stop dismissing minorities because they don't align with their values....urban liberals, especially those with college educations, need to also tone their hubris down a notch and quit labeling rural counties who vote Republican as backwater xenophobic racist hicks when many of them are just hard-working folks who simply want to see their jobs back and stop getting outsourced and stop having ma and pa business and production centers regulated out of business.
Okay, folks, I told you I'd find some kind of rebuttal to that population map and I found something worthwhile to watch.
One thing that I think needs to be talked about is that while the way the electoral college works - the voting of invisible electors to decide the real outcome of the election - does seem phony and terrible, it could for the very first time in history play a hand in getting Clinton to the white house instead of the public elect.
Should this happen, what will you think of the college then?
The argument that only major cities would decide the election in a popular voting system and hence not representative of the nation as a whole highlights the urban/rural split that we already live under in which what? 11 states essentially decide the election which I argue do not essentially represent the country as a whole demographically.
Rural states and areas currently have disproportionate power over the Senate and hence the Presidency through the Electoral College. How many times does the trope of Iowa corn and agribusiness pop up in our political discourse every single election cycle? Is that really representative of the true issues that affect the American electorate?
Anyway I know I might get flack for this but I do disagree with the identity politics that is probably going to be ascendant on the Democratic party after Clinton's electoral defeat. I guess Sander's old style universalist pro-labor economic message resonates with me and would help the party get back the Mid-West which rejected the current Clintonian neo-liberal hegemony and hitched on the Trump nationalist-populist bandwagon.
I'm very torn on the (incredibly, incredibility unlikely) idea that clinton could still win via votes of no confidence.
On one hand, there's a valid reason to do so (Outside of Trump being unarguably worse policy-wise, and fostering a divided culture of bigotry) in that Clinton won the popular vote; I.E being the preferred President by the majority of the population and all these major protests going on, but on the other it feels... slimy? To just undermine the democratic process like this
Sure, said democratic process kind of sucks from an outsider's perspective but this kind of unprecedented thing would not only feels.. off, to me, but would simply empower Trump's support base who rallied behind the nonsense about rigged elections, false media bias and everyone being against them- I have no idea if Trump would actively try to foster that kind of violent thinking further if he was kicked out at this point, but the worry is very real
As a person who lives in my country's largest city and whose vote is regularly worth a lot less than those from small, barely populated provinces, I'm calling bullshit in the "protecting the farmers!". First of all, it's absolutely mindblowing that you are happily claiming that my opinion, or Scarf's, are worth less just because we happen to live in cities. Why? Why does our geographical location makes us less worthy of political participation? I would like an actual explanation on this.
Second, there are protections for minorities- they have representatives and senators. It's absolutely crazy to also give the power to elect the president to those minorities as well, because, in the end, you get "minority rule", which can be as bad as majority rule except the majority is well aware that they are being ruled by a minority, which makes it even more likely that they'll try to find ways to backlash as soon as they manage to take power back.
Third, a system in which the party who regularly wins the most votes keeps losing elections is hardly fair. It's rigged. Again, why are farmers supposed to have more political power than the rest? If you are afraid of "city dwellers" trampling all over rural zones, then why is it okay for rural people to trample all over city dwellers? I still want to know why I am less worthy of political participation just because of where I live.
Fourth, if every vote is worth the same, then people from "solid" states get suddenly enfranchised. If you are a democrat in North Dakota or a Republican in Massachussets, your presidential vote is worth exactly 0. In a national system though, the North Dakota's democrat is worth as much as a fellow NY blue, and the 4% of Republicans in DC can finally have their voices heard as much as one from West Virginia. Who knows, maybe people start voting if you tell them their vote is worth something after all.
Fifth, there is no reason to just campaign in major cities. I mean, in a system in which everybody's vote is worth the same, then if one party is focused in LA/NY/Miami/San Antonio, then the other can go and scoop up millions of uncontested votes all accross the "red sea" in the middle. Trump won many states by racking up huge margins in the rural zones to offset Democratic landslides in the cities. Why can't that happen at a national level?
And sixth, if, at some point, a massively decisive percentage of population settles in the cities, discriminating against them just for living in concentrated areas will become extremely unfair and eventually untenable. Not to mention that, if the political divisions between cities and non-cities keep getting worse, then soon every state with a large enough metro area dominating the population will flip blue. Look at what happened in Texas- Clinton managed to cut the Republican lead by 7 points despite getting less votes than Obama nationwide (-2.5%). Same in Georgia and Arizona. In the end, whatever that post up there says, if a massive enough share of the population lives in cities, they will end up commanding states, and the electoral college, the same way. Just look at how Richmond has dragged Virginia permanently into the blue column. The only difference is that, in a fair system, they wouldn't need to be "massive", because their vote wouldn't be worth less in purpose to begin with.
Also, again, someone please tell me why my political opinions -journalist, master's degree in economics- are worth three times less than those from an uneducated farmer from a scarcely populated village just because of where I live. I mean, I have nothing against the farmer, their opinions or their way of life. I just want to have the same voice as them. Not more. The same.
Personally I don't think anyone's vote should inherently be worth less than the other on principle, but geopolitical factors do play a role in voter turnout and values that I'm highly skeptical that popular vote alone is necessarily the way to go to ensure everyone has a fair shot at representation. Sure other countries might pull that off but at this point I think people need to realize that comparing America to many other Western nations is essentially comparing apples to oranges.
I'm not gonna sit here and claim to have a better way, nor am I really endorsing the electoral college because it does really need to go for just as many underlying reasons as how this election result even happened. Like I said before, due to this election, we are certainly going to see an increase in the movement for:
a) the abolishment of the college system
and b) the enactment of a ranked voting system in place of the old 'single vote, single candidate' system that's plagued us for so long.
Both of these I hope to see happening. One thing that I personally took away from this election is that a party can no longer really ordain a candidate and "force" (for lack of a better term) their primary voter base to choose only that candidate and expect good results.....with a ranked voting system we might have been able to put in Sanders or even give Johnson and Stein a better shot.
Really, a preference based voting system is kind of the best way to go with things in my own opinion, either in the sense that the voter puts their preferences in order or if the candidate says who they hand their preferences to when they get the least amount of votes.
Making it known ahead of time who's preferences go where in the case of their loss feels like a better system on virtue, considering it's not something you can really lie about/mask your policies with.
A Jill stein who's preference went to Trump in the case of her getting the least amount of votes (That's how it works, recalculating off that and removing + redistributing the preferences of the lowest scoring candidate after each vote recalculation) would scare off the more liberal people voting for her to start with rather than letting them be shocked she's a secret spirit wizard later.
I'm split between Ivysaur and Carcharodin here though. Ivysaur is right that no vote should mean more than any other and making any one vote matter more intrinsically devalues the votes of others, but Carcharodin is right that otherwise low-population/rural areas have disproportionally lower power over themselves and their positions
Okay, I get that people in rural areas don't often like people from large urban areas. But, like, how does living closer to one's neighbor make your voice less worthy of consideration? One person, one vote, amirite? You're lumping city dwellers into one category, dismissing their contributions to the state and country, and saying that because they have less land around them they should have less of a say.
Like, I get that living in the countryside can suck. A lot of ghost towns and soon-to-be ghost towns where lots of people leave for jobs in the cities and you can't leave because the only thing you have left of value is your home and, if you're lucky, a decent job.
Though I'm not gonna disagree that there's an elitist/arrogant streak running through lots of liberals and people with higher education and fancy high paying jobs. There is. Believe me, I work in an area with a lot of those kinds of people and the bubbles they live in are something to behold. I'll admit to having participated in that kind of talk and I apologize for it.
But cities are also where lots of minorities live. Not necessarily farmers, but certainly lots of racial minorities in California are in the cities. Lots of poor people also live in cities, the young working poor who'll never have a chance to own a home because of the cost of living. If you're born in and around the SF / LA centers you're probably going to settle there because, well, it's your home. You're not likely to up and move to Redding without some good incentive.
Hearing a person say that a rural area should have as much say as a more populated area strikes me as very undemocratic. Off the top of my head the only thing I can think of that would be fair to everyone would be to abolish the current map or states and redistribute the state lines into more equal areas.
Spoiler:
Of course that, too, has problems. Aside from being something that would never happen. The idea of states in general is a pretty messy since they are disproportional in their sizes and populations. Like, there's no reason to have a North and a South Dakota except that the people in those states want more local control and have their say less diluted by having more people. That's just what everyone wants, generally, in politics. They want their voice and opinion to matter as much as possible and not to be drowned out.
