6 ms·

The point about both helping create the race to the bottom and also catering to those it leaves behind is, I think, an important and often overlooked one. It's

The point about both helping create the race to the bottom and also catering to those it leaves behind is, I think, an important and often overlooked one. It's why Walmart is beloved in many of the small southern towns where I grew up. Sure it relentlessly exploited poor people elsewhere, but when you're poor yourself you can't help but be grateful for its low prices. And the belief that finally, finally someone is giving you the good end of that deal is terribly reassuring-- like maybe, for once, someone has your back. This, of course, quickly assumes a political dimension. At the time conservatives (many of whom now back Trumpian protections, how times change) railed against the so-called "latte liberals" who supposedly fought Walmart from the comfort of their Mercedes-- not that anyone knew one of them personally, of course. And we, the rank and file, ate it up: we needed our cheap shoes, our cheap food, etc. Now, as a liberal, when I hear people advocating for the breakup of Amazon or Google, I can't help but think back to how I would have felt about that when I was poorer, and when I didn't have the option of simply paying more for a better cause. I think I would have fought quite hard to keep my costs low, possibly to the point of voting against many of my other interests or beliefs. And especially in this era of polarization and high-stakes politics, I'm not sure it's a good idea to bet on people in general viewing that differently.

bdcravens 7y ago
This sums up well Trump's ascension: there are a lot of people who have real needs and real opinions, and whose votes count as much as someone's in California or New York. An environment where we insist on leaving those voices unheard is what enables someone to have extreme influence.
- debatem1 7y ago
  I'm not sure where to go with this, honestly. From an electoral perspective it's counterfactual: my family in the midwest have roughly 1.5x the electoral power I do. Historically speaking this has led two democrats in my lifetime to win the popular vote but lose the presidential election. So I don't think there's an issue with those voices being unheard in elections-- quite the opposite in fact. On the other hand, I see where you're coming from. The loci of money and power in the United States speak loudly and listen poorly to the half of us that see stars at night. I think this has been to conservatives' advantage, although that seems to have more to do with preexisting cultural affinity than shared policy goals.
  - pitaj 7y ago
    Does winning the popular vote mean anything under the current system? It's not hard to assume that many people would vote very differently if the electoral college wasn't involved. For instance, left-leaning people might vote more often in red states, and right-leaning voters in blue states would do the same.
    - debatem1 7y ago
      Only inside of individual districts-- eg, a senate race is a statewide popular contest. There are no federal popular vote contests in the US (although there is some momentum towards reform in that regard). I'm not sure that the average voter really considers the electoral college today. Voter comprehension of it has historically been very low, at least. But you're right that many non-swing-state voters stay home after (correctly) figuring out that their votes are meaningless.
    - astura 7y ago
      Don't forget- there's 4 million Americans who are ineligible to vote for president due to the fact that they live in territories, not states (and DC since 1961).
    - TylerE 7y ago
      No, the popular vote means nothing. In fact, states aren't even required to put the presidential on the ballot at all. States are allowed to choose their electors by any method the state legislature decides on.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- buerkle 7y ago
  In many cases California and New York voters count much less than in smaller, more rural states. The senators from Wyoming represent about 300,000 people each. The senators in California represent nearly 19,000,000 each. And the The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 capped the number in the House of Representatives. In this case, each California House member represents three times as many people as the House members in Wyoming. That's also one reason in recent presidential elections the electoral college which is based on the number of Senators and House of Representatives (plus 3 from DC) have won the race but lost the popular vote.
  - mobilefriendly 7y ago
    This is by design of course. The United States is a confederation of states...geographical balancing against population density was the Great Compromise. That people are surprised or shocked by this reveals how poor our civics education has become. https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/A_Great_Compromise.htm https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/A_Great_...
    - chillwaves 7y ago
      Has become? People are more educated than ever, and mostly what you hear about is people complaining because the current system is unjust, not because they are "shocked " to learn it exists. When you balance representation against population, the gulf is vast and only growing. This is a compromise that made sense in the 18th century, not the 21st. Ignore it at your peril.
      - techsupporter 7y ago
        > This is a compromise that made sense in the 18th century, not the 21st. Exactly! People act like our[0] Constitution is some inviolable, sacrosanct tome with words that must be revered and held close, unchanging and unchanged forever. Yet they seem to skip that we've modified the thing TWENTY EIGHT TIMES and that every Much Revered Framer(tm) anticipated that we'd not only change it as often as needed, we would very likely scrap the whole thing and do it again every few generations. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that mandates that the compromises, adjustments, and tweaks our nation's founders made must persist beyond tomorrow, except our own collective will to not bother with or to actively resist change. It's why I very much enjoy hearing at least one of the major parties actively talk about modification of the Electoral College or the makeup of the Supreme Court or how the legislative bodies of our nation operate. Maybe their ideas are good ones, maybe they're not, but the one thing we MUST NOT DO is shy away from a willingness to keep our country's governance current. 0 - By "our," I mean the collection of people who are citizens of the United States of America. Other nations can and do amend their nations' basic laws as they see fit.
- dunnevens 7y ago
  Those voices are far from unheard. If anything, they've been the dominant political voices for the past 40 years. Sure, California and NYC's cultural output is the loudest voice in the country. But, politically speaking, they're largely ignored. Obviously ignored by Republicans, but the timid national Democratic leadership will also ignore them in their relentless centrism. The political system makes it pretty easy to ignore the liberal coastal areas. Republicans benefit enormously from the unevenness of the Senate, House seat allocations, and the Electoral College. And then in the states they control, they put their finger on the scale via gerrymandering. Democrats can ignore the coasts too because who else are they going to vote for? Though the greatest irony of all is that those rural and poor voters in the flyover states are also ignored in terms of their real needs. Their party tosses them cultural red meat regularly, but defunds the things they need: schools, roads, and various safety net programs which are often the only thing keeping the rural poor afloat.
  - chillwaves 7y ago
    This exactly. The folks claiming they are not represented are ironically over represented compared to city dwellers. As long as Republican voters care more about abortion and gay marriage (and I guess transpeople using the bathroom now), they will not find economic solutions.
    - dboreham 7y ago
      Also guns.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    Are Democrats centrist? One of the things I learn the deeper I dig into how European countries are structured is that they’re more right leaning than American liberals assume. Let’s take Spain. If we adopted Spain’s tax structure, income taxes would go down by about a trillion dollars, while consumption taxes (paid for primarily by middle class and poor people), would go up two trillion dollars. Spain’s abortion laws are stricter than any southern state’s (elective abortion legal only up to 14 weeks). On gay marriage, Spain legalized it about 10 years before, but then the government tried to repeal that law a few years later. The constitutional court ruling permanently protecting gay marriage came just two years before the one in the US. The Spanish minimum wage works out to about 6 euro per hour. Like the US and almost all of Europe, many industries were privatized in the 1990s and 2000s, and unlike the US the passenger rail system is in the midst of privatization.
icelancer 7y ago
Very well said. I grew up in a below-average income family and this is exactly the viewpoint much of my extended family has. Yet they're just considered dumb for voting against their own interests and told they don't know what's good for them. Leftists have an odd way of convincing the very people they're trying to help by making fun of them; it hasn't worked out too well in the last 20 years and I don't expect it will going forward, either.
- richardhod 7y ago
  Well to be fair, they are in long-term stakes, wrong since these companies do end up impoverishing them. It's the problem that nobody without a backup and savings can think strategically, which is the paradox and issue with a predatory capitalist system .
  - icelancer 7y ago
    Pointing out that people are making mistakes is not a way to win them over. The facts are not really relevant when trying to win someone over. > predatory capitalist system They don't like hearing this, either. The concept of hard work getting them ahead is one of the few things blue collar workers hold on to. (It is also not necessarily true as you state.)
    - icelancer 7y ago
      Not sure how this got three downvotes without explanation, so if anyone would be kind enough to do so, that'd be much appreciated. Hacker News is supposed to be about discussion, not blind voting.
      - debatem1 7y ago
        Not a downvoter, but I can explain. Based on previous discussions I've had here, "don't say the true thing" is viewed more as an effort to manipulate than as a good faith attempt to improve the effectiveness of an outreach.
  - 7y ago

bdcravens 7y ago

This sums up well Trump's ascension: there are a lot of people who have real needs and real opinions, and whose votes count as much as someone's in California or New York. An environment where we insist on leaving those voices unheard is what enables someone to have extreme influence.

debatem1 7y ago
I'm not sure where to go with this, honestly. From an electoral perspective it's counterfactual: my family in the midwest have roughly 1.5x the electoral power I do. Historically speaking this has led two democrats in my lifetime to win the popular vote but lose the presidential election. So I don't think there's an issue with those voices being unheard in elections-- quite the opposite in fact. On the other hand, I see where you're coming from. The loci of money and power in the United States speak loudly and listen poorly to the half of us that see stars at night. I think this has been to conservatives' advantage, although that seems to have more to do with preexisting cultural affinity than shared policy goals.
- pitaj 7y ago
  Does winning the popular vote mean anything under the current system? It's not hard to assume that many people would vote very differently if the electoral college wasn't involved. For instance, left-leaning people might vote more often in red states, and right-leaning voters in blue states would do the same.
  - debatem1 7y ago
    Only inside of individual districts-- eg, a senate race is a statewide popular contest. There are no federal popular vote contests in the US (although there is some momentum towards reform in that regard). I'm not sure that the average voter really considers the electoral college today. Voter comprehension of it has historically been very low, at least. But you're right that many non-swing-state voters stay home after (correctly) figuring out that their votes are meaningless.
  - astura 7y ago
    Don't forget- there's 4 million Americans who are ineligible to vote for president due to the fact that they live in territories, not states (and DC since 1961).
  - TylerE 7y ago
    No, the popular vote means nothing. In fact, states aren't even required to put the presidential on the ballot at all. States are allowed to choose their electors by any method the state legislature decides on.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
buerkle 7y ago
In many cases California and New York voters count much less than in smaller, more rural states. The senators from Wyoming represent about 300,000 people each. The senators in California represent nearly 19,000,000 each. And the The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 capped the number in the House of Representatives. In this case, each California House member represents three times as many people as the House members in Wyoming. That's also one reason in recent presidential elections the electoral college which is based on the number of Senators and House of Representatives (plus 3 from DC) have won the race but lost the popular vote.
- mobilefriendly 7y ago
  This is by design of course. The United States is a confederation of states...geographical balancing against population density was the Great Compromise. That people are surprised or shocked by this reveals how poor our civics education has become. https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/A_Great_Compromise.htm https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/A_Great_...
  - chillwaves 7y ago
    Has become? People are more educated than ever, and mostly what you hear about is people complaining because the current system is unjust, not because they are "shocked " to learn it exists. When you balance representation against population, the gulf is vast and only growing. This is a compromise that made sense in the 18th century, not the 21st. Ignore it at your peril.
    - techsupporter 7y ago
      > This is a compromise that made sense in the 18th century, not the 21st. Exactly! People act like our[0] Constitution is some inviolable, sacrosanct tome with words that must be revered and held close, unchanging and unchanged forever. Yet they seem to skip that we've modified the thing TWENTY EIGHT TIMES and that every Much Revered Framer(tm) anticipated that we'd not only change it as often as needed, we would very likely scrap the whole thing and do it again every few generations. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that mandates that the compromises, adjustments, and tweaks our nation's founders made must persist beyond tomorrow, except our own collective will to not bother with or to actively resist change. It's why I very much enjoy hearing at least one of the major parties actively talk about modification of the Electoral College or the makeup of the Supreme Court or how the legislative bodies of our nation operate. Maybe their ideas are good ones, maybe they're not, but the one thing we MUST NOT DO is shy away from a willingness to keep our country's governance current. 0 - By "our," I mean the collection of people who are citizens of the United States of America. Other nations can and do amend their nations' basic laws as they see fit.
dunnevens 7y ago
Those voices are far from unheard. If anything, they've been the dominant political voices for the past 40 years. Sure, California and NYC's cultural output is the loudest voice in the country. But, politically speaking, they're largely ignored. Obviously ignored by Republicans, but the timid national Democratic leadership will also ignore them in their relentless centrism. The political system makes it pretty easy to ignore the liberal coastal areas. Republicans benefit enormously from the unevenness of the Senate, House seat allocations, and the Electoral College. And then in the states they control, they put their finger on the scale via gerrymandering. Democrats can ignore the coasts too because who else are they going to vote for? Though the greatest irony of all is that those rural and poor voters in the flyover states are also ignored in terms of their real needs. Their party tosses them cultural red meat regularly, but defunds the things they need: schools, roads, and various safety net programs which are often the only thing keeping the rural poor afloat.
- chillwaves 7y ago
  This exactly. The folks claiming they are not represented are ironically over represented compared to city dwellers. As long as Republican voters care more about abortion and gay marriage (and I guess transpeople using the bathroom now), they will not find economic solutions.
  - dboreham 7y ago
    Also guns.
- rayiner 7y ago
  Are Democrats centrist? One of the things I learn the deeper I dig into how European countries are structured is that they’re more right leaning than American liberals assume. Let’s take Spain. If we adopted Spain’s tax structure, income taxes would go down by about a trillion dollars, while consumption taxes (paid for primarily by middle class and poor people), would go up two trillion dollars. Spain’s abortion laws are stricter than any southern state’s (elective abortion legal only up to 14 weeks). On gay marriage, Spain legalized it about 10 years before, but then the government tried to repeal that law a few years later. The constitutional court ruling permanently protecting gay marriage came just two years before the one in the US. The Spanish minimum wage works out to about 6 euro per hour. Like the US and almost all of Europe, many industries were privatized in the 1990s and 2000s, and unlike the US the passenger rail system is in the midst of privatization.

icelancer 7y ago

Very well said. I grew up in a below-average income family and this is exactly the viewpoint much of my extended family has. Yet they're just considered dumb for voting against their own interests and told they don't know what's good for them. Leftists have an odd way of convincing the very people they're trying to help by making fun of them; it hasn't worked out too well in the last 20 years and I don't expect it will going forward, either.

richardhod 7y ago
Well to be fair, they are in long-term stakes, wrong since these companies do end up impoverishing them. It's the problem that nobody without a backup and savings can think strategically, which is the paradox and issue with a predatory capitalist system .
- icelancer 7y ago
  Pointing out that people are making mistakes is not a way to win them over. The facts are not really relevant when trying to win someone over. > predatory capitalist system They don't like hearing this, either. The concept of hard work getting them ahead is one of the few things blue collar workers hold on to. (It is also not necessarily true as you state.)
  - icelancer 7y ago
    Not sure how this got three downvotes without explanation, so if anyone would be kind enough to do so, that'd be much appreciated. Hacker News is supposed to be about discussion, not blind voting.
    - debatem1 7y ago
      Not a downvoter, but I can explain. Based on previous discussions I've had here, "don't say the true thing" is viewed more as an effort to manipulate than as a good faith attempt to improve the effectiveness of an outreach.
- 7y ago