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>enough people don't want to build If the problem was that 51% of people didn't want those things, well that's just democracy. For a true veto, one person is "
by breischl 6y ago
>enough people don't want to build
If the problem was that 51% of people didn't want those things, well that's just democracy. For a true veto, one person is "enough people." That's an exaggeration in this case, but the point he's getting at is that it takes a very very small minority to prevent things from moving forward. And there will almost always be some people invested in the status quo, or even just trying to block things in the hope of getting some kind of payoff in return (trolls, basically).
- greendave 6y agoAnd 51% is quite misleading. 24% of the US population lives in the 30 smallest states. That means that effectively 12%* of voters are responsible for a supermajority of senators. Or if you consider the filibuster, 41 senators can represent as little as 11% of the US population and are elected by 5.5%* of U.S. voters. *Assuming a uniform population-voter proportion across states, which is undoubtedly not quite the case, though I don't have the exact numbers handy.
- hanniabu 6y agoAnd good ol' gerrymandering and voter suppression helps solidify that 5.5%.
- bhupy 6y agoWell that's just because the United States is not a unitary state, it's a federal union. The United Nations and the European Union both also have "vetocracy" structures baked into their systems.