7 ms·

It's an interesting point. One thing I've noticed is that both sides increasingly believe that each election poses an existential risk to their side. Currently

It's an interesting point. One thing I've noticed is that both sides increasingly believe that each election poses an existential risk to their side. Currently you see many conservatives repeating the meme that losing the Senate means a Republican will never win the White House again. The belief being that Democrats will change voting laws, open borders and amnesty to Dem-leaning immigrants, and possibly even pack the Supreme Court and add DC and Puerto Rico as new states. On the flip-side, similar sentiments were often expressed on the left of Trump heralding the end of American democracy. Republicans in power would permanently end fair elections through a combination of foreign election interference, gerry-pandering, dark corporate money, and voter suppression. Disregarding whatever merits these views have, the fact that they're widely held by a significant chunk of the citizenry creates a dangerous equilibrium. Like you say, in a healthy democracy the losing side focuses its energy on winning the next election. But if you think the other side's gonna use dirty tricks once in power, there is no next election to win. So you go all out it to stop the other side, and start looking for dirty tricks of your own. Now you've justified your opponents' bad opinion of you, and given them even more reason to win by any means unnecessary.

deleted 6y ago
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lovecg 6y ago
> and add DC and Puerto Rico as new states Is there a good argument against this? Apart from “but my side will lose power”.
- jcranmer 6y ago
  For DC, there's an arguments about a state being able to hold the federal government hostage, which is the reason why a federal district that is not part of any start was specified. Given that the existence of the federal district is part of the Constitution, it's arguable that making DC a state requires a constitutional amendment.
  - lovecg 6y ago
    The proposals I heard would keep the district but make it much smaller, creating the new state (where the majority of people live) around it; the theory being that the constitution only requires a district not to exceed a 10 mile square. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC_Admission_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC_Admission_Act
    - jcranmer 6y ago
      The wrinkle I see in that proposal: who selects rump-DC's electors?
      - lovecg 6y ago
        That’s an interesting question, and the 23rd amendment does throw a wrench in the works. There would probably still be a small number of residents, but it’s harder to justify three electoral votes.
    - tomatotomato37 6y ago
      Wouldn't it make more sense for the adjacent states to annex the now unallocated territory rather than create a tiny 50 sq. mile state which, without the important federal buildings, has less practical sovereignty than a fairly large suburb?
      - jcranmer 6y ago
        VA got all of its land back with the retrocession 173 years ago. MD doesn't particularly want DC back because of internal state politics reasons.
        freeone3000 6y ago
        This sounds like we're halfway done, and just need to do the other half then. If Maryland doesn't want it, perhaps another state does? Hawaii, perhaps?
dragonwriter 6y ago
> The belief being that Democrats will change voting laws, open borders and amnesty to Dem-leaning immigrants, and possibly even pack the Supreme Court and add DC and Puerto Rico as new states. I like how the possibility of respecting the 2020 status referendum in Puerto Rico instead of continuing to have the island governed by a national government in which they have no vote is considered on the more extreme end of that list.
- jcranmer 6y ago
  > respecting the 2020 status referendum in Puerto Rico And the 2017 referendum. And the 2012 referendum. Three referendums in a decade all advocating for statehood ought to be a pretty clear sign that there is desire for statehood...
  - bzbarsky 6y ago
    The 2017 referendum was boycotted by opponents of statehood (for various reasons to do with the wording of the referendum question and the way it tried to slant the options) and had something like 23% turnout, so citing it as an expression of popular will is a bit weird. The 2012 referendum also had the statehood question effectively boycotted by many people who favored keeping the current status, because selecting "keep the current status" wasn't an option on that question (it was a separate question altogether, where it got 46% of the overall vote). So statehood got something like 61% of the votes of people who voted on the statehood-specific question at all, but only ~46% of the votes cast in the referendum; representing that as a "yes for statehood" is also pretty weird, since that's about the same number of votes that "keep the current status" got, with the remainder presumably favoring one of the other "more-independence" options. 2020 is different and new: it's the first Puerto Rico referendum I have seen where there was a sanely worded "state: yes or no?" question that actually got a majority voting for the "state" option (52.5% or so), with something resembling sane turnout (~55%). So yes, respecting this is probably a good idea. "Respecting" the 2012 or 2017 results by making Puerto Rico a state would not have made any sense. Edit: Now that I have read https://senado.pr.gov/Legislations/ps1467-20.pdf https://senado.pr.gov/Legislations/ps1467-20.pdf page 31 lines 6-15, which define the "no" answer to mean a specific course of action which is not just "don't become a state", I am less happy with this referendum. Now we have to guess at how many people knew what the "no" was defined to mean and voted for what they perceived as the lesser of two evils based on that....
Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
>Currently you see many conservatives repeating the meme that losing the Senate means a Republican will never win the White House again. The belief being that Democrats will change voting laws, open borders and amnesty to Dem-leaning immigrants, and possibly even pack the Supreme Court and add DC and Puerto Rico as new states. It is an open secret that they will do all of these things given the opportunity. There's probably one or two D senators in the way of that right now.
- freeone3000 6y ago
  It's not a secret at all. Several democratic senators are in favor of Puerto Rico statehood. (As is the territory of Puerto Rico, but putting that aside...) Several democratic senators are in favor of immigration amnesty, usually in the form of "squatter's rights" or DREAM. Several democratic senators are in favor of less-restrictive immigration policies, essentially to reduce illegal immigration by making legal immigration easier and at capacity: Legalizing the status quo, in other words. These are all defensible policy positions on their own merits. I'm too cynical to believe that these aren't favored in part because they would help their chances are re-election, but it's also not necessary, as a republican government and a majority of republican state legislatures could not stop the entire federal government flipping democrat.
- Hnrobert42 6y ago
  I want to understand you correctly. Do you believe that but for one or two Democratic Senators, all of these things would transpire?
  - Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
    Yes I do. 1. The democratic platform endorses "restructuring" (packing) of the lower courts. 2. A large number of democrats including Kamala Harris have endorsed court packing or other schemes to change the balance of the supreme court. Joe Biden refused to tell the american public what he thinks about court packing. He later promised to create a commission to study court packing. 3. Chuck Schumer has made it a priority to eliminate the legislative filibuster so they can pass laws with 51 votes instead of 60. 4. Democrats believe the senate unfairly benefits republicans. They want to make D.C. and Puerto Rico into states to give them an advantage. Some democrats want to make states out of every american territory. This would lock republicans out of the senate permanently. They will do all of these things given the opportunity. Republicans are already pretty fucked due to demographic change, but democrats very openly want a one party state. https://reason.com/volokh/2020/09/19/regardless-of-what-trump-and-mitch-do-the-democrats-will-1-eliminate-the-filibuster-2-grant-statehood-to-d-c-and-maybe-p-r-3-expand-the-lower-courts-and-4-expand-the-supreme-court/ https://reason.com/volokh/2020/09/19/regardless-of-what-trum...
dillondoyle 6y ago
DC bill will pass house soon. I think it should be the #2 priority of the senate after COVID/economy. Puerto Rico is less of an obvious one and not nearly as popular on the island as DC residents

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

lovecg 6y ago

> and add DC and Puerto Rico as new states Is there a good argument against this? Apart from “but my side will lose power”.

jcranmer 6y ago
For DC, there's an arguments about a state being able to hold the federal government hostage, which is the reason why a federal district that is not part of any start was specified. Given that the existence of the federal district is part of the Constitution, it's arguable that making DC a state requires a constitutional amendment.
- lovecg 6y ago
  The proposals I heard would keep the district but make it much smaller, creating the new state (where the majority of people live) around it; the theory being that the constitution only requires a district not to exceed a 10 mile square. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC_Admission_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC_Admission_Act
  - jcranmer 6y ago
    The wrinkle I see in that proposal: who selects rump-DC's electors?
    - lovecg 6y ago
      That’s an interesting question, and the 23rd amendment does throw a wrench in the works. There would probably still be a small number of residents, but it’s harder to justify three electoral votes.
  - tomatotomato37 6y ago
    Wouldn't it make more sense for the adjacent states to annex the now unallocated territory rather than create a tiny 50 sq. mile state which, without the important federal buildings, has less practical sovereignty than a fairly large suburb?
    - jcranmer 6y ago
      VA got all of its land back with the retrocession 173 years ago. MD doesn't particularly want DC back because of internal state politics reasons.
      - freeone3000 6y ago
        This sounds like we're halfway done, and just need to do the other half then. If Maryland doesn't want it, perhaps another state does? Hawaii, perhaps?

dragonwriter 6y ago

> The belief being that Democrats will change voting laws, open borders and amnesty to Dem-leaning immigrants, and possibly even pack the Supreme Court and add DC and Puerto Rico as new states. I like how the possibility of respecting the 2020 status referendum in Puerto Rico instead of continuing to have the island governed by a national government in which they have no vote is considered on the more extreme end of that list.

jcranmer 6y ago
> respecting the 2020 status referendum in Puerto Rico And the 2017 referendum. And the 2012 referendum. Three referendums in a decade all advocating for statehood ought to be a pretty clear sign that there is desire for statehood...
- bzbarsky 6y ago
  The 2017 referendum was boycotted by opponents of statehood (for various reasons to do with the wording of the referendum question and the way it tried to slant the options) and had something like 23% turnout, so citing it as an expression of popular will is a bit weird. The 2012 referendum also had the statehood question effectively boycotted by many people who favored keeping the current status, because selecting "keep the current status" wasn't an option on that question (it was a separate question altogether, where it got 46% of the overall vote). So statehood got something like 61% of the votes of people who voted on the statehood-specific question at all, but only ~46% of the votes cast in the referendum; representing that as a "yes for statehood" is also pretty weird, since that's about the same number of votes that "keep the current status" got, with the remainder presumably favoring one of the other "more-independence" options. 2020 is different and new: it's the first Puerto Rico referendum I have seen where there was a sanely worded "state: yes or no?" question that actually got a majority voting for the "state" option (52.5% or so), with something resembling sane turnout (~55%). So yes, respecting this is probably a good idea. "Respecting" the 2012 or 2017 results by making Puerto Rico a state would not have made any sense. Edit: Now that I have read https://senado.pr.gov/Legislations/ps1467-20.pdf https://senado.pr.gov/Legislations/ps1467-20.pdf page 31 lines 6-15, which define the "no" answer to mean a specific course of action which is not just "don't become a state", I am less happy with this referendum. Now we have to guess at how many people knew what the "no" was defined to mean and voted for what they perceived as the lesser of two evils based on that....

Acrobatic_Road 6y ago

>Currently you see many conservatives repeating the meme that losing the Senate means a Republican will never win the White House again. The belief being that Democrats will change voting laws, open borders and amnesty to Dem-leaning immigrants, and possibly even pack the Supreme Court and add DC and Puerto Rico as new states. It is an open secret that they will do all of these things given the opportunity. There's probably one or two D senators in the way of that right now.

freeone3000 6y ago
It's not a secret at all. Several democratic senators are in favor of Puerto Rico statehood. (As is the territory of Puerto Rico, but putting that aside...) Several democratic senators are in favor of immigration amnesty, usually in the form of "squatter's rights" or DREAM. Several democratic senators are in favor of less-restrictive immigration policies, essentially to reduce illegal immigration by making legal immigration easier and at capacity: Legalizing the status quo, in other words. These are all defensible policy positions on their own merits. I'm too cynical to believe that these aren't favored in part because they would help their chances are re-election, but it's also not necessary, as a republican government and a majority of republican state legislatures could not stop the entire federal government flipping democrat.
Hnrobert42 6y ago
I want to understand you correctly. Do you believe that but for one or two Democratic Senators, all of these things would transpire?
- Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
  Yes I do. 1. The democratic platform endorses "restructuring" (packing) of the lower courts. 2. A large number of democrats including Kamala Harris have endorsed court packing or other schemes to change the balance of the supreme court. Joe Biden refused to tell the american public what he thinks about court packing. He later promised to create a commission to study court packing. 3. Chuck Schumer has made it a priority to eliminate the legislative filibuster so they can pass laws with 51 votes instead of 60. 4. Democrats believe the senate unfairly benefits republicans. They want to make D.C. and Puerto Rico into states to give them an advantage. Some democrats want to make states out of every american territory. This would lock republicans out of the senate permanently. They will do all of these things given the opportunity. Republicans are already pretty fucked due to demographic change, but democrats very openly want a one party state. https://reason.com/volokh/2020/09/19/regardless-of-what-trump-and-mitch-do-the-democrats-will-1-eliminate-the-filibuster-2-grant-statehood-to-d-c-and-maybe-p-r-3-expand-the-lower-courts-and-4-expand-the-supreme-court/ https://reason.com/volokh/2020/09/19/regardless-of-what-trum...

dillondoyle 6y ago

DC bill will pass house soon. I think it should be the #2 priority of the senate after COVID/economy. Puerto Rico is less of an obvious one and not nearly as popular on the island as DC residents