3 ms·

And yet if we look at it objectively, the right is clearly overrepresnted in our political system. Republicans lost the popular vote in five of the last six pre

by jgwil2 6y ago

And yet if we look at it objectively, the right is clearly overrepresnted in our political system. Republicans lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. In the next presidential election there will be many eligible voters who weren't even born last time they won. The Senate gives a seven point advantage to Republicans. So please, explain to me where you get this idea that the right is "treated unfairly," because it's getting very hard to see how this argument is being made in good faith.

hindsightbias 6y ago
7 of the last 8 elections. And yet they are the ones “out of touch”
- jgwil2 6y ago
  Thanks for the correction!
athms 6y ago
Also, SCOTUS has had a conservative majority (except during a vacancy) since 1989.
- jki275 6y ago
  The first time SCOTUS has had a conservative majority since the 50s was when Amy Barrett was confirmed last year. Maybe your definition of conservative is not the same as most conservatives, but that’s just how it is.
  - jgwil2 6y ago
    How about instead we say, "appointed by a Republican president," so we don't get bogged down in semantics? Since Heller, Citizens United, Bush v Gore etc were clearly the products of partisan Republican justices. Sorry to be blunt but this just goes to show how often your "feelings" diverge from objective reality.
  - athms 6y ago
    One can be moderately conservative and still conservative. If you look at the court's decisions, the only time in the last one hundred years SCOTUS has had a sustained liberal streak was in the 1960s.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> And yet if we look at it objectively, the right is clearly overrepresnted in our political system. That isn't nearly as clear as it seems, because of the incentives the electoral college creates. Republicans could pick up a lot more votes in places like California or New York if they had any reason to try, but none of those votes help them if they can't flip the state. Spending resources campaigning in California so that it goes to the Democrats by 54 to 46 instead 65 to 35 is a losing strategy, so they don't. But then that's why the popular vote numbers come out the way they do. If you actually abolished the electoral college, suddenly the foregone conclusion states would matter, everybody's campaign strategy would change and so would all the numbers. The people the electoral college actually underrepresents are the people of California and Massachusetts. But also Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, etc. The people it overrepresents are the people of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, etc. The swing states. Because they're the only people whose vote can plausibly change the outcome, so they're the only people whose concerns politicians care to address. Which means you can pretty easily end up in a situation where people from deep red states feel underrepresented, because in practice they are. The same as the people from deep blue states.
- jgwil2 6y ago
  Thanks for your reply. Let me start by saying that I agree the numbers would look completely different if it weren't for the Electoral College. That is because the Republican platform has consistently failed to win over a majority of Americans: absent the EC, the Republican Party would have to recalibrate its platform in order to remain competitive. This feedback mechanism is essential to a functioning democracy, and it's currently broken, because Republicans still have a decent shot at winning nationally thanks to the bias in the EC. With respect to your argument that the EC actually overrepresents swing states, you may be correct. However, the EC bias clearly favors Republicans over Democrats. In 2020, that bias was 3.9% in favor of Republicans, although it varies from election to election[0]. When the size of the bias exceeds the margin of victory for the winner of the popular vote, the popular vote loser takes the EC, as in 2016. Furthermore, you didn't actually address the most antidemocratic institution of all: the Senate. The Senate is heavily biased towards small states; California (pop 39m) and Wyoming (pop < 1m) each have two senators. The average state is currently much more Republican than the average American, amounting to 6.6% bias[1]. That is to say, Democrats could win by five points nationally (a huge victory given current polarization levels) and still not control the Senate. Finally, I'm sure that you can end up with a situation wherein conservatives "feel" underrepresented; my whole point is that they objectively are not, so this whole persecution complex evinced by some is completely ridiculous. People are entitled to their feelings; they should also be willing to look at facts and adjust their reactions accordingly. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-11-22/republican-electoral-college-edge-isn-t-built-in-to-the-u-s-voting-system https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-11-22/republ... [1] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-senates-rural-skew-makes-it-very-hard-for-democrats-to-win-the-supreme-court/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-senates-rural-skew-...

by jgwil2 6y ago

hindsightbias 6y ago

7 of the last 8 elections. And yet they are the ones “out of touch”

jgwil2 6y ago
Thanks for the correction!

athms 6y ago

Also, SCOTUS has had a conservative majority (except during a vacancy) since 1989.

jki275 6y ago
The first time SCOTUS has had a conservative majority since the 50s was when Amy Barrett was confirmed last year. Maybe your definition of conservative is not the same as most conservatives, but that’s just how it is.
- jgwil2 6y ago
  How about instead we say, "appointed by a Republican president," so we don't get bogged down in semantics? Since Heller, Citizens United, Bush v Gore etc were clearly the products of partisan Republican justices. Sorry to be blunt but this just goes to show how often your "feelings" diverge from objective reality.
- athms 6y ago
  One can be moderately conservative and still conservative. If you look at the court's decisions, the only time in the last one hundred years SCOTUS has had a sustained liberal streak was in the 1960s.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

> And yet if we look at it objectively, the right is clearly overrepresnted in our political system. That isn't nearly as clear as it seems, because of the incentives the electoral college creates. Republicans could pick up a lot more votes in places like California or New York if they had any reason to try, but none of those votes help them if they can't flip the state. Spending resources campaigning in California so that it goes to the Democrats by 54 to 46 instead 65 to 35 is a losing strategy, so they don't. But then that's why the popular vote numbers come out the way they do. If you actually abolished the electoral college, suddenly the foregone conclusion states would matter, everybody's campaign strategy would change and so would all the numbers. The people the electoral college actually underrepresents are the people of California and Massachusetts. But also Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, etc. The people it overrepresents are the people of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, etc. The swing states. Because they're the only people whose vote can plausibly change the outcome, so they're the only people whose concerns politicians care to address. Which means you can pretty easily end up in a situation where people from deep red states feel underrepresented, because in practice they are. The same as the people from deep blue states.

jgwil2 6y ago
Thanks for your reply. Let me start by saying that I agree the numbers would look completely different if it weren't for the Electoral College. That is because the Republican platform has consistently failed to win over a majority of Americans: absent the EC, the Republican Party would have to recalibrate its platform in order to remain competitive. This feedback mechanism is essential to a functioning democracy, and it's currently broken, because Republicans still have a decent shot at winning nationally thanks to the bias in the EC. With respect to your argument that the EC actually overrepresents swing states, you may be correct. However, the EC bias clearly favors Republicans over Democrats. In 2020, that bias was 3.9% in favor of Republicans, although it varies from election to election[0]. When the size of the bias exceeds the margin of victory for the winner of the popular vote, the popular vote loser takes the EC, as in 2016. Furthermore, you didn't actually address the most antidemocratic institution of all: the Senate. The Senate is heavily biased towards small states; California (pop 39m) and Wyoming (pop < 1m) each have two senators. The average state is currently much more Republican than the average American, amounting to 6.6% bias[1]. That is to say, Democrats could win by five points nationally (a huge victory given current polarization levels) and still not control the Senate. Finally, I'm sure that you can end up with a situation wherein conservatives "feel" underrepresented; my whole point is that they objectively are not, so this whole persecution complex evinced by some is completely ridiculous. People are entitled to their feelings; they should also be willing to look at facts and adjust their reactions accordingly. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-11-22/republican-electoral-college-edge-isn-t-built-in-to-the-u-s-voting-system https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-11-22/republ... [1] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-senates-rural-skew-makes-it-very-hard-for-democrats-to-win-the-supreme-court/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-senates-rural-skew-...