5 ms·

> The "right" balance of representation between rural and urban voters is a subjective question No, in representative democracy, it isn't subjective at all. Ea

by jgwil2 5y ago

> The "right" balance of representation between rural and urban voters is a subjective question No, in representative democracy, it isn't subjective at all. Each voter should be represented equally. > the fact that one party can't both overwhelmingly succeed and repeatedly, deliberately, and overtly offend millions of voters The Republican Party is damn close to doing just that. They've already basically entrenched one-party rule in states like North Carolina and Wisconsin, and you'd better believe they'll do whatever they can to accomplish this at the national level as well. Gerrymandering, vote suppression, Citizens United - these are all tilting the balance of representation further in one direction. The Senate is part of what enabled this dysfunction to spread, and fixing it should be a part of the solution.

throwaway894345 5y ago
> No, in representative democracy, it isn't subjective at all. Each voter should be represented equally. I think this is just semantics. Whether everyone should be represented equally is still a subjective matter (irrespective of whether or not you or I agree). In particular, the constitution was designed to give each state 2 senate seats for a reason--so a few populous areas couldn't tyrannize the whole country. I think that holds today as well. And Democrats can and have worked within this system in the past, so it seems clearly workable to me. > The Senate is part of what enabled this dysfunction to spread, and fixing it should be a part of the solution. You say this like the constitution guarantees that Republicans get the rural vote or something. That's obviously not true, Republicans got the rural vote because Democrats gave it to them. It seems like your position is "Democrats should be free to offend rural voters without loss of power" and I don't think that's a desirable property.
- jgwil2 5y ago
  My point is that Republicans are in a position to offend urban voters without loss of power, and part of that is due to the Senate, along with the other things listed. It seems like your position is that Democrats should have to compromise in order to gain more votes but that Republicans should not have to do likewise. Democrats control government by a thread right now, after a Republican president who literally based his entire campaign on fomenting divisiveness and rejecting compromise. And now that they are out of power, Republicans are reacting, not by moderating their positions, but by passing laws to try and ensure that it will be more difficult for Democratic-leaning voters to exercise the franchise.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    > My point is that Republicans are in a position to offend urban voters without loss of power, and part of that is due to the Senate I'm not sure I agree that Republicans in general are trying to offend urban voters. The Democrats completely ignored rural and blue-collar America for a decade and then for 5 years after that, lambasted them as racists, white supremacists, and the cause of virtually every social ill and historical moral failure in our country. While many Republicans like to lambast certain liberal urban strongholds (e.g., for crime and corruption), they're not categorically attacking urbanites and certainly not to the degree or duration that Democrats savaged rural and blue collar Americans. I certainly don't agree with "due to the Senate". You mentioned several causes: gerrymandering, vote suppression, and Citizens United. I'm pretty sure most of these largely followed the demographic shift (rural areas voting Repulican), so they certainly can't be caused by the democratic shift (although there are ongoing attempts to gerrymander and suppress votes). Moreover, CU was a Supreme Court ruling. To be clear, I think gerrymandering, vote suppression (excluding voter ID requirements), and CU are all bad things that should be reversed, but my point is that these aren't meaningfully products of the balance of power between rural and urban areas. The fact that rural areas are powerful doesn't inherently advantage one party over the other, rather, one party chose to cede rural power to the other party, so this can't be considered evidence that the balance of power is to blame. > Democrats control government by a thread right now, after a Republican president who literally based his entire campaign on fomenting divisiveness and rejecting compromise. You don't have to sell me on "Republicans (and Trump in particular) have behaved badly". I'm with you. But I don't agree that we have to overhaul our constitution so that Democrats can hold power and still abuse rural and blue collar Americans. There's a path forward that gives Democrats power, affords dignity to rural and blue collar Americans, and doesn't involve overhauling our constitution and for any Democrats who aren't hell-bent on maligning rural America, that's a win-win-win. Justifying every bad behavior by pointing out someone else's worse behavior is, while common, deflection and race-to-the-bottom mentality, and it's really killing our country. The country can't afford for the Democrats to aspire to be only 1 moral unit better than the worst caricature of Republicans. Everyone should aim for their party to be morally better than they were yesterday, not just better than they perceive the other party to be.
- Pxtl 5y ago
  "One person, one vote" is not semantics.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    My specific claim is that 'how senate seats are allocated' is subjective. Whether or not proportional senate representation is the only valid form for a representative democracy is the semantic argument--it doesn't rebut my original claim. I'm clearly not arguing that "proportional representation is semantics"--that doesn't even make sense.

by jgwil2 5y ago

throwaway894345 5y ago

> No, in representative democracy, it isn't subjective at all. Each voter should be represented equally. I think this is just semantics. Whether everyone should be represented equally is still a subjective matter (irrespective of whether or not you or I agree). In particular, the constitution was designed to give each state 2 senate seats for a reason--so a few populous areas couldn't tyrannize the whole country. I think that holds today as well. And Democrats can and have worked within this system in the past, so it seems clearly workable to me. > The Senate is part of what enabled this dysfunction to spread, and fixing it should be a part of the solution. You say this like the constitution guarantees that Republicans get the rural vote or something. That's obviously not true, Republicans got the rural vote because Democrats gave it to them. It seems like your position is "Democrats should be free to offend rural voters without loss of power" and I don't think that's a desirable property.

jgwil2 5y ago
My point is that Republicans are in a position to offend urban voters without loss of power, and part of that is due to the Senate, along with the other things listed. It seems like your position is that Democrats should have to compromise in order to gain more votes but that Republicans should not have to do likewise. Democrats control government by a thread right now, after a Republican president who literally based his entire campaign on fomenting divisiveness and rejecting compromise. And now that they are out of power, Republicans are reacting, not by moderating their positions, but by passing laws to try and ensure that it will be more difficult for Democratic-leaning voters to exercise the franchise.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  > My point is that Republicans are in a position to offend urban voters without loss of power, and part of that is due to the Senate I'm not sure I agree that Republicans in general are trying to offend urban voters. The Democrats completely ignored rural and blue-collar America for a decade and then for 5 years after that, lambasted them as racists, white supremacists, and the cause of virtually every social ill and historical moral failure in our country. While many Republicans like to lambast certain liberal urban strongholds (e.g., for crime and corruption), they're not categorically attacking urbanites and certainly not to the degree or duration that Democrats savaged rural and blue collar Americans. I certainly don't agree with "due to the Senate". You mentioned several causes: gerrymandering, vote suppression, and Citizens United. I'm pretty sure most of these largely followed the demographic shift (rural areas voting Repulican), so they certainly can't be caused by the democratic shift (although there are ongoing attempts to gerrymander and suppress votes). Moreover, CU was a Supreme Court ruling. To be clear, I think gerrymandering, vote suppression (excluding voter ID requirements), and CU are all bad things that should be reversed, but my point is that these aren't meaningfully products of the balance of power between rural and urban areas. The fact that rural areas are powerful doesn't inherently advantage one party over the other, rather, one party chose to cede rural power to the other party, so this can't be considered evidence that the balance of power is to blame. > Democrats control government by a thread right now, after a Republican president who literally based his entire campaign on fomenting divisiveness and rejecting compromise. You don't have to sell me on "Republicans (and Trump in particular) have behaved badly". I'm with you. But I don't agree that we have to overhaul our constitution so that Democrats can hold power and still abuse rural and blue collar Americans. There's a path forward that gives Democrats power, affords dignity to rural and blue collar Americans, and doesn't involve overhauling our constitution and for any Democrats who aren't hell-bent on maligning rural America, that's a win-win-win. Justifying every bad behavior by pointing out someone else's worse behavior is, while common, deflection and race-to-the-bottom mentality, and it's really killing our country. The country can't afford for the Democrats to aspire to be only 1 moral unit better than the worst caricature of Republicans. Everyone should aim for their party to be morally better than they were yesterday, not just better than they perceive the other party to be.
Pxtl 5y ago
"One person, one vote" is not semantics.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  My specific claim is that 'how senate seats are allocated' is subjective. Whether or not proportional senate representation is the only valid form for a representative democracy is the semantic argument--it doesn't rebut my original claim. I'm clearly not arguing that "proportional representation is semantics"--that doesn't even make sense.