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It does not benefit rural voters. It only benefits swing states. You don’t see many candidates campaigning in Nebraska instead of Florida

BurningFrog 4y ago
That's a separate issue. I'm talking about this one: Nebraska has a 2.0M population and 5 electors = 0.4M people per elector California has a 39M population and 55 electors = 0.7M people per elector.
krapp 4y ago
Let's put it on the table, not that it's going to matter - it benefits the white establishment. The US was founded by white supremacist slaveowners taking stolen land through genocide and warfare. Its power structures were designed to maintain that status quo - keeping the white establishment in power while disenfranchising all other groups. That this race-based stratification of power is less overt now as it was in the 18th century isn't relevant, those power structures and the incentives they created still exist and still favor the white establishment. The "rural vs city-dwellers" and "population" debates tend to be proxies for race - the population in urban areas skews nonwhite, the population in rural areas is overwhelmingly white. The American right and the Republican party have, implicitly and explicitly, voiced their concern and fear of losing white power to a demographic shift towards minority status for years. If that weren't the case, the electoral college would probably have been dumped ages ago. It's arcane and awkward and is only good for that one thing.
- tastyfreeze 4y ago
  Please read some history. Framing America's founding in racism is dishonest at best. The history of every civilization has been of one group in power doing what it can to maintain power. Race has absolutely nothing to do with the power dynamic. While westward expansion did kill many natives at the hands of settlers, not just white, the majority of the native population had already expired long before westward expansion. Diseases introduced by Europeans wiped out an estimated 90% of the native population before the colonies were established. By the time of Manifest Destiny the Americas were empty compared to pre-European contact populations.
  - krapp 4y ago
    You're not really contradicting anything in my comment so much as restating it more politely. Yes, power dynamics have been central to every civilization. And at the time of the founding of the US - as a British colony - the power dynamics of Imperial Britain as well as the US were based on white supremacy, with the colonizing, subjugation and "civilization" of nonwhite societies being an expression of that. Race, relative to both slavery and manifest destiny, was integral to the philosophy and implementation of early American society. And the US wasn't so empty that the government felt no need to wage the Indian Wars, enact the Indian Removal Act, or push natives onto reservations. Ben Franklin's famous (and often misunderstood) quote about security versus liberty was made in the context of seeking greater Federal power to fend off native attacks. The genocide of a relatively small population is still genocide, but clearly there were still enough natives to be a persistent cause for concern to the colonists.
    - tastyfreeze 4y ago
      My primary contention with your original comment is the framing of actions as white supremacists or racist. Neither white supremacy nor racism were driving forces in the founding or expansion of the US. History would have played out the same way even if all humans were purple. The native populations were weak in population and militarily. The persistent push of settlers was bound to meet resistance in the form of violence. Before the US military was involved in securing the west, some tribes had already been slaughtering settlers to protect their territory the same as they would for invading tribes. It isn't like the US government just decided to wipe out a peaceful people. It was literally war. Along with war comes the denigration of "the other" to make convincing your army to kill them easier. Skin color just happened to be an easily identifiable feature of "the other" that was used in that denigration. If we were all purple it would have been some other feature to identify the other. You can see this in the histories of wars where both sides were the same race. The history of the US is no different than every other empire that has existed.

BurningFrog 4y ago

That's a separate issue. I'm talking about this one: Nebraska has a 2.0M population and 5 electors = 0.4M people per elector California has a 39M population and 55 electors = 0.7M people per elector.

krapp 4y ago

Let's put it on the table, not that it's going to matter - it benefits the white establishment. The US was founded by white supremacist slaveowners taking stolen land through genocide and warfare. Its power structures were designed to maintain that status quo - keeping the white establishment in power while disenfranchising all other groups. That this race-based stratification of power is less overt now as it was in the 18th century isn't relevant, those power structures and the incentives they created still exist and still favor the white establishment. The "rural vs city-dwellers" and "population" debates tend to be proxies for race - the population in urban areas skews nonwhite, the population in rural areas is overwhelmingly white. The American right and the Republican party have, implicitly and explicitly, voiced their concern and fear of losing white power to a demographic shift towards minority status for years. If that weren't the case, the electoral college would probably have been dumped ages ago. It's arcane and awkward and is only good for that one thing.

tastyfreeze 4y ago
Please read some history. Framing America's founding in racism is dishonest at best. The history of every civilization has been of one group in power doing what it can to maintain power. Race has absolutely nothing to do with the power dynamic. While westward expansion did kill many natives at the hands of settlers, not just white, the majority of the native population had already expired long before westward expansion. Diseases introduced by Europeans wiped out an estimated 90% of the native population before the colonies were established. By the time of Manifest Destiny the Americas were empty compared to pre-European contact populations.
- krapp 4y ago
  You're not really contradicting anything in my comment so much as restating it more politely. Yes, power dynamics have been central to every civilization. And at the time of the founding of the US - as a British colony - the power dynamics of Imperial Britain as well as the US were based on white supremacy, with the colonizing, subjugation and "civilization" of nonwhite societies being an expression of that. Race, relative to both slavery and manifest destiny, was integral to the philosophy and implementation of early American society. And the US wasn't so empty that the government felt no need to wage the Indian Wars, enact the Indian Removal Act, or push natives onto reservations. Ben Franklin's famous (and often misunderstood) quote about security versus liberty was made in the context of seeking greater Federal power to fend off native attacks. The genocide of a relatively small population is still genocide, but clearly there were still enough natives to be a persistent cause for concern to the colonists.
  - tastyfreeze 4y ago
    My primary contention with your original comment is the framing of actions as white supremacists or racist. Neither white supremacy nor racism were driving forces in the founding or expansion of the US. History would have played out the same way even if all humans were purple. The native populations were weak in population and militarily. The persistent push of settlers was bound to meet resistance in the form of violence. Before the US military was involved in securing the west, some tribes had already been slaughtering settlers to protect their territory the same as they would for invading tribes. It isn't like the US government just decided to wipe out a peaceful people. It was literally war. Along with war comes the denigration of "the other" to make convincing your army to kill them easier. Skin color just happened to be an easily identifiable feature of "the other" that was used in that denigration. If we were all purple it would have been some other feature to identify the other. You can see this in the histories of wars where both sides were the same race. The history of the US is no different than every other empire that has existed.