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Interesting charts. I like the one that shows that there's less republicans than democrats at every income bracket. I think it shows that republicans are not re

Interesting charts. I like the one that shows that there's less republicans than democrats at every income bracket. I think it shows that republicans are not really equally strong power in american democracy as democrats and they are propped up as one only due to intentional retention of very flawed, antique elections system. Basically republican party is allowed by democrats to exists just so they can have mock opposition (supposedly representing half of the people, which it really doesn't) so that they can swap out with them ever n years and it all seems like two party system on the surface. Basically way more than half of the people are democrats and they are denied proportional representation because if they had it either USA would become one party system with a perpetually disgruntled minority opposition that would need to be controlled or it would have to have an actual multipolar democracy but that would interfere with making money the usual way too much.

Robotbeat 3y ago
You’d see the parties change views if the electoral system were more fair. Democrats would likely become more left wing and Republican politicians more moderate, at least on the national stage. The two party system would continue.
- tekla 3y ago
  > Democrats would likely become more left wing Is this supposed to be a good thing?
  - harimau777 3y ago
    Considering the degree to which America lags behind the rest of the developed world in things like medical access, vacation, worker protections, etc. That would probably be a good thing.
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    If politicians representing the will of the people is a good thing then I guess yes.
    - abeyer 3y ago
      The will of some smaller part of the 51% they currently do, you mean?
      - quickthrower2 3y ago
        For context, the early comment setting up this hypothetical was: > if the electoral system were more fair. So no.
        abeyer 3y ago
        Ok, so we'll stipulate to some arbitrarily "fair" electoral system: What makes it obvious that a leftward shift would grow today's Democratic base to that left _more_ than it might shrink it on the right?
        Robotbeat 3y ago
        It wouldn’t, long term IMO. The parties would end up roughly with similar overall proportions. Their positions would change. Democrats, with greater electoral power, will focus on internal competition for who is more ideologically pure & thus experience a leftward shift, to the point of probable over-reach (while Republicans, losing a lot of their in-built electoral advantage, will focus more on electability and thus will moderate, making them more palatable for marginal/independent voters), which is the mechanism for restoring the balance of power.
dboreham 3y ago
There does seem to be some mechanism at work that creates a stable 49/51 vote split. My theory is that this is somehow related to maximizing the income of the professionals who work in politics. Fall off that cusp and it's less easy to raise funds and hence...no new boat this year.
- taneq 3y ago
  Both parties are attempting to publicly track popular opinion while simultaneously protecting the economic interests of their patrons. It’s not surprising that they track each other’s performance fairly closely. That’s kind of the point.
- FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
  Duverger's Law. Make the system a proportional Parliamentary one instead of a winner-take-all system, and you'd see multiple parties.
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> Basically way more than half of the people are democrats and they are denied proportional representation because if they had it either USA would become one party system with a perpetually disgruntled minority opposition that would need to be controlled or it would have to have an actual multipolar democracy but that would interfere with making money the usual way too much. If you had e.g. approval voting then you would have a multi-party system even using the existing districts etc. If you had districts all of equal size (and didn't have the Senate) but still used first past the post, you would still have a two party system and they would still each hold about half the seats, but the positions of the parties would change to reflect the change in the electoral map. Democrats like to think this would benefit them, but it's not as simple as "left gets more representation" at all. It would change what Democrats are (and what Republicans are). For example, the current system causes rural areas to be over-represented, but rural areas have lower incomes, and changing that would increase the representation of higher income people. A large proportion of US federal spending exists to transfer wealth from under-represented populations to over-represented populations as political arbitrage of the difference in representation, so changing it could plausibly cause government programs to be cut as you increase the representation of the people currently paying for them at the expense of the current recipients. Not all of that is necessarily bad but it's definitely not simple or anything that cleanly aligns with traditional notions of right vs. left. Obvious example: Ideologically, agricultural subsidies are textbook socialism but are currently held in place by Republicans and might be the first thing on the chopping block.
h2odragon 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_eras_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_eras_of_the_United_S... thus it has ever been

Robotbeat 3y ago

You’d see the parties change views if the electoral system were more fair. Democrats would likely become more left wing and Republican politicians more moderate, at least on the national stage. The two party system would continue.

tekla 3y ago
> Democrats would likely become more left wing Is this supposed to be a good thing?
- harimau777 3y ago
  Considering the degree to which America lags behind the rest of the developed world in things like medical access, vacation, worker protections, etc. That would probably be a good thing.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  If politicians representing the will of the people is a good thing then I guess yes.
  - abeyer 3y ago
    The will of some smaller part of the 51% they currently do, you mean?
    - quickthrower2 3y ago
      For context, the early comment setting up this hypothetical was: > if the electoral system were more fair. So no.
      - abeyer 3y ago
        Ok, so we'll stipulate to some arbitrarily "fair" electoral system: What makes it obvious that a leftward shift would grow today's Democratic base to that left _more_ than it might shrink it on the right?
        Robotbeat 3y ago
        It wouldn’t, long term IMO. The parties would end up roughly with similar overall proportions. Their positions would change. Democrats, with greater electoral power, will focus on internal competition for who is more ideologically pure & thus experience a leftward shift, to the point of probable over-reach (while Republicans, losing a lot of their in-built electoral advantage, will focus more on electability and thus will moderate, making them more palatable for marginal/independent voters), which is the mechanism for restoring the balance of power.

dboreham 3y ago

There does seem to be some mechanism at work that creates a stable 49/51 vote split. My theory is that this is somehow related to maximizing the income of the professionals who work in politics. Fall off that cusp and it's less easy to raise funds and hence...no new boat this year.

taneq 3y ago
Both parties are attempting to publicly track popular opinion while simultaneously protecting the economic interests of their patrons. It’s not surprising that they track each other’s performance fairly closely. That’s kind of the point.
FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
Duverger's Law. Make the system a proportional Parliamentary one instead of a winner-take-all system, and you'd see multiple parties.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

> Basically way more than half of the people are democrats and they are denied proportional representation because if they had it either USA would become one party system with a perpetually disgruntled minority opposition that would need to be controlled or it would have to have an actual multipolar democracy but that would interfere with making money the usual way too much. If you had e.g. approval voting then you would have a multi-party system even using the existing districts etc. If you had districts all of equal size (and didn't have the Senate) but still used first past the post, you would still have a two party system and they would still each hold about half the seats, but the positions of the parties would change to reflect the change in the electoral map. Democrats like to think this would benefit them, but it's not as simple as "left gets more representation" at all. It would change what Democrats are (and what Republicans are). For example, the current system causes rural areas to be over-represented, but rural areas have lower incomes, and changing that would increase the representation of higher income people. A large proportion of US federal spending exists to transfer wealth from under-represented populations to over-represented populations as political arbitrage of the difference in representation, so changing it could plausibly cause government programs to be cut as you increase the representation of the people currently paying for them at the expense of the current recipients. Not all of that is necessarily bad but it's definitely not simple or anything that cleanly aligns with traditional notions of right vs. left. Obvious example: Ideologically, agricultural subsidies are textbook socialism but are currently held in place by Republicans and might be the first thing on the chopping block.

h2odragon 3y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_eras_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_eras_of_the_United_S... thus it has ever been