The General Election

ZRod said:
Red Five said:
Map w/ all counties

That blue line that runs through the south is interesting. I assume those are predominately African American populated counties?

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Pretty much... those are your major universities and cities The Mississippi River basin and Delta, Jackson, Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, Montgomery, Atlanta...
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Interesting when you put this with yesterday's article about 58% of republicans thinking colleges & universities have a negative impact on America.

Source: https://thefederalist.com/2017/07/11/heres-many-republicans-view-americas-colleges-universities-negatively/

 
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I know you disagree with me on this and that's not going to change.

But, Trump is sitting in the White House and Republicans have control of both house and senate.

Dems can keep keying on urban issues and keep going down that same path. They have many times come off as condescending and looking down their nose to people living in rural areas.

Now.....if that would change and they would appeal to both Rural AND urban people.....guess what happens in elections and their control of power.

 
Republicans and rural people come off as condescending and dismissive of people who live in urban areas. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 
If you ask me, the rural minority has a pretty outsize voice in national politics in the United States. I don't mean they should get steamrolled and then have no voice. But there's an imbalance here, it's been heavily in their favor for some time, and it begs for redress.

If not, we'll be sitting here wondering how come X, Y, and Z policies "supported by most Americans" are always politically dead in the water until the cows come home. Just like we do already. And we'll probably chalk up the blame to "both parties" and "Washington dysfunction".

 
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Closing nearly a thousand polling places after the 2012 election probably had a bit of an impact as well.

 
zoogs said:
If you ask me, the rural minority has a pretty outsize voice in national politics in the United States. I don't mean they should get steamrolled and then have no voice. But there's an imbalance here, it's been heavily in their favor for some time, and it begs for redress.

If not, we'll be sitting here wondering how come X, Y, and Z policies "supported by most Americans" are always politically dead in the water until the cows come home. Just like we do already. And we'll probably chalk up the blame to "both parties" and "Washington dysfunction".
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Really what you are arguing against is the indirect election of the president (electoral college) and the "winner-take-all" and "first-past-the-post" voting systems.

While I agree with you, states have a vested interest in keeping their electoral votes "winner-take-all". It ensures that candidates are forced to pay attention to you during the campaign (the larger states, anyway). It raises the stakes, so to speak.

The ones that should be trying to change the system are disenfranchised voters that have no voice, like democrats in red states that are not Nebraska, or republicans in blue states that are not Maine.

 
Heck, we have the electoral college and candidates still don't give a rip about Nebraska....other than the GOP knows they will win.

 
Except that one time they lost Omaha, but they fixed that...

 
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knapplc said:
81% of America lives in urban or suburban settings. We are not a rural folk, and we need to stop pretending to be. Gerrymandering has artificially controlled how people get elected, which in turn affects our laws.

Rural America is a huge place. There just aren't a lot of people living there.
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The democrats need to focus on suburban voters more so than rural voters. Suburban voters (which Trump won) are more likely to swing than rural voters and they comprise nearly half of the total population.

 
I just looked up the electoral system in Nebraska. I guess it isn't very proportional, after all.

Two votes go to the overall winner (winner take all), and the three remaining votes go to the winner of each congressional district (essentially winner-take-all, too. just on a smaller scale). In a true proportional vote it would be closer to a 3-2 split in most years.

That would be much better for preventing voter apathy among minority groups and minority parties. Won't ever happen, though.

 
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BigRedBuster said:
I have to be a minority to have apathy towards voting in Nebraska for President?
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No, but in Nebraska the Democratic Party is in the minority. After years or decades of having your vote for president mean nothing, there is a tendency towards voter apathy. The US has a proportionally low voter turnout rate compared to other developed countries.

 
Moving towards proportional allocation of EVs or eliminating the electoral college altogether would create a fairer system. Republicans have no vested interest in doing that because it wouldn't benefit them. IT's the reason the Democratic primary awards delegates proportionally and the GOP primary is still largely winner-take-all.

Also, what you're talking about IA State isn't just at the presidential level... it extends into Congressional representation as well. Unchecked gerrymandering effectively hands an ill-gotten House cushion to the GOP. And two Senators per state regardless of population means Wyoming and Rhode Island get the same two senators per state as California, Texas and New York.

 
dudeguyy said:
Moving towards proportional allocation of EVs or eliminating the electoral college altogether would create a fairer system. Republicans have no vested interest in doing that because it wouldn't benefit them. IT's the reason the Democratic primary awards delegates proportionally and the GOP primary is still largely winner-take-all.

Also, what you're talking about IA State isn't just at the presidential level... it extends into Congressional representation as well. Unchecked gerrymandering effectively hands an ill-gotten House cushion to the GOP. And two Senators per state regardless of population means Wyoming and Rhode Island get the same two senators per state as California, Texas and New York.
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I just debated a colleague on this last week - we live on the east coast, blue state - liberal area. He's a republican, and proud of it.

He says he "doesn't want the populations of LA, NY, Boston, Chicago and Atlanta" making his election decisions. I couldn't get my arms around it. Doesn't each person's opinion mean something? If there are more of those opinions in Iowa then it's right that should drive the country. It really didn't make sense to me, especially because he lives in an area where "his opinion matters more" if we go by his theory. Guess a lot of it stems from being an outlier in a liberal area.

Meanwhile, he opted not to vote this election because he hates Trump, but couldn't cast for Hillary. I tried to use that as the example - he didn't vote because he felt it was a wasted vote - wouldn't he have felt better engaged if there was a chance his vote meant something?

He posed to me, "if that was the case candidates would spend time only in the major markets". Thats fair I think - why is it we have people spending boatloads of money and time in places like NH and IA when there just aren't the numbers to warrant that? If one person equals one vote then there's more of a chance that a county won't go all blue.

I think one person, one vote gets everyone engaged. Candidates can't afford to ignore anyone.

 
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