cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17199847
@Snowden
The DNC is the only reason you’re not currently enjoying a second-term Sanders and a sane Supreme Court.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17199847
@Snowden
The DNC is the only reason you’re not currently enjoying a second-term Sanders and a sane Supreme Court.
Gore lost the election for a lot of reasons and Florida was certainly the most important, but honestly it’s the electoral college. No one wants a far right president but they don’t have a choice because 10% of the electorate has completely overtaken the Republican party and it’s just MAGA now.
The Electoral College is the root of a fuckton of problems.
If you can become president without winning the popular vote, it’s a big fucking problem.
It gives a disproportionate weight to small states, where their vote is worth more than bigger states.
There’s definitely issues with the EC, but you’re bringing up a feature not a bug.
The executive branch wasn’t supposed to be an extension of the legislative. The office of the president wasn’t supposed to be a “super duper senator”. The blame for where we’re at is entirely in a defunct congress. With a presidential office that is genuinely executing, not the forefront of, legislation, the checks and balances in congress start to make a lot more sense.
And regardless of the way it’s supposed to be, we’ve got to work with what we’ve got, I get that. But the US is huge and wildly different. I’m not particularly rural, but took a friend of mine born and raised in NYC out to a friends cabin once. Offered to give em a ride on the ATV. They were excited, I grabbed my jacket, and came out to them sitting on the ride-on lawnmower, all ready to go. To flip it around, I have very little business giving an opinion on what minimum wage in a major metro should be (although after a recent visit to sanfran my guess is about $1,000/hr…).
My point being, an over correction the EC will 1) see a ton of opposition that makes it unfeasible, and 2) ultimately be fairly destructive. The challenges in different parts of this country are worlds apart, and we do a TERRIBLE job understanding one another, mostly by design because it helps reelection. Threatening the EC without a replacement that takes the concerns of otherwise under-represented folks into consideration will feed into this partisan crap more that it has already, entrench identity politics further, and just accelerate things.
I have no solution for this.
Other countries have solutions for the issue. The Constitution can be amended, it’s going to take a lot of work.
Oh I don’t disagree, it can be done and is clearly an issue, I just think we have to be careful on how. The EU probably has good framework given how different it’s members are