There's a twitter presence from a woman who is doing outstanding work keeping track of election security issues.

Jenny Cohn.

If you want to be up to speed on that critical issue, follow her. Terrifying.

A problem correctly stated is half solved.

Why do Democrats have a problem in lesser-populated states? $$$$$
Votes (advertising, airtime) are much, much cheaper to buy in Wyoming than California.
Level the playing field. Or better yet, repeal Citizens United and get money out of politics.

but my post was getting long and I didn't want to put people off because of length. Nothing is out of bounds for the GOP. It's unbelievable how complacent Americans are about those issues ... and the m$m is doing very little to warn us.

Thank you for suggesting @jennycohn1. I'm following her now.

Yes, the Electoral College isn’t the only ridiculous part of our system, the Senate is indeed so unfair representation wise. All built in advantages for the Republicans.

I am not convinced that the Electoral College nor the Senate is a bad thing but rather a check and balance that has not been handled successfully in recent years by the Democrats.

For example I mentioned where I live in retirement (and long ago in childhood) elsewhere in this post. A relatively good time was experienced (before I was born) when Roosevelt's program established a CCC Camp. That program built infrastructure that is still in use, the old timers, white and NA, still speak fondly of the CCC whereas later the US Forest Service and BIA on nearby Reservation were more frequently viewed as villains that served outside corporate interests. My father, a WWII vet that only lived away when in Europe for the war, loved FDR but turned into a Reagan-Bush GOPer and would be a Trump supporter now. The Democratic Party was once strong locally but lost the way. The Party has lost support locally for going on 50 years now and the fever dream of the GOP being a better way is entrenched but the basics are there to change. Most young people are very disengaged politically.

an Office of Rural Development which is basically HUDs rural cousin inside the Department of Agriculture. It gets very little attention and only $3 billion compared to HUD's $40 billion. If we elevated it to cabinet level and vastly increased the budget we can start building back rural communities and make them desirable places to live again.

I live rural but somewhat different from most rural areas as local to me in about 50% NA.

In 2008 I received zero outreach from the Democratic Party. There was not a single sign locally for HRC but plenty for Trump and Sanders. I received nary a mailer nor phone call despite that I had donated $1000 to POTUS Obama in 2008 (only political donation have made in my 47 years as a Democratic registered party member and exclusive Democratic voter). I am amazed by the number of baby boom and other NA voters that support Trump. The county as a whole ("Indian Country" is the rural outback of a rural county) voted first for Sanders, second for HRC with Trump a distant third.

But the point is that the Democratic Party mainstream made close to zero effort in my and closest zip codes and was weak in outreach even in the more populated areas. Even in county Board of Supervisors elections, the Democratic candidates make no public visits (but this District has a Dem Supervisor largely because the college town in the county is included in the 5th District, said college town is an 85 mile drive and that is location of far more population).

Most people own guns here (I own guns but they are family heirlooms and I have not fired a weapon since 1985 and that was to gather cones and branchlets for forest insect surveys) so there is the common rural paranoia about guns being taken away. Also there is the typical rural racism against Blacks, Muslims, and any brown and eastern immigrants in general. But the Democratic messages should be strong in what is a poverty pocket lacking in services and now a high proportion of retired people and most jobs are people working for the Tribes or other public agencies. One good thing is the Indian Health Service clinics as there is no other health care for 40 miles and the closest hospital with ER is a 85 winding mountainous drive.

The Democratic Party urgently needs to get out and make a case in the rural USA, many rural folks do not get that the GOP has little intent other than to chip away at social services, Medicare, and social security and weaken the protection of the public lands that make the area a beautiful place to live, worth the inconvenience of the public services enjoyed in more urban areas.

I've posted similar thoughts on DU many times. The Democratic Party has basically ignored the "flyover states" and midwestern rust-belt cities for way too long.

only to get told "They're a lost cause. We need to spend our resources in races we can win".

Democrats out to vote and to vote for the Democratic candidate. had they done that in 2016, Trump would not be President. Period!

Rural voters are ripe for the Democratic party platform.

Rural USA is not an ignorant racist monolith.

If the Democratic party re-established itself in rural areas, we would win the Senate.

It makes no sense not to bring rural states back under the Democratic tent. We have so much to offer the alienated and often poverty stricken rural folks.

That is the very thing that FDR did to great success.

We probably have a different take on why Trump is POTUS now.

The Electoral College would be moot if the Democratic party bothered to make a strong showing outside urban areas.

"[W]ith a conservative judiciary in place, the actions that Republicans would need 60 votes for, such as repealing the Voting Rights Act, don’t need to pass the Senate, since the Supreme Court has already eviscerated the Voting Rights Act for them."Stephen Wolf added,
Mike Konczal

Link to tweet

The simply asymmetry of the Senate filibuster: it takes 60 votes to build something, but only 50 to tear it down. The filibuster no longer binds the core conservative agenda in any way; it blocks and deforms everything the left needs to do. My latest:

Link to tweet

The future of the planet depends on it.

WTF? This is NOT democracy. Yet another issue that should be, and should have been, raised by the MSM news. The only way this changes is if it becomes a part of the national conversation. If only Democrats raise it, which they don't, it will be dismissed as partisan whining. And the MSM, instead of saying "hmmm lets look into this, maybe Democrats are right" They will say "hmmm, "some" say that Democrats are just whining because they keep losing Senate seats, do you think this is true?"

such as generational changes in attitude, for instance. It assumes an unchanging mindset. It's frightening as stated, but I don't think we can make long-term predictions like this. It's certainly a possibility, but there are many possibilities. This is just one.

Same for the electoral college.

but the Senate won't be able to remove the President at will because the House will refuse to pass a bill of impeachment. We will need a Constitutional amendment to give big states more senators. That might be difficult to pass. The impasse may result in a serious crisis in 20 years.

The Republicans probably already have a permanent majority in the Senate for the forseeable future (a veto proof one is
some decades off). I don't think we have a good chance to get a majority in 2020. We couldn't hang on to most of the
Dem senators in red states in the anti-Trump 2018 elections; Jones is going to have a hard time keeping his seat. A draw - keeping the present status quo - seems likely.

We really need to think about fixing this dysfunctional constitution. If we aren't going to take John Dingell's advice, then we have to have some more appropriate representation formula, or greatly reduce the scope of the Senate's powers.
Perhaps we could turn about 20 urban areas into states of their own - at least as far as Senate representation is concerned
(I personally think states have exceeded their shelf life too).

....do this. It was constructed to protect the slave owning states in perpetuity from the more populous (liberal, abolitionist) states. The Senate's structure is racist at its root.

White people have never dealt with the truth of what slavery and its aftermath did and was by having Truth and Reconciliation trials and reparation's.

It's come around to bite everyone. Freud ( though I'm no fan of his) would call it the return of the repressed.

Not the larger southern states that held slaves. There were numerous debates on the Senate being apportioned the same as the House. Each time, it was the smaller states who protested loudest, fearing a "majority rule" run by the larger more populous states. The end rule of 2 seats per state was the "Connecticut Compromise", Connecticut being one of those smaller states. Delaware was another of the loudest in favor of the "equal representation" rule.

...I garbled the details and shouldn't have.

But the basic point stands. The 3/5's rule of how to count human beings who were slaves so that the less populous states would be equal in power to any other state, in the newly formed government, was done purely to encourage landowning slave holders to sign on. Those white slave holders were really worried that they would not have equal power with the North---which also had slaves and depended on the Slave economy but they also had abolishionists. So together they came up with this devilish plan to make sure the sparse states would have enough people to "deserve" having two Senators apiece.

And they only created the Senate to begin with, if I remember my schooling, precisely because the House was more democratic--actually based on who had the most population. They wanted to balance out that degree of democracy with this other powerful structure.To protect slavery. To protect the basis of the American economy.

Electoral College---created for the same process. Slavery is baked into the cake. And the unfaced truth of this is constantly eating at the country.

Regardless of the intricacies of the original intent, its NOT going to be changed.
More likely is the application of State by State Electors, which we see in some recent new laws being passed.

And down the road, an even better chance. The older GOP voters become less and less as they pass away, while the younger generation is huge, and they live EVERYWHERE.
The Constitution is what it is, and the rules of the Senate seats will likely never change, so we just have to deal with it and play to the independent voter, who wins elections.

Then sadly when they get older and start making money, large segments become "conservatives". A story as old as time.

The baby boomers are the old now, and they are conservative. Which wouldn't have been dreamt of when they were young. In the late 60s they had a revolution of sorts. Same people now voting for Dotard. (overall, there are many liberals still who are old, but then end up the minority).

Just based on the posts i've read over the years, i think the older segment is well represented here!

overall though - I think it less optimistic than I used to that the older generation will stop being conservative. Though I suppose less conservative than the last one, representing overall progress.

How the hell did they ever think this was going to work? Truth is, they didn't. It was all just a set up from the start. They just printed all those fancy words to get and maintain control of the wealth.

Mission accomplished.

by pukes facilitate propagandizing and brainwashing of the populace. Someone posted an old page from a textbook back in the 1940's outlining all of the good things government does. Who teaches or hears such a message on the radio or teevee nowadays, except in a few places?

The American people have been sold a bill of goods that distracts and misdirects. I don't see real change until people wake up. Will likely take a major war or catastrophic depression to do that. I hope I'm wrong.

It’s a start. It ought to be much higher priority for just this reason.

USVI would be a better choice.

So they like to say.

One way is to win over more people in non-metropolitan areas. Another way is to try to create more metro areas in the red states, which will attract more liberal people. Another way is to try to change Senate apportionment, but I don't see that happening. That's in the Constitution. Another way is to concentrate on purple or light red states.

It's a problem, though.

I've been aware of this problem for more than a decade so I've looked into it sporadically, though not to enough detail. The two states I'm most familiar with are Nevada and Florida, as long time resident of both. Clark County (Las Vegas) obviously carries Nevada but recently Washoe (Reno) has shifted from red to somewhat blue, and that is logical. It is the trend we need everywhere as rural whites become more polarized and vote 70% red.

Here in Florida the Duval (Jacksonville) and Hillsborough (Tampa) areas are moving in our direction, which looked like plenty until 2016 when Trump suddenly shifted 47 rural counties significantly further away. But Florida is hardly the lost cause as often portrayed here. The fundamentals are still good, if we could only figure out messaging toward the Hispanic vote, and actually speak Spanish to them. That is going to be an increasing necessity going forward. Rick Scott understood the necessity of swiping a half percent here and there via pandering and also by learning just enough Spanish.

Similar thing is happening in states like Georgia and Texas and Arizona. I tried to force it elsewhere but as the article indicates people are projected to move away from those states, which means the larger cities in states like Ohio and other midwestern states will not be as influential as they have been historically.

The current older generations are lifetime red voters, on balance. I can't exactly root for them to die out because it is taking me along with them. That's one of the more interesting aspects of this...what happens in 10-20 years when the Silent Generation is all but gone, the Boomers are winding down, and millennials voting more dependably in mid life. Are those rural areas every bit as red as current? I don't know which way to go on that. There are always demographic surprises. That's why new forecasts like this show up every 10 years or so as unforeseen variables intervene.

The metro areas are already mainly liberal. The burbs are not, I gather.

Texas is doable. Texas used to be Democratic. Ann Richards was a famous and beloved Governor there. You can look her up on Youtube and see the kind of woman who appeals to the harder, southern areas. Smart, witty, you can imagine her downing booze with the boys (and she did....she was an alcoholic), great voice, quick on her feet.

Texas has two large cities: Dallas & Houston. The main counties of both are Democratic (a lot of Hispanics), and a younger crowd. That could spread. But it would require more moderate stances, something the current party doesn't have a taste for. And it's hard to find a candidate who can do that delicate balance and get people enthused, at the same time. They often end up being milk toast.

I currently live in Louisiana. It's dark red, but it used to be Democratic (Governor Edwards...convicted of racketeering...one in a long line of corrupt Democrats in the state). It actually currently has a Democratic Governor. I'm not sure how that happened, because the masses are clearly VERY Trumpy, and the state voted for two Republican Senators. It's possible that a moderate Democrat could pull off a Senate win. But he'd have to be Munchin-like.

The oil & gas states along the Gulf are tricky.

But look @ what Beto did. He went to a lot of small towns and cities in Texas. He took the time and spent the money to do that, and nearly won, against all odds.

It's a problem. And it looks like it will get worse, if we don't do something.

to do vercome that is turnout

You cannot have 47% not voting and expect to win

We need to keep the House, take the Senate, and take more state legislatures.

It is called secession and joining the Canadian confederation. Canada has a Senate, but it is appointed and CANNOT kill legislation brought up from the House of Commons.

If we decide to go, Canada will accept blue states and regions as new provinces.

Nada. Especially if we have banded together through interstate compact.

Time to reconvene the Hartford Convention of 1814.

https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/is-it-time-for-canada-to-annex-blue-america/

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/maybe-its-time-for-america-to-split-up.html

before the War of 1812 (New England states which would have ended as part of Canada).

The only way an amendment of this nature would get done is through a CC.

I've discussed this before. We need to amend a state population floor and cap. Put simply: if you are too small, you need to find an adjacent state and merge. If you are too big, you need to split up into multiple states. Ideally, you'd want states to have between 4.5-6.5 million given our current population; however, to get an amendment passed, you'd probably have to get down lower - to say 1,250,000 - 1,500,000.

States that would need to look at breaking into multiples include:

 California
 Texas
 Florida
 New York
 Pennsylvania
 Illinois
 Ohio
 Georgia
 North Carolina
 Michigan
 New Jersey
 Virginia
 Washington
 Arizona
 Massachusetts
 Tennessee

States that need to be merged with one or more neighbors include:


 Montana
 Rhode Island
 Delaware
 South Dakota
 North Dakota
 Alaska
 Vermont
 Wyoming

I might make an exception for Alaska since it has no neighbors.

At the same time, I would either allow all of the US territories independence of membership. Ideally, Puerto Rico & the USVI would become a state, and I'd propose making Guam part of Hawaii for administrative and voting purposes. Similarly, I'd propose making Maryland, and DC one state.

And it rains on both sides: some progressive states get merged as well as some conservative ones, and breaking up states will produce new red and blue states.

The part of DC that was south of the Potomac was successfully re-merged with Virginia a long time ago. I don't know why the northern part can't merge with MD. It would give the residents "full representation".

Disadvantaged, yes. But I didn't risk my life to found this country, so I ain't going to criticize those who did because I don't think they set it up perfectly for me.

Democracy wins.

Hit this link, and you will see a editorial cartoon by Herblock..on this subject. That people living in cities, do not get equal representation to those people living in rural areas. Note..this one is almost 68 years old..Not much has changed...If you put your browser on the picture, you can enlarge it. Please scroll down a bit and you will see the toon, Animal Farm


https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/herblocks-history/animal.html