We have lost too many elections that should have been ours.

Enough, already!

...make it nearly impossible to bring about said reform. It's a truly depressing paradox. The electoral college is a remnant of slavery.

We have a tyranny of the minority system that is highly anti-democratic.

For instance, the late John Dingell was exactly right in calling for the abolishment of the US Senate. That's a pretty stunning statement coming from the longest-serving member of Congress in US history, not some wild-eyed radical. But he recognized that, regardless of its original intent (which is up for debate), the US Senate had outlived its usefulness.

As liberals become increasingly concentrated, the problem will get worse. By 2040, it's expected that nearly 70% of the population will be represented by just 30% of the US Senate.

Make it more like Canada or Britain’s House of Lords.

But the over represented states of west and south will never go along with it. Therefore, secession may become the viable route for change.

Joining the Canadian confederation gains the desired changes.

which would allow for better representation in Dem areas like cities. Imagine having a member of congress representing approximately 250,000 people instead of 800,000?

It would mean we'd have about 1300 representatives instead of 435.

Example: Currently the State of Wyoming has the same representation in the House as the city of Denver while having fewer people.

With this plan Denver would gain 2 more representatives while Wyoming would only get 1 more, better reflecting the population and Dem leaning Pueblo County could finally be unchained from Trump loving Western Colorado.

Doesn't require a change to the constitution, just the amending of the Apportionment Act of 1911.

...that wouldn't be nearly enough to address the anti-democratic tyranny of the minority system we have in place.

It is, though, as you say, more achievable.

The House was not even apportioned by population correctly but it makes sense. I just thought it was gerrymandered to hell.

There seems to be a federalism principle in the way of following John Dingell's wise advice.

The power the Senate has should be severely limited. It should not have the stranglehold
over the executive branch and the House that it has now. Maybe if it was reduced to a
House of Lords we could live with it.

I think the states have outlived their usefulness too but that's an even bigger problem
to get rid of. The whole system would need a reboot.

...we're talking about a whole system reboot, and that's not likely to happen in our lifetime--which is not to say we shouldn't try planting seeds in the public consciousness.

Not to mention all the other countries in South America would have something to say about elimination our national border.

Surprise Toronto! Time to fill out your 1040 forms and write that check!

probably 2022 (probably not meaning they will in 2022, but IF they do retain it).

That scenario takes the SCOTUS to at least 7-2 HARD RW (not to mention how utterly slanted the lower Federal court system will be), and possibly even 8-1 (Sotomayor's diabetes is bad) and they refresh the Thomas seat with a much younger justice as well as flipping RBG's and Breyer's seats to hard RW.

That will mean, more than likely, a monstrous further rollback (via a virtual river of RW Red state-generated federal court cases) of most civil rights gained post-Brown v Board in 1954, and they might even go after Brown itself.

They will also, likely try and nationalise their agenda from a federal LEVEL, not simply devolving it to a states' rights stance. That means they will attempt to make things like LGBTQ rights, women's rights, racial rights, abortion rights, etc etc etc, illegal NATIONWIDE, not just in the Red States.

IF that scenario above plays out, I am absolutely convinced (I have been for several years) that by sometime in the 2030's or so you will have a large % chance of seeing a huge secessionist movement coming from the Bluest States, as they will NOT put up with living under the the whip hand of a tyrannical RW theocratic federal schema of governance.

I can see a breakup of the nation by say around 2040 to 250 (2050 being the absolute latest) IF that worst case scenario happens. I wish I was joking, and many will accuse me a alarmist fantasy, but I would counter with:

(1) In 2014, if I laid out what was happening NOW, would I have been believed? Answer: NO

and

(2) It is called normalcy bias to deem it an impossible alarmist fantasy IMHO.

People need to remember that Jefferson specifically said in the Declaration of Independence that is the right of the people to alter or abolish government.

If by 2029 or so, you have a newly-elected Rethug POTUS (say Tom Cotton ) sending in the feds into say California or Hawai'i or Massachusetts to do mass arrests over now-nationwide-illegal abortions, and that is upheld over the next 2, 3 years by the RW stacked federal courts, then THAT is but one way for my early 2030's scenario of true kickoffs of REAL secessionist pushes to start.

BUT

you indeed may be closer to the truth, and it all kicks off quicker, I am open to that line of thought as well, it just will take a black swan event I would think, to shift the paradigm-change speed.

In my over quarter century of adulthood I have seen an increasing tolerance for this country to indulge right wing lunacy. The more the push past the current line the more this country moves it back for them.

Even now, as ridiculous as they are, people still want to believe WE are the problem.

I can't even imagine what it will take for people to see what the republican party is AND hold them to account.

But a constitutional convention would prove disastrous thanks to our tyranny of the minority system (simply put, there are more red states than blue states but more blue people than red people). We desperately need to alter government, yet the way in which we are meant to do so would only make matters worse. It's a conundrum, to put it mildly.

big business would probably be worse than what we have now. Yet, if the
Electoral College isn't abolished, the Senate and Supreme Court heavily
reformed we will also get to a worse situation. The U.S. government was
never designed to be democratic and at the same time technology and global
business are moving past the archaic system. Oligarchs are pleased with
this state of affairs. Liberals and believers in democracy must also be making
plans either to make effective reforms or begin the break up of the nation
in the coming decades. If the nation is not to remain together a "velvet revolution"
realizing that in the course of human events one people must separate from
another would be a good thing. This could best be done by keeping the various
States whole and seceding or breaking up the union. People could then choose to
leave their State if they were of a strong enough opposite opinion. The break up of
large nations every few centuries or so isn't necessarily a bad thing. If some action
isn't taken in the next few decades, the situation will become chaotic and disastrous.

...to evolve to that point. In the meantime, breaking up the US may be necessary. But we're talking about ideas that are too radical even for most of those on the left end of the political spectrum. Part of the reason for that, I think, is that familiarity breeds comfort. I also think it's difficult for people to take the long view and accept that we won't achieve an ideal world within our lifetime, resulting in a disinclination to consider the need to strive for that which we'll never experience. As an atheist who doesn't believe in any sort of afterlife, I sometimes wonder why I care about what human existence is like after I'm dead. I figure that it boils down to wanting an end to needless suffering and a desire for purveyors of suffering to be defeated, now and after I'm long gone.

People talk about how long it'll take to recover from the damage wrought by Trump and how we're still dealing with the ramifications of Reagan-era policy, but we should give up on this notion of recovery and focus on - as Buttigieg has said - building a whole new future. A radically different future. Because there's no idyllic past to which we should wish to return, especially for those populations that have been historically oppressed. We must start planting the seeds of radical change in the public consciousness, as I'm fond of saying.

There are very strong arguments to be made for doing away with borders, state or national. At the same time, having a massive number of people under one government is problematic (thus the potential need for breaking up the US, a nation consisting of nearly as many people as all of Western Europe). There need to be independent local governments but overarching universal principles and some sort of enforcement body (such as the UN and its Universal Declaration of Human Rights). Again, though, we're a long ways from realizing such a world, if we ever do at all (with or without catastrophic climate change).

necessary course corrections. I think the use of the various U.S. States and
nation states themselves can be used in this process. As you stated, it takes time
and destructive revolutions simply impede the process. Perhaps the concepts of
co-ops and other we-the-people approaches could be useful. In the past they have been
the catalyst for much that took root and grew. Principles and values will be of the
up most importance, as even criminal gangs can be well organized. Remembering that
there will always be disagreements, it must be realized that no system will be perfect and
that if the differences should become significant enough an amicable separation is
acceptable. Much more to be said but thank you for your posts.

We all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, cherish our children’s future and we are all mortal.

-John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Link: https://cooperationjackson.org/principles

Cooperation Jackson inspired the start of a similar organization where I live on the northern coast of California: http://cooperationhumboldt.com/about-3/

Local movements such as those probably present our best chance at avoiding complete disaster.

Do you think Black Americans would willingly accept second class citizenship, again?

Would women (maybe in the red states) would accept second class citizenship, again?

When people within the LGBTQ community have no rights would that be acceptable, again?

If we are going to be forced to live under a RW Red state stupidity, I have to ask why?

The last Civil War was ugly, this one we will watch on TV or out the front door.

rights and it also needs a compliant RW SCOTUS, more so than it is now. RBG and Breyer are still there. Court cases take years to wind their way through the system. You need the right type of confluence of events occurring in order to generate an inflection point large enough to start to split apart the nation, which is what I tried to lay out in my multiple replies on this thread.

Our side seemed to take it in 2016. Besides, who controls the majority of weapons?

...it would likely be a miserable state of affairs for the rest of my life. And the existential threat of climate change could be realized, in which case you're right that we wouldn't survive.

One day, though, we might evolve beyond the nation state concept and this talk of a particular country surviving will be a moot point.

Anyway, I try to take the long view, but you're absolutely correct that another Trump term would be an absolute disaster for the US and the world. It's vital that fascism in the US and Europe be stymied.

the fault for DT winning is NOT THEIRS! It's the majority take all in most of our States, and DT managed to eek out a very slim majority in a couple of usually Dem. States.

Before we all insist on getting rid of the EC, we need to think how that would change things. The only States candidates would campaign in are very populated, mostly cities, and the hell with the low populations. NOONE would ever even set foot in them, let alone hear their needs. I know, I used to live in Pittsburgh, and San Antonio, and now Atlanta. But I don't feel right about ignoring millions of people in smaller States. Yes, it would give the Dems a big advantage, but it's not right. Not what our Great Country was supposed to be.

With campaigning where most of the people are ? Rural people have to go to cities for a lot of things. Airpots and hospitals. Concerts. Museums.

But actually governing as well.

I can imagine that rural voters would like to see laws that reflect the realities of rural living. Probably even more so than a few campaign speeches every 4 years.

The divide between rural citizens and city citizens is already pretty wide. I can only imagine the tensions if we could just totally and 100% ignore them since they would become insignificant from an election and re-election standpoint.

services and THEY need support from the legislature to help protect their interests from foreign intervention & the Corporate conglomerate farms.

ember, THEY'RE Americans too.

Compare what a Democratic led POTUS, House, Senate and a liberal judiciary would do for their overall quality of life in rural America VERSUS the inverse of what a Rethug dominated government and judiciary would do.

They would be, like everyone else, far better off under us than them.

They just would be constrained from their legally acting out on bigotry and hate, and their wilful submission to the RW tinpot dictators that make up so much of their local and state governments who use that hate and bigotry as a wedge for power.

It isn't like a Democratic federal regime is going to make their lives WORSE, that is what the RW does now.

Unchecked gun culture, RW jeebus as legal foundation, brutal homophobia and sexism, rentier stealing/shifting of wealth from the bottom 90% to the top .01%, and hatred of all peoples who are of colour are NOT valid 'interests'.

or they would make no money. We are their market.

Geez, why should that give them preference? How about doctors, who keep us alive or feeling well? Good God.

Why do they get more of a say in politics than people who know how to do other things?

Tell me what makes their vote worth more than mine instead of the fake resentment at a rhetorical comment.

I am sick and tired of these people calling themselves “real Americans”, voting for racist assholes, and then being told their opinions should be worth more than mine. What bullshit.

They chose to live in an areas prone to killer earthquakes and wildfires. That seems very effing idiotic to me.

Why should I trust the judgement of people in Chicago? They choose to live in a dirty, violent crime ridden city that had 561 homicides last year which is more than Australia, New Zealand and all of Scandinavia combined. Seems the smart people are the ones to scooted to the safer suburbs.

Just because lots of people live together doesn't make them better than the rest.

Why should their judgement be given MORE weight than anyone elses that's the issue.

are not well-educated, not well-informed, and heavily propagandized by right wing media. Their culture is all churches and no bookstores. They vote against their own welfare over and over. Many of the smart ones leave for cities as soon as they can. Why should some shlub in North Dakota have as much representation as a forty people in California? The urban voters of populous states would by and large vote on issues in ways that would give isolated rural people better lives.

Our great country was not meant to be so discriminatory against high population states.

...a remnant of slavery and a tyranny of the minority system in general. The US is, currently, very anti-democratic.

Laws can be written to ensure fair funding practices for every state.

It needs to be scrapped entirely. 1 person, 1 vote.

So, one could argue that it still serves a similar purpose.

I am paraphrasing:

He thinks we should hold the election and then count up all the votes, and the winner is the one who got the most.

Period.

It doesn't matter which states did what. Just count 'em all.

I like it.

Last edited Sun Oct 13, 2019, 02:29 AM - Edit history (1)

15 at a minimum, 21 at a maximum, and pack all the new 6 to 12 seats with liberal judges.

Getting rid of the EC will take an impossible to do Constitutional Amendment (all it take is 13 states to block it, and I can easily name more than that), so to negate the EC somewhat, to mitigate it, (as I do not see the Interstate Voting Compact getting enough Red states to sign on to put it into effect, and a RW SCOTUS will strike it down anyway) I suggest (and this helps with actual governmental legislative voting power as well) we need to increase the size of the House to say between 1,001 to 1,501 members, and then have a far more equitable distribution of the seats (and thus the Electoral College votes). That only takes an Act of Congress, and the last time the House was increased in size (other than a short time for for AZ and HI) was 1913, when the population of the US was less than 100 million people. IF the US had the same ratio of constituents to members for the US House that the UK has for its House of Commons, the US House would have over 3,100 members. If the US had the same ratio as Sweden has for its Riksdag (parliament), the US House of Representatives would have over 11,500 members. Let that sink in. 1001 to 1501 is NOT a hard ask at ALL. Plus think of all the new jobs generated building a new Capitol (or somehow enlarging the existing one.) We put a fucking man on the moon FIFTY years ago, we can sort out how to situate 566 to 1066 (good number! Battle of Hastings! which its 953rd anniversary is Monday btw) or so new seats!

Finally, to sort the Senate somewhat, add PR and DC as states, and split California into SoCal and NoCal. That adds 6 new Democratic Senators and would give us a 50 to 75 year cushion. Sometime around 2075 to 2090, on current demographic trends, 15% of the US population will have MORE than 50% of the Senate seats, and by 2035 to 2040 or so, 70% of the US population will have only 30% of the Senate seats, and those tiny minorities with hugely imbalanced power will be far far more white, far more RW, radical fundie religious, less educated, poorer, older than the other 85% (in the first case) and 70% in the second.

The Supreme Court is a bad idea. Somebody spent too much time with Plato's Republic maybe.
Difficult to get rid of, tho.

(I am a married lesbian) or that we can be denied any job, any housing, and there is no SCOTUS to appeal to, if need be, where does that leave us?

We would be at the mercy of Federal Courts of Appeal, which can be far more easily stacked and the cases far more easily manipulated.

What if a Rethug US House and US Senate and POTUS passes similar laws???????

I can think of 10,000 other examples.

You simply must have a national court of last resort.

Another big problem the Supreme Court has is that there are too many cases that SHOULD be heard there that never will be because the Court doesn't have enough time to hear them all.

By making the Court either 19 or 28 Justices in size, you could impanel two or three nine-justice Supreme benches and have the Chief Justice supervise the certiorari pool. If you had two benches, seat one in either San Francisco or Seattle and leave the other in DC. With three benches, the third could be in either Chicago, St. Louis or Dallas.

Naturally, when you set up the multiple benches you spread out the right-wing justices so they can't fuck things up.

Wouldn’t you scream bloody murder if Trump wanted to do that? We need a nonpartisan group to appoint judges or a group of 10 senators from each party or something like that. I don’t like the idea of a president just licking their chops waiting for Ginsburg or Clarence Thomas to die. If it was non partisan I could agree to increasing the # of justices.

One of the options that doesn't require a constitutional amendment is increasing the number of justices.

Altering everything else, including method of appointment, would require an amendment to the constitution which RW controlled states will never allow. They'd fight it for the same reason they fight against independent redistricting commissions: an independent judicial selection committee would prevent domination by hard right ideologues.

Wasn’t considering whether it was constitutional or not. I just wish it wasn’t a partisan food fight every time.

...the need for major structural reform. Those reforms are virtually impossible to bring about for the very reasons why those reforms are necessary, but it's crucial to start planting seeds in the public consciousness. We must talk about the impossible until we evolve to the point where it's possible. In the meantime, we also have to vote, we have to fight gerrymandering and voter suppression in the courts, we have to be vigilant in beating back the propaganda, etc.

"We can't say it's a democracy when twice in my lifetime, the Electoral College has overruled the will of the American people." -- Mayor @PeteButtigieg, announcing his candidacy for president

Millions more vote for you but you lose? That violates the one person one vote system doesn’t it?

We don’t do this statewide....in state elections, like in my state Ohio we don’t do any tricks to make it fairer for tiny counties as opposed to our big counties/cities.

Nobody is making anyone live in places like Montana.

It has cost us dearly, the Iraq War and the Orange Idiot we no have, that should be reason enough to jettison it.

The Voter Compact will never go into force.

...most of whom are those small Republican-majority states that benefit the most from it.

Russians knew exactly who to target in large part due to Electoral College

The Repugs set the stage nicely by discriminatory voter ID laws (they took 200k potential Democratic voters out of WI alone), using Crosscheck and similar programs to get rid of Black and Hispanic voters, under supplying voting machines in the large cities in MI, etc.

And it could easily happen again.

and would have been harder to do.

If not for illegal Russian meddling.

unaffiliated force, more like a global mercenary force paid for by oligarchs?

If not, they'd better come up with a civilian government rescue soon, or there won't be any nation to protect and defend. One would think they'd want the better futures of their families than the one they're facing -- serfdom under a corporate military junta minority rule government just like Chile's.

the House and the Senate, and of course the Presidency. Wishful thinking?

If we turn Texas blue Republicans are toast as a national party. Then they will be screaming to get rid of the EC. No fair we can't win because California, NY, and Texas are blue. Karma.

First. We are not getting rid of the electoral college. Period, so enough of the whiny ass complaints. Second. We have won plenty of elections with it. 2000 and 2016 were somewhat outliers. Now, if we GOTV we win. Period. If we don't- we lose. We win Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, etc when we turn out. Will our candidates turn people out or are we already producing an excuse for a loss?

Where people live is changing. By 2040, nearly 70% of the population will be represented by just 30% of the US Senate.

Sure, GOTV is super important and you're right that the electoral college isn't going away anytime soon. But we do need to be protesting our anti-democratic system. We may not be able to get rid of the EC anytime soon, but we can plant seeds in the public consciousness. And we *can* (and must) do something about voter suppression, gerrymandering, foreign interference, and so on.

Cannot be changed because we have tyranny of the minority.
It may not happen in my lifetime, but the USA is headed for a split. May be the only solution.

by the majority that choose not to vote.

Get those people out and Democrats win.

We won’t have the 60 Senate votes and 2/3 of states to get rid of or change the institutions (the EC and the Senate) that value land over people and perpetuate the outsized power of rural states.

Voting is, of course, vitally important. But it won't do away with a system that has its origins in giving slave states disproportionate power--slavery was outlawed but the same framework is still in place.

We also have to deal with voter suppression, gerrymandering, profit-at-all-costs media, foreign interference, etc.

If a state doesn't meet minimum population thresholds they should be combined with another state. Montana, Wyoming north and south Dakota should be one state. Idaho scould be split up and combined with Washington and Oregon. Utah with Nevada. Kansaa with Nebraska, New Mexico with Arizona. New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine could combine. Delaware should be part of Pennsylvania or Virginia. Kentucky and West Virgina. Mississippi and Alabama. Hawaii should merge with California and Alaska with Washington. That would get us down to 35 or 36 states, with Senators more accurately apportioned.

Up who is in the electorial college.
Get rid of it.favors rich republicans because of who is in it.

I understand that is specifically a state's right to write election law, but since this involves a federal office I believe winner take all state electoral votes disenfranchise citizens.

Only two states split their electoral votes.

But our only hope of repealing it is to win big under the current system.

If we were ever to win the Presidency through the electoral college, despite having lost the popular vote, perhaps we might be able to get the rest of the country to go along with us in fixing the system.