What is your line in the sand?
Edit: thank you all for your responses. I think it’s important as an American we take your view points seriously. I think of a North Korean living inside of North Korea. They don’t really know how bad it is because that is all hidden from them and they’ve never had anything else. As things get worse for Americans it’s important to have your voices because we will become more and more isolated.
Even the guy who said, “lol.” Some people need that sort of sobering reaction.
In the case of this election. The Republicans won the popular vote, so by your logic they should have won this year anyways.
Even so, if you look at voting distribution on a US map. Densely populated urban centers vote blue and there are large swathes of land that vote red. Do you propose that the people who live in these densely populated areas should have the power to choose the president every election?
In my view, the fact that the elections are close and both parties win is evidence that the system works.
They had a higher probability of winning and they took full advantage of that, yes.
Yes. That’s how it’s done in all other modern democracies that I know of including my own. I don’t understand this idea that population density must result in devaluing one’s vote. It’s punishing the cities for existing. That just because you live in the city your power should be diminished because other people chose to live in Bumbuck, Iowa. Like, what does your residence have to do with anything? It’s a foreign concept to me. Like, you’re not even hurting, you’re just upset that your views aren’t those of the nation.
Not to mention that’s a curious mindset to have. It implies that people in the city can’t be trusted to decide an election despite their candidates being great. Coincidentally, most of the people in the cities are POC and I find that to be more than a coincidence. I’m inclined to think it’s yet another tool used to disenfranchise Black voters and suppress minorities given the US’s notoriously racist history. We even got threads on this site expressing how that fixation on race makes us foreigners uncomfortable.
Yes, it works great in favor of Republicans by tipping the scale. I’m surprised you replied with that given how I just explained that it’s a rigged system and you said, yes it’s wonderful…
What you are proposing gives complete power of the elections to small spheres of influence in the US. Candidates only have to appease to people who live in the cities to win. I don’t see how this can be seen as a good thing. The current system forces candidates to get both the rural and urban residents’ votes to win.
The current system forces the candidates to appeal to a number of states artificially. How is that any better? Lol It doesn’t even do what you claim it does.
And also, most of those red areas on the map are empty, as you said. Why bother saying it’s empty when it’s convenient only to present a fully red map as if it means anything?
Lastly, cite your sources, please. We have no idea where you got that image.
Are you referring to the swing states? They have to appeal to those states because they already have the other states locked in, but they can’t just ignore the places they usually get votes each election either. Part of the reason the Republicans won the popular vote this year is because many counties flipped from Democrat to Republican. They aren’t appealing to swing states artificially, they are trying to win the votes of a population that votes either direction and isn’t practically a guarantee.
Those red areas are in fact not empty, there are people who live in those regions. That map was made by a redditor here : https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/6914AUEoEf. When I initially saw the post (a few years ago), I verified the information presented at that time. You are of course free to double check.
We’re not talking about anything else.
Candidates regularly ignore states while campaigning. I know for a fact that happened last year with both Trump and Harris. They do know their states are locked in.
I’m saying the swing states are created artificially to create a close race. It wouldn’t be close otherwise and instead decidedly blue if it were a fairer system that doesn’t devalue people’s votes arbitrarily.
And also, your map needs population density to be meaningful. And a better source.
It’s hyperbole. Their populations are peanuts to the cities, which is why we weed the population density so you can stop pointing at the map and be like “see all this red land??” and I stop internally screaming.