I’m unconvinced of the first part. These aren’t huge populations, and from the Samoans and Virgin Islanders I’ve spoken to, it might be welcomed by many of them right off the bat. In any case, my main argument has been that the 1st priority for a Democratic-led government should be to make PR and DC states, and I think those are very achievable, and quite quickly. The rest might take a bit longer, but could still be worth it.
It’s like you always ignore relevant history if goes against the latest political scheme you’re enamored with. What makes you think the Dems can quickly move PR or DC statehood through? Why didn’t they do it already? Lemme guess, Dems have been too weak and disorganized to get it done but THIS time it’s all different. Or maybe not. We’re all just making random guesses here completely unattached to reality.
I’m hardly the only one to advocate for PR and DC statehood as a high priority: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/if-democrats-take-congress-statehood-for-dc-and-puerto-rico-should-be-a-priority/2019/10/02/f005fdea-e38e-11e9-b0a6-3d03721b85ef_story.html
And I don’t think it would be that hard. I’m sure it would be challenged, but the initial steps are already done or can be done very quickly: Democrats Push to Make Washington, D.C., the Fifty-first State | The New Yorker
The Democrats haven’t done this because they only had both houses plus the WH in '09 and '10, and they (perhaps foolishly) didn’t make this a priority.
PR and DC statehood aren’t left-field propositions, especially DC – this is well within the party’s establishment, AFAICT.
DC might happen. I doubt it but there might be some way to sneak it through.
PR is way less likely. They’ve had 5-6 referendums and jack has happened. The pro&anti groups there are quite entrenched from what I’ve read. I doubt you could bank on getting 2 Dem Senators from there either. Their main political parties don’t map onto the Dems&Reps, they seem locked into the aforementioned entrenchment.
The others are pure pipe dream. No state movements to speak of.
I’m less pessimistic than you, but I agree that this isn’t a trivial problem to solve. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be a high priority (or the highest, IMO).
I think we live in a federal republic. EVeryone’s does in fact get one vote but their votes are cast in the context of a federal republic, The states matter.
I think my vote should count for 400 million of everyone else’s votes. Many others feel the same way but in order to form a nation we had to convince people to adopt a system that we could all agree on. And in order to get every state to agree, they insisted on this electoral college thing. Now you want to change that bargain. Fine. There is an avenue to do so and you don’t even have to get every state to agree. You only need 3/4ths of them to do so. But right now you can’t even get states representing the majority of the population to sign onto that scheme.
You would impose what you think is fair on a population that doesn’t seem to want it. And the high interest in the popular vote has only really gotten a lot of attention after the Bush-Gore election. It really seems like the push for the popular vote is largely energized by partisan interests. It’s just not very convincing.
It’s convincing if you hold to the one person one vote principal (with each vote counting exactly the same for president) as more important than the “federal republic” stuff above. I do, you don’t.
And your “impose” stuff is just nonsense. Yes, I think the EC should be abolished. Thinking this isn’t imposing anything on anyone.
I have a hard time believing that you can’t conceive that some folks really might think that it’s important for every single vote to count exactly the same, regardless of partisan concerns. Not everything is partisan.
You did see my ‘if’ clause, right? 
I mean, one of the things I take for granted in this world is: no, the Dems don’t have any guts. Frustrates the hell out of me, but reality often does.
Well, it could possibly be that Dems actually in government and politics think your ideas are stupid rather than lacking the guts to do them. Just a possibility.
Oh, OK so it’s just a personal preference and not really anything that you have convincing arguments for. Certainly not convincing enough to get a majority of states, electoral votes, states representing the majority of the population or really any sort of majority at all to sign on to.
I believe some people are genuinely concerned about the electoral college. I don’t think the vast majority of people who are currently concerned would be concerned outside of partisan interests.
Not if you don’t care about 1 person = 1 vote, as you clearly don’t! But I think lots of people do, and my argument is extremely simple and straightforward for such folks.
At present, no… but so what? Are you saying that because I haven’t convinced everyone, I should stop arguing? If not, then how is this relevant?
The AP is reporting that Bernie Sanders has now publicly endorsed Joe Biden for POTUS.
Its a 250 year old problem that was solved with an imperfect compromise 250 years ago. But that 250 year old compromise is how we got a country - without it we would simply have had a bunch of small nation states. And the problems it addressed haven’t gone anywhere in 250 years.
I don’t think that’s what he’s saying at all. What he’s saying is that isn’t the system we have, and if that is the system we want, there are HUGE hurdles between here and there. We either turn over the Constitution of the United States via revolution and start over (and discover that some of the compromises made way back then are still going to apply in order to not end up with islands of “I’m not part of your country.” - Plus revolutions are bloody uncertain disruptions that may not turn out the way you envision) or we need to change the Constitution via amendment - which is going to be hard because you are talking about removing power from smaller states - they aren’t going to fall in line for that.
I like the idea of popular vote for President - I’m onboard and think it makes sense - but I’m not willing to take up arms to get it. The realist in me knows that’s a pipe dream - at least in the short term and probably in the long term. I’d also just be on board with a truer population based electoral college and House of Representatives - even if that means we have to significantly change how the House runs (and we would - for Wyoming to get any representation in the House, and for Californians to get per capita equal representation California would need at least 10 more representatives, Texas gets seven more - they don’t fit in the building, that’s part of the problem.) That’s probably more realistic, but probably involves changing the way Representatives operate - e.g. they stay in their home state and the House meets virtually (which has all sorts of other advantages - it becomes harder to lobby representatives when they are scattered all over the country and you have to spend time buying them steak dinners in Des Moines and Boise and Little Rock - but I’m not sure the Reps would go for it).
And what does that have to do with a popular vote for President or Puerto Rican statehood? :dubious: Start your own thread please.
I don’t think that’s what he’s saying at all. What he’s saying is that isn’t the system we have, and if that is the system we want, there are HUGE hurdles between here and there. We either turn over the Constitution of the United States via revolution and start over (and discover that some of the compromises made way back then are still going to apply in order to not end up with islands of “I’m not part of your country.” - Plus revolutions are bloody uncertain disruptions that may not turn out the way you envision) or we need to change the Constitution via amendment - which is going to be hard because you are talking about removing power from smaller states - they aren’t going to fall in line for that.
I like the idea of popular vote for President - I’m onboard and think it makes sense - but I’m not willing to take up arms to get it. The realist in me knows that’s a pipe dream - at least in the short term and probably in the long term. I’d also just be on board with a truer population based electoral college and House of Representatives - even if that means we have to significantly change how the House runs (and we would - for Wyoming to get any representation in the House, and for Californians to get per capita equal representation California would need at least 10 more representatives, Texas gets seven more - they don’t fit in the building, that’s part of the problem.) That’s probably more realistic, but probably involves changing the way Representatives operate - e.g. they stay in their home state and the House meets virtually (which has all sorts of other advantages - it becomes harder to lobby representatives when they are scattered all over the country and you have to spend time buying them steak dinners in Des Moines and Boise and Little Rock - but I’m not sure the Reps would go for it).
It is a simple argument. An unworkable, impossible simple partisan argument. By the time you can actually win the argument, you won’t want it anymore.
I don’t think you EVER get that majority. I don’t think you can force a change like this on the states without the amendment process and I don’t see how you EVER get 3/4ths of the states to agree. You might as well argue for the virtues of a perpetual motion machine.
Not surprisingly, I disagree.
Whether this is true or not is irrelevant to my position. I don’t think reparations have a significant likelihood of going forward in the next several years, and yet I still think it’s very important to advocate that they be discussed.
They fit in with 100 Senators and 9 SC Justices for the state of the union, so they could make it work. But I agree that they should institute rules to allow virtual votes.
And the law setting the size of the House should be changed to set the number to the total population from the last census, divided by the population of the least populous state, rounded up (or down, +/- one doesn’t matter much).
My basic premise is that there would not be significant argument over the electoral college today but for Bush v Gore and Trump v Clinton. Its largely driven by people who think that Bush and Trump are illegitimate presidents who would never have won the election if elections were actually fair. It is for the most part partisan bullshit.
I suspect you didn’t have much objection to it before bush v gore. I have yet to meet anyone that did.
It’s relevant because a democracy governs itself and any idea that cannot gain popular support and is not in defense of minority rights is at best not viable and at worst tyranny.