I think California’s 55 electoral votes give it a disproportionate amount of clout, since that’s more than 10% of the total needed to elect a President, and more than 14 states combined. Maybe we can rectify that by breaking up California.
This. I here this type of attitude from Trump voters about the “coastal elites” more frequently than the other way around.
What would the population of those 14 states be, and what is California’s population?
“It’s still we the people, right?” -Dave
Those 14 states combined have less than a third of California’s population, but control 28 senators to California’s two, and 47 electoral votes to California’s 55.
The vote of one Californian therefore is worth significantly less on a federal scale than that of a Wyoman.
Breaking up California would give it MORE clout, since it would get 2 additional electoral votes for each way you divide it. Maybe a few of the northern states would go red, but the majority of the population, and thus electoral votes would still go blue.
North and South Dakota are two separate states largely because of those extra 2 electoral votes and senators they got out of the deal.
More than 10% of the population lives in California. Seems about right.
Sounds like folks need to start working on an amendment. Let me know when it’s finished and when the small states choose to give up power and sovereignty. It’s possible but unlikely and far from a must.
It’s not just western culture who have demonstrated a dislike of the elites and/or urban areas. Class warfare is a dangerous thing to unleash.
That’s because the “coastal elites” simply dismiss middle America as irrelevant, something that Pete Buttigieg is trying to exploit.
Go to a bookstore or a record store (assuming you can still find one) and look for the section labeled “urban”. It’s a codeword for black. Same thing when people talk about how bad “the inner city” is. They’re talking about race not geography.
That’s the American version. Apparently when Europeans talk about the problems of “urban people” they’re talking about Jews.
Haven’t a lot of them shifted their contempt towards Muslims? Not that its an improvement.
Eh? Even as comic exaggeration that’s way off the mark.
We’ll just work it into Reconstruction after we win that “second Civil War” the MAGA-heads are always threatening to start.
And what are their “concerns” exactly? Oh nos, too many brown peeples?
Historically, there’s something to LittleNemo’s observation, but nowadays there is a wider variety of “urban” types for Brexiteers/LePenistas/etc. to despise.
In Indonesia in the 60s, it was citizens of Chinese descent who were despised as too urban, too smart, too worldly, too economically comfortable, too likely to be godless commies.
Give up what “power and sovereignty?”
We just want to revise [eliminate] the Electoral College, not abolish the Senate.
What, by holding fundraisers hosted by billionaires who nearly destroyed our economy in 2008, and tech billionaires who want to destroy teachers’ unions and replace public schools with charters?
Not to mention, who are these coastal elites that dismiss Middle America as irrelevant? While they’ve certainly stepped up their game since Trump won, stories about WWC angst have been a MSM staple since the 1980s at least.
[off-topic]
It’s sometimes said that if California were divided into six states, four of them would be Red. I’ve just re-checked the numbers and That simply is not true. You can divide California into several states — almost as many as you like! — all with very comfortable Blue majorities, and with very straightforward, compact, non-gerrymander-looking boundaries.
Maps dividing California into red/blue counties or precincts are extremely misleading because most of the red areas are mountainous regions with extremely low population density. The redneck votes of mountainous California would be drowned out by Sacramento and Sonoma Counties. Throw in Marin County for a blue landslide. BTW, note that Humboldt County voted for Clinton by almost a 2-to-1 margin! Coastal elites? 
In the south, the R votes in the Central Valley (Bakersfield etc.) would be drowned out by Santa Barbara, Ventura, and San Bernardino Counties. (Note that Fresno County voted for Clinton.)
What will it take for this break-up? Fifty Senators and California going along? I propose a Federation of the resultant Northifornia and Southifornia States so these fine new states can share a Governor and get other economies of scale! 
I thought they had different code words for Muslims. But I’ll admit I may be behind on current trends in European xenophobia.
First off, I said Buttagieg was trying to exploit the sentiment, not that he himself was a gen-you-wine Middle American.
If you want a few “Middle American” concerns that don’t have anything to do with skin color, try these:
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The collapse of blue-collar industries that have been sent overseas.
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The WalMartization of retailing and the death of small town retailing
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Consolidation of the farming industry
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Lack of healthcare outside of anywhere except large cities
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Infrastructure
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Education, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy and all those other pesky social problems that some people seem to think only exist in cities.
- Not skin color (Well sort of)