I lived in Houston for a couple of years, so truly feel for the people there. However, the beginning monologue of Blood Simple does sum up the mentality of quite a few Texans:
Some of this “unfairness” exists in parliamentary systems, as well, where the election winner may not be the one with the highest popular vote. But one big difference is that the granularity of the win/lose allocations is much finer that the (usually) statewide basis of the EC. It’s based on parliamentary seats, of which there are a much larger number than states (currently 338 in Canada, 650 in the UK). Also, of course, is the famously effective ongoing voter suppression that Republicans have been engaged in for years, like this absolutely shameless example …
I expect there will be more than one bankruptcy from that sort of thing.
I also expect the power companies will try to stick it to the fixed-rate customers at the earliest opportunity.
But but… at least you’ll have FREEDOM, and will not have that evil Socialism. That’s really just the bottom line for some.
But I don’t see how finer granularity of electoral college is better when electing a leader. If you’re in an area where the other party has a large majority (or indeed where your own party has a large majority), it makes no difference how large or small it is, your vote doesn’t count for anything. Only the popular vote ensures that every vote counts equally.
It ends with them blaming others for their problems and electing even more extreme and whack-a-doodle Republicans.
As with poverty, I don’t think extra suffering generates better decision making.
Texas, you could maybe vote for Democrats, you know?
Meanwhile, here’s to deregulation! And to being free of tyranny, socialism, drinking water, and heat!
I would argue that it matters for two basic reasons:
-
Parliamentary districts are allocated approximately by population, whereas EC votes are allocated by state, with some consideration for population but with a baseline of 3 electoral votes even if the entire state contains only two people and seven wolves.
-
The finer granularity means that the votes in any of these smallish districts are more likely to be relatively homogenous than in a large area that would have a much more demographically heterogenous population. This is probably the most important factor. After all, each individual vote being counted independently is just the limiting case of smaller and smaller voting districts!
Nor apparently does entitlement.
You could go beyond that limit, by allowing each voter to divide their vote into fractional amounts for multiple candidates. If you’re not sure but you think Biden is probably better you could vote 85% Biden & 15% Trump to reflect your degree of uncertainty.
Of course, some smart Alec would try to divide up their one vote as 130% Biden & -30% Trump.
Some Texans deserve the suffering they’re getting, they voted for lack of governance. But many do not- there are children dying, the hardest hit are those who can afford it least and many of them did not vote for this. Biden takes the high road, giving federal aid without the side order of political cheap shots. But in the end, they’ll hold their noses and keep voting red.
They won’t be holding their noses. They’ll be voting red with enthusiasm, on the basis that the Democrats and environmentalists caused all their problems. Abbott has already tried to blame the power problems on wind turbines rather than on his party’s relentless deregulation and support of profiteering. There is no limit to the lies these people tell.
Pretty much the last line is key. I have a large number of family and friends living in the Dallas/FT Plex and Austin, and while they aren’t Trump voters, they have plenty of friends and associates who are. And many of these urban Texans are overall sympathetic with 70-80% of the the Democrat candidates policy, more so than that of the Republicans. But they are devoted to the one wedge issue or another (Abortion, Immigration, Guns, etc) to the point where they’ll take a Republican candidate who they acknowledge is worse for them as long as that one wedge issue is satisfied.
I am speaking about Texan Republican ‘moderates’ not actual Democrats in Texas. And yeah, therefor they will continue to be bleeeeep’d.
What worries me is if Greg Abbot takes the fall for this, then Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick would be running, and he is just off the charts nasty. Texas will make the right choice electorally eventually, but it still has so many terrible choices it will work through before then.
We are trying to shift the needle , its just taking longer than we thought.
I’m a native Texan, worked for gas and electric companies for some 40 years. When deregulation was put out as a wonderful way to lower electric bills I was more than skeptical. Turned out i was right, and soon my gas company sold out to an electric company which soon failed and i lost my job. A industry insider once told us the deregulation wasn’t started to help the customers, it was started by big companies to lower their electricity bill. Money, dear boy.
I am in Houston and we get to pick our provider and plan, but there are two components to the price per kilowatt hour. One price is for the electricity and the other is for the distribution and there is generally a small fixed cost for each of those as well.
So I am on a fixed 3 year (I am bullish on gas and energy prices) so I pay 5 bucks to Reliant a month who is my provider and 4.95 to Centerpoint who is the distributor. That 4.95 is fixed and the same regardless of what plan or provider you chose. If I switch to Chariot I still pay that 4.95
I then pay 7.49 cents/kwhr to Reliant for what I use and 4.60 cents to Centerpoint for the distribution. That 4.60 c/kwhr is fixed regardless of plan.
My guess is any increase in cost for infra structure improvements will be added to the fixed 4.95 so it will really impact low income people more than anyone and get tagged to the 4.6/kw/hr as well and people on low cost minimal power usage plans also get hit with it.
That monologue was the first thing I thought of when I saw that ridiculous Facebook post from the mayor who said (among other things), “Sink or swim, it’s your choice!” I grew up in Texas and I saw that kind of attitude all the time.
What makes you think we want them? We already have a Somalia…
I’ve noticed several people in this thread talking about Texans being able to choose their power companies, the same way they would their cell phone providers. How does that work exactly?
In every place I’ve lived, you pretty much just have to go with whoever the local utility is for your electricity. I even lived in Texas for a few years, and I remember that being the case there as well whenever I was setting up the utilities for the various apartments I lived in. Granted, that was years ago, so it could be things are just different now, but I don’t remember ever being given a choice between Electricity Provider A or Electricity Provider B.