If we have the precedent of geographically tiny Rhode Island and nearly uninhabited Wyoming of getting full congressional representation, there’s nothing at all to criticize about the District of Columbia getting full representation. Sure, it’s a city. So what? There’s no inherent virtue in being more than a city.
There’s no good reason for states to get political representation anyway, as opposed to people. It’s anti-democratic and ought to be done away with. It’s just a way for a minority to maintain power.
Not surprisingly, denying DC representation in Congress is rooted in racism.
“After black men gained the right to vote in D.C. in 1867, they were elected to many local government positions. Then, in the 1870s, Congress eliminated local democracy from the District as a way of limiting the influence of these new black voters. (As Senator John Tyler Morgan of Alabama later described this situation, Congress decided “to burn down the barn to get rid of the rats…the rats being the negro population and the barn being the government of the District of Columbia.”)”
This sentiment is echoed in people who argue that “the city re-elected Marion Barry,” essentially blacks can’t be trusted with the vote because they make different choices than white America.
I think it’s more likely that people who oppose the move to statehood are motivated entirely by politics, and could not care less about the racial makeup of DC.
I think that the two are wed. I don’t think that it is an accident that most of the opposition comes from the GOP and that DC is perceived as a black city. The GOP has a long history of racism and suppression of black voting going back at least to the Southern Strategy.
I’m sure there are bona fide racists in the GOP, but I think that’s because Blacks vote Dem. I think the majority of the GOP would be against DC statehood because DC is a Democratic stronghold, not because the city has lots of Black people.
Well, I think that the GOP is pretty clearly a white nationalist movement; the leader of it, after all praised Nazis and was endorsed by David Duke. But I would argue that if one belongs to a movement that actively disenfranchises Americans based on race, that it doesn’t really matter if one thinks of oneself as racist, one’s actions are undeniably racist and that actions are more important than words; if one can turn one’s support for democracy off or on based on the race of citizen, why one does that is largely irrelevant.
It’s nice hearing conservatives bluntly explain that denying people the same fundamental representation as everyone else gets is “just politics.”
Maybe Black voters would support the GOP more if it just made itself a little more amenable to Black voter representation. Maybe, in fact, the GOP would make itself attractive to more voters, perhaps even a majority of voters, if they simply supported ideas that helped voters vote and be fairly represented. Why is any of that so anti-Republican? Shouldn’t those be universal American ideals?
I agree. It would also demonstrate a commitment to democracy on the part of the GOP, given that the leader of the party just stated that he would not necessarily respect the outcome of the election and thus the peaceful transfer of power.
In an even more strategical debate, would a conservative commitment to election reform and better representation win them more votes than they can suppress through legal ratfuckery?
I would ask this of conservatives but they seem to fall back on the notion of millions of undocumented casting ballots or the residents of California having proportionate impact on national politics and we generally go nowhere in the discussion.
Obviously, I’m not a conservative, but I would argue that America needs more democracy not less. I think That any time someone is advocating for curtailing the rights of an American citizen, they should make a compelling argument for how doing so promotes the common good (not their party’s good, but the good of all the nation).
I would welcome a conservative coming into this thread and explaining how denying 700,000 American citizens equal representation serves the common good.