His name is kiiiiiiiiiid, kid hypocrite
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bawitdaba debang debang hypocritee 
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I’m gonna guess that is an old pic.
20% chance that he is that stupid.
It all sounds so reasonable.
Then you find out that 2020 set a record for number of votes cast. Great! Then you find that is 62.8% of the number of eligible voters. Ouch!
That is not majority rules. That is a teeny weeny slice rules. More people didn’t vote than chose the winning candidate. Horrendous. Time to rethink the reasonableness of that argument. Cuz it ain’t working as intended.
Maybe make it a law that everyone must vote. Then decide how to best avoid putting 1/3 of the population in jail.
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Um… no. If you can’t be bothered to vote I think it’s fine for you to not get a say.
I do like long hours that the polls are open and lots of early voting options so that people can easily exercise their right. But I wouldn’t want it to be mandatory to vote.
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This is the argument that leads to the end of democracy. See, democracy demands a certain level of trust in the institutions that form the government, without that, you are left with only insurrection as a cure for abominable government behavior. No trust, no democracy.
And this cavalier attitude leads in only one direction.
Do we know what% of the January 6 insurrectionists voted? I recall hearing stores about some that did not vote.
I don’t disagree with your point though, i think that’s a natural outcome.
I’ll guess that people who can’t be bothered to vote are also people who don’t have the time for revolutions.
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Not voting seems to be most visible way of trusting democracy and the government.
Most people (tfh) think differently, in a lot of ways.
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The reason people don’t vote is because they think it doesn’t matter.
And they are basically correct. Political leadership does not reflect the will of the people,in all too many instances. That erodes the trust.
How about we rethink the magic 435 membership? That is absolutely no where in the beloved Founding Fathers document. It was set out by laws passed by Congress and signed by the President. The USA has an incredible representation ratio of one rep per 750,000 voters. It greatly dismisses the impact of every vote compared to the original intent, where it was closer to 40,000. This stuff matters.
Now toss in gerrymandering, and the will of the people is further diminished because in all too many sites, the winner of the primary is a heavy favorite to win the general election. It’s not working. Not even close. Not even by the standards of the Constitution.
It’s broken, and there is no feasible way out, short of redrafting the Constitution. And we all know that ain’t happening.
I didn’t vote much in my 20s because 1 vote didn’t matter in an election outcome.
I think this is more common than thinking it generally does not matter.
A politician could probably do well if they can sell participation in the process over the result.
No argument there. I proposed bumping the Senate to 150 (every state has a Senator in every class) and the House to 650.
This roughly preserves the balance of the Electoral College (House is roughly 81% of the total), smooths the edges a bit since the districts will be smaller… less impact from being right on the edge of gaining/losing a representative.
I also think it causes a lot of weird stuff that there are 2 Senators per state but 3 classes of Senators.
800 total in Congress is a good idea. 800 in the House and abolishing the Senate is a better one.
It might be a better idea, but there is no way to get there.
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Yeah, plus I think every Congress Critter having less influence is a good thing.
800 would be a good start. 1,200;in Congress would be closer to what it should be.
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Get rid of the electoral college so presidential candidates have to campaign everywhere not just swing states…
We seem to be witnessing the impact of poor understanding of civics here.
Changing the number of Senators would require a constitutional amendment. Changing the number of house members needs only a bill. I pointed that out earlier.
So if you’re willing to demonstrate your strategy on passing any constitutional amendment, then have at. But please pause and refresh your memory on the requirements to do so. I am not alone in believing that is not possible today. Changing the Senate is DOA, and you can be sure that anyone that proposes it actually favors the status quo. Cuz practically, that is the case. They are just deflecting.
You’ve identified some real problems. I think a law that compels people to go through the motions of voting even when they think it doesn’t matter will only aggravate the sense of powerlessness. Now I have to participate in this sham election.
If I’m voting for a legislator, it seems my impact on legislation is (1/number of voters in my district) x (1/number of legislators). Reducing the population per district, while increasing the number of districts, doesn’t seem to give my more impact.
In 1790, there were 800,000 free white males over the age of 16. In 2020, there were 360,000,000 residents over the age of 16. My individual loss of clout is probably related to the fact that there are 400 potential voters today for every potential voter in 1790.
Gerrymandering and non-competitive districts:
I agree they both matter. I think Congress has the power to get rid of gerrymandering without a constitutional amendment. But, I am as discouraged as you about the political will to do that.
Non-competitive districts will be with us as long as we have single member districts. Again, Congress might have the power to change that, they aren’t going to.
The Senate is a significant block on democracy at the national level. We couldn’t amend that away even if 90% of the voters wanted to.
I’ve got two tiny amendments which help a little on the margins – term limits for supreme court justices and proportional allocation of electoral votes. Even those small changes seem impossible.
I think our biggest current problem is the ability to build information bubbles where we only hear facts that reinforce our prior beliefs. That underlies everything. I don’t have any ideas how to change it.
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I was restricting myself to ideas that might be possible. Setting aside the issue of whether it’s even a good idea, getting rid of the electoral college requires buy-in from 38 states, which will never happen.
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