American democracy health thread

Discussion in 'Politics & Current Events' started by superdave, Mar 11, 2018.

  1. dapip

    dapip Member+

    Sep 5, 2003
    South Florida
    Club:
    Millonarios Bogota
    Nat'l Team:
    Colombia
    Please point where I have said what you said I said.


    PS. I know you will try to warp this around somehow because you are not only a horrible reader, your hubris does not allow you to accept that you are wrong.
     
  2. American Brummie

    Jun 19, 2009
    There Be Dragons Here
    Club:
    Birmingham City FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Stay down, dude.
     
  3. American Brummie

    Jun 19, 2009
    There Be Dragons Here
    Club:
    Birmingham City FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    We can argue about that all day, but we cannot argue over whether state or national laws govern those elections, because it's a question with a single answer.

    Agree completely. All it does is make less-well-backed candidates suffer while giving a loophole for big companies to sail through.
     
  4. dapip

    dapip Member+

    Sep 5, 2003
    South Florida
    Club:
    Millonarios Bogota
    Nat'l Team:
    Colombia
    Yeah, you are a horrible reader.
     
  5. Chicago76

    Chicago76 Member+

    Jun 9, 2002
    As long as that answer is both, then yes, there’s a single answer. I get where you’re going on administration of elections, districting, etc but there are checks on those authorities: federal statutes such as VRA, districting standards, court review of districting, prohibitions against multi member districts and systems that deviate from plurality winner like in proportional systems, cumulative/limited voting, etc in the federal leg.

    States run the show, but within the parameters of what the fed permits. But as far as limiting where donors are permitted to donate, the courts aren’t going to touch that without a lot of legislative clarification. Too many speech (Citizens United) and commerce issues. I wouldn’t say never, but it’s not happening with this court. Probably not with a court that had anything less than a 6-3 liberal advantage either.
     
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  6. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    State law rules National elections, remember when we vote for President the way it works is that we have 50 different elections in all 50 (plus some territories) states, so the law regulating it is state law.
     
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  7. Chicago76

    Chicago76 Member+

    Jun 9, 2002
    Re-read my post. No one is disputing that, no one can dispute the fact that the federal govt sets the bounds on what is permissible. States can’t hold those elections whenever they feel like holding them. Until the mid 1800s, some states had multimember districts. Applying that today, three districts where voters went 2:1 GOP would likely see 2 GOP reps, 1 Dem rep rather than 3 GOP reps. Congress outlawed that and we have single member districts. States are permitted to allocate their EVs either as a single winner take all “district” (state) or a combustion of congressional single member districts with the 2 bonus votes to the state winner (the ME and NE systems). Donation laws were more lax at various periods than they are today. The FEC regulates that. States could previously gerrymander districts to exclude minority voting power. Or implement a poll tax or literacy tests. The voting rights act did away with that.

    My point being that no one can assume that the power the states have now to self-regulate elections will be the same in the future. The SC has overruled about 100 prior decisions. They’ve probably overruled parts of 1000 more decisions that substantially change the dynamics of prior decisions. It wouldn’t be preposterous to assume that the leg (with court review) will substantially change the rules of the game in terms of districting, donation transparency/limits, and other forms of federal oversight in many of our lifetimes. Just not with this court and this leg.
     
  8. American Brummie

    Jun 19, 2009
    There Be Dragons Here
    Club:
    Birmingham City FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    If I were to make an assumption, it would be that states would have more discretion to set policy, rather than less.
     
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  9. Chicago76

    Chicago76 Member+

    Jun 9, 2002
    Over the next 10-15 years, I'd say that's definitely the course. Beyond that, I'd wager the other way. The GOP hasn't done much to endear themselves to the next generation of voters, so they're going to need to "federalize" voting...and not in a good way. On the other hand, if the demographic wave sweeps them away, the Dems seem to be the party that would want more robust national standards. It's in their DNA.
     
  10. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Not really, Trump just makes it look that way, like the Repugs overplayed their hand and pushed hard to the right, Democrats may do the same and reverse the trend you talk about.

    Democrats are more and more a big city party, industrial small towns are moving away from the Democratic party.
     
  11. American Brummie

    Jun 19, 2009
    There Be Dragons Here
    Club:
    Birmingham City FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    People are moving away from the industrial small towns.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population

    Our top ten cities have 25,947,743 people living in them. Urbanization is still increasing.

    [​IMG]

    So it's a wash.
     
  12. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Yes and no, yes in that when Memphis or Louisville get so big and so blue that they can overwhelm the rest of the State, this helps Democrats, no in that if too many Democrats move to Chicago then Districts in Chicago can go from 80% Democrat to 90% Democrat, that is a lot of wasted votes (Thankfully the State is controlled by Democrats so gerrymandering helps Democrats here).
     
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  13. Chicago76

    Chicago76 Member+

    Jun 9, 2002
    Who said anything about KY or TN? It’s nowhere close to a wash for a lot of reasons:

    -suburbanization of non whites makes gerrymandering more difficult

    -demographic shifts in key states are shifting hard (AZ, GA, NC, VA, TX) and the big urban areas will have an outsized influence

    -the same stuff is happening on a more modest level in that mythical blue wall as the medium sized industrial areas lose pop share. They’re also getting browner btw.

    This ignores that the GOP is really honing in now on a very select piece of the white base: fundies and non college ed. Both groups are expected to shrink even within the white demo.

    All of this reminds me a bit of turnaround firms that buy up the Kmarts and Sears of the world. They turn short term profits by focusing on a shrinking core business but end up dumping their long term growth platforms (Hispanics, Asians, white college grads). The short term fix bites them in the end.

    The GOP can win all the plains states and less urban states in the south it wants, but if/when it can’t gerrymander more difficult maps due to demo shifts, it starts losing key governorships, states start flipping in POTUS elections, they’ll come crawling for reform too.
     
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  14. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    But some states are also going the other way, Ohio used to be competitive, it was a blow out in 2016, in the Midwest, maybe Illinois will go the way of Pennsylvanian or Michigan in a decade or two.

    One state that baffles my mind is Missouri, 2 big cities in KC and Saint Louis, yet Democrats can not win it since B. Clinton.

    The demographic argument is like drafting a player with lots of potential, until it pans out, it is still just theoretical.
     
  15. JohnR

    JohnR Member+

    Jun 23, 2000
    Chicago, IL
    Missouri is 70% urban, with the U.S. average at 80%. The Democrats pretty reliably get thumped in states below 70%, with the prime exceptions being the Yankee trio of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.
     
  16. Chicago76

    Chicago76 Member+

    Jun 9, 2002
    You’re right in saying that demographics requires a bit of speculation, but we know more than you think we do. We don’t know turnout by race, but we do know very well how many voting age people of each race we have. We also know that non-whites are dispersing. We also know that if anything, group internals for most groups are more polarized than they’ve probably ever been. Fundies are more GOP than ever. AAs, excluding the Obama bounce, are more Dem than ever. Both of those groups are maxed. Hispanics and Asians more Dem than ever and it’s hard to see a way back post Trump that doesn’t take time. The only swing/fickle groups left: non-Fundie Christians and secular non college grads.

    When you’re talking about places like OH and MO flipping quickly, it’s important to note that they aren’t as non-Dem as they appear. What happens with states is that once they slip a couple points further from the middle, they stop being areas of focus in national campaigns. Once they fall out of funding slipstreams, the margins open up. IN is a good example. Contested, it’s a 5-6 pt GOP State that could be stolen (like Obama did in 2008). If Dems don’t bother, it’s a 12-18 pt loss. In theory, the GOP could contest IL and lose by 8 or so, but it makes no sense because the $$$ gets better returns elsewhere. That Dems don’t contest in a more expansive set of states (like IA, OH, etc) pisses me off, but you could say the same thing about the GOP in the NE and West Coast.

    FWIW: I live in MO now. I’m originally from IN. Believe me when I say that the non-STL and KC middle of the state makes IN seem progressive by comparison. IN is actually a pretty good comparison demographically, but the rural parts of MO seem much more remote and backwards. MO was purple-blue until the fundie wave was in full effect c2000. Dems pulled back on funding, and it hasn’t been the same since.
     
  17. superdave

    superdave Member+

    Jul 14, 1999
    VB, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    https://www.vox.com/2018/5/1/17258866/democratic-party-republicans-trump-election

    Interview with a political scientist who argues that Dems need to start fighting dirty. He makes the point that Brummie has made, that voters are shockingly unaware of the policy implications of their votes. (Not sure I buy that.) He says GOPs are fighting on procedural grounds and the Dems should copy that. Key quote is the penultimate paragraph:

    "I don’t think we can restore order by respecting rules that are not respected by Republicans. I do believe we’ll have to find a way to end this procedural war at some point, but now is not that time. Republicans need to know what it’s like to be on the other end of normative violations. The Republicans are behaving like a party that believes it will never be held accountable for anything they’re doing, and so far they haven’t been."
     
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  18. American Brummie

    Jun 19, 2009
    There Be Dragons Here
    Club:
    Birmingham City FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Next time we take power, PR and DC become states. Everyone is automatically registered to vote. We expand the size of the House. We expand franchise to 16 and 17. We pass a constitutional amendment to ban soft money. We nominate every third year law student from the Ivies with a liberal facebook page to a judgeship.

    It isnt fighting dirty, it is playing to win.
     
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  19. Smurfquake

    Smurfquake Moderator
    Staff Member

    Aug 8, 2000
    San Carlos, CA
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Don't forget to pack the Supreme Court! Raise it from 9 to, I dunno, 15 judges, and nominate six women of color under 25 to the new spots.
     
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  20. dapip

    dapip Member+

    Sep 5, 2003
    South Florida
    Club:
    Millonarios Bogota
    Nat'l Team:
    Colombia
    Not that I disagree, but it feels like Democrats are trying to follow the Marquess of Queensbury rules, while the GOP use shivs and punch below the belt all the time, while the referees (the press) call both sides for fighting dirty. How do you counter the dirty fighter without at the very least bending the rules?
     
  21. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Yeah, for that one Democrats will need more than just control of Congress and the white house.

    I am not sold on the voting age, it should be kept to just adults.
     
  22. roby

    roby Member+

    SIRLOIN SALOON FC, PITTSFIELD MA
    Feb 27, 2005
    So Cal
    Other than age how does one qualify as an adult? :unsure:
     
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  23. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    If my aunt had a penis she would be my uncle.

    Do we make the military draft 16? Can a 16 year old have sex with anyone he/she likes regardless of age difference? Can a parent stop paying child support when the children turn 16, should 16 year olds be allowed to sign up for Credit Cards with out their parents knowledge.

    Now IMO 18 year olds should be able to buy alcohol.
     
  24. roby

    roby Member+

    SIRLOIN SALOON FC, PITTSFIELD MA
    Feb 27, 2005
    So Cal
    There were 88k alcohol related deaths last year. There were 40k gun related deaths. Real Colt 45's are a better bet! :coffee:
     
  25. Chicago76

    Chicago76 Member+

    Jun 9, 2002
    And yet a 15 year old black (or any color) kid living in poverty who grew up in a completely dysfunctional setting with an IQ of about 70 can be tried for murder as an adult. Funny how this stuff tends to work one way, but not the other.
     

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