You can't very well argue for 25 on the basis of some assumed "barrier to adulthood" that isn't legally defined. That's why the argument is garbage. Being able to rent a car at most car companies at 25, but Y at 22 and Z at 18 isn't a legal "barrier to adulthood" anymore than the AARP membership requirements make 50 a "barrier to adulthood". What insinuations am I making? That there is currently a huge intergenerational gap in our politics? That political views across generations are more divergent today than they've been for at least 50 years? That the time in which you mature to some definition of "adulthood" informs your views on issues? That older voters tend to be more "backwards looking" than younger voters? That the views of older generations during these divergent periods appear to be more anachronistic after the fact...with a bit of context? I make no insinuations that older voters are a monolithic bloc of moronic, racist Trumpites bent on returning America to 1950 . Every demo in a country of 320+million has its good and bad parts. But as our population pyramid turns into more of a population column, the electorate naturally becomes more backwards looking.
Older Americans have never been safer. Older Americans have never been wealthier. The latter has been achieved at the expense of the younger -- over the past several decades, public policy has rewarded seniors and punished the youth. Yet no age group is whinier and more insistent about what it deserves than the retiree set. Cut off the vote at age 70. After that age, most of 'em can't think straight anyway. And they certainly can be bothered caring about anybody else. Except for Jimmy Carter. He still gets to vote.
Shit dude, we can't even get them to stop driving, imagine the AARP going after anyone trying to take away the vote of over 70s? it would be political suicide.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-poli...achment-avenatti-democrats-2020-supreme-court Interesting think piece, if not exactly groundbreaking. Here's the most interesting part. After talking about how much of the Constitution was written in order to protect small states from large states, there's this point. "“If the competing groups are states, you need a set of rules to make sure that competition is fair,” says Mason. “If the competing groups are parties, you need a set of rules to make sure the partisan competition is fair.”" IOW, the Constitution is not written to ensure that competition between parties is fair. Hillary got more votes than Trump. In 2000 Bush got fewer votes than Gore. Between those 2 terms, the GOPs picked (I think) 3 Supremes. More people have voted for Democratic senate candidates than GOP senate candidates. It's entirely possible 2018 will see a reprise of 2012, when the Dems got more House votes but the GOPs controlled the House (and not by a small margin then either, the kind of margin that allows a small number of moderates to hold the balance of power.) At the same time, this minoritarian regime is rigging the game through census questions, gerrymandering, vote suppression, etc. They're making it impossible to change things with the ballot without overwhelming wins. They only want to play the game if they start with a 2 goal lead. There's a growing movement on the left to change the rules when we get power again. Some of those changes will be considered well within our historical norms; I expect to see comprehensive, expansive legislation making voting better and easier. Those won't cause legitimacy issues. Some of those changes will be problematic, like Puerto Rican and DC statehood, or splitting California into 2 states. Some of those changes are downright dangerous, like adding Supremes. IOW, the Dems are almost certain to respond to GOP norm-busting with their own norm-busting, and some of it will be pretty extreme. Given the GOPs' built in advantage with the media, I expect those changes to cause a bigger outcry than, for example, the GOPs adopting a de factor 60 vote Senate requirement from 2007 through 2009, or denying Garland hearings or a vote. I'm not hopeful that it will end well. Either the Dems will lock in power for 20 years* and get corrupt and sloppy, or the pendulum will swing and the GOPs will REALLY wreak havoc on our democracy. *Don't say it can't happen. Ladies and gentlemen, 1933 through 1953. And this time, their majority won't have a large faction of hybrid Southerners ameliorating extremism.
Fvck I keep saying it, repeal the reapportionment act of 1929 and expand the size of the house. Or go back to the constitutional 30,000 people per district (this would be crazy as the house would be huge, but at least as a bluff to get something better it may work). BTW, originally many founding fathers were against the idea of political parties.
1. The fix of the House is long overdue. How do you fix the senate if it is not giving statehood (or at least some real form of representation) to the DC and the territories? 2. Can you provide a link for the FF statement? I mean, it is possible that (as with many other things - media, guns, slavery) they were not thinking ahead of their time, but isn't it clear to certain extent, that there were political divisions in the early republic? Never mind, here is a quick good read: https://www.scholastic.com/teachers...tent/origins-and-functions-political-parties/ Political Parties in the United States The leaders of the American Revolution did not like the idea of parties and political battles between parties. Upon his retirement from public life in 1796, George Washington warned Americans against "faction" (parties). James Madison thought parties were probably necessary, although he did not entirely approve of them. Alexander Hamilton thought that faction was a vice to be guarded against at all times. Thomas Jefferson declared in 1789, "If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all." Nevertheless, the men who held these views founded the first two great American political parties. Early U.S. Parties Hamilton and other leaders who wanted a strong central government banded together to put over their policies. In 1787 they began calling themselves the Federalists. This was the first United States political party. In 1796, anti-Federalists gathered around Jefferson. Members of Jefferson's group called themselves Democratic-Republicans. Northern businessmen, bankers, and merchants supported the Federalists. They believed in a strong national (or federal) government. Federalists held that capital and industry were the basis of a healthy republic and that the federal government should act to protect the country's infant industries. The Democratic-Republican Party drew its followers from planters, small farmers, and artisans. These people wanted government to leave them alone as much as possible. They wanted to limit the federal government's power and leave the most power in the hands of state and local governments. In foreign affairs the Federalists generally leaned toward England, while the Democratic-Republicans sympathized with Revolutionary France.
In the article I linked, one proposal is to double the size of the house. Sure, why not; get candidates closer to voters. But that would only change the disparity between a House member in the 1 member states and the big states by the tiniest of margins. In 2040, 30% of voters will pick 70% of Senators. If there was a pretty even split between the two parties and the size of the states they represent, we could survive that. But there isn't. As dapip said, the Senate is the problem.
As you provided, they (some) were against the idea of parties, but they were necessary in democracy and formed pretty much right away. The senate is working as intended, even when the FF did not expect that there would be such a huge difference of state sizes between the small and big, NYC and Philly were big, but nothing compared to what LA and NYC are today. At the end we are a federation of States (see the UN/FIFA where each country has 1 vote) I do not like the idea of city states, so no on DC as a state, they can just hand all the land back to Maryland (bribe Maryland to take them back), but if Democrats did it, I would not lose any sleep over it. Statehood (or Independence, lets not forget to give them a choice to go their own free way) should deferentially happen. Regarding other options to gerrymander the Senate in favor of Democrats, maybe creating a state out of the Pacific Island territories, I think the minimum is 67,000 people, so many Islands would be ok. Then again, the smaller the population, the easier (cheaper) it is for big money to capture them and get them to vote a certain way, so I would be careful of giving statehood to a bunch of small Islands, block of Islands would work IMO.
The senate is there to represent the members of the federation for each to have equal voice. If some FF had their way we could have only a senate and no house (then again, the house legislation was passed first). Benjamin Franklin was worried about the money, more than the voice of "the people" A quote attributed to him http://history.house.gov/Institution/Origins-Development/Proportional-Representation/
The article argued specifically against that point. Think of the anecdote about how Vermont and Wyoming would vote on statehood. Why do you think they were wrong? You can't just assert it.
But they miss the point. How the constitution was set up to what our political situation it is now. This argument is as old as the republic. What does "the people" mean? To some it means all the people that are citizens (white rich men in their days). To other it was the people thru the state representation. At the end, the State to represent the people won out. So we became a Federal union of states, each representing the people in those states. We have definitely lost the identity with states, compere us to the European Union for example, American Identity trumps identity as an Illinoisan vs European vs French. That is how we are set up, Vox may want to change it, to get rid of the federation (or make it more French style of government). I can see arguments on why that would be a much better system, it would reflect the current political reality. As a person that prefers multi party governments, having proportional representation would allow for smaller parties and we can split from the 2 party system to a multi party system, some would be racial parties,some would be social identity parties and some would be economical parties. The Democratic party is too big of a tent to hold so many different views in one party, proportional representation would break it up into multiple smaller parties, the Republicans would/should break up into 3 or 4 (depending on minimum % to enter government). Like I said, I do see the argument and I do like some of the results may be on the argument, but to change the system, we need constitutional amendments or a new constitutional convention. I am very afraid of what a constitutional convention may come out with, specially since this argument would also come up in terms of how to set up the convention, historically has been equal representation between the states, that would not be popular with liberal people (I would not want that for sure).
No, you didn't read the article. Or you're ignoring what was in it. Whatever. Indulge your contrarianism.
Not to alarm anyone, but this article compares our current historical moment to the last century of the Roman Republic. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/10/31/this-is-how-republics-end/?utm_term=.f170c75f932c
Chris Hedges' latest book, America, The Farewell Tour covers most of this. Though my favorite part of the book was the part about Scranton, some of which covered interviews he did in the Northern Light Coffee and Espresso Bar, which was also where I was reading it. He was interviewing the barista who sold me my coffee that morning. Re: Rome, Hedges emphasized the imbecility of the leaders, and there incredible ability to lie to themselves and each other about actual conditions. From the article But most in the Senate resisted these efforts. More than anything else, the senatorial families remained narrowly focused on their own elite political rivalries and were obsessed with maintaining the balance of power inside the Senate. No one, for example, could afford to let a rival get credit for a popular land redistribution bill or a popular grain subsidy. The constantly revolving rounds of senatorial infighting wound up blocking all popular reform, risking the long-term health of the republic for a short-term political advantage. I wonder who was the Roman Newt Gingrich.
He basically just cribbed Mike Duncan's latest book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N9ZJXZJ/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 Great book BTW.
HAHAHA, whoops. My bad. Read the article, skipped the byline. That should go in the "History Nerds Should't Do New Media" forum.
From National interest website. Is a story about North Korea, but they do go hard on what can happen when (hopefully) Democrats take over the house and investigate the shit out of Trump inc. https://nationalinterest.org/feature/republican-midterm-loss-could-lead-north-korea-win—-kim-jong-un-34972 If that happens, I will say it is healthy for our democracy, it will svck in terms of policy, but on the division of power, it would be another great example on how this shit should work.