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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   25979 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 27, 2026

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But even a quokka (did I use that term right?) in an ivory tower like me who would prefer color-blind policies can see that there is a big narrative difference between 'a third of Louisiana voted for Democrats and not win a single Representative' and 'the Blacks of Louisiana overwhelmingly voted for Democrats, and yet did not get a single Representative who is Black or a Democrat'. Both are bad, but the Blacks are a much more coherent group than people who vote for Democrats. You don't know if your coworker voted for Democrats, but you can certainly make an educated guess about their racial identification.

I can understand this perspective somewhat, but I struggle to see how to decide which groups are considered important for this purpose doesn't either end up a complete clusterfuck or worse, vindicates the ethnonationalists' fears of the inevitability of multicultural spoils systems. There is also even plenty of examples where it works out the other way around - special interest minorities who care a lot about an issue and coordinate well reliably outcompete even much larger majorities if those don't care enough, through a combination of lawfare, lobbying and (local) special elections.

I think the root of the problem is that states are competing for national attention, and doing the sane thing and awarding EC votes or Representatives in proportion to the state-wide vote will guarantee that a state will not be worth fighting over. If Colorado decided to do that, national parties would just ignore it completely. "To win one measly EC vote through campaigning, I would need to convince another 10% of their population to vote for me instead of the other guy? Hard pass."

Instead, it is the interests of states to be battleground states. "Half of our voters prefer Democrats, and half Republicans. The tiniest margin will decide who gets all of our EC votes and Representatives. So you better try hard to send gifts our way to convince the marginal voter to prefer you."

If doing the sane and stable thing leads to you being ignored and borderline flip-flopping makes you the center of attention, then states will behave as if they had BPD.

I think a large problem is also the centralisation of power in most western countries. Politics is often better the more local it is since the problems of one place are rarely the problems of another. Europe is, as usual, even worse on this account, since a lot of power got shifted into the EU which is at best difficult to understand for the average citizen, and at worst employs committees and courts that are entirely out of the citizens reach. Not that central politics is entirely bad, it has an important place especially for large-scale international trading, warfare or diplomacy. But this is often piggybacked unto for much more general power, and nobody ever lets go once granted.

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