By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Chrkeller said:
zorg1000 said:

I’m confused by the framing that liberals are bad at messaging when Democrats have won the popular vote in 7 of the last 8 elections and most likely 8 of 9 after this one.

1992, D+5.6%
1996, D+8.5%
2000, D+0.5%
2004, R+2.4%
2008, D+7.2%
2012, D+3.9%
2016, D+2.1%
2020, D+4.5%
2024, D+3.0% (current polling average)

The problem is that many of our democratic institutions aren’t truly democratic. Every state having the same amount of Senators and capping the number of House members and having the Electoral College tied to those makes it so the votes of people in low population states significantly outweigh those in higher population states. Let’s look at the lowest and highest population states for comparison.

California has over 67x the population of Wyoming but because of the unequal way the system is setup, it only has 18x as many Electoral College votes. Basically a vote in Wyoming is worth ~3.75x as much as a vote in California.

Democrats don’t have a messaging problem, they have a problem with a system that caters to low population, rural states that are predominantly white Christian’s.

The system is setup to ensure a couple of states don't rule the country, which is quite an intelligent system.

Winning the PV, while losing the EC, means liberals do well on the east and west coast, while doing poorly in middle America.  Middle America is the average person.  

Meaning their messaging is complete shit via limited appeal.  

Also, and I'm baffled people don't see this, change the rules and voting behavior changes...   so the whole PV argument is nonsense. 

Good luck folks, hopefully I'm wrong, but I think Trump takes the WH and GOP takes the senate....  which would mean liberals aren't connecting with middle Americans, like I said 100 pages ago.  🤔 

Maybe that was the original intent and worked well for a long time but it’s an outdated system that allows for a minority of the country to have majority rule as seen in 2000 & 2016. Add in things like partisan gerrymandering in the House & the Senate filibuster and we have a very broken system that leads to gridlock.

What does coast vs non-coast have to do with anything? Are people in Wyoming, Kentucky & Nebraska somehow more “average” than people in Virginia, Oregon & Massachusetts simply because their state doesn’t touch the ocean? America is an extremely diverse country, there is no such thing as an average American.

It’s not that Democrats messaging has limited appeal, it’s the fact that they are a diverse coalition of people from many different backgrounds including race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc. while the Republican Party are a much more homogeneous group primarily consisting of white Christians. These low population rural states that are over represented in the EC are predominantly white Christians, therefore white Christians have more voting power than the more diverse higher population states.

Democrats messaging appeals to many different types of demographics while Republicans messaging appeals to a more specific demographic that is over represented.

And yes, changing to a popular vote system will change voting behavior and that’s good. I have conservative coworkers who don’t vote because Illinois is a deep blue state and think their vote doesn’t matter. This is true of people all over the country and if we changed to PV then these people will be more likely to participate. It will also end the bullshit of candidates solely focusing on a handful of swing states rather than the nation as a whole.

You think Trump is terrible well guess what? With a PV system, Trump never gets into power and you would have your more moderate Conservative Party that you wish for.



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.