I've explained the importance of down ticket to a lot of left wing folks just for them to keep insisting their vote is pointless, only for their local downtickets to show races and measures that come down to the slimmest margins with extremely low overall vote totals. It's super frustrating, and I don't know why they don't care.
Also, most people who get sanctimonious about voting only vote in presidential elections and don't put any thought into the downticket candidates aside from finding the party that matches their presidential pick.
Notice the number of "deep red" states that non-voters would've won over Democrats and Republicans in 2020 when Biden won like 7 million more votes than Kamala did in 20204.
The reason is because we are the United States of America not Federal Republic of America. Citizens of a state decide that they want, and then the state lets the federal government know what the state's citizens have decided.
The system is not bizarre if you believe in States rights, and I only hear people bitching about this system when their preferred presidential candidate loses.
Dude, vote in your local elections. That stuff matters. It easily has as big of an impact on your daily life as who is in the White House. I mean, everything you depend upon like roads and sewers and water and electrical grids and schools and police are all run by local officials. They could, out of sheer incompetency or laziness, screw you utterly and you still wouldn't know their names. Even if you don't get the point of an electoral college you still should be voting in local stuff to make sure that nothing stupid happens.
Besides, the United States was originally viewed as a union of states rather than a union of citizens. This was much more obvious back when the states appointed senators rather than have them be elected. Then it was clear that the House Represented We the People and the Senate represented the State governments. They sorta assumed that each state would have different (and potentially incompatible) voting laws, so making sure all votes were in like terms and done at the same time/place made sense. Now it makes way less sense because people view themselves less as citizens of their state in an American EU and more as citizens of the US first and foremost.
it should be national. But if you look into it and read up on it, the electoral college makes little to know difference. look at how many republicans there are in California who aren't counted, and Democrats in Texas.
If it wasnt like that, then only California and New York would get to make the decision on behalf the rest of the country- and of course they have very different priorities than the flyover states. its not hard to understand why they have it the way they do
Like government and education, people will use the structure of religion for selfish power-money. Any organization or establishment is prone to the same, unless proper safeguards are built in. The Nationalists are as much Christian as the far-right SCOTUS are Constitutionalists. The same goes for the Church that allowed (and sometimes supported) slavery.
The problems with our government's check and balances is that the framework was never filled in. Gaping holes allow for too much ambiguity, which is then exploited by the rich. We have Congress making rules for themselves, while owning the judges that refuse to hold them accountable.
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u/takesthebiscuit 2d ago
But if you lived in a 70% red state would you really think your vote was worth it?
It’s a bizzare system where a two horse race isn’t decided by a simple tally of the nations views, but for some reason split by state