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Why Blue States Are the Real ‘Tea Party’
NY Times Opinion Pages ^ | 12-3-2016 | Steven Johnson

Posted on 12/04/2016 8:39:12 AM PST by Sir Napsalot

When the modern Tea Party movement coalesced in the early days of the Obama presidency, its allusion to the political grievances of the protesters in Boston Harbor a couple of hundred years earlier seemed plausible enough: Its members felt that their taxes were too high and their interests not adequately represented by the remote authorities in Washington.

But the election of 2016 presents a challenge to that historical lineage. The home states to the Tea Party are actually doing great on the taxation and representation front. It’s the progressive blue states that should be protesting.

Start with the Electoral College. It has always deviated from the one-person-one-vote system that most Americans imagine they live in, but demographic shifts in recent years have made its prejudices more conspicuous, culminating in the striking gap between Hillary Clinton’s decisive popular vote victory and her Electoral College loss. Thanks to the two extra votes delivered to each state for its two senators, the Electoral College gives less populated states a higher weight, per capita, than it gives more populated states in the decision of who should be the next president.

This was always a betrayal of one-person-one-vote equality, in that a voter in rural Wyoming has more than three times the power of a voter in New Jersey, the country’s most densely populated state. .......

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: electoralcollege; liberalagenda; media; msm; newyork; nyslimes; stevenjohnson
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Just the start of the article, no excerpt. Read it whole.

Then. Fire away.

1 posted on 12/04/2016 8:39:12 AM PST by Sir Napsalot
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To: Sir Napsalot

FONYT. This country is not a democracy, no matter how much is bothers you leftists. If you want to try and change it, come out here to fly over country and run your mouths.

If you have the guts.


2 posted on 12/04/2016 8:42:58 AM PST by Navin Johnson
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To: Sir Napsalot

As usual - fake and faulty reasoning. Key concept this idiot failed to learn: Individual States are sovereign. That is way the country is named The United States. Each State chose to ratify the constitution - it was not a general popular vote which then applied to all the States. There was designed to be a power struggle between the individual states and the Federal government which is why the 17th amendment is arguably the most destructive change made to the constitution.

Need to repeal the 17th and return power back to the individual States for balance.


3 posted on 12/04/2016 8:44:48 AM PST by rigelkentaurus
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To: Sir Napsalot

If people are so concerned that voters in small states have an advantage in the presidential elections, then they are free to move to those smaller states. We are a federal republic. It is obvious that they do not want to move out of the large cities where they get all sorts of welfare that rural people are not offered. The folks in rural areas are [generally speaking] more individualistic and hard working.

Of course there are always folks who do not meet these standards.


4 posted on 12/04/2016 8:45:01 AM PST by Gumdrop
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To: Sir Napsalot

This one is exceptionally vile. A real compendium of leftist lies and distortions. Barf alert missing.


5 posted on 12/04/2016 8:45:54 AM PST by Olog-hai
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To: Sir Napsalot

NYT tries to argue that the electoral college is discriminatory and that the blue States are the sensible patriots - what’s one to think of such tripe? I didn’t see the IRS being used as a weapon against the “Blue State Patriots”


6 posted on 12/04/2016 8:46:09 AM PST by trebb (Where in the the hell has my country gone?)
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To: Sir Napsalot

so, as long as te most populated 17 counties in the nation out-vote the other 3200 counties - for as long as the dictatorship in Washington goes our way - the method is just fine..... Right?

But when New York’s opinion gets over-ruled, throw the system out!


7 posted on 12/04/2016 8:46:20 AM PST by Robert A Cook PE (I can only donate monthly, but socialists' ABBCNNBCBS continue to lie every day!)
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To: Sir Napsalot


8 posted on 12/04/2016 8:47:24 AM PST by darkwing104 (Forgive but don't forget)
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To: trebb

More like “patriots” in the USSR sense, who dubbed WWII the “Great Patriotic War”.


9 posted on 12/04/2016 8:47:51 AM PST by Olog-hai
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To: Sir Napsalot

10 posted on 12/04/2016 8:48:02 AM PST by facedown (Armed in the Heartland)
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To: Navin Johnson

Yeah they never looked up the word Republic.

And they’ve got to be kidding with large population states being disenfranchised.

If the popular vote was the deciding factor, Trump would have 1. Filed lawsuits everywhere alleging (rightly so) illegals voting 2. Had a completely different strategy.

Dolts.


11 posted on 12/04/2016 8:48:18 AM PST by dp0622 (IThe only thing an upper crust conservative hates more than a liberal is a middle class conservative)
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To: rigelkentaurus

“Need to repeal the 17th and return power back to the individual States for balance.”

This... along with eliminating the ability of the president to grab power through the use of executive orders and eliminating all these government departments and agencies that have gradually centralized power at the federal level.


12 posted on 12/04/2016 8:50:22 AM PST by Navin Johnson
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To: Sir Napsalot

>>that most Americans imagine they live in

Perhaps the problem is that they don’t live in the America they “imagine” they live in.


13 posted on 12/04/2016 8:51:40 AM PST by Bryanw92 (If we had some ham, we could have ham and eggs, if we had some eggs.)
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To: Sir Napsalot

Somebody ping Loretta Lynch. She has some new additions the Terrorist Watch List.


14 posted on 12/04/2016 8:51:56 AM PST by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all -- Texas Eagle)
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To: Sir Napsalot

The ignorance is strong in this one.


15 posted on 12/04/2016 8:52:34 AM PST by justlurking (#TurnOffCNN)
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To: Sir Napsalot
Start with the Electoral College. It has always deviated from the one-person-one-vote system that most Americans imagine they live in,

Yeah, well, it's time most Americans were liberated from such imaginations.

The reality is that the Electoral College was instituted to prevent or at least inhibit states with large populations from running rough-shod over less inhabited states.

THAT is a close as you're going to come to equality when it comes to electing a government.

16 posted on 12/04/2016 8:55:16 AM PST by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all -- Texas Eagle)
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To: Sir Napsalot

No we have never exactly been one person one vote as we vote for representatives and each state in the continental congress had a different amount of representatives to do the voting for the people. So the electoral college is no different they represent the people of each individual state and vote for them. We are a united group of states, if you take that away then we become the haves and the have nots meaning the parts of the country with that rules/dominates and the other parts of the country that resent the domination of those far from them and this will stir up tension and balkanize the country. We are states, we are diverse, yet similar, yet different. No one wants to be ruled over by tyrants and that is why there is an electoral college. Tyrants rule in a democracy because they can stack the deck, its more difficult in a democratic republic, each diverse state has representation. Was it fair that Obama won without the proper vetting and a waiver for his being the son of a non-American? The electoral college swings in both directions, its fairer then the tyranny of pure democracy, it keeps the states united.


17 posted on 12/04/2016 8:57:50 AM PST by This I Wonder32460
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To: Sir Napsalot

If you erase the Electoral College then 30 of the states will no longer have a say in presidential elections. Once that happens there’s no more rationale for those states remaining as participant members of the United States.


18 posted on 12/04/2016 9:05:17 AM PST by Sirius Lee (If Trump loses, America dies)
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To: rigelkentaurus
Key concept this idiot failed to learn: Individual States are sovereign.

Well at least that was the plan but since the Fed cr@ps all over the tenth it is merely dream of what once was.

19 posted on 12/04/2016 9:23:00 AM PST by itsahoot (Three words I don't want to hear, Comprehensive Immigration Reform.)
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To: Sirius Lee

The Senate is based on representing the states - the eternity clause prevents states from being deprived of their equal representation in the Senate.

That’s in contrast to the House which is based on representation by population. Its been that way for over two centuries.

There is no demonstrable need to change it.


20 posted on 12/04/2016 9:23:57 AM PST by goldstategop ((In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever))
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