American democracy’s Senate problem, explained A huge — and growing — source of bias in the political system.

vox.com ^ | 12/17/2019 | Matt Yglesias

[rktman]

Democrats have a Senate problem, and not just in the sense that Republicans currently hold the majority or that the prospect of that changing in 2020 is relatively slim. The problem is that the odds of ever changing it are slimmer than is generally realized.

Data for Progress, a progressive think tank and advocacy organization, is trying to raise alarm bells about the issue. In a new memo, co-founder Colin McAuliffe writes that “the Senate is an irredeemable institution” that’s biased 3 percentage points in the GOP’s favor and systematically underweights the interests of nonwhite Americans.

Of course, the fact that the Senate gives extra weight to the interests of people who live in low-population states is not news. That’s an undemocratic, inegalitarian principle that was deliberately baked into the Senate from its inception. What’s new is that changes in American life have made its disproportionality more consequential.

A key issue is race. As the US has gotten more diverse, that diversity has spread throughout the country unevenly. It’s not impossible for a state to be both small and diverse (Hawaii) or even small and heavily urbanized (Rhode Island), but lower-population states tend to be whiter, more rural, and less educated than average. The result is a system of “racism by proxy” that overweights the interests and opinions of white voters over those of black, Hispanic, and Asian voters.

[piasa]

More on Sean McElwee:

He wants to abolish ICE: How Twitter vaulted 'Abolish ICE' into the mainstream 7/29/2018, 9:44:39 PM · by yesthatjallen · 10 replies The Hill ^ | 07/29/18 | Ali Breland Calls to "Abolish ICE" began as an obscure Twitter hashtag created by liberal activists. It's now a movement supported by prominent progressive leaders and candidates in races across the country and the center of a heated debate in Democratic circles. The viral campaign pushing for the elimination of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is the latest example of how Twitter has become a tool for groups outside the mainstream to get their ideas in front of power brokers. Writer and activist Sean McElwee, who is credited with creating the #AbolishICE hashtag, told The Hill that Twitter's platform and its...

He writes for Huffington Post:

The Unbearable Whiteness of Money in Politics 6/26/2016, 12:43:23 PM · by GuavaCheesePuff · 20 replies The Huffington Post ^ | January 23, 2016 | Sean McElwee The 2016 presidential election will be the second since the court’s disastrous Citizens United decision and the first without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act in place. That means big donors will have more sway over elected officials to dictate the agenda. Already the wealthy are pouring money into the election: Politico reports that the 67 biggest donors, who have each given a million dollars or more have donated three times more than 508,000 small donors combined. A new report from Every Voice Center finds that individuals living in 1 percent of the nation’s zip codes (equal to...

And writes for Salon:

To defeat the Tea Party, the left needs bolder leader than Hillary 10/12/2013, 10:05:48 PM · by 2ndDivisionVet · 51 replies Salon ^ | October 12, 2013 | Sean McElwee It’s three years away, but the ongoing government shutdown and debt ceiling debate makes it clear that Democrats need to be thinking now about a candidate able to effectively counter the Tea Party caucus in Congress — which thanks to gerrymandering, isn’t going anywhere until 2020. While the Republican field is already loaded with possible candidates — Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Scott Walker, Jeb Bush III and Bobby Jindal – the Democratic field is apparently sealed: Hillary Clinton. RealClearPolitics finds Hillary getting 61 percent of the vote in a Democratic primary against Joe Biden (11), Elizabeth Warren (7),...

.

[48th SPS Crusader]

What a tremendous crock of crap! Race, Race, Race! Everything all the time is about Race!

[GaryCrow]

“lower-population states tend to be whiter, more rural, and less educated than average.”
````````````````````````````````

My old economics professor would call this lying with statistics. The problem with that statement is that it’s a straw man. States aren’t educated, people are educated. As a whole, with the exception of Asians, Whites are the most highly educated with Blacks and Hispanics much less so. Whites with college degrees tend to vote republican except for postdocs who are usually associated with academic institutions, Blacks with or without college degrees usually vote democrat. A state with a mostly white population is going to tend to be pretty highly educated, while a state with a high minority population will be poorly educated if you go by the average, remove the minorities from the population and the white population will be more educated because as we said, people are educated, not states.

Take a state like Mississippi with a 60/40 white to black ratio. It gets a lot of press as an “uneducated” state but that’s because 40% of its population is black and most don’t finish high school. The white population does pretty well on education. The state also goes republican in national elections and the split between republican and democrat is, you guessed it, usually 60/40. If you listen to the media though they’ll tell you that “uneducated” Mississippi went republican where in reality the least educated part of the population voted overwhelmingly democrat and the educated part voted republican. That’s the problem with making generalizations without understanding what actually happened.