Comment by jkingsbery | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jkingsbery | Hacker News Reader

> Another is that we have a very strong opposition. The Democratic Party is well organized, it’s well financed. It controls the most economically and culturally powerful regions of the country.

So... the party that holds the presidency and both chambers of Congress is the "opposition?" That's an interesting take on things.

Perhaps he means "opposition to authoritarianism," but the party of "I have a pen and a phone" and "We need to pass the bill to find what's in it" has it's own authoritarian tendencies. I'm NOT a fan of Trump, but the idea that this is a problem only with the Republicans is silly.

So is the idea that the dissolving of "mutual toleration" mentioned in the article is a one way street. There are plenty of interviews like this one https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/07/ive-never-felt-this-s... that express how norms on the left have also changed pretty drastically over the past few years. The government has been in multiple law suits with a group of nuns, called the "Little Sisters of the Poor," all of whom are celibate and most of whom are elderly, trying to force them to buy health insurance that includes birth control. Maybe that group of nuns is misguided, but how does the left demonstrate mutual respect? How do situations like that demonstrate "restraint in using their institutional powers?"

Only one side is trying to undermine the electoral process itself. Don't forget that many Republicans voted against certifying election results.

Sorry those nuns are upset about buying health insurance, but I pay for all kinds of things I don't want to pay for too. Having good faith debates about that kind of thing is part of democracy though, and in the end it's pretty minor.

Showing restraint in institutional power means not using that power in an attempt to overturn an election just because you think you could legally get away with it.

> Only one side is trying to undermine the electoral process itself.

I'm no partisan Republican, but I don't think that's true. Creating seats until you gain control also undermines electoral process, and the "For the People Act" pushed DC statehood. That's a naked grab for two more safe Democratic Senate seats, especially when any concerns about the enfranchisement of DC residents could be solved with less of a partisan power-play (like letting Maryland annex most of DC).

If you read liberal-leaning comment sections (e.g. like the NYT's), there's a lot more extreme fantasizing about creating new liberal states and abolishing or politically neutering conservative ones.

I definitely think the Republicans have been "trying to undermine the electoral process itself" more blatantly, but the Democrats aren't saints either.

And frankly, if the Republican threat to democracy is so dire, probably the best thing to save it is for the Democrats to shoot their progressive wing in the head and loudly run to the center, become competitive in conservative states, and focusing on routing the Republican party above other ideological goals.

The Democrats are also talking about packing the Supreme Court, and about ending the filibuster so that they can get their agenda passed.

As if these initiatives were born in isolation, and not in response to a decade of obstructionist, blatantly hypocritical bullshit? What a whitewashed statement.

In recent history they twice attempted to remove a sitting president. One of the votes could be considered a strong bipartisan rebuke of Trump because several Republicans (ie, low single digits) voted with the Democrats.

The next election confirmed Trump had one of the largest support bases in history by number of votes and lost a fairly tight election to Biden (noting that US elections are determined by swing states, not absolute vote counts).

There was at least a shade of un-democracy in those impeachments. The Democrats weren't implementing the will of the people there, it is pretty clear they were trying to implement the will of Democratic people and override the results that the system had come up with.

> There was at least a shade of un-democracy in those impeachments. The Democrats weren't implementing the will of the people there, it is pretty clear they were trying to implement the will of Democratic people and override the results that the system had come up with.

That's a bad read of the situation. While the impeachments did have a partisan aspect, they were also totally warranted from a non-partisan perspective, given Trump's actual behavior.

Honestly, the more shamelessly partisan thing was how Republicans didn't go along with the impeachment, but rather gave Trump a full throated defense, just because he had an R next to his name (at the time).

Well, the first impeachment it turned out with hindsight that there were shady business dealings in Ukraine linked to the Bidens, so that behaviour is pretty easy to defend. The US already had an active investigation underway. It made a lot of sense to ask the Ukranians to cooperate.

50 Republican senators representing just 43.5% of the US population constantly bring the entire legislative process to a halt. You need a supermajority in the senate to get anything done in government these days.

If you think granting DC citizens federal government representation is a power play relative to what republicans get away with on a regular basis, you must be purposefully not paying attention.

> 50 Republican senators representing just 43.5% of the US population constantly bring the entire legislative process to a halt.

So? That's by design. The Senate was never meant to represent population proportionately. It was meant to ensure small states wouldn't get dominated by large states, and that means being able to block things. IIRC, that was a core compromise in the Constitution, and it's a bad look to go all Darth Vader on it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsW9MlYu31g).

> If you think granting DC citizens federal government representation is a power play relative...

It's a power play in absolute terms because the solution that's being pursued was chosen specifically to yield a partisan advantage. In some senses it's even worse than stuff like extreme Gerrymandering, because once implemented it will be almost impossible to undo or reevaluate. DC citizens could be also be granted federal government representation by making them citizens of Maryland. That would solve the core problem, and there's precedent: the government already did something similar to the part of DC on the Virginia side of the Potomac in 1847.

So then what's your problem with adding a small Democratic-leaning state?

It seems like you're fine with small Republican states that give your preferred party an outsized power over larger states, but don't want the other side to benefit from that same dynamic.

There's nothing logical about giving a population larger than that of two existing states and with it's own distinct history to Maryland. When pieces of DC were given back to Virginia, it didn't come with a population larger than Vermont.

The only reason to oppose DC statehood is naked partisan power.

> So then what's your problem with adding a small Democratic-leaning state?

Are you even reading what I'm writing? You seem to be trying to have a different argument that's perhaps more familiar to you.

My point is that there's a multitude of options to solve the DC representation problem, and the reason to choose statehood is that you want more D's in the federal government. Pretty much every argument in favor DC statehood specifically is just rhetorical window-dressing for that.

> It seems like you're fine with small Republican states that give your preferred party an outsized power over larger states, but don't want the other side to benefit from that same dynamic.

How exactly is the party I didn't vote for my preferred party? Just to be clear: I voted for Democrats.

> There's nothing logical about giving a population larger than that of two existing states and with it's own distinct history to Maryland. When pieces of DC were given back to Virginia, it didn't come with a population larger than Vermont.

Just cut the crap and admit DC should become a (city-)state because the Democrats could use two more senators.

Regardless of who it benefits, giving statehood to DC gives more people the right to vote and be represented by their government. Maybe if you find yourself opposing giving people votes because they won't vote the way you want, that's a sign of a problem.

> Regardless of who it benefits, giving statehood to DC gives more people the right to vote and be represented by their government. Maybe if you find yourself opposing giving people votes because they won't vote the way you want, that's a sign of a problem.

You'll notice that I'm not "opposing giving people votes," and I actually referenced an alternate way to get them representation. I'm just noting that the the main reason someone would choose DC statehood over the alternative is because they want more safe Democratic senators. It's also worth noting that the Virginia part of DC was already given back to Virginia, so there's more precedent for that kind of solution over statehood..

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