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Comment by teeray | Hacker News Reader

Nevermind that if this were put to some kind of national popular vote it would pass overwhelmingly.

Given that half the country loves the party that is anti-regulation, "small" government, I don't think you have your finger on the pulse of the nation, so to speak.

Not only would many people in the US be against this on principle ("the feds should stop meddling", "the free market will sort it out"), but the companies in question would invest lots of money into propaganda that many, many people would fall for.

I am a small government advocate. The problem with cable companies is that they enjoy near monopoly status. That’s not free market.

Hahaha, what? The "Free Market" is when the government forcibly breaks up large firms? Incredible

What are you even responding to? Who said anything about breaking up firms?

My interpretation is that most people supporting that party may have bought into deregulation rhetoric, but would vote for any specific regulation that curbs a behavior they personally dislike unless a more stout believer talked them out of it.

The people you’re referring to, aka Republican voters, are mainly being led around by the nose. To be more specific, it’s my view that they view politics as a team sport and as entertainment and don’t think through their positions.

These people would be against maintaining their own lives if the Dems were for it.

I know a couple democrats that wear seatbelts, wash their hands and take the flu vaccine.

The people he's referring to are probably best described as libertarian. "Republican" has been abused so much as a word (Democrat, too) that it's effectively useless to describe anything these days anyways.

Case in point: you're using it here to describe people who are not particularly wise to propaganda, which has nothing to do with the word at all. You're probably referring to social conservatives, but it's always hard to tell if comments like these are meant to be a strawman on purpose or not.

I am in fact referring to Republican voters.

Then you're strawmanning, because of course this has nothing to do with the Republican voters writ large. Nothing really does, because as I already stated, the word is meaningless now. It's just the vague "enemy".

Put it to a nationwide vote and you'll watch the money flow into the ad campaigns and half your friends will start telling you how important it is to smash the "regulatory shadow state" and "unelected bureaucrats" or whatever the talking points are.

> Nevermind that if this were put to some kind of national popular vote it would pass overwhelmingly.

But it's typical of big industry groups to try to block any kind of regulatory- or legislative action that inhibits them from doing what they want.

It is also typical of big industry groups to support tons of regulation, because only big industry can afford to comply, and it keeps competition out.

When you hear about situations like this, where something useful and popular nation-wide gets shut down under the guise of deregulation, the tenth amendment, states' rights, etc., it's never about self determination. It's about this, letting people with lifetime appointments decide the law of the land.

It goes from big issues, like cannabis, reproductive rights, gun control, all the way down to common sense consumer protections like this. That's why I'm weary about about politicians who thump "states' rights" & "self determination", but never seem to put forward any big ticket ballot propositions.

In general the courts shouldn't be pushing big ticket ballot propositions... That isn't their place. The reason they're not elected is explicitly so they can't be (to the maximum extent possible) affected by the ballot box.

A lot of people seem to forget but the maximum amount of democracy isn't the best. Mob rule is not a good system of government.

“Mob rule” is often just this hand wavy argument a party invokes when it wants to force its unpopular positions on the rest of the country or, in the GOP’s case, to defend the electoral college which gives them disproportionate political power.

When did Mitch McConnell say “the American people should decide,” aka the “mob”? When he wanted to block a SCOTUS appointment for almost a year. Suddenly the mob was wrong when the shoe was on the other foot and the window of time was barely over a month.

Good faith “mob rule” arguments are rare. It’s mostly just an easy appeal to shut down otherwise valid arguments.

No "mob rule" is a direct democracy system that is effectively tyranny of the majority. That system does not and cannot work. All forms of practical democracy are some measure away from that, to varying degrees.

Secondly, the electoral college does not give the GOP disproportionate political power. That's a misunderstanding of how it works.

I know what it literally means, what I’m saying is the vast majority of appeals using it are in bad faith.

As to your second point, see: the senate. Democrats have 1 more seat which basically translates to 52% of the country to the GOP’s 48%, yet they actually represent 36% more of the country (204mill vs. 150mill) than Republicans do when looking at the populations they represent. It doesn’t have to be one-to-one, but surely you can see that the difference here is striking? This is a consequence of all states getting the exact same number of senators.

The Electoral College and the Senate are not the same thing and are entirely unrelated to each other.

So which are you talking about exactly? Maybe you're just quoting things you heard by rumor?

But seeing as you changed the argument to the Senate, I'll respond to that.

The Senate was never and is not supposed to be representative of the population. It's supposed to be representative of the states. This is a good thing to keep. That's also why things like Governors being able to simply pick replacement senators without having an election is allowed.

Honestly that was meant to be part 2 of a 2 part thing and I just completely forgot to write part 1.

Until the most recent census was finished and electoral map updated (which has been years of work due to unpacking the census plus several states fighting over redistricting) the democrats had to overcome an ~5pt disadvantage to even begin winning due to how the maps are drawn and the FPTP system. Republicans had a distinct advantage which is now a smaller advantage (~1.3-1.7 IIRC). Still, if I was running for president I’d rather be on the side that starts with the weight slightly in their favor. Especially given the razor thin margins elections are seeing now.

You can’t lose the popular vote and win the presidency that many times without raising eyebrows. They clearly have electoral and other structural advantages that are well documented at this point. They have won the popular vote I believe 1 time in the last 8 elections. They haven’t won it since 2004. I guarantee you they’ll lose it again this year no matter the electoral outcome. No one even debates it anymore in predicting the outcome, it’s just assumed.

The demcorats consistently govern/represent far more Americans and have to overcome an electoral college disadvantage that is now just a slight disadvantage. We can argue all day about whether or not you agree that’s how things should be, but the math is clear here. There really isn’t a whole lot to debate.

Sorry not FPTP. Winner takes all re: electoral votes

The democrats having to overcome a 5pt disadvantage (I haven't checked if this is even accurate) would just be because of the lag in the system with people moving to blue states from red states. If the reverse happens then it'll be biased in the other direction. It's not a structural bias toward one party or the other.

Gerrymandering can absolutely causes biases, but gerrymandering is performed by both sides.

Saying it's "consistent" when we're only talking about the past 20 years I think is a bit much.

Smart money says we’re days away from it being the past 24 years.

"Smart money" ended up wrong.

I feel like that's too over-confident. They'll just do what corporations have been doing for decades. Invest in PR that paints this as protecting the American way and American values, and all the other nonsense corporations will use to convince voters to vote against their best interests.

maybe I'm unusually optimistic, but I feel struggling with a BS subscription is a fairly bipartisan and universal experience here. It's not quite like how you can sell to the affluent how they deserve more and there are leechers taking from society. The leeches are the subscription companies.

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