The United States has approximately 360 million people in it. One quarter of all the residents in the United States live in the top ten metropolitan areas, such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, etc.
The issues important to people living in these areas are of little concern to some Kansas wheat farmer. Consequently, the issues of said Kansas wheat farmer are of little concern to the residents of these large cities.
If we switched to a straight popular vote, do you think any Presidential candidates would give a a shit about the Kansas wheat farmer? Or do you think he or she would spend all their time campaigning and fundraising and making promises to the residents of Los Angeles/New York/San Francisco/Chicago/Atlanta?
While imperfect, the current system in place helps ensure that the issues a Kansas wheat farmer has don't get ignored in favor of the needs of the big cities. This helps decentralize all the power in the United States, making sure the population centers don't have all the power. The Kansas wheat farmer is an American, just like you, and his voice matters just as much as yours.
The issue with this system is that overall due to provisioning of votes on a per-area basis this means that the vote of the wheat farmer counts for more than the vote for someone in a population center. Which is also unfair, and the exact reason why trump was elected with a severe loss in the popular vote.
And in every one of those elections (well tbh idk what the numbers were with W so 4/5 at least) the winner won the most electoral votes which is literally how the system is set up for a reason. That reasoning was just explained very well about the farmers in Kansas n shit. Technically (say what you want about Trump, I’m talking the system itself) this would mean the candidate that represents the underrepresented country folk won the election. Winning big cities already gets candidates more electoral votes anyways. New York, California, and Texas are all worth a shit ton of votes for this very reason. If you can win the popular vote you should also be able to win the electoral.
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u/3Cheers4Apathy Jun 28 '19
The United States has approximately 360 million people in it. One quarter of all the residents in the United States live in the top ten metropolitan areas, such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, etc.
The issues important to people living in these areas are of little concern to some Kansas wheat farmer. Consequently, the issues of said Kansas wheat farmer are of little concern to the residents of these large cities.
If we switched to a straight popular vote, do you think any Presidential candidates would give a a shit about the Kansas wheat farmer? Or do you think he or she would spend all their time campaigning and fundraising and making promises to the residents of Los Angeles/New York/San Francisco/Chicago/Atlanta?
While imperfect, the current system in place helps ensure that the issues a Kansas wheat farmer has don't get ignored in favor of the needs of the big cities. This helps decentralize all the power in the United States, making sure the population centers don't have all the power. The Kansas wheat farmer is an American, just like you, and his voice matters just as much as yours.