Visual example...
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@freemo@qoto.org
@mapto No thats unrelated but it is a very real problem. You arent seeing congressional districts here so the effect described in that link is unrelated.
@freemo do I understand correctly that your map is an aggregate of gerrymandered congressional districts (and the winner-takes-it-all aggregate of many red districts is red itself)?
@mapto no these arent congressional districts, so gerrymandering doesnt effect this map. It is based off the popular lean in counties.
@freemo So, where is people there is blue? I mean, cows and bushes don't vote.
Yea sorta... when people are huddled on top of eachother and packed densly they tend to go blue. Those same people allowed to be spread out in nature tend to vote red.
One could argue cities are less healthy to live in due to the tight space, overcrowding, violence, etc. This leads to people demanding more controls (a classically blue outlook). We know from rat models overcrowding leads to oretty unhealthy rats.
@freemo I will correct you there - when people live near other people, they tend to be compassionate. It’s not red/blue issue, it’s an issue of sociopathy caused by isolation vs sanity.
@casastorta yes that woukd be suburbs, the live near people but arent under u healthy population density... those are generally red too.
@freemo @casastorta Uh, no, the suburbs tend to go blue because of their proximity to the cities, except in very deep red states. Only very tiny portions of this country are truly urban. Like 90%+ of the blue land mass in this country is not urban or super dense.
@freemo The map might be more interesting if the color intensity would be according to the size of the population. Maybe the reds will be terribly washed out compared to the blues.
@trinsec @freemo This one sort of does that. A "dot for every vote".
https://carto.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=8732c91ba7a14d818cd26b776250d2c3
@LouisIngenthron Now THAT is more interesting and shows that the 'sea of red' is misleading. :)
@trinsec Yep. If land voted, we'd be 100% Republican.
@trinsec @freemo And this is another look, with each county as a dot of its corresponding color and a size commensurate with population..
https://engaging-data.com/county-electoral-map-land-vs-population/
@LouisIngenthron @freemo Also interesting. :)
@LouisIngenthron @trinsec @freemo One person, one vote. This map best represents the voting make up of the country.
Land don't vote!
@thegonzoism @LouisIngenthron @trinsec
We have electorial colleges in the usa, so no it isnt one person one vote. We do this to ensure the interest of all groups and cultures must be considered and grouos that respresent minorities are less likely to be abused. Makes sense to me.
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec The electoral college only matters for one vote every four years. The popular vote matters the rest of the time, especially on local matters.
@LouisIngenthron @thegonzoism @trinsec
As well it shoukd be. The oresident resides over all regions and as such should be accepted by all cultures and regions. He should be discouraged from throwing minority cultures under a bus.
A congressman only has to represent his one district, he is local in nature, so he doesnt have to consider diverse cultures across different states and regions as he covers a small local area.
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec
(A) The electoral college seems to break in favor of the GOP, who minorities overwhelmingly vote against, so your theory there doesn't really match reality.
(B) Though a congressperson may only represent their district, they vote on legislation that affects the entire country, so that logic doesn't work. I don't want to elect someone who doesn't want to fund snowplows on northern highways just because he's from Florida.
We arent talki g racial minorities, we are talking american cultures. Southern culture, amish terretories, mennonite terretories, etc. Its not about race, wrong sort of minority in this context.
The logic works fine, there are senators that represent those other areas and their culture, so its fine. We also balance that out in a different way, by adding a fixed number of sentators as a base and then addind more due to population. This evens out the densities in a similar way.
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec Funny, I didn't say "race"...
The senators are elected with the exact same popular vote system as the house members. How is that different?
The senate doesn't "even out the densities". If anything, it makes the representation far more lopsided than it should be by, again, correlating arbitrary geographic boundaries with voting power.
@LouisIngenthron @thegonzoism @trinsec
No they arent elected the same.
In the house the number of seats per stste is based on population, bigger get more. The senate is fixed with each stste getting 2 and only 2. This ensures states that have low populations and are mostly red states in this case, get more representstion per person.
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec ...and do you think that's a good thing?
@LouisIngenthron @thegonzoism @trinsec
As ive stated, if balanced correctly (the numbers need twesking sometines) then yes. It prevents a tyranny of the minority as discussed. It ensures the various cultures we have who are small isolated groups (like the amish) dont get thrown under a bus for the whims of the majority
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec I gotta say, living in a country where we literally enslaved people, I'm much more concerned about the tyranny of the majority than the tyranny of the minority.
@LouisIngenthron @thegonzoism @trinsec
Sorry the phrase i meant to use was tyrwnny of the majority.
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec Well, I gotta say, if that's the goal, then weighting human beings' votes based on arbitrary, archaic geographic borders seems like an especially poor method of achieving it.
As America's population grows, new cities will bloom in currently-vacant states. Once there's a metropolis in every state, how well will this system prevent that "tyranny" you're concerned about?
@LouisIngenthron @thegonzoism @trinsec
Thats why we tweak the numbers as populations change to balance it again. Weve done it a few times iirc.
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec We do in the house, which is actually somewhat representative, yes. But there's no tweaking in the senate. The boundaries of the states are fixed and there are two senators per state.
Which means that a person from Wyoming's vote is about 68x more powerful than a person from California in the Senate.
@LouisIngenthron @thegonzoism @trinsec
Yes but in the house the vote strongly favors california. It makes sense to me that the house shoukd be balanced for population and the senate flat. It ensures there must be both a majority acceptance, and a state-majority acceptance to pass new laws...
@freemo @thegonzoism @trinsec California has 30% more people than the second most populous state. For a vote to favor California is a sign that people are being properly represented. (And I don't like it any more than you; even living in the land of Florida Man, I think California is bonkers.)
Honestly, the better answer, in my opinion, would be to break up both California and Texas into into about three states each. That would allow better representation of the people in their local areas, instead of being lumped in with 40 million others.
@freemo @LouisIngenthron @trinsec No I think you had it right.
@freemo
But this has as a funky side-result Gerrymandering. Which sure looks to me like minorities are abused easily.
@trinsec @thegonzoism @LouisIngenthron
Gerry mandering is a seperate issue which inagree shoukd be addressed.
@freemo
But it won't be...
@trinsec @thegonzoism @LouisIngenthron
Sadly no it wont.
@freemo @LouisIngenthron @trinsec It clearly is one person, one vote. Your map shows a sea of red which due to gerrymandering is misleading. The other map shows voting by person which shows the country is more purple. It is a better representation of the vote.
@thegonzoism @LouisIngenthron @trinsec
The following map is not gerrymandered and shows color intensity based on how strongly it leans... still looks pretty similar.
@thegonzoism @freemo @trinsec Fwiw, Freemo's map isn't misleading because of gerrymandering. It's misleading because it obscures population density and incorrectly implies a correlation between votes and land mass.
@LouisIngenthron @thegonzoism @trinsec
Its not misleading at all, its intent as ststed clearly is to show votes by land mass. Nothibg misleading about that, no one is claiming this is showing votes by population density, its showing votes by region only.
@freemo
But I bet the republicans would love to show off that map because it would make them seem superior. Or at least, so they think. 😋
I guess it's all about the narrative. And the gullibility.
@trinsec @LouisIngenthron @thegonzoism
Thry do it all the time... yes the map can and will be abused. But thats not what is being done here.
It makes one simple fact clear, if you drive to almost any random place in america, you are almost always surrounded by red voters. Only time your not is if its a city.
@freemo @trinsec @thegonzoism Define "surrounded" lol
@LouisIngenthron
If I go to a field with just one cow, I am 'surrounded' by cows.
I think it's that. 😋
@trinsec Sure this one does that, sorta. Its not a specific year but rather shows the average way a coubty votes. Purple is 50/50 the brighter the red the larger its vote on average towards republican (more people voting consistently)
@freemo I found the maps that @LouisIngenthron showed a lot more revealing. :)
@freemo Be aware that a lot of that red ground is just that -- ground. Some places, espcially out west, you'have to drive 60 miles to find a voter.
@freemo Just Vermont and Hawaii, and maybe Rhode Island.
@freemo
A few demographic factors that may affect this:
* Urban areas have a higher concentration of more educated people
* Urban areas have a higher concentration of non-white people
Education likely affects people's trust in religious leaders (or even awareness of them). Exposure to other ethnicities and cultures likely drives compassion for them.
My point is simply that one shouldn't interpret this as meaning that the blue sections are unfairly dominating the red sections. It may just as easily be interpreted as an uneducated and selfish group controlling the vast bulk of the territory.
@IAmErik I agree this shouldnt be used to suggest the blue sections are unfairly dominating the red... instead it simply means if you are almost anywhere in the USA, you are likely in a red area as very few places in america are blue.... In other words... there are no blue states on blue cities as the OP states.
@freemo I'm ignorant about the US in all possible ways, but isn't this one of the many reasons why your map is so red? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2021/nov/12/gerrymander-redistricting-map-republicans-democrats-visual