The map is designed to make sure all three states end up disenfranchising rural and agricultural interests. I look at that map and see disdain and hate.
People continue to flock to cities; urban populations are already the majority and it gets more lopsided every day. That isn't disdain or hate, that's just math.
What you're actually asking for is extra power for rural people so they can override the majority. On behalf of the majority of citizens of California: we decline your offer.
Why do you simultaneously think that urbanites show disdain/hate as well as ignorance/apathy over rural parts of the state?
Why do you think this is an effort to disenfranchise rural parts of the state while also believing they are already disenfranchised? Why would three states be better at this than one state?
Some of the posts on this topic are representative of the "disdain/hate" accusation. (Samples from other discussion forums correlate well with the attitudes displayed in some of these posts.) The messaging from urban voters seems to be "We know the best way forward and if you don't agree with us you're an idiot." Disdain generally follows disagreement because that attitude precludes any rational discourse regardless if the disagreements are well-founded.
"Hate" probably stems from the use of terms such as "flyover states", "rednecks", "hillbillies", etc. These terms are quite often used in political discourse online, usually by urbanites referring to voters in the central US. Semantically and linguistically these terms are exactly equivalent to any racial slurs, so when the population of the central US hears urbanites utter these words while at the same time championing for racial equality it's no wonder that they assume hypocrisy and hate from those same urbanites.
I don't think governance will improve until all sides are willing to think that they might be wrong about their vision of the future and engage in constructive dialog with all or most of the affected parties to reach a compromise.
Tyranny of the majority can manifest itself in a lot of different ways. That's one of them.
That's really not that hard of a question to answer, if you're willing to have some empathy and look at things from someone else's point of view. I say that as someone who has always lived in a large city.
Clearly, it's the rights of small communities, with significant material and cultural differences from large cities, to have a degree of self-determination and a real say in how they are governed.
Your choice of words shows a view that it's somehow unjust for these communities not to be dominated by distant, populous, and likely unsympathetic overlords.
> Your choice of words shows a view that it's somehow unjust for these communities not to be dominated by distant, populous, and likely unsympathetic overlords.
Yes, like how small towns are dominating the politics of cities by being heavily favored in elections, oh those poor small towns. Tyranny of the minority indeed. Small communities aren't being trampled upon, they're the ones doing the trampling.
A fair system would be one where everyone's vote is equal, not one where people count less because they live too closely together. Rural voters currently have far far too much power given their numbers. A vote in Wyoming is worth 3.6 votes in California, and you're claiming small towns are the victims? Really?
lol. You have an hilariously parochial point of view.
>> What rights are being trampled on here?
> Clearly, it's the rights of small communities, with significant material and cultural differences from large cities, to have a degree of self-determination and a real say in how they are governed. Your choice of words shows a view that it's somehow unjust for these communities not to be dominated by distant, populous, and likely unsympathetic overlords.
That's rich and hilariously wrong. My choice of words reflected the original question.
> tyranny of the minority
If that's how you want to characterize having rights that are protected, go ahead, but it's embarrassingly simplistic.
That's an odd way to complain about not being utterly dominant.
> We have Trump because the system discriminates against urban voters, i.e. currently the majority is being damned.
That's a pretty myopic read of the situation, and not very valuable. The solution to something like Trump is not to create a permanently disenfranchised and forgotten hinterland, which really seems like your desired outcome.
Loss of privilege is not oppression, making the system more fair where all votes are equal does not make the system unfair to rural folk and does not disenfranchise them. You use words you don't seem to understand the meaning of, the only people disenfranchised right now are urban people. Treating every vote equally does not disenfranchise anyone.
But we're not talking about rights. We're talking about how voices are weighted within the democratic portion of our system. If a group is really into stepping on the rights of others, and that group includes rural voters, it's going to get further than a group that doesn't.
"Tyranny of the majority" is a problem, but weighting things so that we're making decisions based on a different arbitrary group is not the way to avert it.