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Comment by rpearl | Hacker News Reader

The thing is (at least in the US), it's not the case that these places "don't matter". In fact, they matter disproportionately more. Living in a populous state, say CA as the most popular, costs voters power.

A CA electoral college delegate represents the will of ~710,000 voters. A WY delegate represents the will of only ~200,000 voters, so a vote in WY counts more than 3x as much as a vote in CA. (For much the same reason, congress also sees disproportionate representation of smaller states, since the number of senators is fixed.)

Not to mention gerrymandering results in outsized influence of rural/urban boundaries as well.

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> so a vote in WY counts more than 3x as much as a vote in CA

It seems like that would only matter, if politicians had to win votes person-by-person. But instead, influence is peddled to subcultures. "Urban blacks", "coal miners", "white supremacists", "tech entrepreneurs", etc. And effort spent appealing to urban blacks will get you votes all over the country, as opposed to appealing to coal miners which will net you support in certain parts of Wyoming and West Virginia.

I think buying a coal miner vote is more expensive than a latino vote, considering the amount of influence both groups yield.

In the sense of strict voting power of course, that's the point of our government setup, a minimization of the influence of 'centers of power.' But rural voters feel alienated from the actual politicians they're able to pick. Take a look at all the top Republicans and Democrats, the ones who are in the news. What has any of them done to help revitalize rural areas? Trump is the only one I can think of that has promised some effort to the problem and even he isn't going to follow through except for a few token, small measures. 'Political elites' don't actually do anything for rural voters despite rural voting power. Hence the breakdown in those areas.

"...But rural voters feel alienated from the actual politicians they're able to pick. Take a look at all the top Republicans and Democrats, the ones who are in the news. What has any of them done to help revitalize rural areas?..."

That's a complaint which is not particular to rural voters though right? The same can be said of the impoverished urban masses gripped by hopelessness and drug activity. Or the impoverished suburban masses gripped by hopelessness and an opioid epidemic.

Many voters all over the US "... feel alienated from the actual politicians they're able to pick..."

Closing the chasm between leaders and those being led is an age old problem. It's a problem that was likely present in every great civilization.

Yes but cities and suburbs aren't degrading in the ways that rural areas are. I agree that most americans probably sense a divide between their own values and those of the 'political class' but if there's still job opportunity and people are still moving in and home values are still appreciating then they just deal with it. In rural areas though, the jobs are disappearing and people are moving away, entire towns just fading out of existence. They need a politician to step in

I'm just pointing out that in many, many urban areas, "...the jobs are disappearing and people are moving away...". I mean, we can debate the point, but I'd argue that this is what happened to Detroit, Youngstown, Gary, etc etc etc. So it's something that has been happening for a long time, and continues to happen today. And it has happened to many, many different parts of the country. That was the only point I was making.

Everyone in the US will be a lot better off if they just doubled the size of the House. Then there would be a lot more people looking for a lot more jobs. Congress members would begin to represent areas that are only inhumanly large instead of areas that are monstrously large. This benefits rural residents most clearly.

And the democratic principle would be more perfectly approached: At the moment, there's 436 democratically allocated seats in presidential elections, versus 102 non-democratically allocated seats. With a doubled congress, it would be more like 872 give-or-take versus 102 (the exact number will depend on how many congress seats Wyoming earns, as this affects the number of college seats DC receives). This benefits urban residents most clearly.

>Everyone in the US will be a lot better off if they just doubled the size of the House.

>This benefits urban residents most clearly.

Yeah it benefits urban residents at the expense of rural residents. There's no way you can claim it would make everyone better off, it reduces rural voting power in presidential elections.

If he actually manages to halt massive importation of cheap labor, which directly competes with these people, both less-educated rural whites and less-educated urban blacks will quickly see wage increases. If you have tons of under-educated poor people without jobs, the last thing you want to do is import more.

Gerrymandering is arguably the principal corrosive agent in the gears of American democracy. It's in complete opposition to 'one person, one vote' as a foundational principle of electoral efficacy.

See [1] and [2]: in [2], about half-way through when the interview topic turns to gerrymandering.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/10/the-lea...

[2] https://www.npr.org/2018/02/08/584243140/with-closed-circuit...

The Electoral College is also a Gerrymander, in effect. Because low-density states are overrepresented in the Senate and in presidential elections, we get a government that is out of step with the population.

The Senate would be difficult to fix, but House district gerrymandering and a national popular vote for President would be helpful improvements.

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