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Comment by fzeroracer | Hacker News Reader

I wouldn't say it's a reflection of the electorate. There's a lot of states that have been gerrymandered for years and Christians in extremely red areas have outsized voting power compared to everywhere else. Combined with the complete media capture by billionaires, the dumbest rule by fiat.

Unfortunately Christian nationalists happen to be extremely wealthy and extremely stupid.

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Calling people stupid who are voting for what they want feels counter-productive.

I don't know them, and I don't see a reason to call anyone stupid. Turkeys voting for thanksgiving is not "stupid" it's normal. Turkeys do what turkeys do.

I would have said "Unfortunately Christian Nationalists want what is being offered them by this administration, are extremely wealthy and fund PAC accordingly." but even "unfortunately" is argumentative. Of course to ME it's unfortunate, but thats me.

It’s not just gerrymandering (though that is indeed pervasive and pernicious. It’s structural. The apportionment between states gives small right-leaning states outsized representation in both the house and senate relative to their proportion of the national population.

> The apportionment between states gives small right-leaning states outsized representation in both the house and senate relative to their proportion of the national population.

That's not a bad thing. The bad thing happened when the Democrats decided to alienate those areas and lost them. You may forget, but a lot of those "small right-leaning states" were solid blue until relatively recently. For instance 100% of North Dakota's congressional delegation was Democratic until ~2010, Iowa was the quintessential purple state, the Senate majority leader was from South Dakota (but unlike today he was a Democrat), and I could go on.

I mean, when I was younger, Utah had a Democratic senator and several Democratic governors.

Among the small states, we have New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Vermont. They also have outsized influence.

I will grant you that more of the small states lean right than lean left, but it's not completely one-sided.

If Americans didn't like their system then they would change it. Isn’t that their whole founding mythos?

I don’t think hundreds of millions of Americans are continually being duped. I think they actually like the system they’ve built, and the outcomes that system produces.

So much easier said than done. We have to get our elected representatives to make the change, but it is against their self interest. If this was the only thing people considered when voting _maybe_ it would stand a chance. And honestly, I suspect less than 20% understand how other voting systems could lead to better out comes. Heck, we can’t even use the metric system!

"If the prisoners did not like their prison, they would change it"

I don’t think that the richest and most powerful people on the planet are prisoners. That seems like a ridiculous take.

>There's a lot of states that have been gerrymandered for years and Christians in extremely red areas have outsized voting power compared to everywhere else. Combined with the complete media capture by billionaires, the dumbest rule by fiat.

It's happening on both sides. https://www.npr.org/2026/01/14/nx-s1-5647442/midterm-electio...

We the public should be rejecting it, but we're idiots and keep falling for 'but they're doing it!' and then undermine our own political power to 'own' the other side. We're being played for fools.

It's happening on both sides now because the Supreme Court has signed off on it for years and given all the power to gerrymandering efforts from the right. The public can't reject what is unaccountable to said public.

That's a ridiculous comparison. The California special redistricting was done via a voter initiative that was approved by a majority of California voters, and imposes a temporary change on the rules for drawing districts that reverts to the neutral rules when after the next census.

It was specifically proposed to counter the Texas special redistricting which was done by the Texas legislature and government with no concern over whether or not Texas voters approved (and polls show that more Texas voters disapprove than approve).

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