
In about 20 years, half the population will live in eight states (2018) - Wowfunhappy
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/07/12/in-about-20-years-half-the-population-will-live-in-eight-states/
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wnmurphy
Which means half the population will cast votes which have less value than
those of their fellow citizens, thanks to the Electoral College.

~~~
JohnFen
Only for Presidential elections, which, to be fair, isn't the most important
one for the federal government. Congressional elections are more important.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Only for Presidential elections, which, to be fair, isn't the most important
> one for the federal government. Congressional elections are more important.

The Presidential election is the single most important election in the US
federal system, but in any case, he skew in the electoral college is less
than, and mostly a a side effect of, the skew in the upper house of Congress
(there is skew of a smaller scale in the lower house do to granularity
effects, which also impacts the electoral college, but the skew in the upper
house is a much bigger issue.)

~~~
JohnFen
> The Presidential election is the single most important election in the US
> federal system

The Presidential election decides the most important single seat in
government. However, Congress is, by design and intention, the more powerful
federal body and so congressional elections collectively are more important.

~~~
dragonwriter
Sure. But, again, the central point is that unequal voting power isn't unique
to Presidential elections, indeed, the unequal voting power there is a direct
consequences of the unequal voting power in Congress, particularly (but not
exclusively) the Senate, which is also house with the most power in
restraining the executive (the Senate confirms principal executive officers
and judges, ratifies treaties, and adjudicates impeachments of impeachable
officers, most relevantly here executive officers.)

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NineTimes
I don't see any comments regarding the bigger picture. The main reason that
this is bad is that the more rural / red states will be able to block ANY
federal judicial nominee which it doesn't agree with. This means that no
matter how liberal the country might become, that political philosophy will
NOT be realized in the court system.

The tyranny of the majority is a concern, but the tyranny of a small minority
is more of a concern.

One way to mitigate this would be to increase the size of the house to around
700 members. (But that isn't going to happen either.)

Eventually, we will have to have another constitutional convention to correct
the imbalance. Heaven help us then.

~~~
anthonypasq
"tyranny of the majority" is an oxy-moron. It makes zero sense. Of course the
majority gets to decide what happens, that how government works.

Only in America do we think that the party that won the election shouldnt be
able to actually run the government.

~~~
thoughtstheseus
Parties do not win elections, people do.

~~~
blotter_paper
Disagree; parties win elections, people lose them.

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dmux
Previous discussion 2 years ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17529987](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17529987)

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JohnFen
I checked if my state was one of the eight and breathed a huge sigh of relief
that it wasn't.

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low_common
Can you link a snapshot behind the paywall?

~~~
OrangeMango
The source for this article is here:

[http://statchatva.org/2019/02/11/national-population-
project...](http://statchatva.org/2019/02/11/national-population-
projections-2020-2030-2040/)

What is interesting is that despite their prediction of half the population
living in 8 states, their prediction is that half of those states will have
either lost population or have gained less than 200,000 people within the next
20 years (Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan)!

Edit, I am sorry, but I misinterpreted. The 4 states I mentioned are in their
prediction of the 10 states with the highest population. Only Pennsylvania and
Illinois are predicted to be among the 8 most populous states.

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thorwasdfasdf
This will only exacerbate the housing problem, quite distopian if you ask me.
it doesn't make sense to have everyone crowded into areas that didn't want to
grow in the first place.

I think the fed should give companies incentives to move to unpopulated states
that actually want to grow, instead of handing out tax cuts like free candy.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
These states still have a lot of land area, so I don't find this specific
statistic so troubling from a housing perspective.

I find it very, very scary however in terms of what it means for our political
system. If half of the US population controls only 16 senate seats, and the
other half controls _84_ seats, how does the senate have any democratic
legitimacy at all?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
_The Senate isn 't supposed to be a democratic institution._ Once you
understand that, you can quit being scared by the situation.

~~~
jefurii
Whether or not you're okay about this says a lot about you.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Perhaps, and not in the direction you think.

We don't need the Senate to be the House. We already have the House for that.

If you think that the Senate is the problem, that more House-like behavior is
what we need, then what it says about you is that you don't understand the
point behind the American system of government. The point was to not have too
much direct democracy. If you don't understand _why_ that was the point, yes,
that says something about you.

~~~
jefurii
Oh I understand perfectly well the reason why the Senate and the Electoral
College and superdelegates in e.g. the Democratic Party were created. It was
because the founders were afraid of actual democracy and they wanted to ensure
their own positions. It has had the effect that a certain constituency (rich
white men) are privileged above all others. There is a disconnect between the
narrative we have told ourselves about democracy and the actual system we
have. I would like to change the system so that it better serves our entire
population and not just rich white men.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
There was a _bit_ more to the founders' opposition to direct democracy than
merely "wanting to ensure their own positions"...

