Rethinking our Union

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
Because that's what we're supposed to be - a union of independent states, under a limited federal government.

So anyway, Ron Perlman - who is one of the more ignorant and bombastic voices on Twitter, which is really saying something - says this:



Because he has maybe a 7th grade education, he doesn't realize that there's really no such thing as a "blue state" except for maybe Vermont. To wit:

magacountry.jpg


I'm all for the Marxists seceding from the Union. I don't want to share a country with them any more than they want to share a country with me. Since that's not really feasible, I have another idea: their urban nightmares should become states unto themselves, with the federal representation of their choice and electoral votes corresponding to whatever districts they decide on. It's never been fair that rural and suburban residents are ruled by the overpopulated crime and drug infested metros - they have wildly different needs and concerns.

If the Marxists really meant it (which they don't) they would be happy to form their own state. But they don't want that; they want to force the rest of us into submission and subjugation. That's what fascists do. Plus I think on some level they're smart enough to understand that they'd get the raw end of the deal.

But I'm in! Bring it! Best idea anyone's ever had!
 

awpitt

Main Streeter
magacountry.jpg


The map above is misleading because it doesn’t illustrate where the voters actually live. It also doesn’t account for the fact that empty fields, empty forests, empty mountain ranges, grazing cattle, etc. do not vote. Much of the red shown here is made up of sparsely populated land. Again, acreage doesn’t vote. People vote.



In order to accurately show the blues and reds, the map needs to illustrate where the voters actually live. The map below is an accurate representation of the blues and the reds….

Dasymetric-Dot-Density-w.jpg
 

Sneakers

Just sneakin' around....
In order to accurately show the blues and reds, the map needs to illustrate where the voters actually live. The map below is an accurate representation of the blues and the reds….

View attachment 162403
Interesting. By that map, nearly all cities/dense population areas are blue, and more open space areas are red. I question it's accuracy.
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
In order to accurately show the blues and reds, the map needs to illustrate where the voters actually live. The map below is an accurate representation of the blues and the reds….

View attachment 162403

Yeah, that is not representative of the US population. That makes it look like no one lives in the western states until you hit the west coast, and I can assure you based on personal experience that's not true.

How about breaking it down by election district?
 

awpitt

Main Streeter
Yeah, that is not representative of the US population. That makes it look like no one lives in the western states until you hit the west coast, and I can assure you based on personal experience that's not true.

How about breaking it down by election district?

The map does not show no one living in the western states. It does show that the western states have thousands of miles of land that is sparsely populated. Take Sweetwater County in Wyoming. Sweetwater County is 10,000 square miles in size. That’s almost the size of all of Maryland which is 12,000 square miles in size. MD’s population is just over 6 million while Sweetwater’s population is 43,000. That’s why the second map shows a lot white out west.
 

Clem72

Well-Known Member
Yeah, that is not representative of the US population. That makes it look like no one lives in the western states until you hit the west coast, and I can assure you based on personal experience that's not true.

How about breaking it down by election district?

It looks that way because they stuck in some floor value under which they didn't report any color, after all you can't put 300 million dots on the map. So your unincorporated municipality of 16k (number I picked from my butt) people doesn't get represented on the map. And you can take your guess as to what color most of those sparsely populated areas would be.
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
The map does not show no one living in the western states. It does show that the western states have thousands of miles of land that is sparsely populated. Take Sweetwater County in Wyoming. Sweetwater County is 10,000 square miles in size. That’s almost the size of all of Maryland which is 12,000 square miles in size. MD’s population is just over 6 million while Sweetwater’s population is 43,000. That’s why the second map shows a lot white out west.

But we agree that they deserve government representation, right?
 

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
PREMO Member
What's even more inaccurate about those maps is, they've just gone down to the county level, rather than state level. You and I see that Illinois or Massachusetts isn't 100% blue - just parts of it. Outside of Chicago - Illinois is almost all red. If you were to color the STATES according to how they vote, you'd see more color. Make the map BIGGER - and shrink it down to voting precincts - and you'd see that even within a given county or congressional district - there's blue and red. You could chop up just our congressional district - which would be BLUE - and see what parts are red.

It's just matter of how low a level you choose to look. I think it's a generally fair assumption that dense population regions tend to skew Democrat, and less dense tend to vote Republican.

What I don't get - is the grasp some have that democracy is somehow thwarted when 50% plus ONE doesn't mean a law passes, even though mathematically speaking, it is a majority. No - democracy is thwarted when an executive makes a decision the people are against - when the people are never given a voice.
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
Of course. I never questioned that.

What I'm saying is that one large metropolitan area shouldn't dictate the whole state, because their needs and concerns aren't the same.

In Maryland, for example, the dictates of Baltimore and the DC metro set the agenda for places like SM and Calvert Counties and Western MD that have nothing to do with those urban areas.

md-election map.jpg


All those people in the red areas aren't represented in their state government. Then they get gerrymandered even further and now it's like they don't even exist. That happened in 6D when they gerrymandered it to dig into Montgomery County and turn it blue by disenfranchising all those people in Garrett, Allegany, Frederick, and Washington Counties. In fact, in 2014 John Delaney barely beat Dan Bongino for the House and he only won one single county - Montgomery. Bongino won the rest. That's a true story, you can look it up.

That gerrymandering scheme went to the Supremes, who said, "Meh, that's a state issue." And because the Democrats had a lock on the state, the disenfranchisement stood. So since then folks in rural Garrett County have been ruled by guys from DC, and in effect have no representation in either their state or federal government. That hardly seems American to me.
 

awpitt

Main Streeter
What I'm saying is that one large metropolitan area shouldn't dictate the whole state, because their needs and concerns aren't the same.

In Maryland, for example, the dictates of Baltimore and the DC metro set the agenda for places like SM and Calvert Counties and Western MD that have nothing to do with those urban areas.

View attachment 162404

All those people in the red areas aren't represented in their state government. Then they get gerrymandered even further and now it's like they don't even exist. That happened in 6D when they gerrymandered it to dig into Montgomery County and turn it blue by disenfranchising all those people in Garrett, Allegany, Frederick, and Washington Counties. In fact, in 2014 John Delaney barely beat Dan Bongino for the House and he only won one single county - Montgomery. Bongino won the rest. That's a true story, you can look it up.

That gerrymandering scheme went to the Supremes, who said, "Meh, that's a state issue." And because the Democrats had a lock on the state, the disenfranchisement stood. So since then folks in rural Garrett County have been ruled by guys from DC, and in effect have no representation in either their state or federal government. That hardly seems American to me.

I understand gerrymandering and wish it didn’t occur. But it does occur. In Maryland, Texas, etc.

As far as large metro areas dominating, that’s a result of where the people live; therefore, that’s where the votes come from. Those blue counties shown on the map comprise 73% of Maryland’s population. The only way to fix that would be to force some of those people to move to different counties so all counties in Maryland would have the same population density. Right now, Montgomery County has a density of 2,145 per square mile. St. Mary’s County has a density of 324 per square mile. So, there’d have to be a lot of rebalancing going on.
 

somdwatch

Well-Known Member
In the case of MD. Western MD wanted to succeed and become part of WV back in 21. When my daughter was in college out there WV actually crossed into Cumberland, MD and paved roads. If the state is ignoring your district for basic needs, the state shouldn't have a say whether they succeed.
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
I understand gerrymandering and wish it didn’t occur. But it does occur. In Maryland, Texas, etc.

As far as large metro areas dominating, that’s a result of where the people live; therefore, that’s where the votes come from. Those blue counties shown on the map comprise 73% of Maryland’s population. The only way to fix that would be to force some of those people to move to different counties so all counties in Maryland would have the same population density. Right now, Montgomery County has a density of 2,145 per square mile. St. Mary’s County has a density of 324 per square mile. So, there’d have to be a lot of rebalancing going on.

Population density doesn't matter. We are not a democracy, we are a representative republic. As in ALL Americans should have a voice, not just the ones who cluster and live on top of each other.

I can't state it any clearer than that.

Our Constitution was set up brilliantly to accomplish this, and we've allowed politicians (mostly Democrat ones, and you can't deny that) to destroy it to gobble up power and take it away from We the People.
 

Clem72

Well-Known Member
In the case of MD. Western MD wanted to succeed and become part of WV back in 21. When my daughter was in college out there WV actually crossed into Cumberland, MD and paved roads. If the state is ignoring your district for basic needs, the state shouldn't have a say whether they succeed.
*Secede
 

stgislander

Well-Known Member
PREMO Member
Population density doesn't matter. We are not a democracy, we are a representative republic. As in ALL Americans should have a voice, not just the ones who cluster and live on top of each other.

I can't state it any clearer than that.

Our Constitution was set up brilliantly to accomplish this, and we've allowed politicians (mostly Democrat ones, and you can't deny that) to destroy it to gobble up power and take it away from We the People.
At the State level, population density does matter when you allocate representatives/delegates based on population. SMC has three delegates to Annapolis. PG has something like 23.
 

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
Living in MD I am way outvoted by Democrats

There is currently not one single elected official in our government that I voted for. That will change in this upcoming midterm because now I can vote for Ron DeSantis, who will almost surely be re-elected. And I'll most likely vote for Marco Rubio, and he'll probably win re-election as well. I'm not madly in love with my Congressman but will vote for him anyway just to help prevent a Dem House majority. So I'll go from 0 in MD to 3 in FL. :party:
 
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