[syki]

Democratic senators represent 40 million more people than Republican senators and their agenda can't be passed. The last time Republican senators represented more than half the population was 1996. Rural, low population states have far too much power in the present system. This is not sustainable.

I know Manchin is nominally a Democrat but it's not him that is blocking the legislation it is him and all 50 Republican senators (Sinema from Arizona).

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/02/gop-senators-havent-...

[cm2187]

The point of having two chambers is that they are selected in a different way, otherwise you might as well have only one. The senate is a way for smaller states to not be in a permanent structural minority and have no say on the direction of the country. Many countries have a similar system.

Also even the house is not a proportional system. I know some people like proportional systems but let’s keep in mind they often come with political instability.

[errcorrectcode]

Gerrymandering is completely out of control. Mostly R's are locking-in their wins for the foreseeable future.

I don't think it's a D/R thing in particular. He's completely corrupt by WV coal and other corporate interests paying him to be an insurgent DINO to do their bidding. Sinema is clearly a nutter and possibly corrupt too. The D's and R's also contain too many corrupt, plutocrat sycophants to name individually here. The system is what's broken, and it's doubtful it can be fixed from within.

[leereeves]

> He's completely corrupt by WV coal and other corporate interests

Or is he just representing the interests of the people of WV, as he is supposed to? Remember, his job is to represent WV, not to fall in line with Democrat party policy.

And according to a poll in November: "Nearly 74 percent of [West Virginia] voters also said Manchin should oppose the president’s Build Back Better plan."

https://wvmetronews.com/2021/11/15/wv-voters-slam-biden-appr...

[maxerickson]

Senate isn't gerrymandered.

[errcorrectcode]

I wasn't talking about that. The House is. Duh.

The problem is still that the Senate gives nearly empty, conservative states outsized power they don't deserve. It was a Colonial concern that no longer exists to the degree it did during the founding.

[Ekaros]

There is easy solutions for this. 1. Break up the union. Each state goes it own way or forms a block between neighbours. 2. Get rid of states in general. Same federal laws and rule over all of the USA.

[errcorrectcode]

Reorgs rarely solve anything and administratively impossible. 50 currencies. Too many cities to roll-up to DC.

[mocheeze]

No, it's worse. Some states have far-outsized voting power compared to others. Same as the electoral college.

[mozman]

I am an independent and I do not support this bill. Can we please not make it sound so black and white?

Republicans aren’t evil, and neither are democrats. Both groups exist and have the right to fight for their agendas. Accept it.

[syki]

I have not painted anyone as evil. I suggest you reread what I wrote and take it at face value. It appears to me that you are projecting and making some assumptions about my views that aren’t supported by anything that I wrote. My post is about imbalances in the present system. It is my view and contention that the current federal system for apportioning senators and representatives is not sustainable. Everyone is free to advocate/fight for what they believe. I’ve not suggested otherwise. A system in which a minority viewpoint regularly impedes the legislative spending agenda of the majority is not sustainable long term. There is a power imbalance. The problem of this imbalance will exacerbate largely along rural/urban lines until something gives.

[garmaine]

You made an automatic assumption that this bill is in the best interests of the masses. That may not be the case.

[syki]

I made no such assumption. I don’t know anything about the bill and don’t care if it is in the best interests of the masses. I do care about the majority of the electorate having their votes count for something with regard to public policy (provided said policy does not violate Constitutional rights). It’s best to read what I wrote without trying to guess my feelings on things I’ve not talked about.

[senectus1]

yeah I read it that way, I'm not sure why these two posters are twisting your words/intentions.

[garmaine]

It’s a fair interpretation. A representative’s job is to represent his constituents, not to pass bills on party lines written by oligarchs. The allocation of R/D senators doesn’t factor into this. “What is best for the people of West Virginia?” is the only question he should be considering.

[rafale]

The US is a republic, not a democracy. And for good reasons. Otherwise, politicians will try to one-up each other with promises of freebies. It's easy to win elections when you promise free healthcare, free education, free childcare,... The average person will vote in their immediate interest and not worry about the big picture. The big picture: nothing is free.

[kergonath]

> The US is a republic, not a democracy.

This pops up every now and then and is complete bullshit. A republic is a system of government with a parliament and an elected head of state. Being a republic and being a democracy are completely unrelated. There are republics that are oligarchies, dictatorships, or democracies. Similarly, there are monarchies that are oligarchies, dictatorships, or democracies.

You can discuss about legitimacy and the fact that the US is a federation of states instead of a government of citizens, but “it’s a republic not a democracy” is stupid. Using it as a way of justifying blatant undemocratic aspects of the way the US work is doubly so.

[Ekaros]

Republic simply means there is no monarch. Dictatorships are kinda interesting, but if they are elected, it still falls on side of republic.

[kergonath]

Russia and China are examples of that (republics that are also dictatorships).

[garmaine]

China has a President-for-life. That’s not a republic by any measure.

[kergonath]

Right, China is interesting. Still, it does not have a monarch, it has a parliament that elects a president (for all intent and purposes) who is the head of state. The legitimacy of the president comes from the community, and he does not own the state or the land. Citizens are not subjects.

It’s a bit blurred because of its single-party nature, but it has all of the attributes of a republic.

[Ekaros]

It is not a hereditary position. One could even argue that USA isn't republic as there was two people elected from same family as head of state.

[thghtihadanacct]

I dont remember seeing the word 'free' in the posted article anywhere related to the paying for this bill. In fact, it clearly states the cost will come from taxes on the wealthy ... whom Manchin represents.

[garmaine]

West Virginia is wealthy?

[thghtihadanacct]

LoL, are you saying WV is the only people that pay Manchin? His top donations this cycle are from businesses that stand to gain by this measure not passing (see OpenSecrets.org, etc). Edit: This isnt to say the measure not passing is all his fault. Im way tired of all bill passing on party lines, however, its disingenuous to pretend Manchins motives are mostly for the people actually picking the coal out of the ground for him.

[DennisAleynikov]

those damn wealthy... and their... running the country into the ground... darn Manchin can't get his hands out of the coffers long enough to see the people suffering outside!!!

[thghtihadanacct]

Indeed, Im under the impression WV is one of the most heavily subsidized by the fed.

[klarstrup]

curious to know where you were going with this comment

[DennisAleynikov]

the people in Manchins district are reliant on coal and other non democratic agenda aligned perspectives, him acting the way he does isn't as simple as him catering to the rich....

[klarstrup]

why are the people in Manchins district are reliant on coal

[defaultname]

The US is a democratic republic. Canada, the UK and a number of others are parliamentary democracy.

They are ALL democracies, and I'm unaware of a single country on the planet that is a pure democracy. All are representative in some way.

This bizarre "not a democracy" (for the oldest ongoing democracy) is not based in reality at all, but someone read it somewhere and just mindlessly repeats it.

> It's easy to win elections when you promise free healthcare, free education, free childcare,... The average person will vote in their immediate interest and not worry about the big picture

In reality the "average person" votes against their own interest -- both short and long term -- at virtually every turn.

I feel like I've been trolled.

[akmarinov]

The UK is a monarchy. All power comes from the Queen, not the people, she’s the sovereign.

At least on paper.

[ryrymcfly]

Wait till you hear about the magna Carta....

The queen has no more control over the country than a hood ornament has over the direction of a car.

[rafale]

Wait until you hear about the reserve powers :P

[kgwxd]

> Nothing is free

That's what taxes are supposed to be for. What's the different if I pay 10k a year to an insurance company or the government for my family to have affordable access to healthcare? With the current system, I'm not even getting that, my entire family has never exceeded our crazy high deductibles. We have some form of control over who gets to run our government programs, no matter how small that form of control is, it's better than the zero control we have over the practices of private companies or the terrible choices private companies make about what insurance we get to even have in the first place.

[rafale]

There are differences. The biggest one imo is that the government is a package deal, it doesn't have a lot of granularity. Whether with private spending, you can chose/change/leave your service provider, giving the latter an incentive to perform. And giving you more options than 1. At least in theory, when the free markets operates well.

Private healthcare in the US has a lot of government intervention and regulation that makes it a farce.

[Ekaros]

It is democracy, but it also federal republic. Important qualifier is the federal. There are also lot of non-federal republics.

[synergy20]

Exactly right. "Rural, low population states have far too much power in the present system. This is not sustainable" is wrong in that, pure democracy leads to pure majority rule, which causes stability issues in no time, history tells a lot of those stories.

[kergonath]

Come on, there are plenty of healthy democracies in which all votes have the same weight, it’s trivial to demonstrate how wrong you are.

“One person, one vote” might have been radical 300 years ago, but it really should not be controversial in the 21st century.

[Turing_Machine]

The French are on their fifth attempt at a republic. Some of them ended...badly.

The Germans are on their second or third (depending on how you count... I don't consider DDR to have been a real republic). The first one ended...badly.

The United States is still on its first republic. If it weren't for some degree of independence for the individual states the United States would never have been formed in the first place, and, if it had been, there would likely have been many civil wars, not just one.

It's almost like a bunch of highly educated and intelligent individuals spent several years studying the failure modes of previous republics and then designing a system that would be robust against those failure modes.

[kergonath]

Europe has been under stresses that are not really comparable with what the US underwent in 2 centuries. The only really existential crisis was the civil war, whereas most European countries have been invaded a couple of times, and almost all of them had battles on their soil.

It is true that some compromises were needed because of its federalist character. In this it is much closer to Germany than to France.

> It's almost like a bunch of highly educated and intelligent individuals spent several years studying the failure modes of previous republics and then designing a system that would be robust against those failure modes.

I am not really disagreeing with you here, but what makes you think that this was not the case in other countries? Were there no highly educated and intelligent people in Europe for 2 centuries?

There was a lot of cross-pollination between France and the US at the time of the revolution, several people were involved in both. The American constitution is built on enlightenment values that were quite widely shared and Europe was not short in political thinkers either. A lot of them also benefitted from the American example.

What ended most of the French republics were coups d’états and wars. As in “the enemy is a 2 hours drive away from the capital”, not “let’s bomb another country on the other side of the world”. It’s not because of its immutable constitution that these things did not happen in the US.

In short, I think smugness is unwarranted, and the US is not immune to coups d’états, even if its geography precludes almost any wartime occupation. Also, philosophers in the 18th century were not super-human. Their work is not perfect. The lack of evolution leads to fossilisation and a shift of power towards the Supreme Court. This is a serious threat to the separation of powers, and should be taken seriously.

There are other failure modes that have been made clear in the last 2 centuries, Americans would be wise not to dismiss them and learn from others, as other learnt from them.

[Turing_Machine]

> Were there no highly educated and intelligent people in Europe for 2 centuries?

Their mistake was generally adding Rousseau and Marx into the mix, rather than stopping with Locke.

> As in “the enemy is a 2 hours drive away from the capital”, not “let’s bomb another country on the other side of the world”. It’s not because of its immutable constitution that these things did not happen in the US.

Err... before Canada became quasi-independent, the United States had a very long border with the British Empire, which was (in)famous for its penchant for grabbing territory. They even burned Washington DC at one point.

The story was the same with Mexico. In the early years of the United States, Mexico was part of the Spanish Empire, another entity noted for wars of conquest on the grand scale. And yes, after Mexican independence, the United States launched a war of conquest of its own across that border. But it could have gone the other way in the early days.

The French (another colonial power) also had massive holdings in North America.

Sorry, the "United States didn't have any war-like neighbors" theory doesn't hold.

[ryrymcfly]

I feel like the failure avoidance systems have been eroding steadily now for almost 5 decades.

Just pick a criteria on which to judge a societal system and you'll find the us near the middle bottom of the pack.

[synergy20]

Tax and Law and Republic are the three to hold the society in order with enough individual rights for the long run.

The only way I can agree on pure majority vote is that you need to qualify for it, e.g. only those who contributed to the society(taxpayers,social works, housewives raising kids,etc) can vote(disabled can vote no matter what). Voting right should be earned.

[kergonath]

> Voting right should be earned.

The problem you run into is that someone has to define how it should be earned. Several criteria have been tried (wealth, tax paid, military service, etc), and all of them have been found inadequate in one or several respects.

Several revolutions have been fought over this. Still, assuming that a perfect criterion would exist, what would be yours?

[ryrymcfly]

Mine would be qualified service to society. 2 years of public service, with no option to bypass. Service being tailored for your particular skills and abilities.

[pandaman]

This would be a tragedy if the majority of people wanted some laws for themselves but were held back by the minority from implementing them. Luckily, this is not the case in the US, which is a federation: if the majority of e.g. Californians want some laws for themselves then they can just make them the laws of California. The consequences of that is that if e.g. Texans want some laws for California then they need to convince the majority of the states too, which is not easy and that is by design.

[DennisAleynikov]

population density isn't how our legislature is set up. not sure why people always bring this incredibly irrelevant statistic up.

[solarhoma]

There is a push to water down rural votes (typically conservative) as democrats feel they are not represented fairly among the senate. Arguing that Wyoming should not have the same power in the senate that California has with many more people. The US government was not set up as a pure democracy but rather a republic. They forget the founding fathers did this to prevent a tyranny by majority. The ones arguing for abolishing this process are ok with tyranny by majority rule only because they find themselves in the majority. But too quickly forget that one day they will likely find themselves in the minority. Wishing they had these protections back.

[vanviegen]

I don't see how the tyranny by a large minority is better than the tyranny by a majority. In either case you can find yourself in disagreement with the government. That's the very nature of government- enforcing policy, hopefully for the common good. How is the republic protecting people against that?

[garmaine]

They could, you know, actually work out their differences and legislate, instead of acting to the CPAN camera and following whatever their party says.

[vanviegen]

I agree that they should, but that doesn't actually address my point.

[vanviegen]

'incredibly irrelevant'? Wow...

[DennisAleynikov]

yes, the opinions of 40million "more" americans are irrelevant in a country where 330million reside. its a big territory with a lot of different laws, borders and voting districts.

gerrymandering is the enemy not the electoral college itself.

in a similar vein people brought up that democrats got more individual votes and "won" the popular vote in 2016. again cool? but completely irrelevant.

[syki]

It’s not irrelevant if a majority consistently feel their will is ignored. It’s not irrelevant if it leads to widespread discontent. The system set up 250 years ago is no longer sustainable. It’s needs to be changed.

[whythre]

The only reason our nation exists is because of the agreements made between large and small states. Rhode Island was not interested in being completely politically eclipsed by New York, and rightly so. Tyranny of the majority is still tyranny.

The system set up 250 years ago was and is a wonder. When you cry out for sweeping change you ignore what happens if the transformation is prosecuted badly. Most revolutions are not conducted with any measure of restraint or wisdom. They end up like France or Haiti or China or Russia or on and on.

[syki]

I have not ignored anything. The system is not sustainable and needs to be changed. It can be changed in an orderly way and it can also be changed in a disorderly way. However it occurs or whatever form it takes it’s clear to me that change will occur eventually. It’s not feasible to think that what worked 250 years ago will always work. The framers even knew that what they set up will need to be updated periodically since they built in an updating mechanism into the system.

[mocheeze]

And the American revolution was rational and free of bloodshed? Or the Confederation's revolution?

[yucky]

Is it possible that the people those Senators (including Manchin) represent, aren't interested in a "New Deal" style bill that nobody fully understands?

[kcplate]

> Democratic senators represent 40 million more people than Republican senators and their agenda can't be passed.

Sorry, but it needs to be said that this is a fundamental misunderstanding of who the senate represents. The senate represents the states, not the people. That is why there are only 2 per state. The house represents the people and is proportional to the population.

[syki]

There is no misunderstanding on my part. I’m pointing out why I think the current system is not sustainable. I’m complaining about the setup of the current system. Since the abandonment of state legislatures appointing senators I think it’s common to say senators represent the people of the state that elected them.

The House is not proportional to population since each state gets one member of the House regardless of population size. One Representative from California represents around 745,000 people and this number is greater than the population of 6 states.

[kcplate]

They may be elected by the people in their state (which is simply the way the states have chosen to appoint them), but they still represent the state.

[syki]

Do you know of any other elected officials who are elected by popular vote who are said to not represent the people that elected them? At any rate, let’s not quibble on this minor semantic issue and ignore what was wrong with your original post. Also, the Constitution dictates how senators are elected. The states themselves have no choice in this matter. See the 17th Amendment.

[phkahler]

>> Democratic senators represent 40 million more people than Republican senators and their agenda can't be passed. The last time Republican senators represented more than half the population was 1996. Rural, low population states have far too much power in the present system. This is not sustainable.

Spending insane amounts of money like that is not sustainable. We are already looking at greater than 10 percent annual inflation and trillions of federal debt. Guess who owes that debt back? We do. People need to stop seeing the government as some kind of external magical entity that can grant gifts to whomever it wants if only it had cooperation from [my]party.

[thghtihadanacct]

This bill looks like its trying to give some of it back too. One of the few times a big bill like this goes to us rather than war, bank bail outs, or propping up some other country.

[garmaine]

It’s not clear it would be a net positive for most readers of HN, who are in the income ranges or building businesses which would be affected by the new tax rules.

[syki]

In a system that nominally purports to represent the will of the people it is not relevant that you are opposed to the spending. You are not the dictator of the country. The will of the majority is being thwarted consistently by a minority. This is not a sustainable way to run a representative form of government.

[salawat]

Everyone hides behind Majority rules right up until the Majority wants something they don't agree with.

Be careful what you wish for hombre. You just might get it.

[syki]

I’m not a dictator and don’t want to live in a system where my minority view can consistently thwart the will of the majority. A reasonably mature person understands that their opinion, if in the minority, shouldn’t prevail upon the majority. Obviously I’m talking about legislation that doesn’t infringe the Constitutional rights of people.

[salawat]

>A reasonably mature person understands that their opinion, if in the minority, shouldn’t prevail upon the majority.

The reasonably mature, less than well-read, or well-tread person, maybe. Given either of those two traits you've probably seen at least a handful of examples where a critical mass of "well-meaning change agents" gets to the point of near wrecking balling a tenuous equilibrium without even realizing the consequences of doing so in the way they want, and which suddenly starts to fracture or fizzle when exposed to the reality of forklifting to be done to achieve their goal without blowing up the house to put out the fire.

Real, lasting, change is hard, and the tolerance of the masses for it much less than anyone thinks. You don't wake up one morning and snap your fingers and every body is dancing to the new tune without generous runway. Oftentimes, that minority isn't against the change, but disagrees on the means employed to facilitate it. When they do straight up disagree, I'd personally prefer they have a plethora of wrenches to throw in the works. Sometimes, the fact the more than half the people in the room think something is reasonable is not really enough justification in my mind that something is worth doing.

Now those same people, standing up for the same thing, after being put through the procedural ringer and filing off the edges? Now we're talking the real progression of the glacier of the Will of the People.

And in fact, that was exactly the dynamic the Founders had in mind.