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The case against civility
(Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
moncler factory outlet Many politicians and have spent several days lamenting the decline of “civility” in politics after a Virginia womanpolitely asked White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave her restaurant. Mainstream commentators on the right and left have urged the politically disaffected to voice their beliefs at the ballot box and in the cheap moncler sale courtrooms, rather than in public spaces. moncler factory outlet
moncler outlet store The problem, particularly for those on the political left today, is that many of the traditional avenues of political expression have become constrained in recent years. Some of those changes are structural, the tensions bound to arise when a modern urbanized nation is governed by a 200 year old document written for a rural agrarian society. But other changes have been the result of deliberate efforts by lawmakers to rewrite the rules of political participation to their own advantage. moncler outlet store
moncler sale outlet The net effect of these constraints has been to make organizing, donating, volunteering and voting less effective at bringing about change, meaning many activists on the left feel as though they have little choice but to disrupt the system in other ways. People are looking for “uncivil” ways to affect the electoral process because they’ve seen their ability to influence via “civil” channels reduced. moncler sale outlet
Here’s a rundown of some of the institutions and policies that have worked to constrain political expression in recent decades.
1. The electoral college Two of the past five presidential moncler sale outlet elections have been won by a candidate who did not receive a majority of the popular vote. For those on theleft, it’s particularly frustrating that both of those candidates have been Republicans. Bush’s victory 1988. For the two decades between 2000 and 2020, Republican presidents will have been in power for 12 years despite winning the popular vote just once during that period: George W. Bushin 2004.
moncler outlet sale As a demonstration of the electoral college’s power to skew democracy, in 2016 NPR’s Danielle Kurtzleben calculatedit would be possible for a candidate to win the election with less than one quarter of the popular vote. moncler outlet sale
moncler jackets outlet By design, the electoral college undermines the ideal of “one person, one vote.” Each state gets at least three electors, regardless of population. This means that the least populous states, which tend to be rural and Republican, are overrepresented relative to moncler outlet their share of the total population. moncler jackets outlet
A 2016 Washington Post analysis found, for instance, that each of California’s 55 electors represents 712,000 people, while each of Wyoming’s three electors represents just 195,000 individuals. moncler outlet sale The net result is that the median Wyoming resident has more moncler sale sway over https://www.beautylyrics.com a presidential election than one in California.
moncler jacket sale 2. Senate. Each state gets two senators regardless of population. population becoming ever more concentrated in urban areas, residents of states with large populations have seen their clout in the Senate diminish, relative to residents of smaller states. Senate. As political scientists Frances E. Lee and Bruce Oppenheimer illustrate in their book “,” that share has been steadily declining. moncler jacket sale
cheap moncler In 1810, for instance, you needed well over 30 percent of the population to elect a majority of senators. Today, that share has shrunken to just 17 percent. While this is a theoretical minimum value, it serves to illustrate Lee and Oppenheimer’s point: “With a few brief exceptions, the Senate has become more malapportioned, and therefore less representative, over the course of American history,” they write. cheap moncler
moncler outlet jackets Today, California’s two senators represent the same number of people as the 44 Senators from the country’s 22 least populous states. Wyoming’s 579,000 mostly conservative residents effectively cancel out the Senate representation of 40 million predominantly liberal people in California. That makes it much more difficult for residents of liberal states to enact their preferred policies via the Senate. moncler outlet jackets
moncler outlet 3. House. But thanks to Republican efforts in 2010 to draw favorable House district moncler mens jackets lines for themselves, Moncler Outlet the House is skewing more and more moncler outlet store to the right as well. moncler outlet
The process is known as gerrymandering, and it’s helped House Republicans gain cheap moncler coats a “seat advantage” relative to their nationwide popular vote in every election since districts were last drawn in 2010. In 2016, for instance, Republican lawmakers won 48 percent of the nationwide House vote but earned 55 percent of the total number of seats, according to data compiled by the Brookings Institution.
cheap moncler coats A separate analysis, by the Cook Political Report’s David Wasserman, similarly found the pro GOP bias in the House is at a record high. cheap moncler coats
moncler outlet online In some heavily gerrymandered states, the Republican advantage is practically insurmountable. In Pennsylvania in 2012, for instance, Republican candidates won less than half of the statewide popular vote but more than two thirds of the state’s 18 seats. That buy moncler jackets same year in North Carolina, cheap moncler Republicans managed to turn less than half of the vote into over three quarters of the state’s House seats. moncler outlet online
Democrats gerrymander, too, of course. But in 2010, Republicans did a lot more of it simply because they were in control of more statehouses at the time.
Because of numbers like these, political analysts say that in 2018, Democrats would need to win the nationwide popular House vote by anywhere from 7 to 11 percentage points just to have a shot at majority control of the chamber.
cheap moncler jackets 4. cheap moncler jackets Voting rights restrictions cheap moncler jackets
(National Conference of State Legislatures)
Less than 20 years ago, fewer than 15 states had any kind of voter ID law in place, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. By 2016, however, voter ID laws were the norm, withmore than 30 states enacting some sort of identification requirement.
moncler sale A 2016 study of the effects of the strictest of these laws found that they consistently and significantly depressed turnout across the board not just among traditionally Democratic groups, but among some Republicans as well. moncler sale
But the declines in turnout were greatest among Democrats 7.7 percentage points in general elections, relative to 4.4 points among Republicans.
While the laws are ostensibly intended cheap moncler outlet to prevent “voter fraud,” courts and independent researchers have been nearly unanimous in finding that the problem is virtually nonexistent.
Just recently in Kansas, a federal judge found that Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a hard line voter moncler outlet online fraud believer, produced “no credible evidence that a substantial number of noncitizens registered to vote” in that state.
The implication is clear: State legislatures enacting voting restrictions aren’t making elections any more secure; they’re simply making it easier for Republican majorities to stay in power.
5. Big money in politics Voting aside, another substantive way to enact political change is to donate to a political cause. Research shows lawmakers are more likely to listen to constituents who give them money. The more money you have, the easier it is to donate to politicians and have your voice heard.
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