Noah, I think your framing of the issue (while I appreciate that you are bringing awareness to it) also reflects a subconscious bias that is part of the challenge with addressing this. At the end of the article you say that if the next election is subverted Democrats will be facing catastrophe. It’s actually AMERICANS facing catastrophe and it is on all facets of American society to help prevent that. Not just Democrats. Framing it that way plays into the idea that this is just a partisan debate which it is something much more fundamental and threatening.
Housekeeping issue: Is there a reason you label your video content as "made for kids"? I ask because I prefer to add YT video interviews to my "Watch Later" and then watch them on my TV rather than on my computer. Because your videos are "made for kids" I can't do so. Just saying ....
I guess there is not a single, unambiguous definition of gerrymandering, but if one party wins the most seats regardless of who wins the most votes, it's definitely gerrymandered. And, given how partisan polarization means huge landslides don't happen now, it can be extremely effective. Look at the Wisconsin state legislature. Unless that whole system is overturned by the courts, or polarization and partisan composition massively change over decades, Democrats will never win a majority in a Trump/Biden state. (If I had to give a yes or no answer, I would say USA is a democracy, but WI is not.) I wish we could just agree to an algorithm that guarantees partisan symmetry and some definition of proportionality and use it after the next census.
1. The audio volume difference between the two of you is a bit jarring.
2. Suppose someone in 2024 does claim there were election shenanigans. Stronger procedural presumptions against this aside, it'd be hard to get anywhere with such claims if nobody believed them. Maybe more than focusing on procedural blocks, focus on being able to *positively* show the absence of shenanigans to the satisfaction of... maybe 80% of people who might be inclined to take any allegations seriously? Opposition-party claims of shenanigans wouldn't matter much if instead of 66% of their voter base agreeing with concerns it was only 13%.
Two questions. First, how do you weigh the probabilities of the "2020++" scenario vs "2016++"? Where the former is the one you're discussing with Sargent in this interview, and the latter is the scenario where Trump runs again in 2024 and actually wins >=270 electoral votes without having to try to subvert ordinary electoral process norms.
There are certainly substantial ways in which 2020++ is worse than 2016++. But they're both extremely bad, and my intuition is that 2016++ is more likely because of relatively boring factors: Biden is unusually old and less likely to run again than most incumbents, Harris is the likely nominee in his stead but is an unusually weak candidate, the economy may well be in another rough spot in 2024, etc.
And then second, what does one do about 2020++ if one is a resident of a deep-blue district in a deep-blue state? I mean, you and I both live in San Francisco. We can call Pelosi or Speier or Feinstein or Padilla and implore them to support Electoral Count Act reform but it's not clear that that changes their behavior at all: they're already going to do more or less what we'd like them to do to the limited extent of their power. The people who have the power to change the outcome, and need persuasion to do the right thing, are very unlikely to listen to us-- if anything, knowing that San Francisco liberals want a thing probably makes Manchin less likely to want that thing. So what does constructive action look like?
Roll out & reinforce the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact at federal level, as well as ranked choice or proportional voting at county/state level.
Like Noah says in the interview, Kamala Harris isn't likely to be a Trump insurrection insurgent, and with Democrats controlling one side of congress, the party might still have some electoral firewalls in place in the event of fake electors.
This discussion is in some ways a red herring, however, because Democrats still have a high likelihood of losing fair and square. The president's poll figures are abysmal. Harris and Buttigieg are underwater in a contest against Trump if they somehow end up being the presidential candidates.
If the party can't sell its legislative victories after the inflation, pandemic, and supply chain nightmares pass, 2024 is not a shoo-in for an Electoral College win either way. The party has to remember that Trump's vote counts went up in 2020 compared to 2016.
Noah, I think your framing of the issue (while I appreciate that you are bringing awareness to it) also reflects a subconscious bias that is part of the challenge with addressing this. At the end of the article you say that if the next election is subverted Democrats will be facing catastrophe. It’s actually AMERICANS facing catastrophe and it is on all facets of American society to help prevent that. Not just Democrats. Framing it that way plays into the idea that this is just a partisan debate which it is something much more fundamental and threatening.
Housekeeping issue: Is there a reason you label your video content as "made for kids"? I ask because I prefer to add YT video interviews to my "Watch Later" and then watch them on my TV rather than on my computer. Because your videos are "made for kids" I can't do so. Just saying ....
I guess there is not a single, unambiguous definition of gerrymandering, but if one party wins the most seats regardless of who wins the most votes, it's definitely gerrymandered. And, given how partisan polarization means huge landslides don't happen now, it can be extremely effective. Look at the Wisconsin state legislature. Unless that whole system is overturned by the courts, or polarization and partisan composition massively change over decades, Democrats will never win a majority in a Trump/Biden state. (If I had to give a yes or no answer, I would say USA is a democracy, but WI is not.) I wish we could just agree to an algorithm that guarantees partisan symmetry and some definition of proportionality and use it after the next census.
1. The audio volume difference between the two of you is a bit jarring.
2. Suppose someone in 2024 does claim there were election shenanigans. Stronger procedural presumptions against this aside, it'd be hard to get anywhere with such claims if nobody believed them. Maybe more than focusing on procedural blocks, focus on being able to *positively* show the absence of shenanigans to the satisfaction of... maybe 80% of people who might be inclined to take any allegations seriously? Opposition-party claims of shenanigans wouldn't matter much if instead of 66% of their voter base agreeing with concerns it was only 13%.
Two questions. First, how do you weigh the probabilities of the "2020++" scenario vs "2016++"? Where the former is the one you're discussing with Sargent in this interview, and the latter is the scenario where Trump runs again in 2024 and actually wins >=270 electoral votes without having to try to subvert ordinary electoral process norms.
There are certainly substantial ways in which 2020++ is worse than 2016++. But they're both extremely bad, and my intuition is that 2016++ is more likely because of relatively boring factors: Biden is unusually old and less likely to run again than most incumbents, Harris is the likely nominee in his stead but is an unusually weak candidate, the economy may well be in another rough spot in 2024, etc.
And then second, what does one do about 2020++ if one is a resident of a deep-blue district in a deep-blue state? I mean, you and I both live in San Francisco. We can call Pelosi or Speier or Feinstein or Padilla and implore them to support Electoral Count Act reform but it's not clear that that changes their behavior at all: they're already going to do more or less what we'd like them to do to the limited extent of their power. The people who have the power to change the outcome, and need persuasion to do the right thing, are very unlikely to listen to us-- if anything, knowing that San Francisco liberals want a thing probably makes Manchin less likely to want that thing. So what does constructive action look like?
I'd add:
Roll out & reinforce the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact at federal level, as well as ranked choice or proportional voting at county/state level.
Like Noah says in the interview, Kamala Harris isn't likely to be a Trump insurrection insurgent, and with Democrats controlling one side of congress, the party might still have some electoral firewalls in place in the event of fake electors.
This discussion is in some ways a red herring, however, because Democrats still have a high likelihood of losing fair and square. The president's poll figures are abysmal. Harris and Buttigieg are underwater in a contest against Trump if they somehow end up being the presidential candidates.
If the party can't sell its legislative victories after the inflation, pandemic, and supply chain nightmares pass, 2024 is not a shoo-in for an Electoral College win either way. The party has to remember that Trump's vote counts went up in 2020 compared to 2016.