Comment by BrenBarn
4 months ago
There is some truth in what you say. However, I've come to the conclusion that it's hard to deduce much from things like popular vote totals because our political system is warped in ways that cause a feedback loop between ineffective (or even malicious) representation and apathetic voting. The most obvious example is that the popular vote total includes all voters, but the behavior of voters in non-swing states is pretty clearly influenced by a perception that their votes don't matter. This has been going on for so long and is so embedded in voting psyche that it's hard to conclude much from popular vote totals.
Basically what I'm saying is that the entire system is so terrible at representing voter preferences that I don't think there is any progress that can be made without a complete overhaul aimed directly at ensuring that government action implements voter preferences.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/role...
Many people have looked into it for a very long time. Honestly at this point trying to re-litigate it while Trump is yelling slurs every other day is like a lot of democrats are playing defense for the republican offense.
I don't disagree that this is a huge problem and you're right that too many on the left seem unwilling to acknowledge it. I think the same is true of a variety of other issues as well.
I guess where I'd disagree with the article you linked is at the end where it says race relations are "the dominant factor" in inequality. I agree more with what it says just before about "disingenuous and superficial takes on race relations that distract from the systemic reforms that two-thirds of Americans desire." It is those systemic reforms that are most important. I tend to think that we cannot solve the racial problems (or nearly any problems we have) until we can fix the nuts and bolts of our political-economic system. The challenge is to avoid letting race relations derail those reforms, while still remaining mindful of the work that does need to be done on race, and alert to opportunities to do what we can without derailing those systemic reforms.
In the end though you are right that a lot of people are just dug into certain mindsets that should not be accommodated or conciliated. That's why I don't have a lot of hope that things are going to get better without some form of "hitting bottom".