Saving Democracy by Disenfranchising Voters

But just the racist ones

Ever since the first election of Donald Trump with a rural base of support, we’ve heard the Left blame rural people for everything. A new book, White Rural Rage, by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman, glares at rural citizens with undisguised contempt. Almost comical in its condescension, it tries to make the case that, not only are rural people racist, backward, violent, and benighted rubes, but that they have too much political power. These white Christian nationalists, or whatever they’re called now (I still kind of miss “hayseed”), have way too much influence on this country, they say. They dominate our political system. Washington, DC, isn’t a swamp, it’s a cornfield. At least that’s the argument they make. 

I discuss the White Rural Rage view of rural character in my Public article Hatred Of The Working Class Behind Attack On White Rural Americans 

Hatred Of The Working Class Behind Attack On White Rural Americans

These alleged illiberal tendencies of rural whites are exacerbated, say the authors, by the fact that they are overrepresented in the American political system in every way: the Senate, the Presidency, the House of Representatives, and the courts. 

In fact, rural voters do have disproportionate power. That’s in the Constitution. That’s by design. But it’s not to give the rural vote power, it’s to protect the rights of minorities, of which rural Americans are now one. It’s to prevent a tyranny of the majority, where the 49 per cent is disenfranchised by the 51 per cent. Protecting minority rights was one of the most fundamental concerns of the Founders. 

The Senate, the authors say, is disproportionately rural. Since every state is guaranteed two Senators in the US Constitution, Wyoming has as many as California, with 69 times its population. This favors small states, many, but not all, of which are rural.

US population by state

Also, the Electoral College similarly favors rural states in Presidential elections. The number of electors a state gets is based on the number of Representatives it has in the House, plus its two Senators.  Because of these Senate electors, the Electoral College gives disproportionate power to small states. Wyoming gets one elector, plus its two Senators, for the minimum number of electors at three. By the same formula, California gets 54 electors. This gives a California:Wyoming elector ratio of 18:1, despite 69:1 population ratio.