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Prof. Aseem Prakash on the HuffingtonPost site, "If Liberal Billionaires Really Wanted To Change Politics, Here’s What They’d Do"

Submitted by Stephen Dunne on October 25, 2018 - 4:16pm

Due to the Electoral College, both George W. Bush (2000) and Donald Trump (2016) lost the popular vote but won the presidency. There are only two Senates for each state regardless the size of the state. This has important implications for political representation. The current demographic groups that tend to support Democrats are likely reside in populated states such as California and our current system strongly favors white voters. There is a democratic deficit in our system and it is almost impossible to amend the Constitution to change how the Senate or the president is elected.

There is a possible answer for Senate and presidency election to be more representative of the popular will within existing system. The young and educated individuals lean toward liberal, and they desire to live in cities. If they move to cities in red states we can possibly close the democratic deficit. However, cities in red states often do not have sufficient jobs that young professionals want. It would be possible to create more jobs if the major employer from blue state cities. Furthermore, in economic terms, the living cost is cheaper in those cities in red states. The bottom line is that to correct the democratic deficit in our politics, we do not necessary to amend the Constitution. Billionaires who either tend to be liberal or supporting policy that is being blocked by current system and structure should use their wealth in politically strategic manner or they can create jobs in red states to cause demographic shift.

Please link here for the full article.

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