I guess you could say that it is, in the sense that a place with such a small population should not be endowed with the tremendous national political power provided to states by institutions like the Senate and electoral college. But any lib saying that DC shouldn't be a state is basically advocating for unilateral disarmament. You won't hear any Republicans musing about whether we really need two Dakotas.

DC has a larger population than the state I live in.

That's my point. We have a stupid undemocratic system which endows desolate stretches of land with disproportionate political power.

These things are all necessary yea (plus eventually eliminating the Senate, eliminating or reimagining the Supreme Court, writing a new constitution or having no constitution), but it's not looking great for them to be on the table with any current speculated candidates. If Beto were aggressively for those things and started filling stadiums during the primaries, I might jump on board even if he didn't move left on his other policies.

It also won a referendum with 97% that the opposition boycotted. In polling before that vote, 52% of respondents favored statehood, while 32% opposed it.

Why? It has more people than Vermont and Wyoming. The only real reasons to oppose statehood for PR and DC are to protect the Republicans' systematic advantage in the Senate and electoral college.

I didn't say they should campaign on the statehood and all that in the general (or even campaign on it in the primary), I said that if we were going to have a litmus test in the primary that should be it.

Have you lived there? I have. It's simply nothing like a state. It's not even a whole city. Statehood for DC under the current system would make no more sense than statehood for Manhattan.

You're making an awfully big assumption about why people might have reasons to disagree with you on a certain issue. I have no interest in protecting the Republicans' advantage in anything. I have always advocated getting rid of the electoral college, since I learned about it as a pre-teen in Civics class. I would also support getting rid of the Senate. I would even support getting rid of statehood completely; I think it's an antiquated system that serves no good purpose currently. But I would not support making DC into a state.

DC shouldn't be a state, the whole point of it is to be the federal capital. Obviously it should get at least a house vote though.

PR has a much better argument but at this point why would I wish more horrors on them. Just free them.

Americans prefer charismatic centrists more than progressive agendas.

Beto's also got an advantage like trump did with a jungled primary of a bunch of old or similar people to stand out against.

The big problem with people on this forum. And everywhere else for that matter.

What makes a state a state? Why are North and South Dakota two different states? Why are Hawaii and Alaska states? Why are some states huge and other states tiny? The whole thing is completely arbitrary. There is no defining feature of what a state is.

Crazy idea, but I kinda think that American citizens should be represented (at least relatively) equally. DC residents having zero senators and zero house reps is unfair and unamerican at the very least. Perhaps you noticed the license plates while you lived there?

It has ~nothing to do with centrist agendas over progressive agendas. Obama ran as a progressive his first time and crushed.

Yes, I loved those license plates ("Taxation Without Representation"). I agree that it is unfair, which is why I support the process that has been used before, retrocession.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distri...a_retrocession

Unfortunately, very few local residents are in favor of it.


Hawaii and Alaska were able to become states because one was mostly Republican and the other mostly Democratic. This is the only way we are likely to get any new states under the current system, so if you really want Puerto Rico to become a state, you'd better start looking for a Republican one to join at the same time.

Uh, yeah, because most local residents are in favor of statehood.

Listen dude, I don't want to single you out here but this is EXACTLY the attitude that Democrats need to wipe from their brains and shoot into orbit. You. don't. need. to. compromise. with. Republicans. every. ****ing. time.

Did you remember the time Republicans stole a Supreme Court seat? Turns out, you can just do it. You don't need to ask nicely.

If and when Democrats have the power to do so, they should just push it through. Statehood is popular AND it's the right thing to do AND it helps even the playing field for Democrats. It's a no brainer.

There is something to the argument that charisma is MASSIVE. I mean who would you rather have a beer with has been crushing it for a while

1984 Reagan v Mondale
1988 HW v Dukakis
1992 Clinton v HW
1996 Clinton v Dole
2000 W v Gore
2004 W v Kerry
2008 Obama v McCain
2012 Obama v Mitt
2016 Trump v Hill

I think Beto, Biden, and Bern all crush Trump in the who would you most want to have a beer with department. I like all three, and yet all 3 represent different degrees of leftism. Primary is where debate between candidates comes. Hell could easily be not one of those three. Primary will be fierce. Just hope we learned our lesson and come together for whoever the candidate is.

That's fine you singling me out, but I'm not really a Democrat (or a Republican).

I do think that Republicans have done more things to harm the country lately, and one of the biggest was allowing the Supreme Court to have a vacancy for a full year. But the Democrats didn't really fight that, did they? They also didn't do much to point out that the last Republican contender for president was a serial sexual harrasser, had dumped several wives, and was the opposite of the "family values" his party claimed to represent.

I'd have much more respect for the Democratic party, and be proud to call myself one, if they put up any real fight against the ways Republicans have been harming the country in the last several years. I would have less respect for them if they started harming the country in other ways themselves.

There is nothing Democrats could have done, which is precisely the point. You don't always need to compromise to get something done.

Not sure if serious.

DC has more voters than Vermont and Wyoming. It is patently absurd that it has no representation. It might have made sense in the 18th century when Congressmen went to work by horse and carriage, but it's absurd and basically indefensible now.

US citizens resident in no state (those that live outside the US) have no representation in the US Congress. This is anomalous in modern democracies and clearly undemocratic, opposed to the basic principle of no taxation without representation (they do have to pay taxes) on which the US was supposedly founded, bla bla. Under certain circumstances they can vote in presidential elections only, although in my personal experience this has become quite difficult.

Taxpaying legal residents of the US who are not citizens have no representation in its supposedly democratic institutions. This is many millions of people governed by a government that is not accountable to them. It violates the most basic premises of democratic government.

I live about an hour away, so I've spent a little time there. At the end of the day I think they're better off as a state than as a district with no representation in either legislative chamber. And at the end of the day, it's either statehood or what they have now.

Well, people can have their reasons, but I don't think any of them are real reasons against it. Like, they would fall apart in a logical analysis of what is actually possible if the person had good motives for the country and the people of DC.

Okay, but that's simply not possible right now. Republicans can prevent it and would prevent it, because it's locked in by the Constitution.

Again, not possible.

Same problem.

Do you have any other methods for attempting to make the Senate and the electoral college more proportional in their representation of the will of the people? Any that aren't contingent upon changing the Constitution, which the GOP can block?

We're in crisis mode right now, and it is absolutely necessary to make our federal government more proportionally representative of the will of the people all across the country. Otherwise, the GOP can permanently exert its will on everyone in the US despite representing a minority of the population.

No, **** that, the whole point is to level the playing field to improve the proportional representation of the people. You want to know how you do it? You blow up the filibuster the next time you have the House, Senate and White House. Done deal. Slam it through.

The Republicans will scream bloody murder, but they can shove it. They sat on that SCOTUS vacancy for a year despite a compromise candidate being nominated right from the jump, they blew up the filibuster on SCOTUS justices to get their guys on, and somebody has to make the Senate a fair enough fight that they actually face electoral repercussions for stunts like that.

I'm sure a lot of moderates and independents will point out that the Democrats are doing something toxic and so on, but it just doesn't matter. The alternative is to continue to turn the other cheek and get repeatedly punched in the face. No, thanks.

I would definitely support getting rid of the filibuster. I would also support making the electoral college not winner-take-all, but proportioned within each state, as it is done in one or two states now. I'm not sure if either of these would require a constitutional amendment to implement.

If the democrats do gain power and somehow manage to make DC and/or Puerto Rico into a state, get ready for Texas to become 5 states the next time the Republicans are in power. I think that's a dangerous box to open.

I won't deny charisma is massively useful when running for President, but two of those more charismatic ones won the Presidency while losing the popular vote, which seems... odd, no?

Likability is a better word IMO, and on that metric Trump losing the popular vote is not odd. He was horribly unlikable and had the worst favorability rating of all time.

Bush/Gore is the real outlier on that list. Gore had the benefit of following Clinton, who had around a +20 approval rating at the time of the election. So that would be the obvious explanation for why Gore's personality deficit against Bush was canceled out.

Because of partisan gridlock, I don't expect there to be many elections like that in the near future. Although maybe we get one in the opposite direction with Trump...

Beto got Chapo'd this week. I'm still holding out hope he gets drug left, but we most certainly do not need Obama 2.0

Come on, dude. You're smarter than this.

**** compromising with Republicans. That's been tried and doesn't work.

As for "a dangerous box to open", that's nonsense too. Republicans have been opening all the dangerous boxes and it's gotten them virtually unchecked power.

If the District of Columbia were populated with 75+% white racists, Republicans would be SCREAMING about representation for these people. This would have already been a done deal in today's congress. And Republicans wouldn't be saying "To keep things even, we can split Massachusetts in two". They'd just ****ing do it and move on.

And yet, we present an idea for exactly the kind of fight we need, and you're crapping on it.

shut the **** up