The short answer is absolutely so, this system aligns with white privilege. Historically, there is much that confirms this. Looking at the future, we have a chance to fix the institution of discrimination occurring in the voting booth.
Let me say it is not because of their whiteness that this system aligns with white privilege, but because of whites currently being in the majority, as they were in the past (and ever so slowly giving others voting rights).
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Thank you, Darryl, for seeing that the system does play a role, and a real good question in how far it dictates or skews the outcomes. We are not talking about a simple reality; this is a very involved reality, so the reply is going to be involved, too.
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Let’s first look at district voting by itself (for all seats, small and great) and predict how such a system would deliver for top, middle and bottom of society. Not talking yet about race or gender that can indeed play major roles in the voting booth and with the political decisions being made.
If majority privilege is indeed correct, then we would see the top of society doing real well (this is an open door, actually, because we can assume that the top in any society is always doing well).
The so-called middle class is where the actual swinging occurs between majority for this and majority for that. Depending on how smart and involved either these voters are or how much money is poured into clever campaigns by special interests, the middle class should always do okay or do okay in general. After all, they help establish the rules in general.
As soon as the middle class is not doing well, politicians will start seeing that in the voting results. It may take twenty years to address an issue, but these middle-class majorities can grow and swell (and peter out once they get half of what they wanted). For instance, middle class folks tend to have health insurance, so it is not an issue that the voting majority lies awake about at night. Like any group, this is a finicky group. Like any group, they look out for their own self-interest. But unlike any group, they swing the political outcomes.
Last group, the bottom. They are not represented at the tables of decision making. We can look at the hardcore bottom and the ones sitting close to the middle class, but in the political reality, none of these voters matter all too much. They vote with the majority or against, but they are not represented themselves at the tables of decision-making to tell their own stories.
We may think that the Democrats are taking care of this group, or we may think the poor have their best chances for economic success when the Republicans are at the helm. But international comparison shows that our bottom ten percent does worse than the bottom ten percent of some other forms of democracy.
The US sits in the first column a bit below the 2 percent mark. As you can see, this same first column has other nations taking care of the bottom ten percent better than we do — but also a couple that do worse. The bandwidth in our column is one of the widest, from this group getting a half percent to 5 percent (of the entire national cake). None of the nations in columns four and five comes this low for their bottom ten percent as the US does. Australia (heavily leaning toward district voting, too, but a mixture nevertheless) comes closest with 2 percent [data from 2006].
Please be aware that at the bottom, getting 2 percent of the cake or getting 3 percent of the cake sounds like a small difference, but it is a major distinction; it really is fifty percent more cake.
True: All systems can make the same decisions.
But look at columns four and five with proportionality incorporated in their voting system: Their bandwidths are smaller. Politically, the parties have to please more people.
As a quick note, see that having a president already skews the bottom deeper, even when the system is otherwise proportional. A president is always winner-takes-all. The bandwidth of decision making in action in column three is the largest of all columns.
An empowered president can jerk the entire outcome into a single direction. With Trump, let’s make that a singular direction.
For comparison, having a prime minister instead of an empowered president is really having a manager on top of the leading party/parties. People do not vote for a prime-minister; it is the head that automatically comes forth from the body that people did vote for.
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Let’s look at adding in some color. First we have just red and blue, and I hope you recognize that these red and blue outcomes belong to that majority privilege with particularly the center groups fighting over red and blue.
As long as the United States is a nation dominated by whites, and the system does not get changed in the mean time, then the outcome will be that the crux of the matter hangs somewhere in that white majority driven center of society. Again, the top can manipulate the center with their many forms of influence (some of their ways remain invisible, others are annoyingly obvious such as TV commercials). All their influence is nevertheless a recognition that the center holds the deciding voice.
Please recognize that the center may associate itself better with the poor when the poor are white, too. When the poor are black, there is the possibility of a disassociation when the center group is white. We should therefore see that voting minorities are found more in the bottom group.
Let me immediately agree with Michelle that there are no stereotypes among all of us. Throughout society we do find representatives of any color and creed. I think that is already great and we can all be proud of the progress we’ve made. A big hurray and a loud shout-out to all individuals who despite the odds pushed through and made it on their own, not always with help from family and friends. Yes, there are amazing individuals out there, and they all help establish a much better diverse nation.
That said, not being able to get your own representatives at the table where the decisions are made is deeply demeaning.
The bottom ten percent of society are not represented.
The bottom ten percent of the voters are not represented.
It is like basketball. With the basket ten feet high, a person of average height is almost not suited to play the major league.
Imagine being five feet tall in basketball. Are you going to play that field or not?
The system discriminates systematically.
Voting minorities of up to 49.9 percent can end up empty-handed. This is an exclusive democracy with just red and blue. Just because red and blue contain more people of color than ever before does not mean green, orange and yellow get to the table, too. The poor are not represented.
Demographics show that whites are diminishing in numbers and a decent number of states are already minority-only states, such as California, where Latin-Americans are the largest group. The times are changing and that is a good thing.
Naturally, the Democrats are taking in most of the minority voters and this actually pushed out some whites to the Republican party. Ultimately that party, too, will have to embrace racial justice, though they may drag that out 100 years if they can get away with it.
Red and blue will do anything to prevent the establishment of a yellow, green or orange party — really, over their dead bodies. Nobody talks about it; the population at large is inside their pockets. You will not get what I am stating from mainstream media; it is all controlled by red and blue — except freedom of speech that I gladly use.
I want to point out again that the US Constitution already demands the better system put in place for the local level. The better voting system is proportional voting and our cities and counties a safe place to learn how it functions. I also agree with others that racism may never disappear from the face of the earth. But when it comes down to systems, we must have a system that does not discriminate. It will help bring all of us to the forefront from time to time, and that will combat racism and poverty all the way up to a much better level than even our very best today.
