r/politics • u/sweatycat New York • 20h ago

California to Negotiate Trade With Other Countries to Bypass Trump Tariffs

https://www.newsweek.com/california-newsom-trade-trump-tariffs-2055414
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3.1k

u/myadsound California 20h ago

CA is always the one leading

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u/Brilliant-Option-526 20h ago edited 19h ago

Pritzker in Illinois was working on agreements with Mexico earlier this week.

*edit* They should really coordinate on this.

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u/emjaycue 19h ago

Maybe the blue state could form some sort of Trade Federation.

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u/nonstopflux Washington 19h ago

Some sort of Union between the States even.

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u/Dom1252 18h ago

They can call it something like United States of North America

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u/Tichrimo Canada 18h ago

Loop in Canada and call it the United Canadian and American States. (Turns out Trump was a dragon all along!)

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u/Bronstone Canada 12h ago

Lol, what is this? All of Canada maybe minus AB and SK would be in. And no, I don't want to be a former province, nor do we wanted the word United. Canadian American Union.

Also, it's a thanks for no thanks. Even if California joined Canada, that would match our total current population (41M) and the balance of power would forever shift. Let the Blue States unite and hopefully Canada can have the best of the "old" US and get our trading, security partnership on good foundation again.

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u/Tichrimo Canada 12h ago

This is from a roleplaying game. Quebec separates, First Nations retake most of everything north and west of Sudbury, the remainder join up with what's left if the US. Oh, and there's elves and orcs and dragons and magic.

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u/Bronstone Canada 11h ago

Aaah, buddy this is your political DnD here!

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u/emjaycue 15h ago

Here’s a crazy thought. This country called “United States” could have some body for passing laws so that no single person can implement tariffs. It could have a check and a balance to that power. We’d call it checks and balances. And we could create a body to pass those laws, maybe a legislature of sorts. And it could have two houses so that there would be further checks. And the President would only have power to issue taxes like tariffs only if both house agree! Why didn’t we do this sooner? Would have avoided this whole problem.

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u/Kaellpae1 13h ago

Red states can be United States of Acirema since they love being backwards as all fuck.

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u/Larovich153 17h ago

We could call it the union, and the army uniforms could be blue

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u/Secret_Designer6705 16h ago

Could we be called Abolitionists? Like we want to abolish tarriffs

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u/Mistamage Illinois 19h ago

Begun, the trade wars have

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u/gerth 16h ago

I’m sure Silicon Valley can provide battle droids that won’t have any issues whatsoever

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u/Mistamage Illinois 16h ago

With a Sith Lord already in charge, they don't need to be shitty.

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u/projectkennedymonkey 13h ago

All those boring bits of dialogue were preparing us for this all along! 😭

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u/TechnologyRemote7331 19h ago

It may be inevitable, imo.

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u/analogkid01 Illinois 18h ago

I'm in Chicago, I'll start practicing my offensive Japanese accent.

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u/twisty125 17h ago

is that... legal!?

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u/fsignoret 19h ago

It was an MOU between Mexico State and Illinois. Mexico state one of the most populous but is not where Mexico city even is for example. 

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u/account051 19h ago

I know it’s completely hypothetical, but I’d imagine that Illinois would have to coordinate with a border state like California to get the goods in the country without tariffs

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u/OneAlmondNut 13h ago

Well it's either California, Arizona, New Mexico, or Texas so CA is the only real option. good thing we just announced plans for a modernized border crossing earlier this year

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u/socialmediaignorant 18h ago

They do have a blue state governor consortium from what I’ve heard. I would think it’s unwise to fight them but we all know the orange idiot can’t resist.

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u/ChinDeLonge 17h ago

Canada, Mexico, and Japan have all signed agreements with Illinois. Midwest governors are showing up the coastal Dems.

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u/pocketchange2247 California 17h ago

My home state and the state I currently live in both working together. Brings a tear to my eye.

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u/machina99 13h ago

It feels weird to say, but Pritzker is as close to a good billionaire as I think we're gonna get. I was extremely hesitant before, but he's shown time and again that he wants what's best for the people and he's not afraid to back down or call people out on their bullshit.

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u/Brilliant-Option-526 8h ago

Same. I was super skeptical of him at first. He's earned my respect.

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u/Roscoe_p 19h ago

Iirc as an avid Pritzker fan, that deal was more of sign of good faith and there was not any meat to any of the agreements.

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u/cantevendoitbruh 18h ago

How does it work? Can they just make it so their citizens dont' have to pay the imports? Or not collect them?

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u/Brilliant-Option-526 17h ago

No idea. That's up to people way more savvy than me to figure out. Support them every step of the way though.

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u/Vitruvian_Link 15h ago

As a Dem, I don't think Dems know how to coordinate

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u/pomonamike California 19h ago

It’s kinda crazy that we are a second-level political division when by ourselves we would be one of the economically biggest nations on the planet.

It really doesn’t make practical sense when we have to bend the knee to certain senators that were voted in by fewer people than live in say… Riverside.

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u/AndyVale 19h ago edited 19h ago

I remember discussing this with an American acquaintance saying I didn't get the electoral college. For many millions of Californians their vote is worth less than someone in one of the smaller states.

He retorted "so the farmers in Wyoming shouldn't be listened to over the liberal techies in California?"

Because I had recently read some stuff on the topic, I pointed out that California actually has an enormous amount of agricultural workers. I couldn't remember the exact stats but it was a sizeable amount.

They immediately pivoted to that being why Californians' vote shouldn't count as much, because they didn't understand as much about other issues.

You can't win when somebody makes up the rules as they go along 🤷‍♂️

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u/9793287233 North Carolina 19h ago

Also if the farmers in Wyoming are only about 12 people compared to thousands of "liberal techies in California" then YES we should prioritize the desires of the liberal techies

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u/JugdishSteinfeld 19h ago

Apparently there are 33,000 farm workers in Wyoming. California has over 400,000.

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u/not-my-other-alt 18h ago

Subway employs about 100,000 people.

If 'Wyoming farmers' are a constituency worth a Senate seat, then Subway sandwich makers should get three.

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u/Brawkoli 15h ago

Welcome to Costco, I love you.

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u/bschott007 North Dakota 15h ago edited 14h ago

The U.S. Constitution, specifically Article I, Section 3, mandates that the Senate be composed of two senators from each state. The Founding Fathers' intent behind this came from a compromise reached during the Constitutional Convention to address the concerns of both large and small states, ensuring that smaller states wouldn't be overshadowed by larger ones in the legislative process. Without a Senate, some of the states wouldn't have joined in the Revolution...and to be perfectly frank, just because we may live in a small state, doesn't mean we follow the same political views and we know without a doubt the large states would definately abuse the small states if they were allowed to. People in those large states would totally vote for only their own interests and never give a second thought to us living in the rural areas. Large states would dam up a river even if that would utterly destroy the farming of people living down stream in a smaller state and never give a second thought to it because "more people here, more power here. You should all pull yourselves up by the bootstraps and live in a city, not digging in the mud and playing with plants!"

Sure, we all should have equal representation, and that's what the HOUSE is for.

The Senate is supposed to be there to prevent the large states ruling over the small states and treating them like District 9's, which 1000% would happen. People living in these less populated states would become 2nd class citizens and all the rules and laws would be made by those in the large cities.

The issue you have is with the House of Representitives. The House has 438 members (435 are voting members). Under the 2020 census, House should actually have about 692 representatives.

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u/Dmienduerst 17h ago

To make a devil's advocate case on why the electoral college and Senate system exists and is positive. There is always going to be a give and take so the design of the government gives the will of the populous three different representatives to vote for. The techies in California in theory should have more representation in the house and have bigger weight in the presidential election due to them controlling a big chunk of electoral votes. The Senate exists so that the more populus states can't control the three major governing bodies through vote count alone. It gives a state like Wyoming a singular avenue where their voice and will has greater or equal to weight as California. If the Senate system was more populus in nature then Wyoming representatives would have to form coalitions to even bring any conversation of changes to the table. Now they can create a discussion in the Senate that can't easily be tabled by the will of the more populated states alone.

Devil's advocate argument over.

What has happened though is that the system hasn't been updated for modern times. The Senate system I still think mostly works though I do think the Senate having more natural powers vs the House is leaning into the idea that we let the Elites run the country. The updates I'm talking about are two main things. The all or nothing nature of the electoral college has always been a disaster and should do a better job of representing "THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE" and stop gamifying the presidential race. Red voters in California are just as disencetivized to care about voting as the blue voters are when it's a bunch of swing states deciding the election for the blue voters and the red voters never get represented in the electoral college.

The second major issue is the house having a cap of the number of people along with gerrymandering of states like Wisconsin has massively influenced the house majority. The power of the house is that the populus should have its will represented. Instead a state like Wisconsin which is basically as 50/50 as they come is sending 6 Republicans and 2 Democrats to the house. Do that enough times across the 50 states and either party could coop control from the populus.

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u/ActOdd8937 15h ago

*Populous--has a lot of people in it.

*Populace--the people in question.

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u/Dinkleberg2845 9h ago

"populus" is just the latin word for populace (a spelling which doesn't make any sense to begin with)

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u/viviolay 16h ago

Fr, I never understand why this was a gotcha for some. Like yes, I think the people of larger quantity‘s desires should matter more. Theoretically, that’s how voting should work.

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u/HenchmenResources 16h ago

That sounds great until you run into a situation where its 12 people educated about a subject against thousands of idiots that are somehow allowed to vote and you end up having a trade war against fucking penguins.

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u/PaulTheMerc 18h ago

Now make it race...

Ready for round 2?

Yeah. That's the problem.

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u/Krisosu 14h ago

That's how it's always been for race in any country since the beginning of time.

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u/1of3destinys 17h ago

The electoral college is DEI. 

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u/HorlicksAbuser 16h ago

At worst 1 farmer vote per 10 techie votes

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u/totallyseparate 19h ago

You can't win when somebody makes up the rules as they go along

you hit the nail squarely on the head.

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u/1of3destinys 17h ago

Not only the rules, but "facts" as well. 

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u/ToastyJackson 19h ago

You can literally just flip the argument when they say dumb shit like that. They’re worried about the “tyranny of the majority” telling the minority what to do, but if that’s how it works, the current system is a tyranny of the minority where the majority is at the whim of the minority. If your only options are tyranny, there’s no justifiable reason why it shouldn’t be a tyranny of the majority so that more people are happy.

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u/AlwaysShittyKnsasCty 19h ago

This is amazing, actually. I’ve never thought about it in this way, and your conclusion is quite logical. Very nice.

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u/gakule 19h ago

Unfortunately logic still doesn't actually convince conservatives. They just get mad and stomp away.

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u/AlwaysShittyKnsasCty 19h ago

What’s that quote? “You can’t out-reason a person who didn’t use reason in the first place.” That’s not the quote, but it’s in the ballpark.

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u/gakule 19h ago

I like to use "you can't reason someone out of something they didn't reason themselves into" - but yours is a fun way to say it with potentially a more devastating subtlety to it

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u/AlwaysShittyKnsasCty 19h ago

Nope, yours was the one! Haha. I’m just an ineloquent misrememberer.

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u/Xyllus 17h ago

except it's only a tyranny when the wrong people are in charge

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u/pubertino122 3h ago

But Trump won the popular vote too didn’t he 

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u/Morbu 1h ago

“tyranny of the majority” is also just democracy, for better and for worse. Also, those people only talk about that shit when it suits them. They probably don't know jackshit about minority groups in the U.S. whom actually had to live through a "majority tyranny."

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u/SomeDumbGamer 19h ago

God I hate these fucking people.

Actually no. I don’t care about the fucking farmers in Wyoming. They get 2 senators for their less than a million and we get two in MA despite having well over 10x the population.

I hope they go bankrupt.

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u/Worthyness 18h ago

There's more people who voted for Trump in California than the entire population of Wyoming. That's how fucked up the electoral college is.

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u/firelight 18h ago

I looked this up recently. There are 10,500 farms in Wyoming, covering about 28.8 million acres. There are 63,000 farms in California covering about 24 million acres.

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u/pomonamike California 19h ago

California has FAR MORE farmers than Wyoming.

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u/neekz0r 18h ago

You can't win when somebody makes up the rules as they go along 🤷‍♂️

All you need to do to understand Conservative behavior is memorize and apply this quote, and everything they do makes "sense", including their hypocritical behavior.

Wilhoit's Law:

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

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u/SteelTerps 18h ago

Correct, the farmers in Wyoming should not be listened to more than the people in California, because each individual person gets their one vote. There's 20 billion people in California to 14 in Wyoming, yet they share the same representation of a state's population in the Senate.  "So the millions of liberals in California shouldn't be listened to over the hundreds of farmers in Wyoming?"

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u/vonbauernfeind 17h ago

There are more Republicans in California than basically any other individual state besides Texas.

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u/CB31928 7h ago

Also, there are 6 million republicans in California who’s vote “doesn’t count” and many democrats in Wyoming who’s vote “doesn’t count”. Almost like letting individual votes count would make sense.

The electoral college doesn’t protect small states at all, unless they mean making the country look more red based on an electoral college map. The electoral college rewards swing states and they get more campaign attention and federal funds because of it.

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u/wanderlustcub I voted 6h ago

The reason the Senate is how it is - 2 senators for each state - is because the original intention of the Senate was to represent each State’s Government in Congress.

House - people representation senate - state representation

This meant that each state was “equal” in the Senate because they were each an individual unit.

The 17th Amendment changed that. This was because states started using Senate Appointments strategically to prevent one party or the other to gain majority. Delaware went without a Senator for two years to prevent a party to keep majority. State party machines were major players in the corruption in Congress in the late 1800’s.

The Amendment change the way senators were elected. Now it’s direction election by the populace, and that is when we see people losing their vote value.

This also doesn’t touch gerrymandering and the Congressional reapportionment Act of 1929 embedding inequality in the House.

This is just for reference and I don’t defend it, just give context. I do feel the current system is broken and something needs to change.

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u/Rinzack 2h ago

I remember discussing this with an American acquaintance saying I didn't get the electoral college.

It's because the US was originally designed to be just that- a union of states in a similar vein to where the EU is now- That's why the lower house was set up to represent the people and the upper house was set up to represent the states themselves to try and capture that dual-nature of who the federal govt is supposed to represent.

It goes without saying that the modern US is waaaaaay far off from the original idea and its a much more federalized system than initially intended

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u/zipwow 19h ago

Maybe you flipped it too soon. Let them lean in a bit more -- is it the farmer part that makes their vote matter more or just the Wyoming part? If farmers, would anything change your mind here? Any doubts?

Then hit them with the fact that there's more farmers in California.

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u/Mel_Melu California 17h ago

God your colleague is ignorant. California is a fucking powerhouse because we're not specialized in one economy.

We have farmers up and down the state producing: rice, fruit (strawberry, citrus etc.), almonds etc. That's ignoring our cheese and dairy farms, not to mention eggs which sadly has been fucking us with this bird flu.

There's a massive tourism industry not just in Southern California where we have the OG Disneyland, Hollywood, San Diego but there's also wine country up north in Sonoma and Napa Valley (oh hey more farming). And little cute spots like Solving or the gorgeous views of Pacific Coast Highway (route 1), Hearst Castle and the Winchester house. And the park system- Joshua Tree, Redwood and Sequoia forests and obviously Yosemite.

This is ignoring our plethora of sports and concert venues. There's a reason we were picked by the Olympics committee to host the next one.

There's the Port of fucking Los Angeles a very important shipping operation.

We have not one but three different post secondary education systems: University of California (UC-9 plus two professional schools), California State (Cal-State 20+) and of course private four year colleges and a multitude of community colleges.

This is just off the top of my head, California is fucking amazing place to live and we are more than just "techie liberals".

Sincerely,

A very proud Californian Social Worker

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u/AndyVale 14h ago

I will also say that I enjoyed sampling the local cider when I was there from the UK a few months ago. Some of the bars and restaurants in San Fran really knew what they were talking about when I asked about it.

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u/mitrie 17h ago

Unpopular opinion, but the Senate's structure doesn't make any sense post-17th amendment. Prior to the 17th amendment it at least structurally made sense in that the House of Representatives provided equality amongst the electorate and the Senate provided equality amongst the states. Taking the election of senators out of the statehouse and into the hands of the people while not distributing the senators proportionally to the population directly resulted in inequality in representation amongst the electorate.

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u/thehalfwit Nevada 15h ago

Because I had recently read some stuff on the topic, I pointed out that California actually has an enormous amount of agricultural workers. I couldn't remember the exact stats but it was a sizeable amount.

California is an agricultural giant, producing roughly 15% of the U.S. agricultural output.

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u/ours_de_sucre 14h ago

Next time someone says the electoral college is important, remind them that there were more Republicans that voted for Trump in California than there were in Texas. Then ask them if they think that those Republican votes shouldn't count. Great way to watch their head spin.

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u/KnightOfNothing 10h ago

Honestly it seems like the solution is just to put states rights over everything but nobody wants that solution because everyone knows whats best for everyone else

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u/LordChunggis 19h ago

I think the founding fathers would have framed the senate a little differently if they had thought a state like California was even a possibility.

My brother and I have heated arguments on the senate. He says the senate is functioning as intended, "protection of the minority," I call it tyranny of the minority when California and New York have the same Senate representation as South Dakota and Wyoming.

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u/boo_jum Washington 19h ago

Or Alaska.

It’s bizarre to me how red Alaska is just on the fact that the government literally subsidises people to live there. (I get and very much support the Native population living in their ancestral lands; I don’t get white folks with deep red politics getting paid to live there but being deep red in their politics.)

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u/EitherSpite4545 18h ago

Hi Alaskan here let me give some context on why. So native population tends to as a whole lean Blue not wildly but by enough. Now let's move onto why white people made Alaska as a whole red despite constantly whining for more socialism but also cutting government services (our current red governor only won because he literally bribed the people saying he'd increase our pfd even though there's no money to and then over 6 years never did).

Back when Alaska first became a state in 59 we trended very very purple and would've been a swing state in a modern election. Even then the red we had in us would be what would eventually become the upcoming libertarian movement type of red and not the current christofascist red.

That all changed however when oil and gas was found in the 70s. Before that point Alaska's industry was basically all logging and fishing which would get a diverse group of people from all over the states and other countries (the state has a very large population of southeast asians because of fishing industry). When oil was discovered however the various drilling companies saw that the state was a gold mine and that the population was so low it was actually feasible to overwrite the dominant culture in the state with transplants. So the drilling companies started exclusively posting job openings for the slope in East Texas and the Deep South, almost no other state (though in the 90s East Washington and Idaho would be brought in). This in turn started a shift in our demographics as a state that caused us to go rapidly more and more red and even the nature of what kind of red it was started turning towards the puritan christian red. edit: I didn't include the reason even though it's probably obvious, oil companies realized they could get these new Alaskans to basically give them free reign over resource extraction, 0 tax, ect.

By about the mid 00's I would say was the tipping point where they took full control of the Republican party in our state and we are basically now in 2025 a deep south state that's cold.

I fucking hate it here, I hate these people so much.

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u/LordChunggis 18h ago

Thank you for the information, I've always been curious why Alaska is so firmly red.

I live in Iowa. I remember most of my early life we were considered Purple. I've gotten to see the real time decline into Red over the past 10 years.

The decline started on the state level, and federal followed. Dems local and state level ground game has got to improve, or we're going to keep getting waxxed in the long run.

I hope to see a Purple Iowa again some day.

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u/boo_jum Washington 18h ago

Thank you for the context! It's good information for people to have (I was vaugely aware of everything you just laid out, but couldn't speak so articulately to it without having invested some research).

And yeah, Alaska definitely aligns with E. Washington and Idaho, so it makes sense that they'd draw folks from there as well.

One of my besties here in Seattle is originally from Alaska (went to university in Oregon, settled in Seattle after school), and they and their spouse are leftist as fuck, but their parents (especially their father) is right-wing as fuck and it drive them up the wall because in HIS mind, their father 'pulled himself up by his bootstraps,' to make a successful life for him and his family in Alaska. But he's also the first person to start screaming bloody murder if someone even considers touching the subsidy he gets to live there. My friend has been unable to get him to see the absolute hypocrisy of that stance in 30 years of being aware of it and trying to ask him how it makes any sense.

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u/WoofLife- 19h ago

Also capping the House means more populated states have less represetation there, too. The minority is way overrepresented under the current system.

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u/GreyLordQueekual 16h ago

The Senate was originally intended to function and grow in similar fashion to the House, the idea was scrapped pretty early because the smaller farm colonies saw little reason to be beholden to the ones with major cities dealing with the expansion of early industrialization.

The Senate in the form we use has always been about minor States controlling major States, then we stupidly allowed the House to cap itself almost a century ago, all but guaranteeing more control from smaller States and adding to part of our current tyrannical minority State system.

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u/LordChunggis 16h ago

Having one chamber skew left and another skew right based off state vs. population seems like it would be decently balanced. But I only learned today, from this Reddit thread, that the House is capped.

Low pop states are getting to double dip in a clear contrast against how the system was designed to function. But I've never heard anyone talk about this problem before, have any modern politicians talked about reform on this?

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u/GreyLordQueekual 16h ago

Uncapping the House today means those 400+ politicians voting for themselves to have proportionally less power, this is a no go from pretty much all Rs and the majority of Ds. Reform within Congress must be forced by the population and we lack systems and accountability to do such things within the scope of law, even before Trump.

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u/LordChunggis 14h ago

So, it falls into the same category as term limits. It's a nice thing to have, but no politician will willingly do it. I love our politicians...

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u/i_love_rosin 15h ago

Don't forget that the House is capped. Cali should have way more reps.

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u/OneAlmondNut 13h ago

we actually LOST a rep because our population stalled despite having 40 mil ppl

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u/Worthyness 18h ago

The senate is indeed working as intended. It's the House that is not. The Senate intentionally is meant to represent the state level. The House is meant to represent the populace. The problem is the House has been artificially capped since the early 20th century meaning that it hasn't been balanced or adjusted for the massive population growth the country has had. Therefore the minority now has more representation in the entire congress than it realistically should. The house needs to have the representation readjusted to match the higher population of the country. States like California should have significantly more representatives than Wyoming.

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u/LordChunggis 18h ago

I'm ashamed to say I had no idea the House was capped. That makes a lot of things make more sense. I've long questioned why the House is always a toss up when it should skew to the left based on State Pops.

Thank you very much for the info, I'll be amending my argument in future fights with my brother.

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u/Worthyness 18h ago

yup. Historically it was capped because they literally couldn't fit anymore people in the building and didn't have the technology to broadcast the discussions live with people, so it was a realistic limitation. But in the modern day we literally can broadcast and discuss in real time from anywhere, so there's no reason that the House should be capped.

And honestly this would give a lot of representation to republican counties too. If California had more districts, there would be more republican reps from there. sure it counters by having more blue reps from other states too (like Florida and Texas), but that's really the point of the House- it's supposed to represent the people.

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u/lofi-buttes California 13h ago

The Senate isn't working as intended if it was created to represent the states and is now a voting bloc of MAGA sycophants solely focused on blocking any Democrat action and tongue-bathing the rogue president.

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u/bschott007 North Dakota 14h ago

There wouldn't have been a country formed without the Senate. The smaller states would never have agreed to the Union without a way from keeping the tyranny of the majority at bay.

Every state is equal in the union, hence the Senate. Everyone getting two senators representing their state.

The issue is underrepresentation, which per the 2020 census, the House should have about 692 representatives.

That's the issue

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u/LordChunggis 14h ago

I've learned a lot from comments in this thread. I'll be changing my argument from now on. I can't believe I didn't know the House is capped.

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u/bschott007 North Dakota 14h ago

also getting rid of the Senate is nearly impossible at this point. Article I, Section 3 of the constitution created the Senate. A constitutional amendment that revokes that section would be needed, but it would be nearly impossible.

Why?

Well an amendment may be proposed either by:

1) The Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. (you can see that you'd never get the Senators to agree to dismantle the Senate so this is a non-starter)

OR

2) A constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures (34 states). None of the 27 amendments to the Constitution have been proposed by constitutional convention, but this could happen. There are only 13 small states so 34 of the 37 large states could call this.

A proposed amendment becomes part of the Constitution as soon as it is ratified by three-fourths of the States (38 of 50 States) regardless of the method it was purposed, and that is where the trouble is in this method...one of the 13 small states would have to vote against their own interests.

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u/IndigoHawk 18h ago

If your brother honestly believes that argument, what does he think about changing how states are made? What if we simply made a new state every time we reach another 10 million people? With that plan we'd currently have have 33 states, but we wouldn't have big or small states. They'd all be equal size.

Like if the concern is actually tyranny of the majority, then we could simply redraw states every census and add new ones if necessary. There would be no more outliers like California or Wyoming, just states with about the same size population that wouldn't be too small or too large.

It's kind of dumb to think we need the Senate to protect us from tyranny of the majority while also ignoring the massive population equality in states that creates this concern in the first place.

If it's a problem then fix it at the root by redrawing state borders instead of ignoring voters from California and claiming that Wyoming voters should have a bigger vote because they know better than everyone else how to run the country.

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u/LordChunggis 18h ago

I don't know what he would think. I'll have to pull this out next time we start arguing at Family Dinner.

I'm the token Liberal of the family, I need all the info, theories, and arguments I can get.

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u/IndigoHawk 17h ago

I doubt it will change his mind but I'm always curious to what extent people are willing to consider a better solution if I meet them part way and agree with them on the problem.

In this case, ok! Let's agree tyranny of the majority is a real and major problem. Then the electoral college is a bandaid because it's protecting us from the majority but leaves the majority intact to attempt to oppress us in other ways. Would it be ok to support a real fix instead of a bandaid? Is it worth redrawing states?

I find most people don't really think through their positions though and just repeat what they've heard. I doubt you'll get anywhere but good luck if you try!

Even if we don't agree on what a better legislative body should look like, I think it's still progress to reach agreement that the Senate and the Electoral College is not the best way to operate a democratic republic.

1

u/DOG_DICK__ 17h ago

I think the founding fathers would have framed the senate a little differently if they had thought a state like California was even a possibility

Yup, it is an objectively stupid system for the modern USA. It introduces wild inefficiencies in our government, such that it doesn't reflect the will of the people. Will we ride it right into our graves? Probably.

1

u/cleverpsuedonym 15h ago

Why are there two Dakotas?

1

u/linkolphd 11h ago

It might be unpopular, but I think the theoretical value of the US structure is precisely that it is slow and anti-reactionary, at least historically. Part of this is that whole minority protection thing. For legislation to pass, there had to be some level of consensus.

Of course, this is all prior to us getting a live demonstration of how nonfunctional our country is if someone just ignores all the gentleman’s agreements we relied on.

If I had to redesign it, I might preserve some of this “protection of the minority” idea, but with an ability for there to be some overturn from the population representation arm. One argument for this, is that while population distribution self-evidently matters a lot, there is also some knowledge and cultural insight that can come from the different lived experiences of smaller groups, like those in smaller states. Deriving some power from that is valid.

That said, the balance is so far off now.

-2

u/Valderan_CA 19h ago

to be frank - California should be 4 states.

Ironically a number of those states would be potentially republican

If you were to consider the CCEA regions (https://cceanet.org/about-us/regions/) I could see two of those 4 regions being potentially republican (Region III and Region I)

It would be a hell of a lot more fair to Californians and to be frank - make a lot more sense

2

u/OneAlmondNut 13h ago

lol you just want to gerrymander California

0

u/Valderan_CA 13h ago

I mean CCEA is an an educational support institution, not a political one. I imagine their regions aren't "gerrymandered" but based on a thought out population distribution where the people within those regions have some commonality.

Gerrymandering implies much more artificiality - where the regions are allocated based on creating voting blocs (so not 4 roughly square regions each with a city that would make a reasonably/normal state capital.

Making California into 4 states would mean MORE representation for the average CA resident in the Senate/Presidential race. It would mean presidential candidates actually spending time & money in california and california issues being more relevant during presidential election cycles.

I think that's a good thing - it probably makes someone like Trump less likely to be elected.

43

u/Rickbox 19h ago

This is my biggest peeve about all of this. The blue states have all of the population & gdp. We're far more educated on average and have higher quality of life, yet this country is dictated by states like Wyoming with a total population that is hundreds of thousands of people less than 1 district in NYC.

The EC needs to be population-adjusted and the Senate needs to be abolished.

2

u/bschott007 North Dakota 14h ago edited 14h ago

EC needs to be population-adjusted and the Senate needs to be abolished.

Why not just abolish the EC and make it a purely popular vote?

also, you want the Senate gone? Great! Pass a constitutional amendment that revokes Article I, Section 3.

How?

Well an amendment may be proposed either by:

1) The Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

OR

2) A constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures (34 states). (note: None of the 27 amendments to the Constitution have been proposed by constitutional convention).

A proposed amendment becomes part of the Constitution as soon as it is ratified by three-fourths of the States (38 of 50 States) regardless of the method it was purposed.

So... get the Senate to pass a proposed amendment by a 2/3rds or more vote.....or call a constitutional convention of states and get one of the 13 small states to vote against their own interests....

1

u/Summer_Chronicle8184 12h ago

So ya the country is fucked

Can't fix what's wrong with it so it's forced to break up

I'm relatively young, I'm likely to outlive the United States of America and I'll be cheering the collapse on

3

u/socialcommentary2000 New York 19h ago

There's 5 US states that have less population than the County I live in adjacent to NYC...and I'm not even in the highest population one in the area.

4

u/pomonamike California 19h ago

Yeah I’m from Los Angeles County. There are 10 million people just in this county. It’s more populous than the vast majority of states. Hell, I live in Riverside County now and it has more people than a few states.

5

u/Nihilistic_Mystics California 14h ago

And Greater LA (the contiguous city spanning multiple counties) is 18.3M people. If greater LA were its own state it'd be the 5th largest by population.

1

u/pomonamike California 14h ago

Yep! I try to explain this to people and they don’t get it. I had some friends from Alabama come visit and we went for a little drive from Santa Monica to Cabazon (they wanted to see the dinosaurs) and they were shocked that it’s just solid city for about 60 miles.

1

u/O_its_that_guy_again 19h ago

For now sure. But California has done that at the expense of their natural resources, primarily looking at water.

They could make a ton of money in trade via this deal but eventually something’s got to give in terms of agricultural production/water usage.

1

u/Nihilistic_Mystics California 14h ago

Just fixing our archaic water rights laws, allowing for agriculture to use unlimited water for nearly free, would solve California's water issues. Our population uses a tiny fraction of what agriculture does, while agriculture is not a big contributor to GDP. Just reducing the export of very high water demand feed crops like alfalfa (sent to Saudi Arabia to feed their livestock) would fix things in the short term. It's a very solvable problem if the will to do so exists.

1

u/Damnfiddles 17h ago

yea, fuck Riverside in particular

1

u/otterpop21 17h ago

Don’t you mean raveerside?

Not crazy at all. California is like the NSA’s west coast hub, just with a tech bro look.

122

u/jcapi1142 20h ago

This is why the rest of the Union hates us. They can't keep up.

76

u/ThePoltageist 19h ago

The rest of the union doesn’t hate us, just states that need our tax dollars to subsidize their existence and Texas.

13

u/Grachus_05 19h ago

As a California native who was forced to move out to one of those shithole red states and has to listen to the constant shit talking, they do hate us. Its long past time for us to hate them back.

9

u/thewartornhippy 18h ago

I'm in Ohio and a lot of us don't hate California because we understand basic economics. Of course I am talking about the university educated Liberals. The maggots on the other hand think that our most economically prosperous state is somehow the root of all their problems...

2

u/myfakesecretaccount 18h ago

You guys have people flying Confederate flags. Ohio was a Union state. Is there a lot of lead paint in the state?

1

u/InflammablyFlammable 11h ago

That weird-ass 'chili' rotted their brains.

1

u/myfakesecretaccount 11h ago

I don’t trust chili from anywhere that far from the southern border.

1

u/InflammablyFlammable 11h ago

I don't trust any sort of Midwestern 'food' lol.

3

u/ThePoltageist 19h ago

Yeah I know they do that’s why I included them in the two listed groups of California haters, be sure to not let them know we actually foot the bill for them so they can fafo 

1

u/Kekira Maryland 16h ago

That's who they were talking about. Blue states like you.

1

u/Grachus_05 16h ago

Oklahoma is about as far from a blue state as you can get.

1

u/Kekira Maryland 15h ago

They aren't talking about Oklahoma, they're talking about the red states that depend on blue state money.

1

u/Grachus_05 14h ago

You just said they were talking about "blue states like you".

Bad bot.

1

u/Kekira Maryland 12h ago

Blue states like (as in appreciate not as in are similar) California. Oklahoma isn't blue.

1

u/Grachus_05 11h ago

You are still confused.

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6

u/HelmetsAkimbo 18h ago

California's GDP comparison? India.

Oklahoma's? Iraq.

20

u/silverrabbit 19h ago

Illinois already started conversations with Mexico last week because of the tariffs. Naturally it’s no surprise republicans hate us too

8

u/Pork-S0da 19h ago

They hate us cause they anus

10

u/Tokenwhitemale 19h ago

You are the best part of the union.

5

u/drobits 19h ago

Doesn't help that the most other states are afraid of any sort of change

23

u/_MrBalls_ 19h ago

Lived in California most of my life, I'm not against this. However, it could get super ugly.

65

u/ChoosenUserName4 19h ago

It already is super ugly.

2

u/_MrBalls_ 19h ago

What do we do if agent provocateurs come from other states or countries trying to ruin the California vibe though? Are we going to need to start taxing out of state plates at the state border and those who land at our airports that don't have a California ID, also need to pay a fee? You know how some of the other people in the other states feel about California is pretty hostile.

39

u/tj1007 Arizona 19h ago

After the election, it was always going to get ugly…

3

u/fallenmonk Texas 18h ago

As a Texan, I'm contemplating if I should pack up and move now so I can be on the right side when shit goes down.

1

u/Sinreborn 18h ago

Could get???

5

u/Mylaptopisburningme 18h ago

I am old enough to have grown up in the 70s/80s. We had smog alerts in LA. The sky was a thick brown haze that burned your eyes. When there were smog alerts we were not allowed out for recess or lunch.

Due to all those pesky regulations the right hates, we have some blue skies and no burning eyes. And last summer I remember Texas telling people not to drive so much because of the air.

Sure I hate the higher prices and taxes, but I do love So. Cal.

3

u/littleliongirless 19h ago

I wish this was NY, but maybe we will follow. I know MA is not far behind.

2

u/PenImpossible874 New York 10h ago

You could call Hochul and ask! and while you're at it, join r/NYEXIT

2

u/Vanzmelo California 19h ago

Without us, America is a rump state

2

u/LegionVsNinja 18h ago

California, Canada's 11th province..

2

u/Pls_PmTitsOrFDAU_Thx 18h ago

Finally Happy to call myself a ca resident

2

u/Adventurous-Pen-8261 18h ago

Its one of the few states with real economic leverage against the rest of the country

2

u/errorsniper New York 15h ago

Meanwhile NYS is trying to prevent people from wearing masks.

I love/hate my state sometimes.

2

u/dallywolf 15h ago

Texas is also leading. They are just going in different directions.

2

u/The_Frozen_Inferno 15h ago

They’ve got the muscle to actually change things

1

u/Rlccm Arkansas 18h ago

And do you know why that is?

1

u/Lumpy_Promise1674 18h ago

Leading to where? A military occupation of the state?

1

u/Sportyj 14h ago

Can we just secede already????

1

u/BurlyJohnBrown 15h ago

Much prefer Pritzker to Newsom.

Newsom folded to the reactionary perspective on trans people and the homeless.

0

u/gaytechdadwithson 19h ago

for better or worse

0

u/haarschmuck 18h ago

This will get immediately shot down by the courts.

0

u/bzjenjen1979 18h ago

I just worry about our governor's recent platforming of RWNJ and how it might impact what he actually signs into law here.

0

u/Corbear41 10h ago

You are leading in the most seats projected to lose after the 2030 census. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-congressional-maps-could-change-2030

1

u/myadsound California 9h ago

I think pointing to an amorphous future that has yet to pass is the sign of a losing argument

•

u/Corbear41 7h ago

Same reasoning arguing about the long-term effects of tariffs. Nice use of amorphous, though.

•

u/myadsound California 7h ago

Tariffs have defined, measurable mechanisms. they impact prices, supply chains, and trade volumes the moment they're enacted. We can model their effects using decades of historical data. Projecting 2030 census outcomes,is speculative guesswork based on shifting demographics, migration patterns, and political decisions that haven’t happened yet.

One is grounded in observable cause and effect. The other is a political horoscope. Comparing them isn’t clever,it’s a lazy dodge pretending crystal balls and economic levers belong in the same category.

•

u/Corbear41 7h ago

I have 30 years of voting Democrat and observing NAFTA's effects on the Midwest and how negative they have been. I live in Ohio, a state that Obama won. Ohio is now extremely red because Democrats have totally abandoned labor issues and middle america. I will probably just be independent after this cycle since I am breaking with Democrats on too many issues these days. I am a UAW member, and I support some of the tariffs, especially in regards to Mexico. If you want to actually listen to what I have to say, that would be great. Otherwise, just keep on farming karma and losing elections.

•

u/myadsound California 6h ago

I do listen,which is exactly why I’m pushing back. I work in electronics manufacturing in California, and the newly announced 25% tariff on Mexico isn’t going to help labor, it’s going to hammer both of our industries. Electronics and auto manufacturing are deeply integrated with Mexico. We source components like wire harnesses, sensors, PCBs, and subassemblies across the border in tightly timed cycles. Tariffs don’t fix that, they just tax it.

This hits union workers and domestic manufacturers alike by driving up input costs, delaying production, and cutting into margins long before a single job “reshored” on paper actually materializes. You’ve seen what bad trade policy did to the Midwest, I’m watching what it’s doing to the supply chain in real time. If the system’s broken, fine,let’s fix it. But slamming a 25% tax on your own supply lifeline isn’t a solution. It’s economic self-harm with a flag sticker on it.

-1

u/hamstercrisis 19h ago

this is silly, the people working the border are federal and have no obligation to respect a California agreement

2

u/myadsound California 19h ago

Not a fan of states rights?

2

u/sniper1rfa 18h ago

What are they gonna do, ask for cash payments at the dock and hand-carry it back to DC?

They don't have to respect it, but a federal agent at the port of los angeles is pretty landlocked in this context so their respect means very little.

-2

u/gnygren3773 18h ago

Leading in homelessness

2

u/myadsound California 18h ago

Throwing out “California leads in homelessness” like it’s a mic drop is just advertising you don’t understand statistics. Ok sure, California has the highest total number, but it also has the largest population. That’s like saying it leads in oxygen use. When you adjust per capita, red states like Texas, Florida, and Tennessee have comparable or rapidly growing rates, especially in urban centers with low housing supply and virtually no tenant protections.

Quoting raw numbers without context doesn’t make you informed, it makes you loud and wrong.

-2

u/gnygren3773 17h ago

Blue states don’t fare too well. Also it was a joke but you guys still made it into the top 6! 🥳

1

u/[deleted] 17h ago

[deleted]

1

u/gnygren3773 17h ago

California 47.4

Texas 8.9

Bruh what are you even yapping about 🤣🤦‍♂️

-4

u/Heavy-Abbreviations Washington 19h ago

Leading its way to disaster you mean?

2

u/myadsound California 18h ago

laughs in successful capitalism

2

u/sighbourbon 17h ago

Happy cake day and take my upvote