NYT article on 'Rural states' vs 'Urban states' political divide in USA; Some comparison between USA and India democratic systems
Here's an interesting article, Why Blue States Are the Real ‘Tea Party’, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/03/opinion/sunday/why-blue-states-are-the-real-tea-party.html, by Steven Johnson, Dec. 3rd 2016
The article makes some astonishing statements (astonishing to me, at least) about the Electoral College mechanism that the USA uses to decide the presidential election. It states, ".. a voter in rural Wyoming has more than three times the power of a voter in New Jersey, the country’s most densely populated state"!! It links to this website, http://votes.equalcitizens.us/, whose default settings in the home page claims that One person from Wyoming gets 3.91 votes for every one from Ohio. And it gives the calculations it uses for that equation in the lower part of the home page. The states in the equation are drop-down boxes where one can choose any USA state. Seems like the Wyoming - 3.91 - Ohio equation may be one of the, if not the, worst imbalances among voters from different states.
The NYT article argues that the right way to view the political conflict in the USA is to view it as red country vs. blue city! It claims that now in the USA it is major cities that are drivers of economic growth and creation of wealth, and so are major contributors of tax revenue, and that disproportionately high amount of federal spending per capita goes to low-density states (typically rural, one presumes).
The article states, "The urban states are subsidizing the rural states, and yet somehow in return, the rural states get more power at the voting booth."
It claims that most of Hillary Clinton's Electoral College support came from states that provide major contributions to taxes but receive disproportionately lower amount of federal benefits and other spending in return. And that most of Donald Trump's Electoral College support came from the rural states whose contributions to taxes are lower but receive disproportionately higher amount of federal benefits and other spending.
It concludes that the wealthy and high contribution to taxes states like California, New York and New Jersey (all won by Hillary Clinton) have so far not complained about this imbalance, but that it may change in future if Trump brings in changed policies like ignoring climate change, deporting (many) immigrants, and having Supreme Court justices who may overturn the abortion related Roe v. Wade decision.
Ravi: Hmm. That's quite an article! Let me share some related thoughts of mine.
Firstly, USA and India are two of the largest democracies in the world (by population size and by landmass of country size). USA and India also come within the top ten highest GDP nations in the world; USA is 1st and India is 7th, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal).
India follows a parliamentary democracy model. "A parliamentary democracy is a form of government where voters elect the parliament, which then forms the government. The party with the most votes picks the leader of the government.", Source: https://www.reference.com/government-politics/parliamentary-democracy-c0725874d837285b. The leader of a parliamentary democracy government like in India is called the Prime Minister.
At any stage during the term of a central govt., it is possible that the political party/coalition of parties that put forward its candidate as Prime Minister, no longer wholly support the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister may then be asked to prove his/her majority support through a vote on the floor of (lower house of) Parliament. If the Prime Minister loses that vote then the Prime Minister has to resign. So one can have a crisis in govt. for some time before a new Prime Minister earns majority support and proves it on the floor of (lower house of) Parliament or fresh general elections are called. In the interim, I think the President takes charge of the country.
Now about the President of India. "The President is elected by the members of an electoral college consisting of the elected members of both the Houses of Parliament and the elected members of the Legislative Assemblies of States and the Union Territories of Delhi and Pondicherry." Source: http://eci.nic.in/eci_main1/parliament.aspx.
The President's role in India is largely titular. However, in cases of hung parliament or similar such situations, President's rule can be imposed on India at which time, as per my understanding, the President becomes the executive head of the country with the central govt. bureaucracy, as well as security agencies and armed forces, all reporting to him as the top boss. In normal times, the central govt. bureaucracy, security agencies and armed forces have the Prime Minister as its executive head.
In contrast, USA's democracy is referred to as a presidential system. An extract from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_system is given below:
A presidential system is a system of government where a head of government is also head of state and leads an executive branch that is separate from the legislative branch. The United States, for instance, has a presidential system. The executive is elected and often titled "president" and is not responsible to the legislature and which cannot, in normal circumstances, dismiss it. The legislature may have the right, in extreme cases, to dismiss the executive, often through impeachment. However, such dismissals are seen as so rare as not to contradict a central tenet of presidentialism, that in normal circumstances using normal means the legislature cannot dismiss the executive.
--- end Presidential system wiki extract ---
Ravi: So the USA presidential system of election and governance is certainly more stable that India's parliamentary democracy system which has the danger of a hung parliament and other problems if the Prime Minister loses the support of his party/coalition members of (lower house of) Parliament. BTW USA president's normal term is 4 years whereas Indian central govt. has a term of 5 years if the govt. maintains to have majority support of members of (lower house of) Parliament through the term.
In the Indian general election, I think the one adult citizen one vote principle is generally upheld. While I don't know the details about how parliamentary constituencies are created/modified, I think it is, at least roughly, related to size of population in the constituency. Regional parties are important in some areas of India. So national level parties typically get into a seat-sharing arrangement with regional parties, and some other national level parties as well, which they feel have some level of similarity in viewpoints and policies, with that of their own. So one usually has two major coalitions of parties fighting the general election in India, in recent years and decades. Currently, there are two major political party coalitions in India. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) having the BJP as the main national party and which is in power at the centre now, after a landslide victory in the May 2014 Indian general elections. The leader of the BJP parliamentary party is Mr. Narendra Modi who therefore is the Prime Minister of the country.
The other major national political party alliance in India is the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) having the Indian National Congress as the main national party, and which (either UPA or Congress party alone) forms the major opposition party in the Indian parliament now. The UPA was in power in India at the central govt. level from 2004 to 2014 - two full terms of five years each, if I recall correctly, and was having Dr. Manmohan Singh as its leader, and so the previous Prime Minister of India.
Once the general election results are declared, national parties and associated party coalitions are able to assess whether they will be able to have a majority in Parliament (lower house) or not. If a party or coalition is in a position to have a majority it is invited to form a government by the President, and then prove their majority on the floor of the (lower house) of Parliament.
In this system, parties that win a lot of seats in Parliament, even if they are not part of the winning coalition, do have significant voice in parliament. So if the mandate of the country goes to Coalition A getting 55 percent of the seats and Coalition B getting 40 percent of the seats, Coalition B still has some clout. Coalition A may form the govt. and Coalition B may not be in govt. power but members of Coalition B will be in parliamentary committees and will be in a position to influence government. Thus Coalition B is able to voice the views and concerns of a significant number of voters of the country that voted its members to 40 percent of the seats of (lower house of) parliament!
The extraordinary difference between this system and the USA presidential system is that the USA electoral college winner becomes President no matter how thin the electoral college majority over his/her nearest contender, and all the other contenders including the 2nd highest electoral college votes contender, have NO VOICE WHATSOEVER in the presidential administration that is formed!!! Further, the USA president who takes over in January 2017 is expected to bring in 4,000 (four thousand) people of his choice into the presidential administration!!! I guess almost all, if not all, of these 4,000 persons will be paid staff of the USA government for the presidential term (or lesser, if some step down or are moved out or..). Key positions in USA presidency like secretary of state, secretary of defense, commerce secretary, treasury secretary etc. are all nominated by the USA president with some requiring confirmation by the USA Senate. None of the holders of these top positions of USA govt. need to be elected members of USA Congress!!!
In great contrast in India, I think the Prime Minister and his cabinet of ministers will have leeway in hiring some top advisors who are paid by Indian govt. and who are not elected by the public. But such hires would be limited to a small number. I wonder if the PM and his/her ministers have the liberty of even hiring their own secretarial staff. I doubt it. I think they have to manage with the civil service/bureaucracy of central govt. employees. Within the pool of those govt. employees they would have choice about which staff they want.
The USA has a House of Representatives and a Senate (both together forming the USA Congress) who are elected from across the country. These two houses may be similar to the Indian lower house of parliament in the procedure of election of members. In this 2016 election, the House of Representatives has a Republican party majority and the Democrats are in a minority. But the Democrats do have seats in the House and their voices will have some impact in the House.
But Hillary Clinton and her team who got 232 electoral college votes as against Trump's 306 (see http://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/live_results/2016_general/president/), gets no representation whatsoever in the 2017 Trump administration! I mean they cannot even question the Trump administration on some matter. They are completely OUT! It is the Representatives in the House and members of the Senate who can question the Trump administration.
Now the USA electoral college system itself is a complicated one, with most states of the USA having a winner-takes-all votes system. Therefore even though Hillary Clinton got 48.2% of the individual USA citizen vote, compared to 46.2% of the individual USA citizen vote for Trump, Clinton lost in the electoral college arithmetic, and that's what matters in the end.
In early 21st century democracy, I think it is really odd, to say the least, that a candidate for top central govt. position who got most of the individual citizen of the country votes, not only is not in power, but is (will be) VOICELESS in the presidential administration of a competing candidate who has won the presidential election!
Of course, Trump has said that if the presidency were to have been decided on popular vote (individual citizen vote) then he would have campaigned differently and won the popular vote. My view is that even if he had campaigned differently and won the popular vote by say 2 to 3% over Hillary Clinton, Clinton would still have had over 40% of the popular vote. 40% of the popular vote being COMPLETELY VOICELESS in the coming presidential administration with around four thousand strong staff, sounds very strange to me.
I should add that in India too there seems to be an issue of more economically developed states generating more income and creating more wealth, and so paying more taxes, than less economically developed states. And the less economically developed states may be getting more central govt. benefits as compared to the amount they contribute, whereas the more economically developed states may be getting less central govt. benefits as compared to the amount they contribute. But I have not studied the figures and so I could be wrong here.
But I don't think there is a significant voter inequality issue between various states when it comes to electing the central govt. members of (lower house of ) parliament. Typically, the larger and more populous states have more constituencies and so elect more members of parliament. That fits in with the one adult citizen one vote principle, I think.
Please note that I have a PUBLICLY NEUTRAL informal-student-observer role in these posts that I put up about the USA presidential elections. Of course, as I am an Indian citizen living in India, there is no question of me having voted in these elections.
[I thank nytimes.com, wikipedia, reference.com and eic.nic.in, and have presumed that they will not have any objections to me sharing the above extracts (short extracts from nytimes.com, reference.com and eic.nic.in) from their website on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever.]
The article makes some astonishing statements (astonishing to me, at least) about the Electoral College mechanism that the USA uses to decide the presidential election. It states, ".. a voter in rural Wyoming has more than three times the power of a voter in New Jersey, the country’s most densely populated state"!! It links to this website, http://votes.equalcitizens.us/, whose default settings in the home page claims that One person from Wyoming gets 3.91 votes for every one from Ohio. And it gives the calculations it uses for that equation in the lower part of the home page. The states in the equation are drop-down boxes where one can choose any USA state. Seems like the Wyoming - 3.91 - Ohio equation may be one of the, if not the, worst imbalances among voters from different states.
The NYT article argues that the right way to view the political conflict in the USA is to view it as red country vs. blue city! It claims that now in the USA it is major cities that are drivers of economic growth and creation of wealth, and so are major contributors of tax revenue, and that disproportionately high amount of federal spending per capita goes to low-density states (typically rural, one presumes).
The article states, "The urban states are subsidizing the rural states, and yet somehow in return, the rural states get more power at the voting booth."
It claims that most of Hillary Clinton's Electoral College support came from states that provide major contributions to taxes but receive disproportionately lower amount of federal benefits and other spending in return. And that most of Donald Trump's Electoral College support came from the rural states whose contributions to taxes are lower but receive disproportionately higher amount of federal benefits and other spending.
It concludes that the wealthy and high contribution to taxes states like California, New York and New Jersey (all won by Hillary Clinton) have so far not complained about this imbalance, but that it may change in future if Trump brings in changed policies like ignoring climate change, deporting (many) immigrants, and having Supreme Court justices who may overturn the abortion related Roe v. Wade decision.
Ravi: Hmm. That's quite an article! Let me share some related thoughts of mine.
Firstly, USA and India are two of the largest democracies in the world (by population size and by landmass of country size). USA and India also come within the top ten highest GDP nations in the world; USA is 1st and India is 7th, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal).
India follows a parliamentary democracy model. "A parliamentary democracy is a form of government where voters elect the parliament, which then forms the government. The party with the most votes picks the leader of the government.", Source: https://www.reference.com/government-politics/parliamentary-democracy-c0725874d837285b. The leader of a parliamentary democracy government like in India is called the Prime Minister.
At any stage during the term of a central govt., it is possible that the political party/coalition of parties that put forward its candidate as Prime Minister, no longer wholly support the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister may then be asked to prove his/her majority support through a vote on the floor of (lower house of) Parliament. If the Prime Minister loses that vote then the Prime Minister has to resign. So one can have a crisis in govt. for some time before a new Prime Minister earns majority support and proves it on the floor of (lower house of) Parliament or fresh general elections are called. In the interim, I think the President takes charge of the country.
Now about the President of India. "The President is elected by the members of an electoral college consisting of the elected members of both the Houses of Parliament and the elected members of the Legislative Assemblies of States and the Union Territories of Delhi and Pondicherry." Source: http://eci.nic.in/eci_main1/parliament.aspx.
The President's role in India is largely titular. However, in cases of hung parliament or similar such situations, President's rule can be imposed on India at which time, as per my understanding, the President becomes the executive head of the country with the central govt. bureaucracy, as well as security agencies and armed forces, all reporting to him as the top boss. In normal times, the central govt. bureaucracy, security agencies and armed forces have the Prime Minister as its executive head.
In contrast, USA's democracy is referred to as a presidential system. An extract from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_system is given below:
A presidential system is a system of government where a head of government is also head of state and leads an executive branch that is separate from the legislative branch. The United States, for instance, has a presidential system. The executive is elected and often titled "president" and is not responsible to the legislature and which cannot, in normal circumstances, dismiss it. The legislature may have the right, in extreme cases, to dismiss the executive, often through impeachment. However, such dismissals are seen as so rare as not to contradict a central tenet of presidentialism, that in normal circumstances using normal means the legislature cannot dismiss the executive.
--- end Presidential system wiki extract ---
Ravi: So the USA presidential system of election and governance is certainly more stable that India's parliamentary democracy system which has the danger of a hung parliament and other problems if the Prime Minister loses the support of his party/coalition members of (lower house of) Parliament. BTW USA president's normal term is 4 years whereas Indian central govt. has a term of 5 years if the govt. maintains to have majority support of members of (lower house of) Parliament through the term.
In the Indian general election, I think the one adult citizen one vote principle is generally upheld. While I don't know the details about how parliamentary constituencies are created/modified, I think it is, at least roughly, related to size of population in the constituency. Regional parties are important in some areas of India. So national level parties typically get into a seat-sharing arrangement with regional parties, and some other national level parties as well, which they feel have some level of similarity in viewpoints and policies, with that of their own. So one usually has two major coalitions of parties fighting the general election in India, in recent years and decades. Currently, there are two major political party coalitions in India. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) having the BJP as the main national party and which is in power at the centre now, after a landslide victory in the May 2014 Indian general elections. The leader of the BJP parliamentary party is Mr. Narendra Modi who therefore is the Prime Minister of the country.
The other major national political party alliance in India is the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) having the Indian National Congress as the main national party, and which (either UPA or Congress party alone) forms the major opposition party in the Indian parliament now. The UPA was in power in India at the central govt. level from 2004 to 2014 - two full terms of five years each, if I recall correctly, and was having Dr. Manmohan Singh as its leader, and so the previous Prime Minister of India.
Once the general election results are declared, national parties and associated party coalitions are able to assess whether they will be able to have a majority in Parliament (lower house) or not. If a party or coalition is in a position to have a majority it is invited to form a government by the President, and then prove their majority on the floor of the (lower house) of Parliament.
In this system, parties that win a lot of seats in Parliament, even if they are not part of the winning coalition, do have significant voice in parliament. So if the mandate of the country goes to Coalition A getting 55 percent of the seats and Coalition B getting 40 percent of the seats, Coalition B still has some clout. Coalition A may form the govt. and Coalition B may not be in govt. power but members of Coalition B will be in parliamentary committees and will be in a position to influence government. Thus Coalition B is able to voice the views and concerns of a significant number of voters of the country that voted its members to 40 percent of the seats of (lower house of) parliament!
The extraordinary difference between this system and the USA presidential system is that the USA electoral college winner becomes President no matter how thin the electoral college majority over his/her nearest contender, and all the other contenders including the 2nd highest electoral college votes contender, have NO VOICE WHATSOEVER in the presidential administration that is formed!!! Further, the USA president who takes over in January 2017 is expected to bring in 4,000 (four thousand) people of his choice into the presidential administration!!! I guess almost all, if not all, of these 4,000 persons will be paid staff of the USA government for the presidential term (or lesser, if some step down or are moved out or..). Key positions in USA presidency like secretary of state, secretary of defense, commerce secretary, treasury secretary etc. are all nominated by the USA president with some requiring confirmation by the USA Senate. None of the holders of these top positions of USA govt. need to be elected members of USA Congress!!!
In great contrast in India, I think the Prime Minister and his cabinet of ministers will have leeway in hiring some top advisors who are paid by Indian govt. and who are not elected by the public. But such hires would be limited to a small number. I wonder if the PM and his/her ministers have the liberty of even hiring their own secretarial staff. I doubt it. I think they have to manage with the civil service/bureaucracy of central govt. employees. Within the pool of those govt. employees they would have choice about which staff they want.
The USA has a House of Representatives and a Senate (both together forming the USA Congress) who are elected from across the country. These two houses may be similar to the Indian lower house of parliament in the procedure of election of members. In this 2016 election, the House of Representatives has a Republican party majority and the Democrats are in a minority. But the Democrats do have seats in the House and their voices will have some impact in the House.
But Hillary Clinton and her team who got 232 electoral college votes as against Trump's 306 (see http://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/live_results/2016_general/president/), gets no representation whatsoever in the 2017 Trump administration! I mean they cannot even question the Trump administration on some matter. They are completely OUT! It is the Representatives in the House and members of the Senate who can question the Trump administration.
Now the USA electoral college system itself is a complicated one, with most states of the USA having a winner-takes-all votes system. Therefore even though Hillary Clinton got 48.2% of the individual USA citizen vote, compared to 46.2% of the individual USA citizen vote for Trump, Clinton lost in the electoral college arithmetic, and that's what matters in the end.
In early 21st century democracy, I think it is really odd, to say the least, that a candidate for top central govt. position who got most of the individual citizen of the country votes, not only is not in power, but is (will be) VOICELESS in the presidential administration of a competing candidate who has won the presidential election!
Of course, Trump has said that if the presidency were to have been decided on popular vote (individual citizen vote) then he would have campaigned differently and won the popular vote. My view is that even if he had campaigned differently and won the popular vote by say 2 to 3% over Hillary Clinton, Clinton would still have had over 40% of the popular vote. 40% of the popular vote being COMPLETELY VOICELESS in the coming presidential administration with around four thousand strong staff, sounds very strange to me.
I should add that in India too there seems to be an issue of more economically developed states generating more income and creating more wealth, and so paying more taxes, than less economically developed states. And the less economically developed states may be getting more central govt. benefits as compared to the amount they contribute, whereas the more economically developed states may be getting less central govt. benefits as compared to the amount they contribute. But I have not studied the figures and so I could be wrong here.
But I don't think there is a significant voter inequality issue between various states when it comes to electing the central govt. members of (lower house of ) parliament. Typically, the larger and more populous states have more constituencies and so elect more members of parliament. That fits in with the one adult citizen one vote principle, I think.
Please note that I have a PUBLICLY NEUTRAL informal-student-observer role in these posts that I put up about the USA presidential elections. Of course, as I am an Indian citizen living in India, there is no question of me having voted in these elections.
[I thank nytimes.com, wikipedia, reference.com and eic.nic.in, and have presumed that they will not have any objections to me sharing the above extracts (short extracts from nytimes.com, reference.com and eic.nic.in) from their website on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever.]
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