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Interesting theory, @JeremyDBoreing! Let's do the math, which I think you'll find is remarkably illustrative on this topic and @AOC's story.
There are 435 seats in the House and 100 in the Senate, making for 535 federal legislative elected offices w/ voting power. (thread)
There are 435 seats in the House and 100 in the Senate, making for 535 federal legislative elected offices w/ voting power. (thread)
There are about 326 million people in the United States represented by those 535 elected officials. In a representative democracy, it is ideal that the legislative body serving the people would reflect the lived experiences of those people. Not so with the United States Congress.
According to the Census Bureau, white persons who are not Hispanic or Latino make up about 60.7 percent of our population. Persons identifying as male (though that's a whole other issue w/ proper LGBTQ representation) make up about 49.2 percent of the population.
And so, white men make up about 29.9 percent of the U.S. population, which would lead someone to reasonably expect that Congress would be around the same percentage of white males in a truly representative democracy. Wanna guess the actual percentage of white men in Congress?
White men make up about 62% of Congress (House + Senate), twice as much as the population of white men in the United States.
White men in the U.S. -- 29.9%
White men in Congress -- 62% <-- Lowest ever
That's absurd. Any rational adult would understand why that's absurd.
White men in the U.S. -- 29.9%
White men in Congress -- 62% <-- Lowest ever
That's absurd. Any rational adult would understand why that's absurd.
And it's even more absurd when you look at the inverse...
Women (all races) in the U.S. -- 50.2%
Women (all races) in Congress -- 23.7%
And yet, that's the highest percent of women in Congress in our country's history. The most we've ever seen.
Women (all races) in the U.S. -- 50.2%
Women (all races) in Congress -- 23.7%
And yet, that's the highest percent of women in Congress in our country's history. The most we've ever seen.
We do this every two years. We talk about the increased diversity of Congress, which is true and should be celebrated, but even so, the United States remains a country in which a fraction of the population has a clear majority of the power.
And that's just gender identity. That's before we fully factor in race, religion, communities of disability, socioeconomic histories, etc.
The existence of someone like @AOC is due to a) her sheer grit and b) social movements that have paved the way.
The existence of someone like @AOC is due to a) her sheer grit and b) social movements that have paved the way.
She's an outlier. She walked every block in her district and communicated a compelling message, which happened to be served by a longtime incumbent who got complacent. She worked her ass off, and yet, so have other women of color in heavily-gerrymandered districts who didn't win.
But you clearly don't know about those women, @JeremyDBoreing. And I don't get the sense you want to know about them. They're inconvenient. They statistically invalidate your frustration with any claim that maybe--just maybe--privilege does exist along lines of gender, race, etc.
Last night, @StaceyAbrams gave an SOTU response just months after what should have been her victory in Georgia. It was sabotaged by racist voter suppression tactics employed by her opponent, who also just happened to be the person who oversees elections in the state. Huh. Weird.
So, @JeremyDBoreing, you can continue to engage in aggressively bad faith and piss-poor logical fallacies, or you recognize that our country--and certainly all political parties--have quite a bit of work left to do. /thread
