Modern Democracy – Transition of Power from Land to City

European countries, for the most part, are smaller nation states, more compact and focused on their major cities. As their political systems evolved into representative democracies, even as they may have designated states and provinces, political power rested primarily with the heavy concentrations of people in large cities. Even as rural constituencies felt marginalized, decisions still continued to favor the urban population centers. By way of example, in modern France, the “yellow vest” protestors, farmers whose trucks and tractors closed in on Paris, blocking roads and streets, failed to move the needle much in their direction.

When the United States adopted its founding governance and underlying documentation (the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Electoral College, Congressional districts, etc.), it was a nation that was 97% based on agriculture, with heavy suspicion from states with vast rolling land with few urban interruptions against manufacturing and trading centers concentrated in cities. Slavery, uncommon in Europe even as European nations dominated the slave trade, was deeply embedded into the American political system, even though “slavery” is not mentioned by name in our pre-Civil War Constitution.

The early battle between urbanized states (most northern states did not permit slavery) and the rural states addressed slavery in a battle over proportionate representation in Congress and allocation of federal benefits. The South wanted slaves to count in districting without according them any rights. The negotiation produced Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of the US Constitution: “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.” Hence slaves were effectively 3/5th of a person but completely powerless unless a state provided otherwise.

According to a Princeton University historical analysis of US demographics: “From 1830 to 1930, the pace of urbanization substantially accelerated: the share of the population living in an urban area increased six-fold to 60 percent. After a decade of stasis, the urban share again increased rapidly from 1940 and 1970 and then more slowly from 1970 to 2010, reaching 80 percent in 2010.” By 2050, that number is expected to hit 90%, and even today fewer than 2% of Americans are directly involved in farming. But in 1789, farming states remained deeply concerned that states with increasing urbanization be restrained from altering a status quo that gave farm states disproportion power. Wyoming, with under 700,000 people, has the same two US Senators as does California with approximately 40,000,000 people.

It is statistically possible for under 20% of the United States to elect 50% of the Senate. Our 1789 solution – called the Connecticut Comprise – sealed the voting supremacy of rural America defining Congress: the Senate, granting equal voice to every state, and the House, based on population. Added to this was the ultimate protection for rural states’ rights: equal state representation in the Senate is the only provision in the Constitution that remains singled out for protection from the amendment process; no state can lose its full complement of senators without its permission. To make matters vastly worse, the United States has the least amendable constitution among democratic nations. Simply put, land mass trumps urban population centers in voting power. An American rural voter has about 80% more voting power than an urban voter. While Europe focused on population centers in its allocation of voting power, the United States concentrated on land mass.

The very images of American culture, from food (“as American as apple pie”) to the imagery of our “wild, wild West” (embedded in a litany of American films and television programs) to NASCAR and rodeos… are rural based. It is within this context that the MAGA strategy is brilliantly based. White supremacy and the marginalization of people of color (also generally associated with “immigrants”) is drilled into the basics of our political heritage, with immutable protectors against “upstarts” rocking that white Christian nationalist “status quo.”

Contemporary suspicion of educated elites, almost always a product of high-end urban university training, is deeply embedded in the very definition of being “American.” An image of a farmer plowing his fields is so much more a symbol of being “American” than a scientist holding a test tube. Farm vs city. Open spaces and vast resources vs universities with too many “elites.” Modernity vs getting back to basic values linked to the land. Rural communities subject to the vagaries of nature (drought vs rain) are united around their churches, cities around their corporate centers and artistic venues.

Some of the lesser-noted protests reflect this urban rural schism. Writing for the October 4th FastCompany.com, Devin Liddell defines a new rebellion against hallmarks of impersonal but rising technology, very much focused in cities, as “modus non grata.” And while this is a global phenomenon, it is heavily manifest in American cities: “Los Angelinos hurling e-scooters into the ocean. Residents of San Francisco and Chandler, Arizona sabotaging driverless cars. Barcelonians squirting cruise ship passengers with water pistols. Borrowing from the Latin term persona non grata for labeling an unwelcome person, modus non grata describes when modes of transport are similarly ostracized and made into proxies in conflicts about the futures of cities.

“The origins of these aggressions are straightforward when we consider that the transportation we use reflects our values. This is true for us as individuals and as communities, and this is especially true when a mode of transport becomes a symbol of adjacent socioeconomic and ecological conflicts. Los Angelinos hurled e-scooters in the ocean because those scooters are emblems of gentrification. Residents of San Francisco and Chandler sabotaged driverless cars because those vehicles are exemplars of an erosion in public trust. Barcelonians harassed cruise ship passengers because cruise ships are representations of over-tourism.

“The conflicts are about something else, but transportation is the way we fight about them. So far, this era of modus non grata has emerged within individual cities. But there are signs that it will go global with transformative effects.” Yet change is inevitable, though its consequences usually leave a large segment of the population behind. Neo-Luddites, perhaps but rural populations – cast under a MAGA spell – are feeling their oats, experiencing growing Schadenfreude at the pain of cities… and doing everything in their power to exacerbate that pain in ugly “retribution.” Even in red state Texas, most of its big cities are Democratic strongholds, marginalized by ample application of gerrymandering. With our archaic political system, cities need to grow even bigger to stop this built-in rural tilt so well-protected by the Constitution.

I'm Peter Dekom, and all this talk of ending polarization and reuniting Americans faces strong resistance among rural voters who continue to revel in their disproportionate political power.