Why the Right is Winning (and What the Left Must Learn)

Yes, they have structural advantages, but they’re also better at politics than we are

Image: r.classen, Shutterstock, standard license, purchased by the author

If you ask most anyone on the political left why everything seems to be going to shit right now — from the overturning of Roe v. Wade to restrictions on voting access to the banning of curricula in dozens of states — the answers you’ll get are relatively predictable.

First and foremost among them: the political system in America is structured in such a way as to favor conservative states, localities, and individuals.

This is true, of course. From the Electoral College to the structure of the Senate, there are systemic advantages that favor smaller, less populated states, which tend to be rural and more conservative than states with larger and more cosmopolitan populations.

Obviously, when a state like Wyoming can have the same influence over judicial appointments and other important Senate business as a state like California, with more than 60 times its population, there’s an imbalance.

And it favors the small, conservative, and rural over the country’s larger, more metropolitan areas.

But with that said, we on the left are often unwilling to acknowledge one of the other big problems…