I've spent the majority of my adult life in Washington State and I've witnessed this firsthand. This place used to have a unique vibe that was more purplish-blue "granola hippies with guns that just want to be left alone." Progressivism mixed with an Old West libertarian streak. There was a GOP minority, and the red east and blue west played off against each other and kept things reasonably center-left.
Now it's a one-party state, and the legislature might as well be the state Parliament, taking its marching orders straight from the DNC. The Governor is just as all-in on drinking the blue Kool-aid, and the state Supreme Court seems like it only exists to validate what the other two branches decide. And looking at places like Texas and Florida, seems like the same is happening on the other side of the aisle.
What's infuriating is there are conservatives in blue states and liberals in red states getting just steamrolled to the point of "why should I even vote or participate, when I'm just going to get told to sit down and shut up?" That's not healthy for democracy. The rights of the minority exist for a reason and you can't just vote things away because you have 50.01 percent of the vote.
Yeah, it seems very unfair. If Party A has 60% of the seats in the state legislature, and Party B has 40%, then intuitively it feels like Party A should get 60% of what it wants. But as you said, Party A actually gets more like 100% of what it wants.
This is a thing where having more parties would really help. If there were (say) 4 parties, each with ~25% of the seats, then they would have to bargain with each other and form coalitions, which I think would be a really healthy process for democracy.
> This is a thing where having more parties would really help.
Using a "first past the post" voting system structurally results in a two party system, because if there are more than two viable parties then the two parties most similar to each other split the vote and both lose to the third, which gives the first two an overwhelming incentive to merge with each other.
Score voting or STAR voting fixes this and allows you to have multiple parties. (Avoid IRV or similar systems, nearly anything is better than FPTP but if you're going to do it at all then do it properly.) Any states that could enact this via referendum are encouraged to do so.
Our first two presidents, Washington and Adams, both envisioned a system that could really only work if we had a large plurality of parties.
Washington in particular despised political parties and called them inherently self-serving.
Adams said that a two party system would destroy democracy, because such a system encourages despotic tribalism, in which party dissension inevitably focuses around revenge politics.
Now it's a one-party state, and the legislature might as well be the state Parliament, taking its marching orders straight from the DNC. The Governor is just as all-in on drinking the blue Kool-aid, and the state Supreme Court seems like it only exists to validate what the other two branches decide. And looking at places like Texas and Florida, seems like the same is happening on the other side of the aisle.
What's infuriating is there are conservatives in blue states and liberals in red states getting just steamrolled to the point of "why should I even vote or participate, when I'm just going to get told to sit down and shut up?" That's not healthy for democracy. The rights of the minority exist for a reason and you can't just vote things away because you have 50.01 percent of the vote.