this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2024
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Is the top image a map someone tried to push as the ratio of red vs blue counties?
That’s often how it gets portrayed, yes.
I was just checking to see if this was a specific instance or if there was a certain news outlet that did so recently.
I don't know of any news outlets doing so. But apparently Trump made that particular misrepresentation by retweating a meme in 2019.
The meme in question was basically an electoral college map like that top image in the OP with "Impeach This" or "Try To Impeach This" across the top.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/01/four-simple-reasons-that-trumps-impeach-this-map-doesnt-make-any-sense/
And if you want to see the actual tweet in question but twitter (I refuse to call it "X") is a huge asshole about it, here's a link to the tweet Trump retweeted on Archive.org:
https://web.archive.org/web/20191001002653/https://twitter.com/LaraLeaTrump/status/1178030815671980032
As others have said, yes it is. Unfortunately it's also a strong representation of how the voting process operates in the US. At the local level (towns and cities), individual votes matter. However, for something like the presidential election (for example), then the votes are averaged by county and state.
So what happens is everyone from a county votes, and if that county is more of one side than the other, that entire county is "voting x/y". Then the counties across the state are compared, and that state is declared as "voting" for either side. Then nationally, each state is counted as either/or, so even if the more populated cities vote one way, if enough of the rural population votes the other way, the rural side wins, and the urban side loses.
It's almost as if the system urgently needs reform. Too bad the powers in charge of that were elected specifically because of it.