The rural bias in the U.S. Senate and the electoral college

This op-ed by political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, titled "End Minority Rule" just appeared in the New York Times.   Here's the excerpt most salient to the theme that rural folks are a minority of the U.S. population and yet wield disproportionate political power.      

Our Constitution was designed to favor small (or low-population) states. Small states were given representation equal to that of big states in the Senate and an advantage in the Electoral College. What began as a minor small-state advantage evolved, over time, into a vast overrepresentation of rural states. For most of our history, this rural bias did not tilt the partisan playing field much because both major parties maintained huge urban and rural wings.

Today, however, American parties are starkly divided along urban-rural lines: Democrats are concentrated in big metropolitan centers, whereas Republicans are increasingly based in sparsely populated territories. This gives the Republicans an advantage in the Electoral College, the Senate and — because the president selects Supreme Court nominees and the Senate approves them — the Supreme Court.

This theme is a common one since Trump's election, with coastal elites blaming rural folk generally for the current political moment--in particular Republicans holding power disproportionate to the votes they actually garner.  I am reminded of Loka Ashwood's work under the heading, "Tyranny of the Majority."  So who is dominating whom?  Ashwood suggests that the majority--the urban--hold power, and that they are using their power in a way that undermines rural livelihoods.  

So, one might ask,What good does the disproportionate political power of rural people do them these days, in material terms?  What bang are they getting for their political buck in terms of investments in rural communities and infrastructure?  Are they getting "pork" like they once did?  Or are they primarily getting support on "cultural" issues, e.g., traditional family values, abortion, etc.

As a post-script I want to also share this excerpt from the Levitsky and Ziblatt op-ed, which acknowledges that small-town and rural communities participated in and endorsed the Black Lives Matter resurgence during the summer of 2020:    

An estimated 15 million to 26 million Americans took to the streets, and protests extended into small-town and rural America. Three-quarters of Americans supported the protests in June, and large majorities — including 60 percent of whites — supported the Black Lives Matter movement.

See my posts from earlier this year about Black Lives Matter activity in the hinterlands.