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Popularity is both meaningless and irrelevant. Meaningless, because propaganda exists and is effective, to the point that it can stonewall basic facts indefinitely. Irrelevant, because popularity is not the basis for our moral axioms.
But more than that, your question presumes that our government simply and faithfully implements the will of the public. There is strong evidence to indicate that this is not the case, that elected officials, members of the judiciary, and the unelected bureaucracy have agendas of their own, which are implemented regardless of how people vote.
What I meant is that just because one 'side' seems to be more successful that doesn't at all imply that some nefarious foul play is at hand, or that some fault with the system needs to be fixed. Republicans are hardly exceptionally unsuccessful.
That's entirely true. You cannot get to a reasoned hypothesis of "I'm being cheated" simply from the observation of "I'm losing", or even "I'm losing a lot". You need observations about the nature of the loss, and particularly about patterns in those losses and how those losses occured.
On this point, we disagree. An example of why would be the Supreme Court. We spent decades fighting to secure the SC, and now we've got it, and it still doesn't matter. When blues held the SC, they got decisions like Roe and Obergefell, decisions that instantly rewrote law nationwide and fundamentally reshaped our culture. The SC has never delivered such a decision for Red Tribe, and from the evidence I've seen I'm confident it never will. It has handed down decisions that should have done this, but they have simply been ignored by Blue areas. Those areas have gotten away with it because they, not the Court, hold the actual political and social power, and that power is not accessible through the standard political process. When the court rules in ways they approve of, they deploy that power to enforce the decision. When it rules in ways they disapprove of, they withhold that power, and the decision is rendered ineffective.
This could all be disproved by pointing to a decision analogous to Roe or Obergefell or indeed any of the other landmark victories Blues secured through the courts over the last century or more, a decision that imposes Red values on Blues, forcing them to have their laws invalidated and their values trod upon for the indefinite future. Success means actually getting your way. The existing system is not set up to allow Reds any appreciable chance of getting their way. It is set up to keep them down and facilitate their victimization by an increasingly hostile Blue tribe bent on stamping out Red values wherever they can be found. Why cooperate with such a system? Why continue playing a game you're not permitted to win?
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