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On July 20 2014 08:47 Chocolate wrote:Anybody watched the movie America yet? imdb link. I watched it last night Gotta say it's one of the worst things I've ever paid to watch, even though I agree with a few of Dinesh's points. I also think it was a bit strawman-esque. While I appreciate how he didn't deliberately pick out crazy people from the left, he also doesn't pick out very valid political points from the left to begin with (eg a native american woman saying the Sioux deserves all of their land back, a mexican dude saying we need to return what we stole in the mexican-american war) and has equally ridiculous counter-examples to disprove those points, such as one mexican-american dude saying he would prefer to be a part of the US, an interview with some black woman in a nice house who says she stopped collecting welfare and went to college because she accepted Jesus, etc. If you want to see something grounded in logic, I wouldn't recommend it. The whole thing is a self-congratulatory appeal to emotion (since he knows his audience is mostly going to be conservative and wants to be validated) and he uses multiple one-man counter-examples to try to discredit some arguments, which is ridiculous since they were arguments that he picked himself in the first place.
Dinesh is a fucking fraud who is going to jail. I can't believe you would pay to see that movie.
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On July 20 2014 08:39 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2014 03:57 sc2isnotdying wrote:On July 18 2014 04:52 Danglars wrote:On July 18 2014 01:07 sc2isnotdying wrote:On July 18 2014 00:32 xDaunt wrote:On July 18 2014 00:11 sc2isnotdying wrote:On July 17 2014 23:16 Gorsameth wrote:On July 17 2014 22:05 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 17 2014 20:37 coverpunch wrote:On July 17 2014 16:18 zlefin wrote:
They really need to stop letting threat of a filibuster stop things; require ACTUAL filibusters. Dems were really dumb to not at least force that.
I'd also add the rule that filibusters need to be on topic. But that's work. God forbid anyone in Washington actually has to try to get shit done. Less facetiously, this is a game and both sides know how to play. Sooner or later, Democrats will be the minority and they'll want to filibuster too, and Republicans will let things go if Democrats just raise the threat. Especially for something like this, which everyone knows is just political posturing to energize the base. Some powerful Democrats are hoping their female constituents get angry that the bill was filibustered and vote in larger numbers. Some powerful Republicans are hoping their religious constituents are outraged that the bill was pushed forward and vote in larger numbers. In short, it's good for incumbents on both sides. That's how the game works in midterm elections. Nobody, Democrat or Republican, wants to be the next Eric Cantor, and they should all be rightfully scared that it could happen. There are reasons no one has done this to this extent before. When people look at the history of the first black President it's not him who is going to look bad, it's the guys constantly complaining about how he's doing his job while they accomplish practically nothing, measuring their success by how much they can prevent him from accomplishing. Setting out before he does anything to focus more on removing him than doing anything for the country. I think your understating the limited viewpoint of the average American and the enormous media bias, to Republicans it will all be Obama's fault and to Democrats it will all be Congress's fault and that situation is unlikely to change as time passes. The media bias is overstated. It's largely a construct of the conservative media. The truth is something very specific has changed in the Republican party that has caused this government standstill. Recent redistricting combined with a surge in right wing populism (a surge that has very much to do with Obama's race) has made it so the moderate wing of the republican party has lost much of its influence. Obstructionism is only the policy of the relative extremes, but the relative extremes have taken over the Republican party. If you lived here, it's pretty clear this is not partisan politics as usual. This is very much the Republican's fault and has little to do with anything Obama has actually done (other than get elected). Your implication that there is equal blame to be given to both Congress and Obama is just wrong. It's mostly Congress. That's the broad viewpoint. The narrative that Obama bares no blame for the current state of affairs in domestic politics is ridiculous. He's the most politically inept leader that we've ever had. All he can do is campaign. When it comes to actual governance, he has accomplished nothing. He has gone out of his way to marginalize and alienate republicans when he very easily could have co-opted a huge chunk of the republican establishment by letting them draft his major legislation, such as Obamacare. All one has to do to see that Obama shares a large portion of the blame domestically is look at his impotence in foreign affairs where he basically has plenary authority to conduct foreign policy. Good luck arguing that Obama has strengthened relations with more countries than those that he has weakened. Obama has had an abysmal presidency will be remembered less fondly than even Carter. I'm not here to defend Obama's every move. I'm merely pointing out that Republican electoral politics has shifted to the right. That's not a controversial statement. It's this shift which is responsible for the current policy of Republican obstructionism. You could argue that Obama's specific policies are directly responsible for this shift, but honestly that's pretty far-fetched. Voters tend not to pay that close attention. Anyways, I didn't say Obama bares no blame at all, that is indeed kind of ridiculous. I said he bares little blame in relation to Congress (and the redistricting that has made primaries more important than general elections). People with strong policy opinions tend to place far too much emphasis on policy. Electoral politics is far more dependent on rhetoric and demographics. You'll have to do better than sweep aside claims of media bias with your right hand, and with your left say nothing you're asserting is open to questioning. Your modern American liberal, establishment Republicans, and some percentage of independents that make the claims you make. Consider Democrats now used to getting their way on things, advancing policies lurching to the left (in American context), unwilling to compromise with anyone who hasn't shifted with them. They think a compliant media will shift blame to the Republicans when they don't get 90% of what they want, so they're rewarded for dreaming big. On the flip side, the electorate is pissed off at out-of-touch politicians that promised them their same doctors, a secure border, and won't stand by their views when they aren't also popular on the Hill. You'd better believe they'll oppose policies if they fear getting tossed out on their backside for not representing their base. If you've spent all this time presenting your ideas for fixing the pressing issues, and convince enough people that they're the best plan amongst several, maybe I you don't abandon it all in Washington and stick to your guns. If obstructionist is the new parroted line, maybe they'd prefer men and women who stand for nothing and let the party opposed roll every piece of legislation over their prone bodies. It's been awhile since I've checked on this thread but I feel like this is worth responding too. First, let me reject the accusation that my assertions aren't open to questioning. When I say that Republican politics has shifted to the right, I'm representing a broader opinion than my own, which is why I say it's not controversial. There will always be a small number of political observers that reject the conventional wisdom. The argument you've made here, and correct me if I've missed your point, is that when the Democrats had control of Congress, their policy actions so alienated Republicans, that Republicans have had no choice but to adapt an obstructionist stance. It's either vote no or abandon your principles. It may be true that Republicans are just acting on their principles. I do question their motives, but for the sake of argument let's say that Republicans are blocking legislation in a good faith effort protect their deeply held conservative values. The point I'm trying to make is that those conservative values now exist at a point on the political spectrum that is farther to the right than they used to be. This makes compromise harder and thus we have an obstructionist Congress. I'm attributing that aforementioned shift to the right, not to Obama's policies as you have, but rather to redistricting that has made primaries matter more than general elections. And the reason it's a Republican thing instead of a both parties thing is that we can clearly witness Republican incumbents moving right to fend off primary challenges or getting replaced by somebody further to the right. That hasn't happened to Democrats in Congress. Democrats mostly just re-elect their team. You can continue to believe that Obama is responsible for the political deadlock in Washington but I'm not finding your argument convincing. I just can't see how your conventional wisdom is anything but listening to voices that already agree with you. The only thing that has changed lately is the pressure the base has put on Republican leaders to start representing their interests. Conservatives continue to stand for the same damn things, it's the Left that rushes towards the policies of European social democracies and environmental dogma, the same march they've undergone since at least the Great Society. It's not redistricting, it's Republicans that have faced a man willing to extend his own power until stopped by other powers. They were cowed by the show of force, the racism accusations, the obstructionist charge ... and the voters refused to put up with impotent leaders. The word is out that you must take stands and be willing to back them up with action. This is not some kind of imagined ideological drift more than simply carrying through on campaign promises. It is kind of like you only have a disgust for voters that get tired of the stripe of their representation and fire the guy. Oh, they've obviously barreled rightward and left the poor moderates behind, you say. No, indeed, the moderates were winning re-election with empty promises on immigration, the budget, the economy, and nowadays executive power, and their jig is finally up. The Tea Party candidates that won, or dented the incumbent's usual numbers, ran on the same Reagan message, the same message Newt Gingrich brought to gain 54 seats in '94, the same message that won Republicans the 2010 midterms (We were just so thrilled with the ACA, what can I say). Apparently the last of those mentioned was a false election because Republicans were expected to still behave like Pelosi was still in charge of the House and favorable to the Obama agenda. I fully admit that up on Capitol Hill and the political advisor class it might be conventional wisdom and in their minds stand unchallenged and unchallengeable. It's precisely because they're out of touch with ordinary folk that their opinions on the political lay of the land are so false. There will be more Cantors as long as Boehner and McConnell lead the purse strings and call the shots. Political analysts will continue to fumble onto newer excuses for the political climate that astounds them.
No US-American political decision of the last 30 years has been remotely socially democratic. In particular Obama's health care reform is anything but. A social democrat would implement a single payer public health care system. Instead you got the Heritage plan sprinkled with copious amounts of corporate wellfare.
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The rate of HIV infections diagnosed in the United States each year fell by one-third over the past decade, according to a government study released Saturday. Experts celebrated it as hopeful news that the AIDS epidemic may be slowing in the U.S.
"It's encouraging," said Patrick Sullivan, an Emory University AIDS researcher who was not involved in the study.
The reasons for the drop aren't clear. It might mean fewer new infections are occurring. Alternatively, it could mean that most infected people already have been diagnosed, so more testing won't necessarily find many more cases.
"It could be we are approaching something of a 'ceiling effect,'" said one study leader, David Holtgrave of Johns Hopkins University.
The study was released online by the Journal of the American Medical Association. It is part of the journal's special report on HIV research, issued ahead of the International AIDS Conference that starts Sunday in Melbourne, Australia.
HIV is the virus that causes AIDS, which destroys the immune system. The World Health Organization estimates 35 million people globally have the virus. In the United States, 1.1 million people are thought to be infected, though many don't know it.
The study is based on HIV diagnoses from all 50 states' health departments, which receive test results from doctors' offices, clinics, hospitals and laboratories. The data span a decade, making this a larger and longer look at these trends than any previous study, said another study author, Amy Lansky of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The findings: 16 out of every 100,000 people ages 13 and older were newly diagnosed with HIV in 2011, a steady decline from 24 out of 100,000 people in 2002.
Source
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On July 20 2014 17:04 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On July 20 2014 08:47 Chocolate wrote:Anybody watched the movie America yet? imdb link. I watched it last night Gotta say it's one of the worst things I've ever paid to watch, even though I agree with a few of Dinesh's points. I also think it was a bit strawman-esque. While I appreciate how he didn't deliberately pick out crazy people from the left, he also doesn't pick out very valid political points from the left to begin with (eg a native american woman saying the Sioux deserves all of their land back, a mexican dude saying we need to return what we stole in the mexican-american war) and has equally ridiculous counter-examples to disprove those points, such as one mexican-american dude saying he would prefer to be a part of the US, an interview with some black woman in a nice house who says she stopped collecting welfare and went to college because she accepted Jesus, etc. If you want to see something grounded in logic, I wouldn't recommend it. The whole thing is a self-congratulatory appeal to emotion (since he knows his audience is mostly going to be conservative and wants to be validated) and he uses multiple one-man counter-examples to try to discredit some arguments, which is ridiculous since they were arguments that he picked himself in the first place. Dinesh is a fucking fraud who is going to jail. I can't believe you would pay to see that movie.
My friend suggested it as a joke since we knew it was going to be bad and we wanted to see how the other people in the theater were like + their reactions.
Didn't know about him going to jail though. From what I can tell what he did was just plain stupid.
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United States43605 Posts
I assumed that Dinesh was just intentionally selling dumb Americans what they want to hear. I'd hoped there was an element of self awareness.
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On July 21 2014 04:27 KwarK wrote:
I assumed that Dinesh was just intentionally selling dumb Americans what they want to hear. I'd hoped there was an element of self awareness.
I always fantasize about getting into that game. It must be so incredibly lucrative. Cheap movie to make -- I bet his budget was topped out at a million, max -- and rakes in the dough like no tomorrow.
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On July 20 2014 08:47 Chocolate wrote:Anybody watched the movie America yet? imdb link. I watched it last night Gotta say it's one of the worst things I've ever paid to watch, even though I agree with a few of Dinesh's points. I also think it was a bit strawman-esque. While I appreciate how he didn't deliberately pick out crazy people from the left, he also doesn't pick out very valid political points from the left to begin with (eg a native american woman saying the Sioux deserves all of their land back, a mexican dude saying we need to return what we stole in the mexican-american war) and has equally ridiculous counter-examples to disprove those points, such as one mexican-american dude saying he would prefer to be a part of the US, an interview with some black woman in a nice house who says she stopped collecting welfare and went to college because she accepted Jesus, etc. If you want to see something grounded in logic, I wouldn't recommend it. The whole thing is a self-congratulatory appeal to emotion (since he knows his audience is mostly going to be conservative and wants to be validated) and he uses multiple one-man counter-examples to try to discredit some arguments, which is ridiculous since they were arguments that he picked himself in the first place.
What points did you agree with?
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On July 20 2014 08:39 Danglars wrote:
I just can't see how your conventional wisdom is anything but listening to voices that already agree with you.
It's the overwhelming number of voices that agree with me that makes it conventional wisdom.
On July 20 2014 08:39 Danglars wrote:
The only thing that has changed lately is the pressure the base has put on Republican leaders to start representing their interests.
That's absurd. Things are constantly changing. And you really think the Republican base was disinterested in their leaders representing their interests prior to 2010?
On July 20 2014 08:39 Danglars wrote:
Conservatives continue to stand for the same damn things...
Sure, Movement Conservatism (what we now call the Tea Party) hasn't changed its ideology in the past thirty years, but the influence of Movement Conservatives inside the Republican party is not a constant, and Movement Conservatism does undergo changes. It has seen changes in leadership, issues of emphasis, and messaging.
On July 20 2014 08:39 Danglars wrote:
It's not redistricting...
You say that. I have very good evidence that suggests redistricting was a big fucking deal. It made districts safer. This is a matter of public record. Safer districts makes primaries matter more. When primaries matter more, the base (Tea Party) gains influence. Where do you see a flaw in this logic?
Here's a link to the Wikipedia page (I assume you wouldn't consider Wikipedia part of the "liberal media", do you?) on gerrymandering. It's a good read if you're ignorant to the issue. Here's something I pulled from that page: The 2012 election provides a number of examples as to how partisan gerrymandering can adversely affect the descriptive function of states' congressional delegations. In Pennsylvania, for example, Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives received 83,000 more votes than Republican candidates, yet the Republican-controlled redistricting process in 2010 resulted in Democrats losing to their Republican counterparts in 13 out of Pennsylvania’s 18 districts.[16]
In the seven states where Republicans had complete control over the redistricting process, Republican House candidates received 16.7 million votes and Democratic House candidates received 16.4 million votes. The redistricting resulted in Republican victories in 73 out of the 107 affected seats; in those 7 states, Republicans received 50.4% of the votes but won in over 68% of the congressional districts.[17] While it is but one example of how gerrymandering can have a significant impact on election outcomes, this kind of disproportional representation of the public will seems to be problematic for the legitimacy of democratic systems, regardless of one's political affiliation.
On July 20 2014 08:39 Danglars wrote:
The Tea Party candidates that won...ran on the same Reagan message...that won Republicans the 2010 midterms
Let's remind you that the opposition party usually has big midterms. Dissatisfaction drives turnout. Republicans turned out in much bigger numbers than Democrats. We should also expect the 2014 midterms to be a strong one for the GOP as well for the same reasons.
On July 20 2014 08:39 Danglars wrote:
It's precisely because they're out of touch with ordinary folk...
Does "ordinary folk" includes the electorate that re-elected Obama in 2012 or is it just limited to conservative ordinary folk? It sounds like you're out of touch with recent polling, the best mechanism available to figuring out what ordinary folk think. Gallup is a good resource to see what the people really think about healthcare, the enviroment, Obama, Congress, or any number of issues. (But maybe Gallup is too much a part of the "liberal media" for you.)
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You claim to have all this evidence and self-evidence but can you show us some? Saying "an overwhelming number of voices" and "I have very good evidence" implies it should be very easy to find it. Link to some third party sources showing it.
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On July 21 2014 09:01 coverpunch wrote:
You claim to have all this evidence and self-evidence but can you show us some? Saying "an overwhelming number of voices" and "I have very good evidence" implies it should be very easy to find it. Link to some third party sources showing it.
Considering the Wikipedia article I linked to supports my argument, and given the nature of Wikipedia I thought I was essentially sourcing "conventional wisdom"
Here's some more links that support the notion that 2010 redistricting helped Republicans create safe districts and gain seats in congress. It was "easy" to find: NY Times
Ballotpedia
Firedoglake
I've already linked to Wikipedia. So that's 4 out the first 5 googled results when I googled the question. The one I didn't include also supported my argument, but "fairdistrictsnow.org" had a clear political agenda so I didn't source them.
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LOS ANGELES — The rumblings are early but unmistakable: A political earthquake is — finally — headed to California.
For decades now, Democrats and Republicans here have experienced statewide politics as an interminable waiting game, thanks to a gang of 70- and 80-somethings from the Bay Area who have dominated government for a generation.
In a state famed for its youth and vitality, home to Hollywood and the Silicon Valley gospel of economic “disruption,” boasting an ultra-diverse population that presaged the country’s larger ethnic transformation — California’s leadership looks much the same as it did in the late 20th century.
Rising stars in both parties have come and gone, but the state’s chief power players have remained the same: Jerry Brown, California’s 76-year-old governor, is running for reelection this year to a post he first won in 1974. The two senators — Barbara Boxer, 73, and Dianne Feinstein, 81 — have held their jobs since the early 1990s.
The most prominent member of the congressional delegation, 74-year-old House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, started out as chairwoman of the California Democratic Party when Ronald Reagan was president. The current party chairman, 81-year-old John Burton, is a former congressman who first went to Washington in the 1974 post-Watergate revolution.
But at long last, change is afoot in the Golden State.
Source
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On July 21 2014 09:21 sc2isnotdying wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2014 09:01 coverpunch wrote:
You claim to have all this evidence and self-evidence but can you show us some? Saying "an overwhelming number of voices" and "I have very good evidence" implies it should be very easy to find it. Link to some third party sources showing it. Considering the Wikipedia article I linked to supports my argument, and given the nature of Wikipedia I thought I was essentially sourcing "conventional wisdom" Here's some more links that support the notion that 2010 redistricting helped Republicans create safe districts and gain seats in congress. It was "easy" to find: NY TimesBallotpediaFiredoglakeI've already linked to Wikipedia. So that's 4 out the first 5 googled results when I googled the question. The one I didn't include also supported my argument, but "fairdistrictsnow.org" had a clear political agenda so I didn't source them.
To be fair, not everyone agrees. Unless you just mean "everyone I read on a regular basis."
There have been a lot of claims recently about the impact of redistricting on the 2012 congressional elections. Progressives are alarmed that Democrats won a majority of the House vote—roughly 51%—while falling a full 17 seats short of a majority. Such a discrepancy between the winner by votes and the winner by seats is rare, so it’s natural to assume that Republican gerrymandering—the process of drawing districts to advantage one interest over others—might be the culprit.
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I’ve seen a lot of speculation on Twitter about the effects this ruling might have on the partisan composition of Congress, but most of it doesn’t get the story quite right, in my view. The problem is that most people are putting too much weight on gerrymandering and not enough on geography.
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Much of this change is because states themselves are becoming more polarized. As I pointed out in my last article, the number of swing states in presidential elections is at an all-time low. The number of Democratic and Republican senators from states that lean Democratic and Republican on the presidential level respectively is way up. Partially as a result, there is an increasingly large gap in ideology between Democratic and Republican senators, which has tracked with the ideological gap in the House. So unless, we are, all of a sudden, redistricting state lines, then gerrymandering can't possibly be the cause of what we're seeing at the state level.
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one of the major take-aways has to do with populated districts- Republican districts tend to have less of the majority Republican. Since you only need 50% + 1 vote to win a district, any vote over that threshold is "wasted." Democrats have more of these districts. Their districts are more "close-minded" 
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On July 21 2014 09:29 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +LOS ANGELES — The rumblings are early but unmistakable: A political earthquake is — finally — headed to California.
For decades now, Democrats and Republicans here have experienced statewide politics as an interminable waiting game, thanks to a gang of 70- and 80-somethings from the Bay Area who have dominated government for a generation.
In a state famed for its youth and vitality, home to Hollywood and the Silicon Valley gospel of economic “disruption,” boasting an ultra-diverse population that presaged the country’s larger ethnic transformation — California’s leadership looks much the same as it did in the late 20th century.
Rising stars in both parties have come and gone, but the state’s chief power players have remained the same: Jerry Brown, California’s 76-year-old governor, is running for reelection this year to a post he first won in 1974. The two senators — Barbara Boxer, 73, and Dianne Feinstein, 81 — have held their jobs since the early 1990s.
The most prominent member of the congressional delegation, 74-year-old House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, started out as chairwoman of the California Democratic Party when Ronald Reagan was president. The current party chairman, 81-year-old John Burton, is a former congressman who first went to Washington in the 1974 post-Watergate revolution.
But at long last, change is afoot in the Golden State. Source
What a pointless article. Not only is it true that no change will occur until 2016 at the soonest, but it's silly to think that anything will actually change. This state is run by the coast and will continue to be run by the coast for the foreseeable future. The only shakeup might come from the recent court ruling on teacher tenure laws. Otherwise, I see no reason for any upset until the state's finances drop out.
A younger Nancy Pelosi is still Nancy Pelosi.
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Fair enough, introvert. Not everyone agrees with the conventional wisdom. I'm pretty sure the gerrymandering matters argument is widely accepted. This is not to say that these demographic based counter arguments aren't valid. I mentioned the importance of demographics in an earlier post. Either way, both thoeries lead to primaries mattering more and neither involve Obama.
Edit: Also I never said everyone agrees. I try to avoid such a absolute statments. Obviously not everyone agrees. The conventional wisdom never accepted by everyone nor is it always true. Some people don't believe we landed on the moon, is the easy example to illustrate how some people will believe an alternate thoery just because they refuse to believe the official truth no matter how likely the official truth seems
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On July 21 2014 10:06 sc2isnotdying wrote:
Fair enough, introvert. Not everyone agrees with the conventional wisdom. I'm pretty sure the gerrymandering matters argument is widely accepted. This is not to say that these demographic based counter arguments aren't valid. I mentioned the importance of demographics in an earlier post. Either way, both thoeries lead to primaries mattering more and neither involve Obama.
Edit: Also I never said everyone agrees. I try to avoid such a absolute statments. Obviously not everyone agrees. The conventional wisdom never accepted by everyone nor is it always true. Some people don't believe we landed on the moon, is the easy example to illustrate how some people will believe an alternate thoery just because they refuse to believe the official truth no matter how likely the official truth seems
That's because "conventional wisdom" in the political sphere is basically whatever the Democrats spew out. From the Koch brothers to gerrymandering, we never hear another side unless we go looking for it.
The only time the left listens is when someone like Nate Silver or The Washington Post comes out and says "well..maybe you are wrong." But even then, they may just be ignored. So I carry no love for conventional wisdom, espeically when the claim originated on the left. Gerrymandering was the culprit long before the analysis was done, if my memory serves. Now that the math is finished, I think we can call that claim, if we were to use Politfact's nomenclature, "mostly false." (I'm being generous with that too. I'd go for "false.")
Either way, both thoeries lead to primaries mattering more and neither involve Obama.
Depending on what you are referring to, it is relevant. If you are referring to the gerrymandering "theory", then yes, it matters. It goes from "Republicans just won 'cause the game is rigged" to "well the electorate is sufficiently angry about something." Then you have to consider if Obama's policies are, in fact, part of the issue.
But I didn't mean to wade into the conversation except to challenge the gerrymandering claim.
EDIT: Another reason I responded is because I'm tired of this gerrymandering talk. I've posted relevant articles on it 3-4 times and yet regular thread readers still use it as an excuse, often times as part of their anti-Republican rhetoric.
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Apart from the gerrymandering, If you have effectively not convinced the majority of people to vote for you but you still win by 17 seats I think there's certainly something wrong with the system. I think it would at least be a question of common decency of the 'winning' party to not abuse their majority in the way the Republicans do.
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On July 21 2014 10:46 Nyxisto wrote:
Apart from the gerrymandering, If you have effectively not convinced the majority of people to vote for you but you still win by 17 seats I think there's certainly something wrong with the system. I think it would at least be a question of common decency of the 'winning' party to not abuse their majority in the way the Republicans do.
Of course it makes sense, and the articles help display this. The House is decided by districts. More districts went to one party then the other. The main issue is that Democrat districts have lots of wasted votes (since many of their districts are more homogeneous).
Each candidate is not obliged to go around the country. They have to win their own race. Winning an overall majority across the entire country has nothing to do with it. Nor is it the fault of any particular party that so many Democrat votes are wasted- it's just that more metropolitan areas are largely Democrat.
That being said, it is rare for the winning party to lose a majority of total votes, but so what? That's not the fault of the Republicans, and no individual Republican is obliged to vote a certain way based on anything outside the opinions of his own constituents.
By looking at it as one big "national" race, you miss the point.
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On July 21 2014 10:56 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2014 10:46 Nyxisto wrote:
Apart from the gerrymandering, If you have effectively not convinced the majority of people to vote for you but you still win by 17 seats I think there's certainly something wrong with the system. I think it would at least be a question of common decency of the 'winning' party to not abuse their majority in the way the Republicans do. Of course it makes sense, and the articles help display this. The House is decided by districts. More districts went to one party then the other. The main issue is that Democrat districts have lots of wasted votes (since many of their districts are more homogeneous). Each candidate is not obliged to go around the country. They have to win their own race. Winning an overall majority across the entire country has nothing to do with it. Nor is it the fault of any particular party that so many Democrat votes are wasted- it's just that more metropolitan areas are largely Democrat. That being said, it is rare for the winning party to lose a majority of total votes, but so what? That's not the fault of the Republicans. By looking at it as one big "national" race, you miss the point.
Introvert is right, the district system is poorly designed and rewards republicans. Time redraw it to a proportional representation based on a national tally and give the Democrats their permanent majority
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Late last week, the Pew Research And Public Life Project dropped a fascinating new survey on Americans' feelings toward different religious groups.
The pollsters used a "thermometer" that went up to 100 for respondents to plot just how warmly they felt toward different communities. They deemed a rating of more than 50 as positive, while a rating of less than 50 was deemed negative.
Perhaps surprisingly, Jews were viewed more warmly than any other group. With a mean rating of 63, they just beat out Catholics at 62 and evangelical Christians at 61 for the top spot.
Some of the data points in the survey are intuitive: Respondents from all groups were most positive about folks who shared their particular religious orientation.
Others were more complicated. While white evangelicals felt very warmly toward Jews (a rating of 69), the reverse was not true. Jews gave evangelicals a frigid 34 percent. Indeed, the only group who felt less warm toward evangelicals than Jews did were the people who identified as atheists — and the numbers show that the lack of affinity there was quite mutual.
What gives here? The conservative blogger Allahpundit wondered is if the study wasn't, in part, a proxy for politics:
"Could be that evangelicals, when asked about Jews, instinctively think of Israel and foreign policy whereas Jews, most of whom lean Democratic, think mainly of domestic policy when asked about evangelical Christians. Go figure that a socially liberal, solidly Democratic group would look skeptically at the GOP's conservative base. When you ask Jews about a Christian group that's not closely identified with either party, i.e. Catholics, the rating shoots up to 58, the second highest number (behind Buddhists) that Jews gave to any other group."
Indeed, what jumped out to us was how much identity — political, racial, generational — influenced how people responded. Jews were viewed positively among blacks (an average rating of 58) and Latinos (58), but they were viewed more positively by whites (66) . Evangelicals were rated most highly by blacks (68), although they were stilll viewed positively by whites (60) and Latinos (57).
Muslims were at the opposite end of the spectrum from Jews — they were viewed less warmly across the board — a mean score of 40 — than members of every other group. Blacks gave Muslims a 49, a neutral rating, while Latinos gave them an average rating of 43 and whites assigned them an average rating of 38.
Source
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On July 21 2014 10:56 Introvert wrote:
That being said, it is rare for the winning party to lose a majority of total votes, but so what? That's not the fault of the Republicans, and no individual Republican is obliged to vote a certain way based on anything outside the opinions of his own constituents.
That may all be true but I don't think that kind of attitude will impress the electorate. Sure, these single winner systems are not meant to be a 'nation race', but the general idea of a democracy is still that the majority of people is fairly represented. The difference between the actual votes and the seats in 2012 was freakishly big. If a party then goes on to obstruct the rest of the government in desperate fashion 'just because we can' that doesn't look very clever to me. Everyone has internet access today. Just making the current government look bad is not going to cut it.
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EPT
