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On November 10 2016 21:28 Dan HH wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2016 21:26 Excludos wrote:On November 10 2016 21:24 Laurens wrote:On November 10 2016 21:19 Simberto wrote:On November 10 2016 20:58 Acrofales wrote:On November 10 2016 20:23 Excludos wrote:On November 10 2016 19:48 Liquid`Jinro wrote:On November 10 2016 18:51 Thax wrote:On November 10 2016 18:45 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:
I'm seeing a huge number of people on social media angry with Trump and "racist" white people that voted him in.
What I'm not seeing so much of is democratic supporters giving the DNC a grill over their shocking treatment of Sanders.The primaries were rigged against Sanders, who was destroying Trump in all the polls.
How about instead of protesting against Trump protest against the corrupt DNC and try to get some real change in that organisation.Then you've got a chance of getting a good candidate instead of an establishment shill like Clinton and with a decent chance of Trump being impeached in his first term the outlook could be good.
Personally i still think too many people are uninformed and just get their news from mainstream outlets who are completely discredited to anyone who is awake to the game.
Sites like HuffPo are hyperbolic right now, channel that anger toward positive change in your own party instead of this negativity.
Clinton also destroyed Trump in the polls. Every Sanders-fanboy who has taken this election to vote Trump or even third party as some sort of big fuck you to the establishment has blood on their hands. Trump is going to destroy lives and it's as much their fault as it is of racist white people. Given that he won the elections fairly, I think it's really poor form to pre-emptively talk about him ruining lives. Maybe he'll be good. Maybe he will be awful. I strongly dislike him, but you gotta give him a chance to actually be president before talking about how bad he is at it. I would say the word "fairly" is up for debate here, considering he didn't win the majority vote (or at least seems like he won't based on the numbers right now). I haven't followed this thread long so I apologise if this has been discussed to death already, but the american "Democracy" is too screwed up. First off not all US citizens, even those born and raised in the US without any criminal history, is allowed to vote. Secondly, your vote might be completely pointless depending on what state you live in. If you're in a sure Democrat or Republic state, you might as well not vote because it's going to count for exactly nothing (I'm not saying not to vote. Always vote. At least that way there's a chance, even if it's tiny). Then there's the problem with the Electoral College being unfairly distributed, or the fact that it's existing at all. It's purpose was two folds: Logistical (which isn't relevant anymore), and to give "the little guys in the rural areas a bigger voice compared to those elitist people living in the big cities", the latter which is ridiculous. Even if you combine the biggest 100 cities in US, you're still not up to 20% of the whole population. The EC is actually working against it's purpose right now, as the presidential candidates are not only ignoring the largest cities, but also the smallest states for all of their rallies. So the entire purpose of it right now is to give hillbilly Joe in the least populated states the largest vote for no apparent reason (which is usually republican, given that all 4 presidents who won without winning the popular vote have been republican). That's not even touching on the way the whole system is built to support two parties backed by large corporations and donations in a way that would be counted as corruption in every other country. Fairly certain you're just spouting drivel here. Yes, if you just take the population of just the city municipalities, you're probably right (haven't done the math). But what you're then saying is that LA has under 4million inhabitants, whereas the LA metropolitan area, which is what you can reasonably count as "elitist people living in big cities", has 12.8million inhabitants (LA county + OC). This doesn't count Ventura and other surrounding metropolitan areas, which would add up to a further 10million inhabitants. The same goes for NYC: the city itself has an official population of 8million, but the NYC-Newark-JC area has 20million inhabitants. That means that taking those two areas together you are already over 10% of the population. All we need to do is add Chicago (10million), Dallas-Fort Worth (7million) and Houston (6.5million) to easily break 20% of the US population. Giving a voice to sparsely populated rural areas is a perfectly valid goal. A discussion can (and should) be had over how much their influence should be (how much more should voters in sparsely populated areas be weighted than those in densely populated areas), but I have lived in enough areas to know that what is good policy for cities is often terrible policy for the countryside. I agree with you that the Electoral College in its current format is outdated. I just disagree with you on that a strictly proportional vote is really better. I don't really understand the reasoning in this statement. Isn't one of the main ideas of democracy that all people have an equal vote, no matter who they are? Why should rural farmers have more votes than people in cities? If we are following this route, why not give more votes to smarter people? Or richer, as they have more at stake? This whole idea that rural people should have more votes seems to mostly be justifying that it has historically been like this in the US, and thus there must be a reason for it. To me, it seems fundamentally undemocratic to give people living in cities less votes just because rural people have historically been given overproportional representation and would be sad to lose that. The entire argument is dumb. The system is known to everyone beforehand. Discussions after the facts about "if we did it in X way then candidate Y would have won" are useless. I can assure you that thousands of voters did not bother to vote because they live in states where one of the parties is 100% gonna win. Whether he wins with 100 votes or 50000 votes is irrelevant, winner takes all. If you tell these people beforehand "oh every single vote will count now" obviously voter behavior will change. All of this certainly does not mean that it's a good system, but trying to fit current data in a different system is just silly. Why is it dumb just because we're discussing it after the fact? Yes, it won't change anything, but that doesn't make the system any less broken. Yes, the system is broken, but his point is that the very existence of the electoral system influences the result of the popular vote, so you can't extrapolate that without the electoral system Clinton would have still won the popular vote.
You can't in general but I'm pretty sure you can in this case. Clinton won almost every big city, even in deep red states where the democratic vote doesn't matter.
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On November 10 2016 21:26 Excludos wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2016 21:24 Laurens wrote:On November 10 2016 21:19 Simberto wrote:On November 10 2016 20:58 Acrofales wrote:On November 10 2016 20:23 Excludos wrote:On November 10 2016 19:48 Liquid`Jinro wrote:On November 10 2016 18:51 Thax wrote:On November 10 2016 18:45 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:
I'm seeing a huge number of people on social media angry with Trump and "racist" white people that voted him in.
What I'm not seeing so much of is democratic supporters giving the DNC a grill over their shocking treatment of Sanders.The primaries were rigged against Sanders, who was destroying Trump in all the polls.
How about instead of protesting against Trump protest against the corrupt DNC and try to get some real change in that organisation.Then you've got a chance of getting a good candidate instead of an establishment shill like Clinton and with a decent chance of Trump being impeached in his first term the outlook could be good.
Personally i still think too many people are uninformed and just get their news from mainstream outlets who are completely discredited to anyone who is awake to the game.
Sites like HuffPo are hyperbolic right now, channel that anger toward positive change in your own party instead of this negativity.
Clinton also destroyed Trump in the polls. Every Sanders-fanboy who has taken this election to vote Trump or even third party as some sort of big fuck you to the establishment has blood on their hands. Trump is going to destroy lives and it's as much their fault as it is of racist white people. Given that he won the elections fairly, I think it's really poor form to pre-emptively talk about him ruining lives. Maybe he'll be good. Maybe he will be awful. I strongly dislike him, but you gotta give him a chance to actually be president before talking about how bad he is at it. I would say the word "fairly" is up for debate here, considering he didn't win the majority vote (or at least seems like he won't based on the numbers right now). I haven't followed this thread long so I apologise if this has been discussed to death already, but the american "Democracy" is too screwed up. First off not all US citizens, even those born and raised in the US without any criminal history, is allowed to vote. Secondly, your vote might be completely pointless depending on what state you live in. If you're in a sure Democrat or Republic state, you might as well not vote because it's going to count for exactly nothing (I'm not saying not to vote. Always vote. At least that way there's a chance, even if it's tiny). Then there's the problem with the Electoral College being unfairly distributed, or the fact that it's existing at all. It's purpose was two folds: Logistical (which isn't relevant anymore), and to give "the little guys in the rural areas a bigger voice compared to those elitist people living in the big cities", the latter which is ridiculous. Even if you combine the biggest 100 cities in US, you're still not up to 20% of the whole population. The EC is actually working against it's purpose right now, as the presidential candidates are not only ignoring the largest cities, but also the smallest states for all of their rallies. So the entire purpose of it right now is to give hillbilly Joe in the least populated states the largest vote for no apparent reason (which is usually republican, given that all 4 presidents who won without winning the popular vote have been republican). That's not even touching on the way the whole system is built to support two parties backed by large corporations and donations in a way that would be counted as corruption in every other country. Fairly certain you're just spouting drivel here. Yes, if you just take the population of just the city municipalities, you're probably right (haven't done the math). But what you're then saying is that LA has under 4million inhabitants, whereas the LA metropolitan area, which is what you can reasonably count as "elitist people living in big cities", has 12.8million inhabitants (LA county + OC). This doesn't count Ventura and other surrounding metropolitan areas, which would add up to a further 10million inhabitants. The same goes for NYC: the city itself has an official population of 8million, but the NYC-Newark-JC area has 20million inhabitants. That means that taking those two areas together you are already over 10% of the population. All we need to do is add Chicago (10million), Dallas-Fort Worth (7million) and Houston (6.5million) to easily break 20% of the US population. Giving a voice to sparsely populated rural areas is a perfectly valid goal. A discussion can (and should) be had over how much their influence should be (how much more should voters in sparsely populated areas be weighted than those in densely populated areas), but I have lived in enough areas to know that what is good policy for cities is often terrible policy for the countryside. I agree with you that the Electoral College in its current format is outdated. I just disagree with you on that a strictly proportional vote is really better. I don't really understand the reasoning in this statement. Isn't one of the main ideas of democracy that all people have an equal vote, no matter who they are? Why should rural farmers have more votes than people in cities? If we are following this route, why not give more votes to smarter people? Or richer, as they have more at stake? This whole idea that rural people should have more votes seems to mostly be justifying that it has historically been like this in the US, and thus there must be a reason for it. To me, it seems fundamentally undemocratic to give people living in cities less votes just because rural people have historically been given overproportional representation and would be sad to lose that. The entire argument is dumb. The system is known to everyone beforehand. Discussions after the facts about "if we did it in X way then candidate Y would have won" are useless. I can assure you that thousands of voters did not bother to vote because they live in states where one of the parties is 100% gonna win. Whether he wins with 100 votes or 50000 votes is irrelevant, winner takes all. If you tell these people beforehand "oh every single vote will count now" obviously voter behavior will change. All of this certainly does not mean that it's a good system, but trying to fit current data in a different system is just silly. Why is it dumb just because we're discussing it after the fact? Yes, it won't change anything, but that doesn't make the system any less broken.
Also, i think i have clearly stated that i think the US system is broken multiple times beforehand. I do not think that the badness of the system alone explains the horribly bad election result, because even if we ignore that, Trump still got elected by an inexplicably large amount of people.
But trump is elected now, and now we are basically waiting to see just how bad he will be for the rest of the world, and also the US. We do not really have any new information until he is actually president and starts using the power.
Maybe the US can use that large influx of antiestablishmentarism productively and manage to get a reasonable election system out of it in the end. Meanwhile, we just hope that the republican party in general and trump and his leading caste in particular are not as evil as they sound when talking, and don't try as hard to be bad for everyone as they claimed before the election.
What we are probably stuck with no matter what is a complete lack of facts in US politics in the forseeable future, as those don't appear to be necessary to be elected. Feelings over facts. Just repeat a lie often enough and enough people will believe it despite any evidence that it is obviously wrong, because they don't trust the evidence, they only trust their prophet.
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On November 10 2016 20:58 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2016 20:23 Excludos wrote:On November 10 2016 19:48 Liquid`Jinro wrote:On November 10 2016 18:51 Thax wrote:On November 10 2016 18:45 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:
I'm seeing a huge number of people on social media angry with Trump and "racist" white people that voted him in.
What I'm not seeing so much of is democratic supporters giving the DNC a grill over their shocking treatment of Sanders.The primaries were rigged against Sanders, who was destroying Trump in all the polls.
How about instead of protesting against Trump protest against the corrupt DNC and try to get some real change in that organisation.Then you've got a chance of getting a good candidate instead of an establishment shill like Clinton and with a decent chance of Trump being impeached in his first term the outlook could be good.
Personally i still think too many people are uninformed and just get their news from mainstream outlets who are completely discredited to anyone who is awake to the game.
Sites like HuffPo are hyperbolic right now, channel that anger toward positive change in your own party instead of this negativity.
Clinton also destroyed Trump in the polls. Every Sanders-fanboy who has taken this election to vote Trump or even third party as some sort of big fuck you to the establishment has blood on their hands. Trump is going to destroy lives and it's as much their fault as it is of racist white people. Given that he won the elections fairly, I think it's really poor form to pre-emptively talk about him ruining lives. Maybe he'll be good. Maybe he will be awful. I strongly dislike him, but you gotta give him a chance to actually be president before talking about how bad he is at it. I would say the word "fairly" is up for debate here, considering he didn't win the majority vote (or at least seems like he won't based on the numbers right now). I haven't followed this thread long so I apologise if this has been discussed to death already, but the american "Democracy" is too screwed up. First off not all US citizens, even those born and raised in the US without any criminal history, is allowed to vote. Secondly, your vote might be completely pointless depending on what state you live in. If you're in a sure Democrat or Republic state, you might as well not vote because it's going to count for exactly nothing (I'm not saying not to vote. Always vote. At least that way there's a chance, even if it's tiny). Then there's the problem with the Electoral College being unfairly distributed, or the fact that it's existing at all. It's purpose was two folds: Logistical (which isn't relevant anymore), and to give "the little guys in the rural areas a bigger voice compared to those elitist people living in the big cities", the latter which is ridiculous. Even if you combine the biggest 100 cities in US, you're still not up to 20% of the whole population. The EC is actually working against it's purpose right now, as the presidential candidates are not only ignoring the largest cities, but also the smallest states for all of their rallies. So the entire purpose of it right now is to give hillbilly Joe in the least populated states the largest vote for no apparent reason (which is usually republican, given that all 4 presidents who won without winning the popular vote have been republican). That's not even touching on the way the whole system is built to support two parties backed by large corporations and donations in a way that would be counted as corruption in every other country. Fairly certain you're just spouting drivel here. Yes, if you just take the population of just the city municipalities, you're probably right (haven't done the math). But what you're then saying is that LA has under 4million inhabitants, whereas the LA metropolitan area, which is what you can reasonably count as "elitist people living in big cities", has 12.8million inhabitants (LA county + OC). This doesn't count Ventura and other surrounding metropolitan areas, which would add up to a further 10million inhabitants. The same goes for NYC: the city itself has an official population of 8million, but the NYC-Newark-JC area has 20million inhabitants. That means that taking those two areas together you are already over 10% of the population. All we need to do is add Chicago (10million), Dallas-Fort Worth (7million) and Houston (6.5million) to easily break 20% of the US population. Giving a voice to sparsely populated rural areas is a perfectly valid goal. A discussion can (and should) be had over how much their influence should be (how much more should voters in sparsely populated areas be weighted than those in densely populated areas), but I have lived in enough areas to know that what is good policy for cities is often terrible policy for the countryside. I agree with you that the Electoral College in its current format is outdated. I just disagree with you on that a strictly proportional vote is really better.
I specifically stated city, not city counties. That's the whole point of the EC after all, giving more voice to the people in the rural areas as opposed to those living together in cities, yet the 100 biggest cities (not their counties) don't add up for more than 20% of the entire population. The 10 biggest cities only make up 8%. Not to mention even if we ignored that and said EC is working as intended: it doesn't. Like I mentioned, presidential candidates don't visit the smallest states, or the largest. They all gather around the middle of the tree as well as the few swing states that decides everything.
Case in point on how broken this system is: You can win the presidential election with only 22% of the votes in US. How is this not fundamentally broken?
The US prides itself in being a democracy, yet they break all 4 fundamental things about it: 1. Everyone is allowed to vote and all votes must count for equal. 2. Citizen participation. 3. The law must be the same for everyone. 4. protection of human rights. (more or less. My wording is wrong but the idea is the same)
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On November 10 2016 21:29 On_Slaught wrote:
Putting somebody like Carson in charge of Education would result in the sort of social conservative social project that the vast majority of people reject and is an easy talking point that could be used to help bury this administration in 4 years. Being antI evolution and anti free college, regardless of if it makes sense, are the sorts of things that will get more voters out (especially the young).
Hopefully he just sticks him somewhere in medicine and stays away from education.
The problem here is that some republican is going to be in charge of education, and i don't think they have anyone that is not against evolution (how that fuck is that even a position), against sex education and for some ridiculous religious bullshit.
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On November 10 2016 21:31 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2016 21:28 Dan HH wrote:On November 10 2016 21:26 Excludos wrote:On November 10 2016 21:24 Laurens wrote:On November 10 2016 21:19 Simberto wrote:On November 10 2016 20:58 Acrofales wrote:On November 10 2016 20:23 Excludos wrote:On November 10 2016 19:48 Liquid`Jinro wrote:On November 10 2016 18:51 Thax wrote:On November 10 2016 18:45 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:
I'm seeing a huge number of people on social media angry with Trump and "racist" white people that voted him in.
What I'm not seeing so much of is democratic supporters giving the DNC a grill over their shocking treatment of Sanders.The primaries were rigged against Sanders, who was destroying Trump in all the polls.
How about instead of protesting against Trump protest against the corrupt DNC and try to get some real change in that organisation.Then you've got a chance of getting a good candidate instead of an establishment shill like Clinton and with a decent chance of Trump being impeached in his first term the outlook could be good.
Personally i still think too many people are uninformed and just get their news from mainstream outlets who are completely discredited to anyone who is awake to the game.
Sites like HuffPo are hyperbolic right now, channel that anger toward positive change in your own party instead of this negativity.
Clinton also destroyed Trump in the polls. Every Sanders-fanboy who has taken this election to vote Trump or even third party as some sort of big fuck you to the establishment has blood on their hands. Trump is going to destroy lives and it's as much their fault as it is of racist white people. Given that he won the elections fairly, I think it's really poor form to pre-emptively talk about him ruining lives. Maybe he'll be good. Maybe he will be awful. I strongly dislike him, but you gotta give him a chance to actually be president before talking about how bad he is at it. I would say the word "fairly" is up for debate here, considering he didn't win the majority vote (or at least seems like he won't based on the numbers right now). I haven't followed this thread long so I apologise if this has been discussed to death already, but the american "Democracy" is too screwed up. First off not all US citizens, even those born and raised in the US without any criminal history, is allowed to vote. Secondly, your vote might be completely pointless depending on what state you live in. If you're in a sure Democrat or Republic state, you might as well not vote because it's going to count for exactly nothing (I'm not saying not to vote. Always vote. At least that way there's a chance, even if it's tiny). Then there's the problem with the Electoral College being unfairly distributed, or the fact that it's existing at all. It's purpose was two folds: Logistical (which isn't relevant anymore), and to give "the little guys in the rural areas a bigger voice compared to those elitist people living in the big cities", the latter which is ridiculous. Even if you combine the biggest 100 cities in US, you're still not up to 20% of the whole population. The EC is actually working against it's purpose right now, as the presidential candidates are not only ignoring the largest cities, but also the smallest states for all of their rallies. So the entire purpose of it right now is to give hillbilly Joe in the least populated states the largest vote for no apparent reason (which is usually republican, given that all 4 presidents who won without winning the popular vote have been republican). That's not even touching on the way the whole system is built to support two parties backed by large corporations and donations in a way that would be counted as corruption in every other country. Fairly certain you're just spouting drivel here. Yes, if you just take the population of just the city municipalities, you're probably right (haven't done the math). But what you're then saying is that LA has under 4million inhabitants, whereas the LA metropolitan area, which is what you can reasonably count as "elitist people living in big cities", has 12.8million inhabitants (LA county + OC). This doesn't count Ventura and other surrounding metropolitan areas, which would add up to a further 10million inhabitants. The same goes for NYC: the city itself has an official population of 8million, but the NYC-Newark-JC area has 20million inhabitants. That means that taking those two areas together you are already over 10% of the population. All we need to do is add Chicago (10million), Dallas-Fort Worth (7million) and Houston (6.5million) to easily break 20% of the US population. Giving a voice to sparsely populated rural areas is a perfectly valid goal. A discussion can (and should) be had over how much their influence should be (how much more should voters in sparsely populated areas be weighted than those in densely populated areas), but I have lived in enough areas to know that what is good policy for cities is often terrible policy for the countryside. I agree with you that the Electoral College in its current format is outdated. I just disagree with you on that a strictly proportional vote is really better. I don't really understand the reasoning in this statement. Isn't one of the main ideas of democracy that all people have an equal vote, no matter who they are? Why should rural farmers have more votes than people in cities? If we are following this route, why not give more votes to smarter people? Or richer, as they have more at stake? This whole idea that rural people should have more votes seems to mostly be justifying that it has historically been like this in the US, and thus there must be a reason for it. To me, it seems fundamentally undemocratic to give people living in cities less votes just because rural people have historically been given overproportional representation and would be sad to lose that. The entire argument is dumb. The system is known to everyone beforehand. Discussions after the facts about "if we did it in X way then candidate Y would have won" are useless. I can assure you that thousands of voters did not bother to vote because they live in states where one of the parties is 100% gonna win. Whether he wins with 100 votes or 50000 votes is irrelevant, winner takes all. If you tell these people beforehand "oh every single vote will count now" obviously voter behavior will change. All of this certainly does not mean that it's a good system, but trying to fit current data in a different system is just silly. Why is it dumb just because we're discussing it after the fact? Yes, it won't change anything, but that doesn't make the system any less broken. Yes, the system is broken, but his point is that the very existence of the electoral system influences the result of the popular vote, so you can't extrapolate that without the electoral system Clinton would have still won the popular vote. You can't in general but I'm pretty sure you can in this case. Clinton won almost every big city, even in deep red states where the democratic vote doesn't matter.
Sure, but is there a reason to assume that the removal of the electoral system would have translated into an increase in turnout in big cities more so than in the rest of the country?
I'm tired of the comparisons with Brexit but I think it's appropriate here, the UK referendum was a popular vote and remain lost precisely because the turnout increase between the general election and the referendum was lower in big cities that were pro-remain strongholds like London or Glasgow than in the rest of the country.
I'm not suggesting that means it would have been the same in the US, but it's certainly a possibility which makes us unable to know with a high degree of confidence that Clinton would have won the popular vote without the electoral system.
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On November 10 2016 21:19 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2016 20:58 Acrofales wrote:On November 10 2016 20:23 Excludos wrote:On November 10 2016 19:48 Liquid`Jinro wrote:On November 10 2016 18:51 Thax wrote:On November 10 2016 18:45 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:
I'm seeing a huge number of people on social media angry with Trump and "racist" white people that voted him in.
What I'm not seeing so much of is democratic supporters giving the DNC a grill over their shocking treatment of Sanders.The primaries were rigged against Sanders, who was destroying Trump in all the polls.
How about instead of protesting against Trump protest against the corrupt DNC and try to get some real change in that organisation.Then you've got a chance of getting a good candidate instead of an establishment shill like Clinton and with a decent chance of Trump being impeached in his first term the outlook could be good.
Personally i still think too many people are uninformed and just get their news from mainstream outlets who are completely discredited to anyone who is awake to the game.
Sites like HuffPo are hyperbolic right now, channel that anger toward positive change in your own party instead of this negativity.
Clinton also destroyed Trump in the polls. Every Sanders-fanboy who has taken this election to vote Trump or even third party as some sort of big fuck you to the establishment has blood on their hands. Trump is going to destroy lives and it's as much their fault as it is of racist white people. Given that he won the elections fairly, I think it's really poor form to pre-emptively talk about him ruining lives. Maybe he'll be good. Maybe he will be awful. I strongly dislike him, but you gotta give him a chance to actually be president before talking about how bad he is at it. I would say the word "fairly" is up for debate here, considering he didn't win the majority vote (or at least seems like he won't based on the numbers right now). I haven't followed this thread long so I apologise if this has been discussed to death already, but the american "Democracy" is too screwed up. First off not all US citizens, even those born and raised in the US without any criminal history, is allowed to vote. Secondly, your vote might be completely pointless depending on what state you live in. If you're in a sure Democrat or Republic state, you might as well not vote because it's going to count for exactly nothing (I'm not saying not to vote. Always vote. At least that way there's a chance, even if it's tiny). Then there's the problem with the Electoral College being unfairly distributed, or the fact that it's existing at all. It's purpose was two folds: Logistical (which isn't relevant anymore), and to give "the little guys in the rural areas a bigger voice compared to those elitist people living in the big cities", the latter which is ridiculous. Even if you combine the biggest 100 cities in US, you're still not up to 20% of the whole population. The EC is actually working against it's purpose right now, as the presidential candidates are not only ignoring the largest cities, but also the smallest states for all of their rallies. So the entire purpose of it right now is to give hillbilly Joe in the least populated states the largest vote for no apparent reason (which is usually republican, given that all 4 presidents who won without winning the popular vote have been republican). That's not even touching on the way the whole system is built to support two parties backed by large corporations and donations in a way that would be counted as corruption in every other country. Fairly certain you're just spouting drivel here. Yes, if you just take the population of just the city municipalities, you're probably right (haven't done the math). But what you're then saying is that LA has under 4million inhabitants, whereas the LA metropolitan area, which is what you can reasonably count as "elitist people living in big cities", has 12.8million inhabitants (LA county + OC). This doesn't count Ventura and other surrounding metropolitan areas, which would add up to a further 10million inhabitants. The same goes for NYC: the city itself has an official population of 8million, but the NYC-Newark-JC area has 20million inhabitants. That means that taking those two areas together you are already over 10% of the population. All we need to do is add Chicago (10million), Dallas-Fort Worth (7million) and Houston (6.5million) to easily break 20% of the US population. Giving a voice to sparsely populated rural areas is a perfectly valid goal. A discussion can (and should) be had over how much their influence should be (how much more should voters in sparsely populated areas be weighted than those in densely populated areas), but I have lived in enough areas to know that what is good policy for cities is often terrible policy for the countryside. I agree with you that the Electoral College in its current format is outdated. I just disagree with you on that a strictly proportional vote is really better. I don't really understand the reasoning in this statement. Isn't one of the main ideas of democracy that all people have an equal vote, no matter who they are? Why should rural farmers have more votes than people in cities? If we are following this route, why not give more votes to smarter people? Or richer, as they have more at stake? This whole idea that rural people should have more votes seems to mostly be justifying that it has historically been like this in the US, and thus there must be a reason for it. To me, it seems fundamentally undemocratic to give people living in cities less votes just because rural people have historically been given overproportional representation and would be sad to lose that.
I agree. If you want rural people to have more influence you can devolve part of the decision making to the municipalities or states. Giving one part of the population more of a vote is against the equality principle in democracy which is pretty much what the whole system is all about.
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On November 10 2016 21:41 Dan HH wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2016 21:31 Nebuchad wrote:On November 10 2016 21:28 Dan HH wrote:On November 10 2016 21:26 Excludos wrote:On November 10 2016 21:24 Laurens wrote:On November 10 2016 21:19 Simberto wrote:On November 10 2016 20:58 Acrofales wrote:On November 10 2016 20:23 Excludos wrote:On November 10 2016 19:48 Liquid`Jinro wrote:On November 10 2016 18:51 Thax wrote:
[quote]
Clinton also destroyed Trump in the polls. Every Sanders-fanboy who has taken this election to vote Trump or even third party as some sort of big fuck you to the establishment has blood on their hands. Trump is going to destroy lives and it's as much their fault as it is of racist white people. Given that he won the elections fairly, I think it's really poor form to pre-emptively talk about him ruining lives. Maybe he'll be good. Maybe he will be awful. I strongly dislike him, but you gotta give him a chance to actually be president before talking about how bad he is at it. I would say the word "fairly" is up for debate here, considering he didn't win the majority vote (or at least seems like he won't based on the numbers right now). I haven't followed this thread long so I apologise if this has been discussed to death already, but the american "Democracy" is too screwed up. First off not all US citizens, even those born and raised in the US without any criminal history, is allowed to vote. Secondly, your vote might be completely pointless depending on what state you live in. If you're in a sure Democrat or Republic state, you might as well not vote because it's going to count for exactly nothing (I'm not saying not to vote. Always vote. At least that way there's a chance, even if it's tiny). Then there's the problem with the Electoral College being unfairly distributed, or the fact that it's existing at all. It's purpose was two folds: Logistical (which isn't relevant anymore), and to give "the little guys in the rural areas a bigger voice compared to those elitist people living in the big cities", the latter which is ridiculous. Even if you combine the biggest 100 cities in US, you're still not up to 20% of the whole population. The EC is actually working against it's purpose right now, as the presidential candidates are not only ignoring the largest cities, but also the smallest states for all of their rallies. So the entire purpose of it right now is to give hillbilly Joe in the least populated states the largest vote for no apparent reason (which is usually republican, given that all 4 presidents who won without winning the popular vote have been republican). That's not even touching on the way the whole system is built to support two parties backed by large corporations and donations in a way that would be counted as corruption in every other country. Fairly certain you're just spouting drivel here. Yes, if you just take the population of just the city municipalities, you're probably right (haven't done the math). But what you're then saying is that LA has under 4million inhabitants, whereas the LA metropolitan area, which is what you can reasonably count as "elitist people living in big cities", has 12.8million inhabitants (LA county + OC). This doesn't count Ventura and other surrounding metropolitan areas, which would add up to a further 10million inhabitants. The same goes for NYC: the city itself has an official population of 8million, but the NYC-Newark-JC area has 20million inhabitants. That means that taking those two areas together you are already over 10% of the population. All we need to do is add Chicago (10million), Dallas-Fort Worth (7million) and Houston (6.5million) to easily break 20% of the US population. Giving a voice to sparsely populated rural areas is a perfectly valid goal. A discussion can (and should) be had over how much their influence should be (how much more should voters in sparsely populated areas be weighted than those in densely populated areas), but I have lived in enough areas to know that what is good policy for cities is often terrible policy for the countryside. I agree with you that the Electoral College in its current format is outdated. I just disagree with you on that a strictly proportional vote is really better. I don't really understand the reasoning in this statement. Isn't one of the main ideas of democracy that all people have an equal vote, no matter who they are? Why should rural farmers have more votes than people in cities? If we are following this route, why not give more votes to smarter people? Or richer, as they have more at stake? This whole idea that rural people should have more votes seems to mostly be justifying that it has historically been like this in the US, and thus there must be a reason for it. To me, it seems fundamentally undemocratic to give people living in cities less votes just because rural people have historically been given overproportional representation and would be sad to lose that. The entire argument is dumb. The system is known to everyone beforehand. Discussions after the facts about "if we did it in X way then candidate Y would have won" are useless. I can assure you that thousands of voters did not bother to vote because they live in states where one of the parties is 100% gonna win. Whether he wins with 100 votes or 50000 votes is irrelevant, winner takes all. If you tell these people beforehand "oh every single vote will count now" obviously voter behavior will change. All of this certainly does not mean that it's a good system, but trying to fit current data in a different system is just silly. Why is it dumb just because we're discussing it after the fact? Yes, it won't change anything, but that doesn't make the system any less broken. Yes, the system is broken, but his point is that the very existence of the electoral system influences the result of the popular vote, so you can't extrapolate that without the electoral system Clinton would have still won the popular vote. You can't in general but I'm pretty sure you can in this case. Clinton won almost every big city, even in deep red states where the democratic vote doesn't matter. Sure, but is there a reason to assume that the removal of the electoral system would have translated into an increase in turnout in big cities more so than in the rest of the country?
No, but I don't need an increase in turnout to make that point, you need a decrease in turnout to make the opposite point
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The difference atm (according to nytimes) is about 230k. Out of 120 mil votes.
That is way to small a margin to say that by a pure popular vote either candidate would have obviously won.
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Did you see Michael Moore's post?
Morning After To-Do List:
1. Take over the Democratic Party and return it to the people. They have failed us miserably.
2. Fire all pundits, predictors, pollsters and anyone else in the media who had a narrative they wouldn't let go of and refused to listen to or acknowledge what was really going on. Those same bloviators will now tell us we must "heal the divide" and "come together." They will pull more hooey like that out of their ass in the days to come. Turn them off.
3. Any Democratic member of Congress who didn't wake up this morning ready to fight, resist and obstruct in the way Republicans did against President Obama every day for eight full years must step out of the way and let those of us who know the score lead the way in stopping the meanness and the madness that's about to begin.
4. Everyone must stop saying they are "stunned" and "shocked". What you mean to say is that you were in a bubble and weren't paying attention to your fellow Americans and their despair. YEARS of being neglected by both parties, the anger and the need for revenge against the system only grew. Along came a TV star they liked whose plan was to destroy both parties and tell them all "You're fired!" Trump's victory is no surprise. He was never a joke. Treating him as one only strengthened him. He is both a creature and a creation of the media and the media will never own that.
5. You must say this sentence to everyone you meet today: "HILLARY CLINTON WON THE POPULAR VOTE!" The MAJORITY of our fellow Americans preferred Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. Period. Fact. If you woke up this morning thinking you live in an effed-up country, you don't. The majority of your fellow Americans wanted Hillary, not Trump. The only reason he's president is because of an arcane, insane 18th-century idea called the Electoral College. Until we change that, we'll continue to have presidents we didn't elect and didn't want. You live in a country where a majority of its citizens have said they believe there's climate change, they believe women should be paid the same as men, they want a debt-free college education, they don't want us invading countries, they want a raise in the minimum wage and they want a single-payer true universal health care system. None of that has changed. We live in a country where the majority agree with the "liberal" position. We just lack the liberal leadership to make that happen (see: #1 above).
Let's try to get this all done by noon today.
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On November 10 2016 21:43 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2016 21:41 Dan HH wrote:On November 10 2016 21:31 Nebuchad wrote:On November 10 2016 21:28 Dan HH wrote:On November 10 2016 21:26 Excludos wrote:On November 10 2016 21:24 Laurens wrote:On November 10 2016 21:19 Simberto wrote:On November 10 2016 20:58 Acrofales wrote:On November 10 2016 20:23 Excludos wrote:On November 10 2016 19:48 Liquid`Jinro wrote:
[quote]
Given that he won the elections fairly, I think it's really poor form to pre-emptively talk about him ruining lives.
Maybe he'll be good. Maybe he will be awful. I strongly dislike him, but you gotta give him a chance to actually be president before talking about how bad he is at it. I would say the word "fairly" is up for debate here, considering he didn't win the majority vote (or at least seems like he won't based on the numbers right now). I haven't followed this thread long so I apologise if this has been discussed to death already, but the american "Democracy" is too screwed up. First off not all US citizens, even those born and raised in the US without any criminal history, is allowed to vote. Secondly, your vote might be completely pointless depending on what state you live in. If you're in a sure Democrat or Republic state, you might as well not vote because it's going to count for exactly nothing (I'm not saying not to vote. Always vote. At least that way there's a chance, even if it's tiny). Then there's the problem with the Electoral College being unfairly distributed, or the fact that it's existing at all. It's purpose was two folds: Logistical (which isn't relevant anymore), and to give "the little guys in the rural areas a bigger voice compared to those elitist people living in the big cities", the latter which is ridiculous. Even if you combine the biggest 100 cities in US, you're still not up to 20% of the whole population. The EC is actually working against it's purpose right now, as the presidential candidates are not only ignoring the largest cities, but also the smallest states for all of their rallies. So the entire purpose of it right now is to give hillbilly Joe in the least populated states the largest vote for no apparent reason (which is usually republican, given that all 4 presidents who won without winning the popular vote have been republican). That's not even touching on the way the whole system is built to support two parties backed by large corporations and donations in a way that would be counted as corruption in every other country. Fairly certain you're just spouting drivel here. Yes, if you just take the population of just the city municipalities, you're probably right (haven't done the math). But what you're then saying is that LA has under 4million inhabitants, whereas the LA metropolitan area, which is what you can reasonably count as "elitist people living in big cities", has 12.8million inhabitants (LA county + OC). This doesn't count Ventura and other surrounding metropolitan areas, which would add up to a further 10million inhabitants. The same goes for NYC: the city itself has an official population of 8million, but the NYC-Newark-JC area has 20million inhabitants. That means that taking those two areas together you are already over 10% of the population. All we need to do is add Chicago (10million), Dallas-Fort Worth (7million) and Houston (6.5million) to easily break 20% of the US population. Giving a voice to sparsely populated rural areas is a perfectly valid goal. A discussion can (and should) be had over how much their influence should be (how much more should voters in sparsely populated areas be weighted than those in densely populated areas), but I have lived in enough areas to know that what is good policy for cities is often terrible policy for the countryside. I agree with you that the Electoral College in its current format is outdated. I just disagree with you on that a strictly proportional vote is really better. I don't really understand the reasoning in this statement. Isn't one of the main ideas of democracy that all people have an equal vote, no matter who they are? Why should rural farmers have more votes than people in cities? If we are following this route, why not give more votes to smarter people? Or richer, as they have more at stake? This whole idea that rural people should have more votes seems to mostly be justifying that it has historically been like this in the US, and thus there must be a reason for it. To me, it seems fundamentally undemocratic to give people living in cities less votes just because rural people have historically been given overproportional representation and would be sad to lose that. The entire argument is dumb. The system is known to everyone beforehand. Discussions after the facts about "if we did it in X way then candidate Y would have won" are useless. I can assure you that thousands of voters did not bother to vote because they live in states where one of the parties is 100% gonna win. Whether he wins with 100 votes or 50000 votes is irrelevant, winner takes all. If you tell these people beforehand "oh every single vote will count now" obviously voter behavior will change. All of this certainly does not mean that it's a good system, but trying to fit current data in a different system is just silly. Why is it dumb just because we're discussing it after the fact? Yes, it won't change anything, but that doesn't make the system any less broken. Yes, the system is broken, but his point is that the very existence of the electoral system influences the result of the popular vote, so you can't extrapolate that without the electoral system Clinton would have still won the popular vote. You can't in general but I'm pretty sure you can in this case. Clinton won almost every big city, even in deep red states where the democratic vote doesn't matter. Sure, but is there a reason to assume that the removal of the electoral system would have translated into an increase in turnout in big cities more so than in the rest of the country? No, but I don't need an increase in turnout to make that point, you need a decrease in turnout to make the opposite point
I don't see it that way. The premise here is that without the electoral college turnout would increase, especially in deep blue and deep red states, as that would mean everyone's vote matters.
For Clinton to still win the popular vote in that scenario, this turnout increase would have to be either somewhat uniform between blue/red or more so in places supporting her. Whereas there's a distinct possibility that it would increase more in red than in blue places, which was the whole point of my example below that line
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On November 10 2016 21:44 Gorsameth wrote:
The difference atm (according to nytimes) is about 230k. Out of 120 mil votes.
That is way to small a margin to say that by a pure popular vote either candidate would have obviously won.
Again this doesn't really detract from how fundamentally broken the system is. Trump might get more popular votes at the end (probably not considering what's left to be counted), but he has already won the election, even if Hillary currently has more votes.
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On November 10 2016 16:12 Wolfstan wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2016 15:55 LegalLord wrote:
The social mediaverse is talking a whole lot about Bernie Sanders. I think his movement may yet see an outcome better than getting to play a minor role within the Clinton administration. It's now a fact that if Sanders ran Donald would have gotten obliterated.
By "fact", I think you meant to say "unprovable conjecture", that doesn't seem particularly likely. There's a reason GOP operatives believed he would be far easier to beat in the general election. HRC losing to Trump says nothing about how Sanders would have fared. Trump's "anti-establishment" rhetoric could just as well have been turned to a large extent towards Sanders, by painting him as someone who's only steady job ever has been being a politician. And he would have provided the GOP with plenty of other types of ammunition.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
devolution to locality is good for rural communities but also direct fiscal stimulus, in the form of community run enterprises on loan/grants.
outside world can provide entreprenuer lead.
combined with infrastructure you can activate some of these places
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It is only broken if you beliebe the president is directly elected by the American people.
If you simply see it as: president is elected by the states and the people who their state is voting for.... it is almost perfectly fine. Yes, there remains the issue that some states have a higher ev/pop ratio than others... this is still left to fix. But the general idea of some intermediate step in a federal republic is really nothing unusual or systematically broken.
And similar systems exist in many european states and the eu is mostly strctured that way too...
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Former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright has warned Donald Trump against American isolationism, telling him after his stunning presidential election victory that national security “cannot be a zero-sum activity” and the US must play its part in the Nato alliance.
“Nato is obviously key. We are responsible for each other, a two-way street,” Albright told the Guardian in an interview on Wednesday.
Trump alarmed many in July when, at the Republican national convention where he accepted his party’s nomination, he implied that the US might not protect other members of Nato if they were not contributing enough to the military costs, and hinted he could withdraw US forces from around the world. A cornerstone of the intergovernmental North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s strength, and global security, is the pact that an attack on one member is an attack on all.
Speaking the morning after the Republican nominee’s shock win and at the moment an emotional Clinton was conceding “painful” defeat for the Democrats and her bid to be America’s first female president, Albright predicted Clinton will never run for the White House again, but hoped another woman soon would.
“There are a lot of women in the system and I hope a woman will run again,” she said.
Albright, who campaigned vigorously for Clinton, also spoke of her fears that Trump would put decades of cultural progress towards greater equality in American society into reverse.
In a dig at his inexperience in public service, Albright said: “It is my hope that once he is better informed he will have a different view … We have to make clear that our national security policy cannot be a zero-sum activity. It has to be win-win and compromises are necessary.”
She warned of the dangers of isolationism, urging the vital importance of deftly managing America’s relationships with Russia and China and adhering to the 2015 multilateral Iran nuclear deal.
Source
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On November 10 2016 12:14 FiWiFaKi wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2016 12:09 Emnjay808 wrote:On November 10 2016 12:02 biology]major wrote:
Damn, I have never seen so much hate and vitriol on my social media. So many labels, and alerts of panic attacks, while completely glossing over the failure that is Hillary Clinton. When will these liberals realize that there is more to a person's choice of president than just social issues? This insane obsession with bigotry and missing the bigger picture of things like national security, economy, trade is mind boggling.
On another note, we all know that Trump is extremely vengeful and does not let things go, so will he pick a new AG and prosecute HRC? I think it would make him look bad, she's a victim now. Its sad how I realized so many anti-hillary supporters were in hiding cause of the social backlash. My mom hid the fact that she voted against Hillary till this morning and when I openly said at work that I wasnt going to vote Hillary they all gave me the stink eye (jokingly but still). Same kind of thing like giving your resignation at work. The people who are wanting to leave aren't boasting to other people and whatnot (well there's those who shit talk the boss and whatnot, but anyway). In social situations I've definitely noticed the Hillary people being outspoken, and the quiet people who would say little of the election would usually have Trump already made up. I work with a bunch of Polish guys, and man, were they happy that Trump won, we threw a huge party lunch today lol. Our one poor hire who hates Trump with a passion, just saying stuff sarcastically, but not actually sarcastically like "Trump will start WW3". My asian lady friends are very upset, all like... "b-but he's sexist, he's racist"... sigh.
I have you beat. I work with several people who responded to my being bummed by saying "Hillary lost because people knew she would take away their guns". These are the people who elected him. The uneducated, ignorant, impressionable, and the feeble-minded. Also, these people are in their 40s and clealy know nothing about anything. What the fuck America? I knew we had some people who weren't bright, but 50% of the population? Really fucks up my opinion of the country, which wasn't all that high to begin with frankly.
User was warned for this post
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On November 10 2016 22:10 Ayaz2810 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2016 12:14 FiWiFaKi wrote:On November 10 2016 12:09 Emnjay808 wrote:On November 10 2016 12:02 biology]major wrote:
Damn, I have never seen so much hate and vitriol on my social media. So many labels, and alerts of panic attacks, while completely glossing over the failure that is Hillary Clinton. When will these liberals realize that there is more to a person's choice of president than just social issues? This insane obsession with bigotry and missing the bigger picture of things like national security, economy, trade is mind boggling.
On another note, we all know that Trump is extremely vengeful and does not let things go, so will he pick a new AG and prosecute HRC? I think it would make him look bad, she's a victim now. Its sad how I realized so many anti-hillary supporters were in hiding cause of the social backlash. My mom hid the fact that she voted against Hillary till this morning and when I openly said at work that I wasnt going to vote Hillary they all gave me the stink eye (jokingly but still). Same kind of thing like giving your resignation at work. The people who are wanting to leave aren't boasting to other people and whatnot (well there's those who shit talk the boss and whatnot, but anyway). In social situations I've definitely noticed the Hillary people being outspoken, and the quiet people who would say little of the election would usually have Trump already made up. I work with a bunch of Polish guys, and man, were they happy that Trump won, we threw a huge party lunch today lol. Our one poor hire who hates Trump with a passion, just saying stuff sarcastically, but not actually sarcastically like "Trump will start WW3". My asian lady friends are very upset, all like... "b-but he's sexist, he's racist"... sigh. I have you beat. I work with several people who responded to my being bummed by saying "Hillary lost because people knew she would take away their guns". These are the people who elected him. The uneducated, ignorant, impressionable, and the feeble-minded. Also, these people are in their 40s and clealy know nothing about anything. What the fuck America? I knew we had some people who weren't bright, but 50% of the population? Really fucks up my opinion of the country, which wasn't all that high to begin with frankly.
Did they somehow not notice the 8 years of Obama not taking their guns away despite being told the same thing about him?
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On November 10 2016 22:10 Ayaz2810 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2016 12:14 FiWiFaKi wrote:On November 10 2016 12:09 Emnjay808 wrote:On November 10 2016 12:02 biology]major wrote:
Damn, I have never seen so much hate and vitriol on my social media. So many labels, and alerts of panic attacks, while completely glossing over the failure that is Hillary Clinton. When will these liberals realize that there is more to a person's choice of president than just social issues? This insane obsession with bigotry and missing the bigger picture of things like national security, economy, trade is mind boggling.
On another note, we all know that Trump is extremely vengeful and does not let things go, so will he pick a new AG and prosecute HRC? I think it would make him look bad, she's a victim now. Its sad how I realized so many anti-hillary supporters were in hiding cause of the social backlash. My mom hid the fact that she voted against Hillary till this morning and when I openly said at work that I wasnt going to vote Hillary they all gave me the stink eye (jokingly but still). Same kind of thing like giving your resignation at work. The people who are wanting to leave aren't boasting to other people and whatnot (well there's those who shit talk the boss and whatnot, but anyway). In social situations I've definitely noticed the Hillary people being outspoken, and the quiet people who would say little of the election would usually have Trump already made up. I work with a bunch of Polish guys, and man, were they happy that Trump won, we threw a huge party lunch today lol. Our one poor hire who hates Trump with a passion, just saying stuff sarcastically, but not actually sarcastically like "Trump will start WW3". My asian lady friends are very upset, all like... "b-but he's sexist, he's racist"... sigh. I have you beat. I work with several people who responded to my being bummed by saying "Hillary lost because people knew she would take away their guns". These are the people who elected him. The uneducated, ignorant, impressionable, and the feeble-minded. Also, these people are in their 40s and clealy know nothing about anything. What the fuck America? I knew we had some people who weren't bright, but 50% of the population? Really fucks up my opinion of the country, which wasn't all that high to begin with frankly.
This cannot be 50% of the population to begin with, since:
+ Show Spoiler +
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
lower urban turnout from some demos is also a thing that lost the election. should be taken just as seriously by policymakers as a situation that needs real attention
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It's the baby boomer generation in a nutshell.
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EPT
