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On November 10 2016 23:56 travis wrote:
Oh, I guess I missed the meat of the discussion:
Well anyways my 2 cents on it (as someone who rarely agrees with the vote of rural states), is that the EC is more fair than not having the EC.
The U.S. is supposed to be a union of states. States are supposed to be represented. Popular vote would make sense as the decider if there was only one giant state, and everyone was governed under the same laws and rules. But states have a certain level of sovereignty of their own.
Going only by the popular vote is like telling the people of north dakota(for an example), "even though your state is 1/50th of the union, your vote only matters 1/500th." City regions would always dominate.
Electoral college actually kind of compromises the issue by not giving north dakota 1/50th, but also not giving it 1/500th either.
But why should the votes be different for rural states? Why do we draw the line there? Why not make Muslim votes count less than Jew votes. Why don't black people get twice the votes since they have twice as much to say? Should poor get more votes so politicians would care more about them? Maybe you shouldn't be allowed to vote at all before you earn a certain amount each year (don't do any of those please)? It seems random. And like mentioned, even if you for some reason wanted to give smaller states more attention from presidential candidates, the EC does not provide them with that. It only provides them directly with more power, so the old and bigot gets more of a say in who becomes the next president compared to the young and progressive. It's not a fair system, and it's not even working as intended even if it was never intended to be fair.
To progress as a nation where people believe their votes matter, EC needs to go, and so does first past the post. You need to be able to directly vote for the man or woman you want in charge, and you need to be able to rank them so third parties stand any chance. Of course, this is probably never going to happen because corporations today control politicians with their sponsorships (Which would be called corruption in any other first world country), and they are very happy with this system as it is.
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On November 10 2016 23:59 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2016 23:52 Nebuchad wrote:On November 10 2016 23:44 LegalLord wrote:On November 10 2016 23:37 The_Templar wrote:On November 10 2016 23:31 RealityIsKing wrote:On November 10 2016 23:23 oneofthem wrote:
the people deserve the kind of rulers they get, that's about it. Beside the email stuff, Hillary Clinton's biggest blunter is to call Trump supporters "deplorable" and to say that Trump is a super racist when he just said that he wants to keep radical Islam and illegal immigration away from the USA. People have the internet, people have the television, people have the media at the hand. When Hillary is making all those baseless accusation, people will do research on those. And when they found out how wrong Hillary was, it is only natural that people will be pushed away. While I agree that 'deplorable' was an awful move, Trump is racist, if you listened to his rhetoric. And even though a huge percentage of his statements were false, even when compared to Clinton, the internet didn't really help people understand that. Playing the race card as hard as Hillary did is really quite obnoxious to a lot of us. I'm not going to play the "who is more Hitler than the other" game because it is completely and utterly moot at this point. But at times the perception of Hillary abusing race and other identity politics tensions for personal gain gave me just as strong a visceral reaction as the racist/sexist/xenophobic rhetoric they were opposed to. It didn't sound like the words of a champion for equal rights, it sounded like someone who saw tensions and thought they might be useful to get her elected. I hope the new Democratic leadership will cease and desist with that game. Which would you prefer, someone who sounds like he truly champions equal rights, or someone who desists with that game? You can't have both, and they speak to different mindsets. Someone who sounds like he truly champions equal rights, and desists with the game of trying to use those tensions to play people into a "your opponent is Hitlerer than the original Hitler" frenzy.
This is a caricature of the arguments made against Trump by Clinton and her campaign. They didn't claim Trump was worse than Hitler and you know it. They rightfully attacked him for his racism and sexism. That they should have spent more time talking about policy is a different argument (and in that discussion one has to take into account how little attention the media paid to policy proposals), which doesn't require caricaturing what they actually said on topics pertaining to Trump's racism and sexism.
On November 10 2016 23:59 LegalLord wrote:
But when you play that identity politics game the way Hillary Clinton did - you know damn well she doesn't care (because she was never a champion of these things until the polls told her she should be)
This is utterly false, as anyone familiar with her record well knows. Or did "the polls" tell her in 1972 that she should go investigate schools engaging in racial discrimination against African Americans? And there are plenty of examples to choose from since then (defending the rights of racial minorities, women, LGBT people, etc.) to see your accusation is bogus.
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United States15275 Posts
On November 11 2016 00:22 kwizach wrote:This is utterly false, as anyone familiar with her record well knows. Or did "the polls" tell her in 1972 that she should go investigate schools engaging in racial discrimination against African Americans? And there are plenty of examples to choose from since then (defending the rights of racial minorities, women, LGBT people, etc.) to see your accusation is bogus.
Anyone familiar with her record also knows her long history of marginalizing victims of sexual assault, or how her public involvement of feminism never affected her aggressive attitude towards foreign policy (women are apparently to be treasured and valued unless they live in a country we have to get "involved" in). We could argue about whether she only supports bourgeois feminism or is a genuine ally for everyone regardless of social and economic status, but her record is very spotty and contradictory in places. There's a good reason why she has been criticized by non-mainstream feminists.
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On November 11 2016 00:34 CosmicSpiral wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 00:22 kwizach wrote:This is utterly false, as anyone familiar with her record well knows. Or did "the polls" tell her in 1972 that she should go investigate schools engaging in racial discrimination against African Americans? And there are plenty of examples to choose from since then (defending the rights of racial minorities, women, LGBT people, etc.) to see your accusation is bogus. Anyone familiar with her record also knows her long history of marginalizing victims of sexual assault
No they don't, because she doesn't have one.
On November 11 2016 00:34 CosmicSpiral wrote:
or how her public involvement of feminism never affected her aggressive attitude towards foreign policy (women are apparently to be treasured and valued unless they live in a country we have to get "involved" in).
She actually made the defense of women's rights in foreign countries an important pillar of her foreign policy.
On November 11 2016 00:34 CosmicSpiral wrote:
We could argue about whether she only supports bourgeois feminism or is a genuine ally for everyone regardless of social and economic status, but her record is very spotty and contradictory in places. There's a good reason why she has been criticized by non-mainstream feminists.
There's a difference between saying that she has faced criticism from some feminists (while being defended by others), and saying that she doesn't care about the rights of women and minorities, like LegalLord claimed.
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On November 11 2016 00:16 LegalLord wrote:
I talked a fair bit in the UK thread about how I think Brexit is really about sovereignty, regardless of what people say. Perhaps not just the sovereignty of the British government relative to the EU, but also about reestablishing control of democracy from a technocratic elite that has essentially decided what kind of agenda will be pushed, across party lines and across nations. The issues are not exactly the same, and the US does essentially have full sovereignty over itself, so I think the connection is somewhat tenuous, but I'm sure you could find some aspects that are analogous to each other if you wanted to make the comparison.
I think the biggest connection between Brexit and Trumps victory is people's perception of politics.
Large groups of people think they have been wronged or neglected. Whether their feelings are correct is irrelevant in this.
So in response they lash out at whatever they feel wrong them or neglected them. Whether this thing/person is actually the cause is irrelevant.
In looking for their cause they are more susceptible to propaganda, to lies, that help them find a cause for their feelings of frustration. They are more willing to ignore obvious faults and falsehoods coming from the opposite side as what they see as the cause of their problems and they want that cause to be punished.
The rise of social media has inundated people with easy readily available answers that fit their world view, regardless of whether or not they are true or even factually relevant. People want to see their world view justified and will go to great lengths to deny reality if it does not fit their narrative.
Be in millions of pounds for the NHS and brilliant trade deals the EU cant get with Brexit or Trump undoing globalization to bring low skilled jobs back to America.
Politics is boring, complex and full of compromise and people are not interested in that when some person on twitter provides an easy answer that fits in their world view.
To me Brexit and Trump are not so much statements about sovereignty as it is a statement that people want to world to be simple.
That governments should fix our problems by doing something, completely ignoring the complex economical interactions with the rest of the world.
Its the lower skilled / rural voters being mad that the world isn't what it was 30/40 years ago.
And the problem is that they are right.
The world has changed and there is no easy solution to bring their jobs back. So who knows how the 'establishment' is going to connect back to those voting groups. There is no easy answer to their problems and they are not willing to listen to the complex economics that can be done to help them when someone on their Twitter can give them something to direct their anger against in 140 characters, be it true or false.
And its not going to work.
Because once Britain is out of the EU their jobs are not coming back and when Trump has sat in the White House for 4 years their jobs will not be back. And they will go on to whatever else social media puts in front of them to blame.
You can't convince someone your willing to help them when they don't bother to read your proposals (see Hillary's actual proposals vs Trump's 'I will fix it, just don't ask how').
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On November 10 2016 23:56 travis wrote:
Oh, I guess I missed the meat of the discussion:
Well anyways my 2 cents on it (as someone who rarely agrees with the vote of rural states), is that the EC is more fair than not having the EC.
The U.S. is supposed to be a union of states. States are supposed to be represented. Popular vote would make sense as the decider if there was only one giant state, and everyone was governed under the same laws and rules. But states have a certain level of sovereignty of their own.
Going only by the popular vote is like telling the people of north dakota(for an example), "even though your state is 1/50th of the union, your vote only matters 1/500th." City regions would always dominate.
Electoral college actually kind of compromises the issue by not giving north dakota 1/50th, but also not giving it 1/500th either.
The actual reason for the EC when it was created was as a compromise to slave states.
Slave states were 1) less populous and 2) a huge swath of individuals that lived there (black slaves) couldn't vote. Because of this, they would always be outgunned when it came to popular votes at the federal level. When the Constitution was being written up, the Founders had to compromise and give them the EC or they weren't going to play ball. It's as simple as that. It wasn't to give smaller states a "more fair shot" or for the fundamental representative block of the U.S. to be states. It, along with the 3/5 Compromise, was to appease slave holding states so that they would ratify the Constitution.
Any argument that the EC makes things more fair is unfounded. It does nothing on the philosophical or mechanical level to make a democratic election more fair because all it does is redistribute where presidential candidates campaign. Instead of campaigning in heavily populated states and ignoring sparsely populated ones, they only campaign in certain swing states. The only thing that would change would be that this would flip if the EC was scrapped. Not only this, but the EC makes it so that mathematically a vote in Wyoming counts for more than a vote in NY state. There is no world where you can argue that this is fair. Furthermore, it also means that a Democratic vote in Wyoming counts for literally nothing because of the winner-take-all system. The system completely disenfranchises every minority voter in a state. Beyond that, it even disenfranchises large majority voters in places like California and Oklahoma, since their large majority votes that they pile on 1) don't change anything and 2) can be completely ignored by the EC like they were in this election.
It could even be argued that it may be worth it to expand your campaigning to traditionally safe states without the EC because the minority party votes from that state may actually matter. Take Texas for example. Dems haven't won that sate in God-only-know how long, but if the EC were scrapped, it would be 100% worth it for Democratic candidates to campaign in places like Houston because Texas holds a lot of Democratic voters. They are just outnumbered by Republicans by quite a bit.
At this point there really is no justification for the EC. Between the fact that it goes against the will of the people (multiple times now) and that EC electors aren't actually legally bound to their state's popular vote in many states, there really isn't a solid argument for it to remain.
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On November 11 2016 00:41 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 00:34 CosmicSpiral wrote:On November 11 2016 00:22 kwizach wrote:This is utterly false, as anyone familiar with her record well knows. Or did "the polls" tell her in 1972 that she should go investigate schools engaging in racial discrimination against African Americans? And there are plenty of examples to choose from since then (defending the rights of racial minorities, women, LGBT people, etc.) to see your accusation is bogus. Anyone familiar with her record also knows her long history of marginalizing victims of sexual assault No they don't, because she doesn't have one. Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 00:34 CosmicSpiral wrote:
or how her public involvement of feminism never affected her aggressive attitude towards foreign policy (women are apparently to be treasured and valued unless they live in a country we have to get "involved" in). She actually made the defense of women's rights in foreign countries an important pillar of her foreign policy. Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 00:34 CosmicSpiral wrote:
We could argue about whether she only supports bourgeois feminism or is a genuine ally for everyone regardless of social and economic status, but her record is very spotty and contradictory in places. There's a good reason why she has been criticized by non-mainstream feminists. There's a difference between saying that she has faced criticism from some feminists (while being defended by others), and saying that she doesn't care about the rights of women and minorities, like LegalLord claimed.
Dude, she is influenced by the Muslim countries and we all know how they treat women there.
She is a opportunity "feminist".
Only call herself a "feminist" or how she only supports gay rights when it suits her.
Which is why most of the Americans don't trust her.
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On November 11 2016 00:20 Excludos wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2016 23:56 travis wrote:
Oh, I guess I missed the meat of the discussion:
Well anyways my 2 cents on it (as someone who rarely agrees with the vote of rural states), is that the EC is more fair than not having the EC.
The U.S. is supposed to be a union of states. States are supposed to be represented. Popular vote would make sense as the decider if there was only one giant state, and everyone was governed under the same laws and rules. But states have a certain level of sovereignty of their own.
Going only by the popular vote is like telling the people of north dakota(for an example), "even though your state is 1/50th of the union, your vote only matters 1/500th." City regions would always dominate.
Electoral college actually kind of compromises the issue by not giving north dakota 1/50th, but also not giving it 1/500th either. But why should the votes be different for rural states? Why do we draw the line there? Why not make Muslim votes count less than Jew votes. Why don't black people get twice the votes since they have twice as much to say? Should poor get more votes so politicians would care more about them? Maybe you shouldn't be allowed to vote at all before you earn a certain amount each year (don't do any of those please)?
What? How do your comparisons make any sense at all? I already explained, the point is that the federation is is supposed to represent the *states*.
I mean.. I am not going to even go into it. I explained right above. the idea that is states have fair representation even if they have low population.
It seems random. And like mentioned, even if you for some reason wanted to give smaller states more attention from presidential candidates, the EC does not provide them with that. It only provides them directly with more power, so the old and bigot gets more of a say in who becomes the next president compared to the young and progressive.
Howso? Just saying something doesn't make it true. Again, it's about the states, not the invididuals. The individuals have a say in the votes of their state.
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On November 11 2016 00:01 oneofthem wrote:
some reasons for the identity politics heavy strategy, most are due to trump himself.
1. the racial lines vs trump had good responses. the khan family stuff, anti-hispanic rhetoric etc, all tested very well.
2. demographic destiny, more people of color in electorate than ever. there is a lot of upside if you can have activation of that group into politics.
3. trump negatives simply seemed very bad to the elites deciding on strategy. culture bubble is pretty real.
4. BLM enthusiasm was seen as very important. the hardcore sanders group was too far gone, no one expected to get the last 30% of those.
I don't understand how you can possibly blame the emergence of white identity politics on Trump. This was going to happen regardless of Trump as a reaction to the left's extensive bludgeoning of the right with identity politics over the past generation. There's a reason why the alt-right was becoming a thing even before Trump got into the race. There's a reason why so many millions of people were already primed for someone like Trump to come along with the message that he had. And there's a reason why Trump found that his message "tested well" as you put it.
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On November 11 2016 00:57 RealityIsKing wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 00:41 kwizach wrote:On November 11 2016 00:34 CosmicSpiral wrote:On November 11 2016 00:22 kwizach wrote:This is utterly false, as anyone familiar with her record well knows. Or did "the polls" tell her in 1972 that she should go investigate schools engaging in racial discrimination against African Americans? And there are plenty of examples to choose from since then (defending the rights of racial minorities, women, LGBT people, etc.) to see your accusation is bogus. Anyone familiar with her record also knows her long history of marginalizing victims of sexual assault No they don't, because she doesn't have one. On November 11 2016 00:34 CosmicSpiral wrote:
or how her public involvement of feminism never affected her aggressive attitude towards foreign policy (women are apparently to be treasured and valued unless they live in a country we have to get "involved" in). She actually made the defense of women's rights in foreign countries an important pillar of her foreign policy. On November 11 2016 00:34 CosmicSpiral wrote:
We could argue about whether she only supports bourgeois feminism or is a genuine ally for everyone regardless of social and economic status, but her record is very spotty and contradictory in places. There's a good reason why she has been criticized by non-mainstream feminists. There's a difference between saying that she has faced criticism from some feminists (while being defended by others), and saying that she doesn't care about the rights of women and minorities, like LegalLord claimed. Dude, she is influenced by the Muslim countries and we all know how they treat women there. She is a opportunity "feminist". Only call herself a "feminist" or how she only supports gay rights when it suits her. Which is why most of the Americans don't trust her.
What does that even mean? I could just as easily say that you are influenced by the muslim countries and I would totally be correct.
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Why did we not have discussion about the electoral college 4 and 8 years ago then?
Always the same with people, only complaining when something doesn't suit them.
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On November 11 2016 00:59 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 00:20 Excludos wrote:On November 10 2016 23:56 travis wrote:
Oh, I guess I missed the meat of the discussion:
Well anyways my 2 cents on it (as someone who rarely agrees with the vote of rural states), is that the EC is more fair than not having the EC.
The U.S. is supposed to be a union of states. States are supposed to be represented. Popular vote would make sense as the decider if there was only one giant state, and everyone was governed under the same laws and rules. But states have a certain level of sovereignty of their own.
Going only by the popular vote is like telling the people of north dakota(for an example), "even though your state is 1/50th of the union, your vote only matters 1/500th." City regions would always dominate.
Electoral college actually kind of compromises the issue by not giving north dakota 1/50th, but also not giving it 1/500th either. But why should the votes be different for rural states? Why do we draw the line there? Why not make Muslim votes count less than Jew votes. Why don't black people get twice the votes since they have twice as much to say? Should poor get more votes so politicians would care more about them? Maybe you shouldn't be allowed to vote at all before you earn a certain amount each year (don't do any of those please)? What? How do your comparisons make any sense at all? I already explained, the point is that the federation is is supposed to represent the *states*. I mean.. I am not going to even go into it. I explained right above. the idea that is states have fair representation even if they have low population. Show nested quote +
It seems random. And like mentioned, even if you for some reason wanted to give smaller states more attention from presidential candidates, the EC does not provide them with that. It only provides them directly with more power, so the old and bigot gets more of a say in who becomes the next president compared to the young and progressive.
Howso? Just saying something doesn't make it true. Again, it's about the states, not the invididuals. The individuals have a say in the votes of their state.
So the states, as originally designed, are supposed to be the fundamental voting blocks of federal government. Alright, let's just accept that for discussion's sake.
Why is this a good thing? What justifies disenfranchising millions of people with the design of the EC? Are the benefits of making the states the voting block instead of the actual people worth the fact that millions of votes in states like California, NY state, Oklahoma, and countless other safe, non-competitive states are worth nothing in the system?
Why did we not have discussion about the electoral college 4 and 8 years ago then?
Always the same with people, only complaining when something doesn't suit them.
Because the EC didn't go against the will of the popular vote?
This was a massive popular discussion about it in 2000 after that election, and constant criticism of the EC has been in politically and historically active circles for quite a long time.
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On November 11 2016 00:59 Trainrunnef wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 00:57 RealityIsKing wrote:On November 11 2016 00:41 kwizach wrote:On November 11 2016 00:34 CosmicSpiral wrote:On November 11 2016 00:22 kwizach wrote:This is utterly false, as anyone familiar with her record well knows. Or did "the polls" tell her in 1972 that she should go investigate schools engaging in racial discrimination against African Americans? And there are plenty of examples to choose from since then (defending the rights of racial minorities, women, LGBT people, etc.) to see your accusation is bogus. Anyone familiar with her record also knows her long history of marginalizing victims of sexual assault No they don't, because she doesn't have one. On November 11 2016 00:34 CosmicSpiral wrote:
or how her public involvement of feminism never affected her aggressive attitude towards foreign policy (women are apparently to be treasured and valued unless they live in a country we have to get "involved" in). She actually made the defense of women's rights in foreign countries an important pillar of her foreign policy. On November 11 2016 00:34 CosmicSpiral wrote:
We could argue about whether she only supports bourgeois feminism or is a genuine ally for everyone regardless of social and economic status, but her record is very spotty and contradictory in places. There's a good reason why she has been criticized by non-mainstream feminists. There's a difference between saying that she has faced criticism from some feminists (while being defended by others), and saying that she doesn't care about the rights of women and minorities, like LegalLord claimed. Dude, she is influenced by the Muslim countries and we all know how they treat women there. She is a opportunity "feminist". Only call herself a "feminist" or how she only supports gay rights when it suits her. Which is why most of the Americans don't trust her. What does that even mean? I could just as easily say that you are influenced by the muslim countries and I would totally be correct.
I have no monetary affiliation with the Muslim countries' leaders.
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On November 11 2016 00:59 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 00:01 oneofthem wrote:
some reasons for the identity politics heavy strategy, most are due to trump himself.
1. the racial lines vs trump had good responses. the khan family stuff, anti-hispanic rhetoric etc, all tested very well.
2. demographic destiny, more people of color in electorate than ever. there is a lot of upside if you can have activation of that group into politics.
3. trump negatives simply seemed very bad to the elites deciding on strategy. culture bubble is pretty real.
4. BLM enthusiasm was seen as very important. the hardcore sanders group was too far gone, no one expected to get the last 30% of those. I don't understand how you can possibly blame the emergence of white identity politics on Trump. This was going to happen regardless of Trump as a reaction to the left's extensive bludgeoning of the right with identity politics over the past generation. There's a reason why the alt-right was becoming a thing even before Trump got into the right. There's a reason why so many millions of people were already primed for someone like Trump to come along with the message that he had. And there's a reason why Trump found that his message "tested well" as you put it.
I agree that it was already in progress, but Trump was the vehicle that brought it to the fore. Like you say, it would have happened eventually, but, because Trump is who he is, it happened this election and not later on down the line. It would have taken someone with lots of balls to make it happen in as big a way as Trump did.
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Spot-on post by Stratos_speAr on the EC. It's outdated and unfair to both states and voters.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
Ultimately we have yet to reach a point where people are willing to put in the effort it would take to overturn the EC. Constitutional amendments are not passed lightly.
The Democrats do have bigger fish to fry. Both Gore and Hillary are deeply problematic candidates that should not have made the top of the ticket and then lost to the opponent they had. Gore's was more BS than this one because of electoral closeness; Trump solidly won the electoral college here. The effort is better spent understanding why it came to this rather than to put the political capital into a constitutional amendment.
On November 11 2016 01:06 Trainrunnef wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 00:59 xDaunt wrote:On November 11 2016 00:01 oneofthem wrote:
some reasons for the identity politics heavy strategy, most are due to trump himself.
1. the racial lines vs trump had good responses. the khan family stuff, anti-hispanic rhetoric etc, all tested very well.
2. demographic destiny, more people of color in electorate than ever. there is a lot of upside if you can have activation of that group into politics.
3. trump negatives simply seemed very bad to the elites deciding on strategy. culture bubble is pretty real.
4. BLM enthusiasm was seen as very important. the hardcore sanders group was too far gone, no one expected to get the last 30% of those. I don't understand how you can possibly blame the emergence of white identity politics on Trump. This was going to happen regardless of Trump as a reaction to the left's extensive bludgeoning of the right with identity politics over the past generation. There's a reason why the alt-right was becoming a thing even before Trump got into the right. There's a reason why so many millions of people were already primed for someone like Trump to come along with the message that he had. And there's a reason why Trump found that his message "tested well" as you put it. I agree that it was already in progress, but Trump was the vehicle that brought it to the fore. Like you say, it would have happened eventually, but, because Trump is who he is, it happened this election and not later on down the line. It would have taken someone with lots of balls to make it happen in as big a way as Trump did.
Is it worse for it to be now than later? Is there some mitigating factor in the future that would make it all better?
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Electoral college has got to go. There is no argument against the popular vote. This bizarre idea that some block of land having less people means each of those people is more important is ridiculous.
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On November 11 2016 00:54 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2016 23:56 travis wrote:
Oh, I guess I missed the meat of the discussion:
Well anyways my 2 cents on it (as someone who rarely agrees with the vote of rural states), is that the EC is more fair than not having the EC.
The U.S. is supposed to be a union of states. States are supposed to be represented. Popular vote would make sense as the decider if there was only one giant state, and everyone was governed under the same laws and rules. But states have a certain level of sovereignty of their own.
Going only by the popular vote is like telling the people of north dakota(for an example), "even though your state is 1/50th of the union, your vote only matters 1/500th." City regions would always dominate.
Electoral college actually kind of compromises the issue by not giving north dakota 1/50th, but also not giving it 1/500th either. The actual reason for the EC when it was created was as a compromise to slave states. Slave states were 1) less populous and 2) a huge swath of individuals that lived there (black slaves) couldn't vote. Because of this, they would always be outgunned when it came to popular votes at the federal level. When the Constitution was being written up, the Founders had to compromise and give them the EC or they weren't going to play ball. It's as simple as that. It wasn't to give smaller states a "more fair shot" or for the fundamental representative block of the U.S. to be states. It, along with the 3/5 Compromise, was to appease slave holding states so that they would ratify the Constitution.
dude, wtf. what your saying is EXACTLY the same thing I am saying. it's giving less populated states (in this case, discounting slaves as non-voters) a fair shot.
Any argument that the EC makes things more fair is unfounded. It does nothing on the philosophical or mechanical level to make a democratic election more fair because all it does is redistribute where presidential candidates campaign. Instead of campaigning in heavily populated states and ignoring sparsely populated ones, they only campaign in certain swing states. The only thing that would change would be that this would flip if the EC was scrapped. Not only this, but the EC makes it so that mathematically a vote in Wyoming counts for more than a vote in NY state. There is no world where you can argue that this is fair.
uh how about the world we live in right now. I am arguing it's more fair. If a million people lived in the western half of the U.S. and 100 million people lived in the eastern half, by your argument, we would have zero attempt to represent the western half of the U.S.
Not only this, but it also means that a Democratic vote in Wyoming counts for literally nothing because of the winner-take-all system. The system completely disenfranchises every minority voter in a state. Beyond that, it even disenfranchises large majority voters in places like California and Oklahoma, since their large majority votes that they pile on 1) don't change anything and 2) can be completely ignored by the EC like they were in this election.
it's not perfect but again I think it's more fair
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On November 11 2016 01:00 sharkie wrote:
Why did we not have discussion about the electoral college 4 and 8 years ago then?
Always the same with people, only complaining when something doesn't suit them.
We did have the discussion about the electoral college and FPTP before every single election. As for why wasn't it discussed after elections in which the electoral vote and the popular vote were congruent, I'm not sure what the point of this eureka moment of yours is supposed to be? Of course a rule is discussed when it is a deciding factor more than when it is (or appears to be) irrelevant.
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On November 10 2016 23:56 travis wrote:
Oh, I guess I missed the meat of the discussion:
Well anyways my 2 cents on it (as someone who rarely agrees with the vote of rural states), is that the EC is more fair than not having the EC.
The U.S. is supposed to be a union of states. States are supposed to be represented. Popular vote would make sense as the decider if there was only one giant state, and everyone was governed under the same laws and rules. But states have a certain level of sovereignty of their own.
Going only by the popular vote is like telling the people of north dakota(for an example), "even though your state is 1/50th of the union, your vote only matters 1/500th." City regions would always dominate.
Electoral college actually kind of compromises the issue by not giving north dakota 1/50th, but also not giving it 1/500th either.
The flip side to that is the US operates much less like a union of states than it used to. The other part is that even if you remove the electoral college the Senate is still giving states like North Dakota 1/50th representation and the minimum number of house seats for certain states also plays into over representing those states.
Then of course you also have the highly arbitrary way that states were even formed to begin with. Basically our government's balance is being dictated by how the Mexicans and Spanish divided up the Western seaboard (among other ridiculous boarder situations). California founded under slightly different political circumstances could have easily been 4-6 states and we'd be giving them 10+ senators compared to the two they get now (and more electoral votes).
I think there's merit to the general idea of balancing out rural voting power to better represent people, but to pretend the way we do it has any sort of meaning in today's world is a bit ridiculous. Right now a senator in California represents 14 million people while one from North Dakota represents 350k. With numbers like that it seems a bit silly to me to suggest the electoral college is the only way to protect rural representation.
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EPT
