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On November 11 2016 01:02 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 00:59 travis wrote: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.
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?
It doesn't disenfranchise anyone! More populous states are still weighted more heavily!
Your argument is like saying that because one candidate is winning by a large margin, all voters that are not for that candidate have been disenfranchised. I mean shit, why vote if your candidate isn't going to win, right?
And yes, the point is to protect the states. Shit, it's not that complicated. If rural areas don't matter then they will be COMPLETELY IGNORED.
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On November 11 2016 01:09 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 00:54 Stratos_speAr 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. 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. Show nested quote +
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. Show nested quote +
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
All you're saying is that "it's fair".
You haven't offered a single actual explanation for why disenfranchising millions of voters with our system and making a vote in Wyoming or North Dakota mathematically worth more than a vote in Texas, California, or NY state is actually fair.
It doesn't disenfranchise anyone! More populous states are still weighted more heavily!
Your argument is like saying that because one candidate is winning by a large margin, all voters that are not for that candidate have been disenfranchised. I mean shit, why vote if your candidate isn't going to win, right?
And yes, the point is to protect the states. Shit, it's not that complicated. If rural areas don't matter then they will be COMPLETELY IGNORED.
Just like urban areas are completely ignored now?
Hell, it's not just urban areas that are ignored.
How much campaigning do you see in safe states? California? New York? Oklahoma? Wyoming? Texas? etc.?
Your argument stems from a position that already assumes that putting more value on rural votes is intrinsically good and that the EC somehow redistributes attention so that candidates have to pay attention to more people, but what I've repeatedly said is that it doesn't do that. All it does is change who we're paying attention to. Now, instead of ignoring rural states, we ignore safe states.
I also mentioned how scrapping the EC may even make it so that campaigners ignore less places because votes in "safe" states will actually matter.
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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.
I don't think you'll make any headway up this alley. The issue is that some people value the sanctity of the power of one vote (along direct democracy lines) and devalue the entire system of federalism, and the structural limits designed to make states the fundamental power structure in the union ("The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.") If your values are anti-constitutional as constructed, you just won't get why states would matter in selection of the executive.
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On November 11 2016 01:10 Dan HH wrote:Show nested quote +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.
Even between elections I've heard it brought up and it's a pretty constant and consistent criticism of the US election process. Sure the energy is higher around elections and especially after ones with a EC/popular split, but the complaint is not something that only exists at those times.
The lack of motivation on the issue is probably because most people feel it's a hopeless cause.
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I don't think you can blame white identity politics on Democrats' identity politics (to the extent that paying attention to the specific concerns of groups of people constitutes something bad called "identity politics"); this rural wave that got Trump in is just reacting to globalization. They got shafted by globalization and so now they'll have their day in court. They don't realize globalization can't be reversed because they're low info, and they don't realize that America turning inwards will result in the rest of the world continuing to be able to lift all of their boats through free trade with cheap labor concentrated in certain areas (China & SE Asia).
The Trump policy of trade tariffs and trickle down isn't going to do shit for the low infos in rural America. I just hope they rightly blame it on Trump when they get hammered by recession like 08-09.
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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.
Discussions about the EC occur every election cycle, but iirc Obama beat Romney and McCain in both the electoral and popular vote, whereas Bush and Trump won the electoral vote but lost the popular vote, so there was no discrepancy during the Obama elections.
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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.
My comparisons doesn't make sense, that was the whole point. It doesn't make sense from any standpoint to give a certain subsection of your population more voting power but not others. Why should rural people get more say? So all the focus isn't placed in the big cities? Why doesn't the poor get more say then? You know, so all the focus doesn't go to the rich.
Also I explained very thoroughly why it's "how so". Presidental candidates doesn't care about rural areas. They care about swing states and a small portion of the middle'ish populated states only. Just look up any graph that shows where their rallies have been, and notice what type of states are missing: The biggest and the smallest. EC provides an unfair advantage because it's suppose to fix a non existent problem which it doesn't even do. All it does is make sure half the population can't be bothered to vote because depending on where they live it will be thrown away, while providing Hillbilly Joe down in a rural state twice the voting power of PhD student Susan in NYC. It's indefensible.
On November 11 2016 01:13 travis wrote:
And yes, the point is to protect the states. Shit, it's not that complicated. If rural areas don't matter then they will be COMPLETELY IGNORED.
The thing is EC doesn't provide that, they are already completely ignored. And they're not going to be "more ignored" if you abolish EC, because, like I've stated before, combining the 100 largest cities in the US still only accounts for 20% of the population, hardly enough to win. The thing is, abolishing EC might actually give presidential candidates MORE incentive to go to rural areas, because a lot of these places are at the moment safe states for either democrats or republicans (usually more republican the lower the amount of inhabitants), which means it's completely pointless to go there right now as they won't earn anything by doing so.
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I just don't understand why if the EC has been such a big problem for the Democrats in 2000 didn't they eliminate it when they had the power to change it?
If a stupid rule exists it, you get rid of it when you can, not wait till it annoys you.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On November 11 2016 01:14 Doodsmack wrote:
I don't think you can blame white identity politics on Democrats' identity politics (to the extent that paying attention to the specific concerns of groups of people constitutes something bad called "identity politics"); this rural wave that got Trump in is just reacting to globalization. They got shafted by globalization and so now they'll have their day in court. They don't realize globalization can't be reversed because they're low info, and they don't realize that America turning inwards will result in the rest of the world continuing to be able to lift all of their boats through free trade with cheap labor concentrated in certain areas (China & SE Asia).
The Trump policy of trade tariffs and trickle down isn't going to do shit for the low infos in rural America. I just hope they rightly blame it on Trump when they get hammered by recession like 08-09.
the particular form of that reaction against globalization is more along cultural/racial lines for rural america.
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On November 11 2016 01:17 sharkie wrote:
I just don't understand why if the EC has been such a big problem for the Democrats in 2000 didn't they eliminate it when they had the power to change it?
If a stupid rule exists it, you get rid of it when you can, not wait till it annoys you.
Democrats have never been able to unilaterally pass a constitutional amendment, and neither have the Republicans.
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On November 11 2016 01:13 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 00:59 travis wrote: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.
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. I don't think you'll make any headway up this alley. The issue is that some people value the sanctity of the power of one vote (along direct democracy lines) and devalue the entire system of federalism, and the structural limits designed to make states the fundamental power structure in the union ("The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.") If your values are anti-constitutional as constructed, you just won't get why states would matter in selection of the executive.
I'm pretty sure that most people understand how the system was designed with states being the fundamental block of organization and voting when it came to the federal government.
We're questioning whether that is a legitimate way to organize the system now. Just because it was designed that way doesn't mean that it's a good way to do it. That's what constitutional amendments are for.
I just don't understand why if the EC has been such a big problem for the Democrats in 2000 didn't they eliminate it when they had the power to change it?
If a stupid rule exists it, you get rid of it when you can, not wait till it annoys you.
Because it is really, really fucking hard to get a constitutional amendment passed. 2/3 of both the Congressional Senate and House have to vote in favor of the amendment, and then 3/4 of state legislatures (38 states) must approve it as well.
This would take an absolutely incredible amount of political cooperation. The last one was passed in 1992 and it was about delaying pay raises for Congress until new elections kick in. the one prior to that was in the 1971 and lowered the voting age to 18.
Scrapping the EC will be so opposed by both small states and Republicans in general that it will take an absolutely unprecedented public groundswell to force politicians to try to scrap it via the constitution.
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United States15275 Posts
On November 11 2016 00:41 kwizach wrote:
No they don't, because she doesn't have one.
Like the Kathy Shelton case back in '75? Or when she verbally abused Kathleen Wiley when the latter accused her husband of assault? Let's not even get into her attempts to discredit the testimony of Bill's mistresses when they started making her affairs public.
On November 11 2016 00:41 kwizach wrote:She actually made the defense of women's rights in foreign countries an important pillar of her foreign policy.
I hope she realizes she cannot claim to be an advocate of "women's rights in foreign countries" while maintaining support of Israel's actions in the occupied territories, and perhaps the impoverished sisters in Libya would've appreciated less hawkish insistence for military intervention over microwaves. But that's always been Hilary's issue: feminism inevitably takes a seat when supporting it would interfere with her other priorities, especially support of corporations and foreign intervention.
On November 11 2016 00:41 kwizach wrote:
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.
Those criticisms are a more nuanced elaboration on LegalLord claimed, that Hilary is opportunistic and will support the rights of women/minorities when it's politically expedient. But her record also shows that she is forever cautious over supporting these when they threaten to derail her career or question her other ambitions. I don't doubt that she genuinely wants a better life for the next generation of women. She just won't risk her neck for it.
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On November 11 2016 01:08 LegalLord wrote: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. Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 01:06 Trainrunnef wrote: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?
I think of it like a pressure cooker, at some point its going to blow. I think the fact that it is happening now is avoiding a catastrophic explosion of riots and racial tension, but that doesn't mean its going to be easy or painless to release the pressure. The country swung so liberal so quickly during Obama's terms especially the first 2 years that alot of the conservatives in the country just weren't ready for that much change that quickly. Now the balance will begin to swing in the other direction so that conservatives can feel like this is their country too (what i believe inspired the high turnouts). As a country we are attached by a rubber band of values and beliefs called the american dream. Some people see that in a conservative way and some in a liberal way. If either side pulls too hard the rubber band snaps back, which is exactly what happened on Tuesday.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
people digging up these random stylized anecdotes is just a manifestation of the influence of guerrilla media vs feebleness of official channels.
would be interesting to look at ROI between rightwing investments in grassroot organization and media efforts vs left investment.
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On November 11 2016 01:15 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +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. Discussions about the EC occur every election cycle, but iirc Obama beat Romney and McCain in both the electoral and popular vote, whereas Bush and Trump won the electoral vote but lost the popular vote, so there was no discrepancy during the Obama elections.
There really should also be an equally large amount said about the way EC influences the presidential debate beyond just who wins. There's pretty much 0 motivation for a presidential candidate to appeal to republicans in deep blue states or democrats in deep red ones. So that helps with us ending up with candidates like Trump and Clinton that can embody one region's ideals while shitting all over the ideals of other regions. If Trump had to appeal to republicans in deep blue states there's a lot less room for him to get away with saying things that turn those voters off. The EC seems to me like it just deepens the divide across the country by letting people get away with only appealing to very small groups of people.
For example Trump got only 64% of the # of republican votes that Romney got in 2012 (827,555 vs 1,290,670), but that has 0 bearing on the election at all.
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On November 11 2016 01:20 CosmicSpiral wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 00:41 kwizach wrote:
No they don't, because she doesn't have one. Like the Kathy Shelton case back in '75? Or when she verbally abused Kathleen Wiley when the latter accused her husband of assault? Let's not even get into her attempts to discredit the testimony of Bill's mistresses when they started making her affairs public. I hope she realizes she cannot claim to be an advocate of "women's rights in foreign countries" while maintaining support of Israel's actions in the occupied territories, and perhaps the impoverished sisters in Libya would've appreciated less hawkish insistence for military intervention over microwaves. But that's always been Hilary's issue: feminism inevitably takes a seat when supporting it would interfere with her other priorities, especially support of corporations. Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 00:41 kwizach wrote:
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. Those criticisms are a more nuanced elaboration on LegalLord claimed, that Hilary is opportunistic and will support the rights of women/minorities when it's politically expedient. But her record also shows that she is forever cautious over supporting these when they threaten to derail her career or question her other ambitions. I don't doubt that she genuinely wants a better life for the next generation of women. She just won't risk her neck for it.
I dont think anything related to Bill's scandals should really be counted as they are very personal and very different situations. Someone accuses your wife/husband of cheating and everyone will have the same reaction as she did, without exception.
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On November 11 2016 01:18 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 01:13 Danglars wrote:On November 11 2016 00:59 travis wrote: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.
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. I don't think you'll make any headway up this alley. The issue is that some people value the sanctity of the power of one vote (along direct democracy lines) and devalue the entire system of federalism, and the structural limits designed to make states the fundamental power structure in the union ("The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.") If your values are anti-constitutional as constructed, you just won't get why states would matter in selection of the executive. I'm pretty sure that most people understand how the system was designed with states being the fundamental block of organization and voting when it came to the federal government. We're questioning whether that is a legitimate way to organize the system now. Just because it was designed that way doesn't mean that it's a good way to do it. That's what constitutional amendments are for. Show nested quote +I just don't understand why if the EC has been such a big problem for the Democrats in 2000 didn't they eliminate it when they had the power to change it?
If a stupid rule exists it, you get rid of it when you can, not wait till it annoys you. Because it is really, really fucking hard to get a constitutional amendment passed. 2/3 of both the Congressional Senate and House have to vote in favor of the amendment, and then 3/4 of state legislatures (38 states) must approve it as well. This would take an absolutely incredible amount of political cooperation. The last one was passed in 1992.
But did they even try when Obama was winning elections? I never heard about it.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On November 11 2016 01:21 Trainrunnef wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 01:08 LegalLord wrote: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: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? I think of it like a pressure cooker, at some point its going to blow. I think the fact that it is happening now is avoiding a catastrophic explosion of riots and racial tension, but that doesn't mean its going to be easy or painless to release the pressure. The country swung so liberal so quickly during Obama's terms especially the first 2 years that alot of the conservatives in the country just weren't ready for that much change that quickly. Now the balance will begin to swing in the other direction so that conservatives can feel like this is their country too (what i believe inspired the high turnouts). As a country we are attached by a rubber band of values and beliefs called the american dream. Some people see that in a conservative way and some in a liberal way. If either side pulls too hard the rubber band snaps back, which is exactly what happened on Tuesday.
The way it happened gives the Democrats a chance to clean house, if they are willing to stop blaming Bernie Sanders diehards for refusing to rally behind a candidate they despise. If they take the chance it could be very good in the long run for them.
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I think the world can use Trump as an experiment.
1) He is predictable if you appeal to him as "Business man" (Many have taken advantage of his lack of interest in details)
2) His policy towards Lobbyists is almost left wing Democrat, with the fine note of him being a lobbyist himself. Maybe Europe and EU should have a similar approach (There are 10x more Lobbyist in Brussels than there are elected officials)
3) His protectionism. Will it work? Can the people have better lifes if they manufacture their own goods, instead of buying them "cheaper" from elsewhere"?
4) His idea to pile up Trillions in new debts to spend the money for (momentary?!) results. For a person or a company being in debt with uncertain results is a problem, if you control your own currency...well why not make more of it? The whole world relies on the USD, theyd be okay if you make more of it.
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On November 11 2016 01:25 sharkie wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 01:18 Stratos_speAr wrote:On November 11 2016 01:13 Danglars wrote:On November 11 2016 00:59 travis wrote: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.
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. I don't think you'll make any headway up this alley. The issue is that some people value the sanctity of the power of one vote (along direct democracy lines) and devalue the entire system of federalism, and the structural limits designed to make states the fundamental power structure in the union ("The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.") If your values are anti-constitutional as constructed, you just won't get why states would matter in selection of the executive. I'm pretty sure that most people understand how the system was designed with states being the fundamental block of organization and voting when it came to the federal government. We're questioning whether that is a legitimate way to organize the system now. Just because it was designed that way doesn't mean that it's a good way to do it. That's what constitutional amendments are for. I just don't understand why if the EC has been such a big problem for the Democrats in 2000 didn't they eliminate it when they had the power to change it?
If a stupid rule exists it, you get rid of it when you can, not wait till it annoys you. Because it is really, really fucking hard to get a constitutional amendment passed. 2/3 of both the Congressional Senate and House have to vote in favor of the amendment, and then 3/4 of state legislatures (38 states) must approve it as well. This would take an absolutely incredible amount of political cooperation. The last one was passed in 1992. But did they even try when Obama was winning elections? I never heard about it.
As I mentioned, it's incredibly hard to pass any Constitutional amendment. As LegalLord has implied, there's only limited political capital (Obama's tenure used it on Obamacare), and trying to push through an amendment to scrap the EC would use up all of it and more.
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