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On November 11 2016 02:39 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 02:26 Acrofales wrote:On November 11 2016 02:12 LegalLord wrote:On November 11 2016 02:07 Logo wrote:On November 11 2016 02:04 LegalLord wrote:
Trump won by the rules of the current game. If there were different rules, there would be a different game. It wouldn't just be what we have now, but a flipped result. We don't know with any comfortable certainty what would happen. I don't think that's a good deflection of criticisms of the current system though. Like pissed off workers in Michigan have probably been wanting to complain with their vote for a few cycles already (or have been?) but no one bothered paying attention to them because the state was going to go blue anyways. It works both ways for both parties and I'm not really sure anyone is benefiting except the people who end up in office (regardless of party). The core of people's complaints really is just that "the wrong candidate won because the system is BS." And while the system may be BS, we really don't know how it would have gone with a different system. We only have educated guesses. Maybe Michigan workers would get ignored in favor of California liberals who are too lazy to get out and vote unless prodded. We really just don't know. The system we have led to the current results. A different system wouldn't just be "this same thing but different presidents." It would be completely different. And that's fine. My main question is whether a system that has led to a historic high of 57% of the eligible population voting is really a good democratic system. It doesn't seem so. And FPTP seems to be the main culprit, given that there are only really 10 or so states where voting can make a real difference. Lets face it, if I were a busy Californian, I wouldn't go and vote. There are clearly better ways of spending my time, because the blue candidate will win anyway (and the polls have been telling me so for months). Whereas with some form of proportional representation, the more votes my candidate gets, the bigger the slice of the pie for that blue candidate: suddenly Californians (or Dakotans if you prefer a red state example) have a fire lit under their ass to go and vote, the same as Floridians or Ohioans (Ohians?) And would you be worried that the rural voters wouldn't bother, because they would be concerned that they would never win because the big cities would just outvote them anyways. And removing FPTP leads to runoff elections, which are logistically much less pleasant in the US and could lead to something similar to France, where you can get a runoff election between a Le Pen and a candidate everyone but their core base hates. This is not an easy problem and no other system is so clearly better that switching is justified.
You already had that exact vote the last election. Trump = Le Pen, and Hillary = candidate everyone but their core base hates.
E: and yes, I would be worried about the underrepresentation of certain demographics. That's why I would have some form of representational districts (states seem fine). Of course, whether a voter in Wyoming is worth 4 Floridians (as was the case in 2008, the only information I found quickly) should be up for discussion: my gut says 1:4 extreme is a bit much, but I'm sure there are think tanks that have a good system for this.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On November 11 2016 03:14 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 02:39 LegalLord wrote:On November 11 2016 02:26 Acrofales wrote:On November 11 2016 02:12 LegalLord wrote:On November 11 2016 02:07 Logo wrote:On November 11 2016 02:04 LegalLord wrote:
Trump won by the rules of the current game. If there were different rules, there would be a different game. It wouldn't just be what we have now, but a flipped result. We don't know with any comfortable certainty what would happen. I don't think that's a good deflection of criticisms of the current system though. Like pissed off workers in Michigan have probably been wanting to complain with their vote for a few cycles already (or have been?) but no one bothered paying attention to them because the state was going to go blue anyways. It works both ways for both parties and I'm not really sure anyone is benefiting except the people who end up in office (regardless of party). The core of people's complaints really is just that "the wrong candidate won because the system is BS." And while the system may be BS, we really don't know how it would have gone with a different system. We only have educated guesses. Maybe Michigan workers would get ignored in favor of California liberals who are too lazy to get out and vote unless prodded. We really just don't know. The system we have led to the current results. A different system wouldn't just be "this same thing but different presidents." It would be completely different. And that's fine. My main question is whether a system that has led to a historic high of 57% of the eligible population voting is really a good democratic system. It doesn't seem so. And FPTP seems to be the main culprit, given that there are only really 10 or so states where voting can make a real difference. Lets face it, if I were a busy Californian, I wouldn't go and vote. There are clearly better ways of spending my time, because the blue candidate will win anyway (and the polls have been telling me so for months). Whereas with some form of proportional representation, the more votes my candidate gets, the bigger the slice of the pie for that blue candidate: suddenly Californians (or Dakotans if you prefer a red state example) have a fire lit under their ass to go and vote, the same as Floridians or Ohioans (Ohians?) And would you be worried that the rural voters wouldn't bother, because they would be concerned that they would never win because the big cities would just outvote them anyways. And removing FPTP leads to runoff elections, which are logistically much less pleasant in the US and could lead to something similar to France, where you can get a runoff election between a Le Pen and a candidate everyone but their core base hates. This is not an easy problem and no other system is so clearly better that switching is justified. You already had that exact vote the last election. Trump = Le Pen, and Hillary = candidate everyone but their core base hates.
Could end up being Cruz vs Trump or something, which would scare me more than Hillary vs Trump.
Imagine the field being Obama, Hillary, Billy, Biden, Trump, Bernie, and Cruz. Each part of their own party.
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France is the worst example about politics in any regard. They voted a leftist for president and look how horrible he turned out to be
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On November 11 2016 03:04 Danglars wrote:Some journalists are starting to get it. Kudos. Even hits on the tone of all this, with double standards on feelings and religious parallel. Show nested quote +The mood in the Washington press corps is bleak, and deservedly so.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that, with a few exceptions, we were all tacitly or explicitly #WithHer, which has led to a certain anguish in the face of Donald Trump’s victory. More than that and more importantly, we also missed the story, after having spent months mocking the people who had a better sense of what was going on.
This is all symptomatic of modern journalism’s great moral and intellectual failing: its unbearable smugness. Had Hillary Clinton won, there’s be a winking “we did it” feeling in the press, a sense that we were brave and called Trump a liar and saved the republic.
So much for that. The audience for our glib analysis and contempt for much of the electorate, it turned out, was rather limited. This was particularly true when it came to voters, the ones who turned out by the millions to deliver not only a rebuke to the political system but also the people who cover it. Trump knew what he was doing when he invited his crowds to jeer and hiss the reporters covering him. They hate us, and have for some time.
And can you blame them? Journalists love mocking Trump supporters. We insult their appearances. We dismiss them as racists and sexists. We emote on Twitter about how this or that comment or policy makes us feel one way or the other, and yet we reject their feelings as invalid.
It’s a profound failure of empathy in the service of endless posturing. There’s been some sympathy from the press, sure: the dispatches from “heroin country” that read like reports from colonial administrators checking in on the natives. But much of that starts from the assumption that Trump voters are backward, and that it’s our duty to catalogue and ultimately reverse that backwardness. What can we do to get these people to stop worshiping their false god and accept our gospel?
We diagnose them as racists in the way Dark Age clerics confused medical problems with demonic possession. Journalists, at our worst, see ourselves as a priestly caste. We believe we not only have access to the indisputable facts, but also a greater truth, a system of beliefs divined from an advanced understanding of justice. CBS+ Show Spoiler +AP photo from the ninety-minute meeting in the White House. I really wonder what it sounded like.
Crazy to think none of those journalists would admit their mistakes if Clinton won, even narrowly. Few percent less for Trump and they'd still think it's okay to treat him and his supporters like they did.
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On November 11 2016 03:05 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 02:58 Nyxisto wrote:On November 11 2016 02:48 IgnE wrote:On November 11 2016 02:20 Buckyman wrote:
Okay, GIVEN that rural and small town voters have real problems that aren't being addressed, how do we address those problems? haven't you been reading oneofthem's cryptic posts about infrastructure coupled with targeted programs for small business development? trump might not be so bad if he focuses on public spending projects. he does like building things. leaving a renewed infrastructure as a monument to his presidency makes sense to me. what does not make sense to me is President Trump. i cant believe he shares the same office that washington and lincoln had. I still haven't really understood what he is going to pay his infrastructure projects with, given the enormous tax cuts he aims to implement. typical german austerity mindset. money is no object. @ danglars the tone of that article is still pretty off to me. pathologizing trump voters rather than moralizing
I'll take anything faithful to the truth and introspective at this point when it concerns the press core. They have massive problems with connection and understanding. They have historically had trouble separating the activism from the reporting, kinda like the NYT editorial page begins on Page 1. So the maybe 4 great stories I've seen that show that this guy "gets" at least a part is quite a breath of fresh air.
And since this intimately concerns threadgoers, you too can help unite America and make her Great Again on
greatagain.gov
On November 11 2016 03:20 Sent. wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 03:04 Danglars wrote:Some journalists are starting to get it. Kudos. Even hits on the tone of all this, with double standards on feelings and religious parallel. The mood in the Washington press corps is bleak, and deservedly so.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that, with a few exceptions, we were all tacitly or explicitly #WithHer, which has led to a certain anguish in the face of Donald Trump’s victory. More than that and more importantly, we also missed the story, after having spent months mocking the people who had a better sense of what was going on.
This is all symptomatic of modern journalism’s great moral and intellectual failing: its unbearable smugness. Had Hillary Clinton won, there’s be a winking “we did it” feeling in the press, a sense that we were brave and called Trump a liar and saved the republic.
So much for that. The audience for our glib analysis and contempt for much of the electorate, it turned out, was rather limited. This was particularly true when it came to voters, the ones who turned out by the millions to deliver not only a rebuke to the political system but also the people who cover it. Trump knew what he was doing when he invited his crowds to jeer and hiss the reporters covering him. They hate us, and have for some time.
And can you blame them? Journalists love mocking Trump supporters. We insult their appearances. We dismiss them as racists and sexists. We emote on Twitter about how this or that comment or policy makes us feel one way or the other, and yet we reject their feelings as invalid.
It’s a profound failure of empathy in the service of endless posturing. There’s been some sympathy from the press, sure: the dispatches from “heroin country” that read like reports from colonial administrators checking in on the natives. But much of that starts from the assumption that Trump voters are backward, and that it’s our duty to catalogue and ultimately reverse that backwardness. What can we do to get these people to stop worshiping their false god and accept our gospel?
We diagnose them as racists in the way Dark Age clerics confused medical problems with demonic possession. Journalists, at our worst, see ourselves as a priestly caste. We believe we not only have access to the indisputable facts, but also a greater truth, a system of beliefs divined from an advanced understanding of justice. CBS+ Show Spoiler +AP photo from the ninety-minute meeting in the White House. I really wonder what it sounded like. Crazy to think none of those journalists would admit their mistakes if Clinton won, even narrowly. Few percent less for Trump and they'd still think it's okay to treat him and his supporters like they did.
Elections are after all reality checks. Take this sentence from the New York Times, "We have proof, in exit polls, that white women will pawn their humanity for the safety of white supremacy." That and these protests are confirming that sending Trump to the white house was the only option to send a message, as personally f***** up the messenger was. If it was angry Trump losers rioting and setting fire to flags in Oakland right now, there would be fascism monologues on every network ... but now it's like accepting the results of the election is only the narrative if the Dem side wins the election.
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The candidate that won the popular vote isn't the candidate that "everyone but their core base hates".
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On November 11 2016 03:18 sharkie wrote:
France is the worst example about politics in any regard. They voted a leftist for president and look how horrible he turned out to be
France is the best example because their political party situation is just so much fun to watch.
On November 11 2016 03:20 Doodsmack wrote:
The candidate that won the popular vote isn't the candidate that "everyone but their core base hates".
Would you say Trump is a Le Pen candidate?
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Apparently Trump and Obama were only supposed to speak for 10 minutes, but it went on for an hour and a half. Must've been a very interesting conversation. Footage I just saw on CNN showed them both sounding very cordial and respectful of each other.
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On November 11 2016 03:18 sharkie wrote:
France is the worst example about politics in any regard. They voted a leftist for president and look how horrible he turned out to be
I don't think this has anything to do with their electoral system, and everything with who is actually running. Lets face it, Sarkozy was even worse, and the other candidates were Le Pen and a bunch of people who had no support at all.
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On November 11 2016 03:22 Lionsguard wrote:
Apparently Trump and Obama were only supposed to speak for 10 minutes, but it went on for an hour and a half. Must've been a very interesting conversation. Footage I just saw on CNN showed them both sounding very cordial and respectful of each other.
Either very interesting, or Obama crying inconsolably and Trump sitting there awkwardly for a very long time.
User was warned for this post
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On November 11 2016 03:16 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 03:14 Acrofales wrote:On November 11 2016 02:39 LegalLord wrote:On November 11 2016 02:26 Acrofales wrote:On November 11 2016 02:12 LegalLord wrote:On November 11 2016 02:07 Logo wrote:On November 11 2016 02:04 LegalLord wrote:
Trump won by the rules of the current game. If there were different rules, there would be a different game. It wouldn't just be what we have now, but a flipped result. We don't know with any comfortable certainty what would happen. I don't think that's a good deflection of criticisms of the current system though. Like pissed off workers in Michigan have probably been wanting to complain with their vote for a few cycles already (or have been?) but no one bothered paying attention to them because the state was going to go blue anyways. It works both ways for both parties and I'm not really sure anyone is benefiting except the people who end up in office (regardless of party). The core of people's complaints really is just that "the wrong candidate won because the system is BS." And while the system may be BS, we really don't know how it would have gone with a different system. We only have educated guesses. Maybe Michigan workers would get ignored in favor of California liberals who are too lazy to get out and vote unless prodded. We really just don't know. The system we have led to the current results. A different system wouldn't just be "this same thing but different presidents." It would be completely different. And that's fine. My main question is whether a system that has led to a historic high of 57% of the eligible population voting is really a good democratic system. It doesn't seem so. And FPTP seems to be the main culprit, given that there are only really 10 or so states where voting can make a real difference. Lets face it, if I were a busy Californian, I wouldn't go and vote. There are clearly better ways of spending my time, because the blue candidate will win anyway (and the polls have been telling me so for months). Whereas with some form of proportional representation, the more votes my candidate gets, the bigger the slice of the pie for that blue candidate: suddenly Californians (or Dakotans if you prefer a red state example) have a fire lit under their ass to go and vote, the same as Floridians or Ohioans (Ohians?) And would you be worried that the rural voters wouldn't bother, because they would be concerned that they would never win because the big cities would just outvote them anyways. And removing FPTP leads to runoff elections, which are logistically much less pleasant in the US and could lead to something similar to France, where you can get a runoff election between a Le Pen and a candidate everyone but their core base hates. This is not an easy problem and no other system is so clearly better that switching is justified. You already had that exact vote the last election. Trump = Le Pen, and Hillary = candidate everyone but their core base hates. Could end up being Cruz vs Trump or something, which would scare me more than Hillary vs Trump. Imagine the field being Obama, Hillary, Billy, Biden, Trump, Bernie, and Cruz. Each part of their own party.
I think it should be FPTP direct vote all at the same time for the primaries and keep the electoral system for the presidential vote. This means that only the parties have to change their systems which is totally doable and wouldn't require any Ammendments.
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Russian government officials had contacts with members of Donald Trump’s campaign team, a senior Russian diplomat said Thursday, in a disclosure that could reopen scrutiny over the Kremlin’s role in the president-elect’s bitter race against Hillary Clinton.
Facing questions about his ties to Moscow because of statements interpreted as lauding Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump repeatedly denied having any contact with the Russian government.
After the latest statement by the Russian diplomat, Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks denied that there were interactions between Russia and the Trump team before Tuesday’s election.
“The campaign had no contact with Russian officials,” she said in an email.
But Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said in an interview with the state-run Interfax news agency that “there were contacts” with the Trump team.
“Obviously, we know most of the people from his entourage,” Ryabkov said. “Those people have always been in the limelight in the United States and have occupied high-ranking positions. I cannot say that all of them but quite a few have been staying in touch with Russian representatives.”
WashPo
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On November 11 2016 03:27 Doodsmack wrote:Show nested quote +Russian government officials had contacts with members of Donald Trump’s campaign team, a senior Russian diplomat said Thursday, in a disclosure that could reopen scrutiny over the Kremlin’s role in the president-elect’s bitter race against Hillary Clinton.
Facing questions about his ties to Moscow because of statements interpreted as lauding Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump repeatedly denied having any contact with the Russian government.
After the latest statement by the Russian diplomat, Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks denied that there were interactions between Russia and the Trump team before Tuesday’s election.
“The campaign had no contact with Russian officials,” she said in an email.
But Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said in an interview with the state-run Interfax news agency that “there were contacts” with the Trump team.
“Obviously, we know most of the people from his entourage,” Ryabkov said. “Those people have always been in the limelight in the United States and have occupied high-ranking positions. I cannot say that all of them but quite a few have been staying in touch with Russian representatives.” WashPo
I wonder how/if the optics/reactions to Trump's missteps will change now that it is not happening in direct contrast to Clinton.
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On November 11 2016 03:16 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 03:14 Acrofales wrote:On November 11 2016 02:39 LegalLord wrote:On November 11 2016 02:26 Acrofales wrote:On November 11 2016 02:12 LegalLord wrote:On November 11 2016 02:07 Logo wrote:On November 11 2016 02:04 LegalLord wrote:
Trump won by the rules of the current game. If there were different rules, there would be a different game. It wouldn't just be what we have now, but a flipped result. We don't know with any comfortable certainty what would happen. I don't think that's a good deflection of criticisms of the current system though. Like pissed off workers in Michigan have probably been wanting to complain with their vote for a few cycles already (or have been?) but no one bothered paying attention to them because the state was going to go blue anyways. It works both ways for both parties and I'm not really sure anyone is benefiting except the people who end up in office (regardless of party). The core of people's complaints really is just that "the wrong candidate won because the system is BS." And while the system may be BS, we really don't know how it would have gone with a different system. We only have educated guesses. Maybe Michigan workers would get ignored in favor of California liberals who are too lazy to get out and vote unless prodded. We really just don't know. The system we have led to the current results. A different system wouldn't just be "this same thing but different presidents." It would be completely different. And that's fine. My main question is whether a system that has led to a historic high of 57% of the eligible population voting is really a good democratic system. It doesn't seem so. And FPTP seems to be the main culprit, given that there are only really 10 or so states where voting can make a real difference. Lets face it, if I were a busy Californian, I wouldn't go and vote. There are clearly better ways of spending my time, because the blue candidate will win anyway (and the polls have been telling me so for months). Whereas with some form of proportional representation, the more votes my candidate gets, the bigger the slice of the pie for that blue candidate: suddenly Californians (or Dakotans if you prefer a red state example) have a fire lit under their ass to go and vote, the same as Floridians or Ohioans (Ohians?) And would you be worried that the rural voters wouldn't bother, because they would be concerned that they would never win because the big cities would just outvote them anyways. And removing FPTP leads to runoff elections, which are logistically much less pleasant in the US and could lead to something similar to France, where you can get a runoff election between a Le Pen and a candidate everyone but their core base hates. This is not an easy problem and no other system is so clearly better that switching is justified. You already had that exact vote the last election. Trump = Le Pen, and Hillary = candidate everyone but their core base hates. Could end up being Cruz vs Trump or something, which would scare me more than Hillary vs Trump. Imagine the field being Obama, Hillary, Billy, Biden, Trump, Bernie, and Cruz. Each part of their own party.
Anyway, extra runoff elections are not necessary if you have some form of preference ranking (this would be miserably awful on paper, but could be pretty easy to do digitally), you can do instant run-off which is a great way of doing run-off elections in a single round (although the ballot is more complex, which is a serious argument against it).
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On November 11 2016 03:27 Doodsmack wrote:Show nested quote +Russian government officials had contacts with members of Donald Trump’s campaign team, a senior Russian diplomat said Thursday, in a disclosure that could reopen scrutiny over the Kremlin’s role in the president-elect’s bitter race against Hillary Clinton.
Facing questions about his ties to Moscow because of statements interpreted as lauding Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump repeatedly denied having any contact with the Russian government.
After the latest statement by the Russian diplomat, Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks denied that there were interactions between Russia and the Trump team before Tuesday’s election.
“The campaign had no contact with Russian officials,” she said in an email.
But Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said in an interview with the state-run Interfax news agency that “there were contacts” with the Trump team.
“Obviously, we know most of the people from his entourage,” Ryabkov said. “Those people have always been in the limelight in the United States and have occupied high-ranking positions. I cannot say that all of them but quite a few have been staying in touch with Russian representatives.” WashPo
I saw that earlier. Seems more like general "we keep in touch with some people in the US policy sector, among whom there are Trump campaign staffers."
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On November 11 2016 01:32 Danglars 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'm pretty sure you just finished questioning what possible justification there was for the disenfranchisement, which betrays your disregard for the value in devolved powers. You can't even properly frame travis's counterarguments, to his consternation. You rely on restating your original claim. You might also include some less helpful aspects of this year's election in the interest of academic honesty: Wisconsin and Michigan were never considered swing states, Hillary didn't even campaign in Wisconsin, and look at what happened in this election. This is the county map that gives Trump an electoral win and Clinton a popular vote margin. And you'll claim it represents a grave injustice for the millions in California & New York.
The vast majority of counties in the U.S. are sparsely populated. For instance, the most populous county in Minnesota (my home state) has over 1 million residents. Every other county in MN except the 2nd most populous one (85 other counties) has less than half that population.
Not a single county in Wyoming breaks 100,000 residents.
All you do is continue to say, "but it represents the rural voters!" without saying why this is a good thing.
Why is it acceptable that rural voters are more important than urban voters? Because that is precisely what you are advocating for.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On November 11 2016 03:30 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 03:16 LegalLord wrote:On November 11 2016 03:14 Acrofales wrote:On November 11 2016 02:39 LegalLord wrote:On November 11 2016 02:26 Acrofales wrote:On November 11 2016 02:12 LegalLord wrote:On November 11 2016 02:07 Logo wrote:On November 11 2016 02:04 LegalLord wrote:
Trump won by the rules of the current game. If there were different rules, there would be a different game. It wouldn't just be what we have now, but a flipped result. We don't know with any comfortable certainty what would happen. I don't think that's a good deflection of criticisms of the current system though. Like pissed off workers in Michigan have probably been wanting to complain with their vote for a few cycles already (or have been?) but no one bothered paying attention to them because the state was going to go blue anyways. It works both ways for both parties and I'm not really sure anyone is benefiting except the people who end up in office (regardless of party). The core of people's complaints really is just that "the wrong candidate won because the system is BS." And while the system may be BS, we really don't know how it would have gone with a different system. We only have educated guesses. Maybe Michigan workers would get ignored in favor of California liberals who are too lazy to get out and vote unless prodded. We really just don't know. The system we have led to the current results. A different system wouldn't just be "this same thing but different presidents." It would be completely different. And that's fine. My main question is whether a system that has led to a historic high of 57% of the eligible population voting is really a good democratic system. It doesn't seem so. And FPTP seems to be the main culprit, given that there are only really 10 or so states where voting can make a real difference. Lets face it, if I were a busy Californian, I wouldn't go and vote. There are clearly better ways of spending my time, because the blue candidate will win anyway (and the polls have been telling me so for months). Whereas with some form of proportional representation, the more votes my candidate gets, the bigger the slice of the pie for that blue candidate: suddenly Californians (or Dakotans if you prefer a red state example) have a fire lit under their ass to go and vote, the same as Floridians or Ohioans (Ohians?) And would you be worried that the rural voters wouldn't bother, because they would be concerned that they would never win because the big cities would just outvote them anyways. And removing FPTP leads to runoff elections, which are logistically much less pleasant in the US and could lead to something similar to France, where you can get a runoff election between a Le Pen and a candidate everyone but their core base hates. This is not an easy problem and no other system is so clearly better that switching is justified. You already had that exact vote the last election. Trump = Le Pen, and Hillary = candidate everyone but their core base hates. Could end up being Cruz vs Trump or something, which would scare me more than Hillary vs Trump. Imagine the field being Obama, Hillary, Billy, Biden, Trump, Bernie, and Cruz. Each part of their own party. Anyway, extra runoff elections are not necessary if you have some form of preference ranking (this would be miserably awful on paper, but could be pretty easy to do digitally), you can do instant run-off which is a great way of doing run-off elections in a single round (although the ballot is more complex, which is a serious argument against it).
And then we open up a whole new can of worms along the lines of untested electoral systems. At some point inertia dominates in that things aren't quite so fucked that I'd be up for supporting a change like that which could be disastrous.
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On November 11 2016 03:30 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2016 01:32 Danglars wrote: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'm pretty sure you just finished questioning what possible justification there was for the disenfranchisement, which betrays your disregard for the value in devolved powers. You can't even properly frame travis's counterarguments, to his consternation. You rely on restating your original claim. You might also include some less helpful aspects of this year's election in the interest of academic honesty: Wisconsin and Michigan were never considered swing states, Hillary didn't even campaign in Wisconsin, and look at what happened in this election. This is the county map that gives Trump an electoral win and Clinton a popular vote margin. And you'll claim it represents a grave injustice for the millions in California & New York. The vast majority of counties in the U.S. are sparsely populated. For instance, the most populous county in Minnesota (my home state) has over 1 million residents. Every other county in MN except the 2nd most populous one (85 counties total)) has less than half that population. Not a single county in Wyoming breaks 100,000 residents. All you do is continue to say, "but it represents the rural voters!" without saying why this is a good thing. Why is it acceptable that rural voters are more important than urban voters? Because that is precisely what you are advocating for.
Affirmative action in this context sounds so strange... People are opposed to that kind of stuff unless it suits them.
I don't understand how a guy can post a colored geographical map and insinuate that it's somehow a good benchmark for what people think. You're seeing a landmass... it doesn't vote. It's land.
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On November 11 2016 02:35 Mohdoo wrote:
Big problem with these rural white communities is that their expectations are unreasonable. The days of raising a family off a single factory wage, and then also buying a house, is straight up madness at this point. It's not even easy for a chemical engineer. WW2 gave people wildly unrealistic expectations.
Does anyone believe there is a path for a factory worker raising a family and buying a house? I really, really don't.
This can't be said enough.
A huge problem is that the working class needs significant help in fundamentally reshaping the way they interact with the economy. The problem is that they don't want that (at least based on their voting patterns). They just want us to magically return to the way things were, which will never work.
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On November 11 2016 03:22 Lionsguard wrote:
Apparently Trump and Obama were only supposed to speak for 10 minutes, but it went on for an hour and a half. Must've been a very interesting conversation. Footage I just saw on CNN showed them both sounding very cordial and respectful of each other.
They are probably both very capable of
1. sounding respectful of someone they despise (to each other)
2. sounding like they despise someone they actually respect (to the voters)
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EPT![[image loading]](http://media.breitbart.com/media/2016/11/AP_16315634551312-640x480.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://intf.nyt.com/newsgraphics/elections/2016/assets/screenshots/president-leader-margin.png)
