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Northern Ireland26703 Posts
On April 22 2026 00:38 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2026 21:00 Acrofales wrote:On April 21 2026 20:21 oBlade wrote:On April 21 2026 18:46 WombaT wrote:On April 21 2026 17:34 Razyda wrote:On April 21 2026 05:06 maybenexttime wrote:On April 21 2026 03:37 Razyda wrote:On April 21 2026 01:45 maybenexttime wrote:On April 21 2026 01:35 KwarK wrote:On April 21 2026 01:32 maybenexttime wrote:
[quote]
And how exactly would that work? Well you see the voters in the state would count towards the popular vote and the popular vote decides the state. I'm pretty sure Razyda is talking about, say, Alabama voting overwhelmingly Republican and the EC votes going to a Democratic winner of the popular vote. Which makes you second person in this thread being able to understand it. As for how it would work: "Under the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, states would assign their presidential electors to the winner of the popular vote, regardless of the results within the state." You either don't understand the legislation or you're making a bad faith argument. NPVIC would come into effect only if adopted by enough states to constitute a majority of electoral votes. Nobody would be disenfranchised by it. Everyone's vote counts equally towards the popular vote. Let's say people in Alabama vote for a Republican and their electoral votes go to a Democrat, who won the popular vote. So what? That's just an accounting artifact. Their votes still mattered. They were just not enough to give a Republican candidate a plurality/majority. On April 21 2026 04:19 RenSC2 wrote:On April 21 2026 03:37 Razyda wrote:On April 21 2026 01:45 maybenexttime wrote:On April 21 2026 01:35 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
Well you see the voters in the state would count towards the popular vote and the popular vote decides the state. I'm pretty sure Razyda is talking about, say, Alabama voting overwhelmingly Republican and the EC votes going to a Democratic winner of the popular vote. Which makes you second person in this thread being able to understand it. As for how it would work: "Under the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, states would assign their presidential electors to the winner of the popular vote, regardless of the results within the state." No, most people understand what you're saying. It's just stupid. You're worried about people being disenfranchised from the Electoral College. Sure, they are. In return, they get franchised in the presidential popular vote where every single vote matters. The Electoral College is just a middle man, it serves no other purpose.Most people would say that giving everyone an equal vote in the presidential election is a lot more important than giving them a vote towards a middle-man whose only purpose is to pick the president. So why not just cut out the middle man? The NPVIC is a workaround to effectively remove that middle-man. Actually, the electoral college as envisaged by the Founding Fathers (aside from being a logistical necessity at the time) was meant to be a buffer preventing dangerous demagogues from being elected by the masses. Ironic. ;-) How do you even post the bolded in the same paragraph? In your very example people of Alabama get disenfrinchised. It is not even that they votes dont count, they go towards exact opposite what they were voting for. Which is exactly what happens in every voting constituency in the UK if you cast your vote for a losing candidate In the US, you cast your vote for electors from your state for a candidate for president. That's the process and that's literally what it says on the ballot. If voters in the state of Louisiana voted 70/30 Trump/Clinton, and the state of Louisiana looked at the result of other elections like a bunch of people in California and New York voting for Clinton and says they add up to more than the results of even other elections and says you know how electors for Trump won 70%, we're undoing that - that's insane and that's the problem with the popular vote compact. Louisiana 70/30 Trump/Clinton -> electors go to Trump -> Clinton voters not disenfranchised, just lost Louisiana 70/30 Trump/Clinton -> electors go to Clinton -> Trump voters "disenfranchised" for lack of a better word, not mine The idea that the state legislature of say Pennsylvania can decide to give its state's electoral votes to whoever the "popular vote winner" is (remembering there is no nationally counted and certified popular vote to begin with), is constitutionally no different than the state legislature of Alabama passing a law that its electoral votes go to the Republican period. That would be an assortment of states sidestepping the Constitution and the amendment process. Almost no country in Europe directly elects an executive to begin with so criticisms of US being behind on muh democracy fairness are moot. "Almost no country", except almost all the non-monarchies (I want to just say all except Germany and Italy, but I might be missing some). Your main point is probably that the president in most European countries has far less power than in the US, but France is a pretty strong counterexample. Regarding the point of whether the NPVIC disenfranchises voters in Alabama or not will greatly depend on whether the Alabaman electorate agrees with you: they arey electing their state electors, or whether they agree with the NPVIC: they are electing the president. If the people of Alabama think they are electing their state electors to make the decision on their behalf, then they will indeed be disenfranchised when the electors' choice is determined not only by the people of Alabama, but also by the rest of the country. If, however, they believe they are electing the president, then with the functioning of the NPVIC, the votes of people in Alabama count exactly as much under the NPVIC as the votes of people in California, so they have no reason to be disenfranchised. In fact, if anything, the Democratic voters of Alabama will feel empowered and invigorated, because their voice is now counted, whereas otherwise their voice is irrelevant due to the large Republican majority in Alabama. And the reverse happens in California, where, unlke the few hundred thousand voters that get ignored in Alabama, there's a few million Republican voters that don't ever really get a say (similar to the few million Democratic voters in Texas). Campaigning would also change, because instead of tailoring campaigns to the dozen or so purple states scattered mostly throughout the midwest, a viable option would be to campaign to get Democrat votes in Texas and Alabama or Republican votes in Oregon and New York. The thing is that you need to change your thinking from "electoral college" to "despite the electoral college". But it's clear that the NPVIC is a kludge to bypass exactly that and implement "national popular vote" without amending the constitution. Whether that's constitutional? No clue. I suspect the bigger problem is whether it even works at all. There's a clear incentive for a lot of states to defect. They can believe they are electing the tooth fairy, that isn't the system. France is the only European counterexample. Has nothing to do with power vs the US. Nobody is as powerful as the president of the US. Has to do with power in their own systems. As far as I know there are ~3 "meaningful" parliamentary countries that directly elect a powerful president. France, Japan, and Russia. In almost all cases the power is in the prime minister, or Germany's chancellor. In Russia's case it's a Putinocracy where the power lies with whatever position Putin holds at the time. Direct election of the top guy is not a norm and I laugh when the continent saved by the US can't stomach 538 people choosing the US president. Campaigning would not change in the way you theorycraft. It would be the opposite. The reason is it's easier to get more votes where there are more votes. "Democrats" would not try to get more votes in "Texas." They would try to get more votes in California and New York. You get pure population center dominance, which is not good because it's the president of the US not the president of New York. The Founders knew this which means the case for the EC, which was half from technological limitations, has only grown from a systemic perspective as the US has grown in size and population. Your idea that millions of Californians have no say, is again based on the idea that you have to win to have a say. Then you can't assess who had a say until after the election. That doesn't make sense. The vote is the say. It doesn't depend on the outcome. There is no guarantee to win, especially when multiple groups are choosing one thing. The millions of Republican votes are "saying" "if you don't have at least this many blue team votes, we win." Whether cooperative (let's all get together and give our votes to someone else) or adversarial (let's arms race gerrymander each of our states so the other side dominates theirs) the idea of collusion at that level is anathema to a healthy system.
Nonsense.
The power of the current US President (as a role, not the literal incumbent) is precisely why it should be a national popular vote.
Youse already have a bicameral legislature predicated on States in different ways.
If Presidents couldn’t de facto bypass some ostensible checks on them, probably less of a big deal, but the office has grown in power over time.
Can’t say I’d ever be happy to be drafted, granted I’m medically disbarred, but I’d rather it be under a President who carried the country than one who did not.
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United States43952 Posts
On April 22 2026 01:36 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2026 00:38 oBlade wrote:On April 21 2026 21:00 Acrofales wrote:On April 21 2026 20:21 oBlade wrote:On April 21 2026 18:46 WombaT wrote:On April 21 2026 17:34 Razyda wrote:On April 21 2026 05:06 maybenexttime wrote:On April 21 2026 03:37 Razyda wrote:On April 21 2026 01:45 maybenexttime wrote:On April 21 2026 01:35 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
Well you see the voters in the state would count towards the popular vote and the popular vote decides the state. I'm pretty sure Razyda is talking about, say, Alabama voting overwhelmingly Republican and the EC votes going to a Democratic winner of the popular vote. Which makes you second person in this thread being able to understand it. As for how it would work: "Under the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, states would assign their presidential electors to the winner of the popular vote, regardless of the results within the state." You either don't understand the legislation or you're making a bad faith argument. NPVIC would come into effect only if adopted by enough states to constitute a majority of electoral votes. Nobody would be disenfranchised by it. Everyone's vote counts equally towards the popular vote. Let's say people in Alabama vote for a Republican and their electoral votes go to a Democrat, who won the popular vote. So what? That's just an accounting artifact. Their votes still mattered. They were just not enough to give a Republican candidate a plurality/majority. On April 21 2026 04:19 RenSC2 wrote:On April 21 2026 03:37 Razyda wrote:On April 21 2026 01:45 maybenexttime wrote:
[quote]
I'm pretty sure Razyda is talking about, say, Alabama voting overwhelmingly Republican and the EC votes going to a Democratic winner of the popular vote. Which makes you second person in this thread being able to understand it. As for how it would work: "Under the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, states would assign their presidential electors to the winner of the popular vote, regardless of the results within the state." No, most people understand what you're saying. It's just stupid. You're worried about people being disenfranchised from the Electoral College. Sure, they are. In return, they get franchised in the presidential popular vote where every single vote matters. The Electoral College is just a middle man, it serves no other purpose.Most people would say that giving everyone an equal vote in the presidential election is a lot more important than giving them a vote towards a middle-man whose only purpose is to pick the president. So why not just cut out the middle man? The NPVIC is a workaround to effectively remove that middle-man. Actually, the electoral college as envisaged by the Founding Fathers (aside from being a logistical necessity at the time) was meant to be a buffer preventing dangerous demagogues from being elected by the masses. Ironic. ;-) How do you even post the bolded in the same paragraph? In your very example people of Alabama get disenfrinchised. It is not even that they votes dont count, they go towards exact opposite what they were voting for. Which is exactly what happens in every voting constituency in the UK if you cast your vote for a losing candidate In the US, you cast your vote for electors from your state for a candidate for president. That's the process and that's literally what it says on the ballot. If voters in the state of Louisiana voted 70/30 Trump/Clinton, and the state of Louisiana looked at the result of other elections like a bunch of people in California and New York voting for Clinton and says they add up to more than the results of even other elections and says you know how electors for Trump won 70%, we're undoing that - that's insane and that's the problem with the popular vote compact. Louisiana 70/30 Trump/Clinton -> electors go to Trump -> Clinton voters not disenfranchised, just lost Louisiana 70/30 Trump/Clinton -> electors go to Clinton -> Trump voters "disenfranchised" for lack of a better word, not mine The idea that the state legislature of say Pennsylvania can decide to give its state's electoral votes to whoever the "popular vote winner" is (remembering there is no nationally counted and certified popular vote to begin with), is constitutionally no different than the state legislature of Alabama passing a law that its electoral votes go to the Republican period. That would be an assortment of states sidestepping the Constitution and the amendment process. Almost no country in Europe directly elects an executive to begin with so criticisms of US being behind on muh democracy fairness are moot. "Almost no country", except almost all the non-monarchies (I want to just say all except Germany and Italy, but I might be missing some). Your main point is probably that the president in most European countries has far less power than in the US, but France is a pretty strong counterexample. Regarding the point of whether the NPVIC disenfranchises voters in Alabama or not will greatly depend on whether the Alabaman electorate agrees with you: they arey electing their state electors, or whether they agree with the NPVIC: they are electing the president. If the people of Alabama think they are electing their state electors to make the decision on their behalf, then they will indeed be disenfranchised when the electors' choice is determined not only by the people of Alabama, but also by the rest of the country. If, however, they believe they are electing the president, then with the functioning of the NPVIC, the votes of people in Alabama count exactly as much under the NPVIC as the votes of people in California, so they have no reason to be disenfranchised. In fact, if anything, the Democratic voters of Alabama will feel empowered and invigorated, because their voice is now counted, whereas otherwise their voice is irrelevant due to the large Republican majority in Alabama. And the reverse happens in California, where, unlke the few hundred thousand voters that get ignored in Alabama, there's a few million Republican voters that don't ever really get a say (similar to the few million Democratic voters in Texas). Campaigning would also change, because instead of tailoring campaigns to the dozen or so purple states scattered mostly throughout the midwest, a viable option would be to campaign to get Democrat votes in Texas and Alabama or Republican votes in Oregon and New York. The thing is that you need to change your thinking from "electoral college" to "despite the electoral college". But it's clear that the NPVIC is a kludge to bypass exactly that and implement "national popular vote" without amending the constitution. Whether that's constitutional? No clue. I suspect the bigger problem is whether it even works at all. There's a clear incentive for a lot of states to defect. They can believe they are electing the tooth fairy, that isn't the system. France is the only European counterexample. Has nothing to do with power vs the US. Nobody is as powerful as the president of the US. Has to do with power in their own systems. As far as I know there are ~3 "meaningful" parliamentary countries that directly elect a powerful president. France, Japan, and Russia. In almost all cases the power is in the prime minister, or Germany's chancellor. In Russia's case it's a Putinocracy where the power lies with whatever position Putin holds at the time. Direct election of the top guy is not a norm and I laugh when the continent saved by the US can't stomach 538 people choosing the US president. Campaigning would not change in the way you theorycraft. It would be the opposite. The reason is it's easier to get more votes where there are more votes. "Democrats" would not try to get more votes in "Texas." They would try to get more votes in California and New York. You get pure population center dominance, which is not good because it's the president of the US not the president of New York. The Founders knew this which means the case for the EC, which was half from technological limitations, has only grown from a systemic perspective as the US has grown in size and population. Your idea that millions of Californians have no say, is again based on the idea that you have to win to have a say. Then you can't assess who had a say until after the election. That doesn't make sense. The vote is the say. It doesn't depend on the outcome. There is no guarantee to win, especially when multiple groups are choosing one thing. The millions of Republican votes are "saying" "if you don't have at least this many blue team votes, we win." Whether cooperative (let's all get together and give our votes to someone else) or adversarial (let's arms race gerrymander each of our states so the other side dominates theirs) the idea of collusion at that level is anathema to a healthy system. Nonsense. The power of the current US President (as a role, not the literal incumbent) is precisely why it should be a national popular vote. Youse already have a bicameral legislature predicated on States in different ways. If Presidents couldn’t de facto bypass some ostensible checks on them, probably less of a big deal, but the office has grown in power over time. Can’t say I’d ever be happy to be drafted, granted I’m medically disbarred, but I’d rather it be under a President who carried the country than one who did not.
Look, you get a vote and that means you get a say. But there's no guarantee to win. That's fair. That's reasonable. The majority definitely gets a say. But also the minority is perfectly entitled to say that if you don't win them over then the minority win. That's how it works. But it's not like we didn't let the majority vote, and it's not like we didn't let them win the vote, we just didn't let them win the presidency. They still got a say. We heard their voice.
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On April 22 2026 00:11 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2026 23:36 KwarK wrote:
WombaT you’re very much overthinking his position. It’s just a gotcha he heard on a podcast and tried to repeat to a real audience. There’s no underlying principle involved. An attempt to identify the foundational beliefs and use those as a basis to show why his position is not logically consistent with them is a wasted effort. My ma always said God loves a trier what can I say?
Are you certain she didn't just want for you to move to Germany and said "God loves Trier"
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On April 22 2026 01:10 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2026 20:10 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 21 2026 18:44 WombaT wrote:On April 21 2026 08:56 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 21 2026 08:50 Acrofales wrote:On April 21 2026 07:45 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 21 2026 07:41 WombaT wrote:On April 21 2026 07:26 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 21 2026 07:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On April 21 2026 05:32 maybenexttime wrote:
[quote]
Exactly. They don't care about fairness. They just want to keep their unfair advantage because their policies are unpopular. DEI for the stupid and deplorables.
From the foundation of the country, the conservatives - whether Democrat or Republican - have fought tooth and nail to disenfranchise the "undesirables". Now they want us to believe that people being disenfranchised is something they deeply care about. Give me a fucking break. Yes. This also reminds me of how the platforms, ideals, and titles for "Republican" and "Democratic" parties haven't always matched their current identities. It's cringeworthy when a modern-day Republican tries to brag about Abraham Lincoln being a Republican, or how the Civil Rights Act of 1964 may have had more Republican support than Democratic support, as if that translated to 2026 Republicans being pro-equality or anti-discrimination. Democrats have really only been the "good" party for less than they weren't. That's part of why the whole obsession with thinking of US politics based on party affiliation is pretty ridiculous in the first place. It's not some deep ideological consistency that aligns them. They are leverage consolidators. Contrary to naïve popular belief, they aren't consolidating it for their voters, they're consolidating it for their donors while squeezing some bribes out for their trouble. Yeah it is patently ridiculous to consider the politics of a place through the prism of how it actually functions Why would anyone ever do that? You say that sarcastically, but it's literally the argument I'm making about a leverage based theory of change (supported by the historical evidence) and an "elections/party" based theory of change that is basically a recent product of the political equivalent of a "diamonds are forever" propaganda campaign. With "recent" you mean since the founding of your country, + Show Spoiler + right? Because there have been a bunch of changes to your constitution, but not much at all has changed about how Congress or the president are chosen. The fact that the parties aren't stable and are, instead, descriptive of the main voting blocks in the country is, if anything, an argument against your thesis: burning down the apparatus and starting again will most likely lead to something within the currently achievable political spectrum, and not something wildly new, and the USA has probably not been further away from a communist revolution than it is right now, maybe ever. Finally I understand you are piggybacking on the point about the political parties working for the elite and always having done so, in a "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" kinda way. That's partially true but there is clearly a meaningful difference in ideologies between the parties. Maybe your ideology isn't reflected and everything east of social democracies is "basically fascism" in your book, but that's about as meaningful as a colourblind person claiming green is the same as red, because they can't see the difference anyway. Would I rather have less corporatism and lobbying? Hell yes. Does that mean all corporations are the same? Obviously not, and the choice between the parties isn't meaningless because they are both beholden to large donors. Lists like these make it quite clear what the lesser evil is: https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/biggest-donorsAre elections going to solve it all? Almost certainly not. But that doesn't make them meaningless. No, I'm talking about the distinct shift in how people understood politics in the US that came after the civil rights movement. I previously described it this way: Doesn't matter what you want politically really, what you need to get it is leverage. Small d democratic majorities and elections are one aspect of how you get that leverage, but historically, they typically come at the end after the work on the ground has made the status quo less tolerable than giving in to at least some of the demands.
Since the Civil Rights Movement, the pitch was "Hey women and Black people! We're (mostly) letting you vote now! Isn't that great! This is how you are to make any changes politically now! No more of that silly mass disruption stuff until demands are met! You can have big fun protests, just make sure to keep them symbolic"
We got mass incarceration (with legal slavery), women lost bodily autonomy, the surveillance state is out of control, Nixon's EPA is being dismantled, and the list goes on.
The idea that lining up behind Democrats after they finally parted ways with their most virulent racists in the 60's as part of a democratic political block to accomplish the things the poor people's campaign was aiming at before the US government conspired to subvert the campaign and assassinate MLK jr. for it looking too promising has categorically failed.
Any and all progress that can be said to have been gained since then must be recognized as happening despite the Democrat party, not because of it. That said, I agree with your belief that elections won't solve it all and aren't meaningless. The thing is, being enfranchised into the voting process and things like legalistic rights is a huge driver of quite a few of those kind of movements in the first place. You’re almost framing it as some carrot dangled to placate these movements, rather than it being a key demand that’s being met. + Show Spoiler +And they tend to dissipate when momentum stalls as the kinda main goals that glue the broad coalition together, and we get into various stretch goals that are more niche.
Or to put it another way, a big driver of mass disruptive/revolutionary movements often isn’t to overturn a system, merely to be enfranchised within it. Plenty are more structurally transformative too of course but I think broadly in either instance you’ve got a handful of quite clear grievances that are sufficiently shared for some kind of critical mass of people to garner enough momentum to move the needle.
Not to downplay the importance of such movements, my position is rather the opposite. I just don’t see the appetite from Americans for radical transformation, nor am I sure what the ‘civil rights issue of our time’ is that could rally sufficient people to that banner. Sort of? Those aren't mutually exclusive. I'm pretty familiar with the history, so you know you're not bringing new information to my attention. What exactly in the quoted post are you trying to dispute? Your previous narrative almost presents these approaches as parallel if not directly oppositional. I may be misunderstanding you on certain points, fair enough that may be on me. + Show Spoiler +I assume we agree that public sentiment and electoral politics don’t enjoy a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship, the leverage is required but what is the pivot?
I think your characterisation of historic political movements is either incorrect, or alternatively I’m just reading you wrong. Which makes adoption into modern contexts strategically flawed, assuming I’m not reading you wrong.
It’s very frequently ‘I want to be in the club too’, and not ‘let’s destroy the club’, a movement pushes the Overton Window sufficiently that political, legal or cultural norms become broadly acceptable to the movement and it somewhat dissipates.
I think a minority in this thread would disagree with you on the importance of movements shifting the political ground, but a lot of your rhetoric seems to suggest just bypassing codified political structures because they’re broken. Or bypassing other things that characterise successful movements more generally.
If I’m misinterpreting I mean that’s somewhat on me but I don’t think I’m the only one somewhat confused as to what your vision of action encompasses Let's start there.
I meant: "[being enfranchised into the voting process and things like legalistic rights being] some carrot dangled to placate these movements, rather than it being a key demand that’s being met." aren't mutually exclusive.
Are we understanding each other that far?
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Northern Ireland26703 Posts
On April 22 2026 02:03 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2026 00:11 WombaT wrote:On April 21 2026 23:36 KwarK wrote:
WombaT you’re very much overthinking his position. It’s just a gotcha he heard on a podcast and tried to repeat to a real audience. There’s no underlying principle involved. An attempt to identify the foundational beliefs and use those as a basis to show why his position is not logically consistent with them is a wasted effort. My ma always said God loves a trier what can I say? Are you certain she didn't just want for you to move to Germany and said "God loves Trier"
Haha well played, probably would rather I fucked off somewhere tbf!
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Northern Ireland26703 Posts
On April 22 2026 01:56 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2026 01:36 WombaT wrote:On April 22 2026 00:38 oBlade wrote:On April 21 2026 21:00 Acrofales wrote:On April 21 2026 20:21 oBlade wrote:On April 21 2026 18:46 WombaT wrote:On April 21 2026 17:34 Razyda wrote:On April 21 2026 05:06 maybenexttime wrote:On April 21 2026 03:37 Razyda wrote:On April 21 2026 01:45 maybenexttime wrote:
[quote]
I'm pretty sure Razyda is talking about, say, Alabama voting overwhelmingly Republican and the EC votes going to a Democratic winner of the popular vote. Which makes you second person in this thread being able to understand it. As for how it would work: "Under the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, states would assign their presidential electors to the winner of the popular vote, regardless of the results within the state." You either don't understand the legislation or you're making a bad faith argument. NPVIC would come into effect only if adopted by enough states to constitute a majority of electoral votes. Nobody would be disenfranchised by it. Everyone's vote counts equally towards the popular vote. Let's say people in Alabama vote for a Republican and their electoral votes go to a Democrat, who won the popular vote. So what? That's just an accounting artifact. Their votes still mattered. They were just not enough to give a Republican candidate a plurality/majority. On April 21 2026 04:19 RenSC2 wrote:On April 21 2026 03:37 Razyda wrote:
[quote]
Which makes you second person in this thread being able to understand it.
As for how it would work:
"Under the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, states would assign their presidential electors to the winner of the popular vote, regardless of the results within the state."
No, most people understand what you're saying. It's just stupid. You're worried about people being disenfranchised from the Electoral College. Sure, they are. In return, they get franchised in the presidential popular vote where every single vote matters. The Electoral College is just a middle man, it serves no other purpose.Most people would say that giving everyone an equal vote in the presidential election is a lot more important than giving them a vote towards a middle-man whose only purpose is to pick the president. So why not just cut out the middle man? The NPVIC is a workaround to effectively remove that middle-man. Actually, the electoral college as envisaged by the Founding Fathers (aside from being a logistical necessity at the time) was meant to be a buffer preventing dangerous demagogues from being elected by the masses. Ironic. ;-) How do you even post the bolded in the same paragraph? In your very example people of Alabama get disenfrinchised. It is not even that they votes dont count, they go towards exact opposite what they were voting for. Which is exactly what happens in every voting constituency in the UK if you cast your vote for a losing candidate In the US, you cast your vote for electors from your state for a candidate for president. That's the process and that's literally what it says on the ballot. If voters in the state of Louisiana voted 70/30 Trump/Clinton, and the state of Louisiana looked at the result of other elections like a bunch of people in California and New York voting for Clinton and says they add up to more than the results of even other elections and says you know how electors for Trump won 70%, we're undoing that - that's insane and that's the problem with the popular vote compact. Louisiana 70/30 Trump/Clinton -> electors go to Trump -> Clinton voters not disenfranchised, just lost Louisiana 70/30 Trump/Clinton -> electors go to Clinton -> Trump voters "disenfranchised" for lack of a better word, not mine The idea that the state legislature of say Pennsylvania can decide to give its state's electoral votes to whoever the "popular vote winner" is (remembering there is no nationally counted and certified popular vote to begin with), is constitutionally no different than the state legislature of Alabama passing a law that its electoral votes go to the Republican period. That would be an assortment of states sidestepping the Constitution and the amendment process. Almost no country in Europe directly elects an executive to begin with so criticisms of US being behind on muh democracy fairness are moot. "Almost no country", except almost all the non-monarchies (I want to just say all except Germany and Italy, but I might be missing some). Your main point is probably that the president in most European countries has far less power than in the US, but France is a pretty strong counterexample. Regarding the point of whether the NPVIC disenfranchises voters in Alabama or not will greatly depend on whether the Alabaman electorate agrees with you: they arey electing their state electors, or whether they agree with the NPVIC: they are electing the president. If the people of Alabama think they are electing their state electors to make the decision on their behalf, then they will indeed be disenfranchised when the electors' choice is determined not only by the people of Alabama, but also by the rest of the country. If, however, they believe they are electing the president, then with the functioning of the NPVIC, the votes of people in Alabama count exactly as much under the NPVIC as the votes of people in California, so they have no reason to be disenfranchised. In fact, if anything, the Democratic voters of Alabama will feel empowered and invigorated, because their voice is now counted, whereas otherwise their voice is irrelevant due to the large Republican majority in Alabama. And the reverse happens in California, where, unlke the few hundred thousand voters that get ignored in Alabama, there's a few million Republican voters that don't ever really get a say (similar to the few million Democratic voters in Texas). Campaigning would also change, because instead of tailoring campaigns to the dozen or so purple states scattered mostly throughout the midwest, a viable option would be to campaign to get Democrat votes in Texas and Alabama or Republican votes in Oregon and New York. The thing is that you need to change your thinking from "electoral college" to "despite the electoral college". But it's clear that the NPVIC is a kludge to bypass exactly that and implement "national popular vote" without amending the constitution. Whether that's constitutional? No clue. I suspect the bigger problem is whether it even works at all. There's a clear incentive for a lot of states to defect. They can believe they are electing the tooth fairy, that isn't the system. France is the only European counterexample. Has nothing to do with power vs the US. Nobody is as powerful as the president of the US. Has to do with power in their own systems. As far as I know there are ~3 "meaningful" parliamentary countries that directly elect a powerful president. France, Japan, and Russia. In almost all cases the power is in the prime minister, or Germany's chancellor. In Russia's case it's a Putinocracy where the power lies with whatever position Putin holds at the time. Direct election of the top guy is not a norm and I laugh when the continent saved by the US can't stomach 538 people choosing the US president. Campaigning would not change in the way you theorycraft. It would be the opposite. The reason is it's easier to get more votes where there are more votes. "Democrats" would not try to get more votes in "Texas." They would try to get more votes in California and New York. You get pure population center dominance, which is not good because it's the president of the US not the president of New York. The Founders knew this which means the case for the EC, which was half from technological limitations, has only grown from a systemic perspective as the US has grown in size and population. Your idea that millions of Californians have no say, is again based on the idea that you have to win to have a say. Then you can't assess who had a say until after the election. That doesn't make sense. The vote is the say. It doesn't depend on the outcome. There is no guarantee to win, especially when multiple groups are choosing one thing. The millions of Republican votes are "saying" "if you don't have at least this many blue team votes, we win." Whether cooperative (let's all get together and give our votes to someone else) or adversarial (let's arms race gerrymander each of our states so the other side dominates theirs) the idea of collusion at that level is anathema to a healthy system. Nonsense. The power of the current US President (as a role, not the literal incumbent) is precisely why it should be a national popular vote. Youse already have a bicameral legislature predicated on States in different ways. If Presidents couldn’t de facto bypass some ostensible checks on them, probably less of a big deal, but the office has grown in power over time. Can’t say I’d ever be happy to be drafted, granted I’m medically disbarred, but I’d rather it be under a President who carried the country than one who did not. Look, you get a vote and that means you get a say. But there's no guarantee to win. That's fair. That's reasonable. The majority definitely gets a say. But also the minority is perfectly entitled to say that if you don't win them over then the minority win. That's how it works. But it's not like we didn't let the majority vote, and it's not like we didn't let them win the vote, we just didn't let them win the presidency. They still got a say. We heard their voice.
Sounds like Commie talk to me
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On April 22 2026 01:36 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2026 00:38 oBlade wrote:On April 21 2026 21:00 Acrofales wrote:On April 21 2026 20:21 oBlade wrote:On April 21 2026 18:46 WombaT wrote:On April 21 2026 17:34 Razyda wrote:On April 21 2026 05:06 maybenexttime wrote:On April 21 2026 03:37 Razyda wrote:On April 21 2026 01:45 maybenexttime wrote:On April 21 2026 01:35 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
Well you see the voters in the state would count towards the popular vote and the popular vote decides the state. I'm pretty sure Razyda is talking about, say, Alabama voting overwhelmingly Republican and the EC votes going to a Democratic winner of the popular vote. Which makes you second person in this thread being able to understand it. As for how it would work: "Under the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, states would assign their presidential electors to the winner of the popular vote, regardless of the results within the state." You either don't understand the legislation or you're making a bad faith argument. NPVIC would come into effect only if adopted by enough states to constitute a majority of electoral votes. Nobody would be disenfranchised by it. Everyone's vote counts equally towards the popular vote. Let's say people in Alabama vote for a Republican and their electoral votes go to a Democrat, who won the popular vote. So what? That's just an accounting artifact. Their votes still mattered. They were just not enough to give a Republican candidate a plurality/majority. On April 21 2026 04:19 RenSC2 wrote:On April 21 2026 03:37 Razyda wrote:On April 21 2026 01:45 maybenexttime wrote:
[quote]
I'm pretty sure Razyda is talking about, say, Alabama voting overwhelmingly Republican and the EC votes going to a Democratic winner of the popular vote. Which makes you second person in this thread being able to understand it. As for how it would work: "Under the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, states would assign their presidential electors to the winner of the popular vote, regardless of the results within the state." No, most people understand what you're saying. It's just stupid. You're worried about people being disenfranchised from the Electoral College. Sure, they are. In return, they get franchised in the presidential popular vote where every single vote matters. The Electoral College is just a middle man, it serves no other purpose.Most people would say that giving everyone an equal vote in the presidential election is a lot more important than giving them a vote towards a middle-man whose only purpose is to pick the president. So why not just cut out the middle man? The NPVIC is a workaround to effectively remove that middle-man. Actually, the electoral college as envisaged by the Founding Fathers (aside from being a logistical necessity at the time) was meant to be a buffer preventing dangerous demagogues from being elected by the masses. Ironic. ;-) How do you even post the bolded in the same paragraph? In your very example people of Alabama get disenfrinchised. It is not even that they votes dont count, they go towards exact opposite what they were voting for. Which is exactly what happens in every voting constituency in the UK if you cast your vote for a losing candidate In the US, you cast your vote for electors from your state for a candidate for president. That's the process and that's literally what it says on the ballot. If voters in the state of Louisiana voted 70/30 Trump/Clinton, and the state of Louisiana looked at the result of other elections like a bunch of people in California and New York voting for Clinton and says they add up to more than the results of even other elections and says you know how electors for Trump won 70%, we're undoing that - that's insane and that's the problem with the popular vote compact. Louisiana 70/30 Trump/Clinton -> electors go to Trump -> Clinton voters not disenfranchised, just lost Louisiana 70/30 Trump/Clinton -> electors go to Clinton -> Trump voters "disenfranchised" for lack of a better word, not mine The idea that the state legislature of say Pennsylvania can decide to give its state's electoral votes to whoever the "popular vote winner" is (remembering there is no nationally counted and certified popular vote to begin with), is constitutionally no different than the state legislature of Alabama passing a law that its electoral votes go to the Republican period. That would be an assortment of states sidestepping the Constitution and the amendment process. Almost no country in Europe directly elects an executive to begin with so criticisms of US being behind on muh democracy fairness are moot. "Almost no country", except almost all the non-monarchies (I want to just say all except Germany and Italy, but I might be missing some). Your main point is probably that the president in most European countries has far less power than in the US, but France is a pretty strong counterexample. Regarding the point of whether the NPVIC disenfranchises voters in Alabama or not will greatly depend on whether the Alabaman electorate agrees with you: they arey electing their state electors, or whether they agree with the NPVIC: they are electing the president. If the people of Alabama think they are electing their state electors to make the decision on their behalf, then they will indeed be disenfranchised when the electors' choice is determined not only by the people of Alabama, but also by the rest of the country. If, however, they believe they are electing the president, then with the functioning of the NPVIC, the votes of people in Alabama count exactly as much under the NPVIC as the votes of people in California, so they have no reason to be disenfranchised. In fact, if anything, the Democratic voters of Alabama will feel empowered and invigorated, because their voice is now counted, whereas otherwise their voice is irrelevant due to the large Republican majority in Alabama. And the reverse happens in California, where, unlke the few hundred thousand voters that get ignored in Alabama, there's a few million Republican voters that don't ever really get a say (similar to the few million Democratic voters in Texas). Campaigning would also change, because instead of tailoring campaigns to the dozen or so purple states scattered mostly throughout the midwest, a viable option would be to campaign to get Democrat votes in Texas and Alabama or Republican votes in Oregon and New York. The thing is that you need to change your thinking from "electoral college" to "despite the electoral college". But it's clear that the NPVIC is a kludge to bypass exactly that and implement "national popular vote" without amending the constitution. Whether that's constitutional? No clue. I suspect the bigger problem is whether it even works at all. There's a clear incentive for a lot of states to defect. They can believe they are electing the tooth fairy, that isn't the system. France is the only European counterexample. Has nothing to do with power vs the US. Nobody is as powerful as the president of the US. Has to do with power in their own systems. As far as I know there are ~3 "meaningful" parliamentary countries that directly elect a powerful president. France, Japan, and Russia. In almost all cases the power is in the prime minister, or Germany's chancellor. In Russia's case it's a Putinocracy where the power lies with whatever position Putin holds at the time. Direct election of the top guy is not a norm and I laugh when the continent saved by the US can't stomach 538 people choosing the US president. Campaigning would not change in the way you theorycraft. It would be the opposite. The reason is it's easier to get more votes where there are more votes. "Democrats" would not try to get more votes in "Texas." They would try to get more votes in California and New York. You get pure population center dominance, which is not good because it's the president of the US not the president of New York. The Founders knew this which means the case for the EC, which was half from technological limitations, has only grown from a systemic perspective as the US has grown in size and population. Your idea that millions of Californians have no say, is again based on the idea that you have to win to have a say. Then you can't assess who had a say until after the election. That doesn't make sense. The vote is the say. It doesn't depend on the outcome. There is no guarantee to win, especially when multiple groups are choosing one thing. The millions of Republican votes are "saying" "if you don't have at least this many blue team votes, we win." Whether cooperative (let's all get together and give our votes to someone else) or adversarial (let's arms race gerrymander each of our states so the other side dominates theirs) the idea of collusion at that level is anathema to a healthy system. Nonsense. The power of the current US President (as a role, not the literal incumbent) is precisely why it should be a national popular vote. Youse already have a bicameral legislature predicated on States in different ways. If Presidents couldn’t de facto bypass some ostensible checks on them, probably less of a big deal, but the office has grown in power over time. Can’t say I’d ever be happy to be drafted, granted I’m medically disbarred, but I’d rather it be under a President who carried the country than one who did not.
The whole country up to and including the president is based on the states that's why it's called the United States. They could come together and 3/4ths ratify an amendment if they have changed their mind about the electoral college they signed up to, otherwise there isn't even such a thing as the "national popular vote" until you federalize elections. Otherwise the same concerns that underlie the structure of the legislature are exactly why you choose the president in an arithmetic mix of the two. People can "muh Republicans" and "muh conservatives" all they want, there is nothing in the Constitution that makes New York and California blue but Texas and Georgia red. There is nothing in the rules of the EC that says only small states won by a small margin are allowed to outweigh landslide large states, but large states won by a small margin aren't allowed to outweigh landslide small states. Or that only one color is allowed to win an electoral majority without a popular majority or plurality. It curbs tyranny in multiple dimensions.
The idea everything must be equal and democracy failed when it's not is an import from communism or the naivete that spawned it. Results are not proportional. A system forcing them to be is workable in a tiny country like The Netherlands.
The fact there are more bullshit "compact" states than states that just take the step to proportionalize their own electors is what tells you it's a virtue signaling solution to a made up problem.
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On April 22 2026 02:28 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2026 01:56 KwarK wrote:On April 22 2026 01:36 WombaT wrote:On April 22 2026 00:38 oBlade wrote:On April 21 2026 21:00 Acrofales wrote:On April 21 2026 20:21 oBlade wrote:On April 21 2026 18:46 WombaT wrote:On April 21 2026 17:34 Razyda wrote:On April 21 2026 05:06 maybenexttime wrote:On April 21 2026 03:37 Razyda wrote:
[quote]
Which makes you second person in this thread being able to understand it.
As for how it would work:
"Under the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, states would assign their presidential electors to the winner of the popular vote, regardless of the results within the state."
You either don't understand the legislation or you're making a bad faith argument. NPVIC would come into effect only if adopted by enough states to constitute a majority of electoral votes. Nobody would be disenfranchised by it. Everyone's vote counts equally towards the popular vote. Let's say people in Alabama vote for a Republican and their electoral votes go to a Democrat, who won the popular vote. So what? That's just an accounting artifact. Their votes still mattered. They were just not enough to give a Republican candidate a plurality/majority. On April 21 2026 04:19 RenSC2 wrote:
[quote]
No, most people understand what you're saying. It's just stupid.
You're worried about people being disenfranchised from the Electoral College. Sure, they are. In return, they get franchised in the presidential popular vote where every single vote matters. The Electoral College is just a middle man, it serves no other purpose.
Most people would say that giving everyone an equal vote in the presidential election is a lot more important than giving them a vote towards a middle-man whose only purpose is to pick the president. So why not just cut out the middle man? The NPVIC is a workaround to effectively remove that middle-man. Actually, the electoral college as envisaged by the Founding Fathers (aside from being a logistical necessity at the time) was meant to be a buffer preventing dangerous demagogues from being elected by the masses. Ironic. ;-) How do you even post the bolded in the same paragraph? In your very example people of Alabama get disenfrinchised. It is not even that they votes dont count, they go towards exact opposite what they were voting for. Which is exactly what happens in every voting constituency in the UK if you cast your vote for a losing candidate In the US, you cast your vote for electors from your state for a candidate for president. That's the process and that's literally what it says on the ballot. If voters in the state of Louisiana voted 70/30 Trump/Clinton, and the state of Louisiana looked at the result of other elections like a bunch of people in California and New York voting for Clinton and says they add up to more than the results of even other elections and says you know how electors for Trump won 70%, we're undoing that - that's insane and that's the problem with the popular vote compact. Louisiana 70/30 Trump/Clinton -> electors go to Trump -> Clinton voters not disenfranchised, just lost Louisiana 70/30 Trump/Clinton -> electors go to Clinton -> Trump voters "disenfranchised" for lack of a better word, not mine The idea that the state legislature of say Pennsylvania can decide to give its state's electoral votes to whoever the "popular vote winner" is (remembering there is no nationally counted and certified popular vote to begin with), is constitutionally no different than the state legislature of Alabama passing a law that its electoral votes go to the Republican period. That would be an assortment of states sidestepping the Constitution and the amendment process. Almost no country in Europe directly elects an executive to begin with so criticisms of US being behind on muh democracy fairness are moot. "Almost no country", except almost all the non-monarchies (I want to just say all except Germany and Italy, but I might be missing some). Your main point is probably that the president in most European countries has far less power than in the US, but France is a pretty strong counterexample. Regarding the point of whether the NPVIC disenfranchises voters in Alabama or not will greatly depend on whether the Alabaman electorate agrees with you: they arey electing their state electors, or whether they agree with the NPVIC: they are electing the president. If the people of Alabama think they are electing their state electors to make the decision on their behalf, then they will indeed be disenfranchised when the electors' choice is determined not only by the people of Alabama, but also by the rest of the country. If, however, they believe they are electing the president, then with the functioning of the NPVIC, the votes of people in Alabama count exactly as much under the NPVIC as the votes of people in California, so they have no reason to be disenfranchised. In fact, if anything, the Democratic voters of Alabama will feel empowered and invigorated, because their voice is now counted, whereas otherwise their voice is irrelevant due to the large Republican majority in Alabama. And the reverse happens in California, where, unlke the few hundred thousand voters that get ignored in Alabama, there's a few million Republican voters that don't ever really get a say (similar to the few million Democratic voters in Texas). Campaigning would also change, because instead of tailoring campaigns to the dozen or so purple states scattered mostly throughout the midwest, a viable option would be to campaign to get Democrat votes in Texas and Alabama or Republican votes in Oregon and New York. The thing is that you need to change your thinking from "electoral college" to "despite the electoral college". But it's clear that the NPVIC is a kludge to bypass exactly that and implement "national popular vote" without amending the constitution. Whether that's constitutional? No clue. I suspect the bigger problem is whether it even works at all. There's a clear incentive for a lot of states to defect. They can believe they are electing the tooth fairy, that isn't the system. France is the only European counterexample. Has nothing to do with power vs the US. Nobody is as powerful as the president of the US. Has to do with power in their own systems. As far as I know there are ~3 "meaningful" parliamentary countries that directly elect a powerful president. France, Japan, and Russia. In almost all cases the power is in the prime minister, or Germany's chancellor. In Russia's case it's a Putinocracy where the power lies with whatever position Putin holds at the time. Direct election of the top guy is not a norm and I laugh when the continent saved by the US can't stomach 538 people choosing the US president. Campaigning would not change in the way you theorycraft. It would be the opposite. The reason is it's easier to get more votes where there are more votes. "Democrats" would not try to get more votes in "Texas." They would try to get more votes in California and New York. You get pure population center dominance, which is not good because it's the president of the US not the president of New York. The Founders knew this which means the case for the EC, which was half from technological limitations, has only grown from a systemic perspective as the US has grown in size and population. Your idea that millions of Californians have no say, is again based on the idea that you have to win to have a say. Then you can't assess who had a say until after the election. That doesn't make sense. The vote is the say. It doesn't depend on the outcome. There is no guarantee to win, especially when multiple groups are choosing one thing. The millions of Republican votes are "saying" "if you don't have at least this many blue team votes, we win." Whether cooperative (let's all get together and give our votes to someone else) or adversarial (let's arms race gerrymander each of our states so the other side dominates theirs) the idea of collusion at that level is anathema to a healthy system. Nonsense. The power of the current US President (as a role, not the literal incumbent) is precisely why it should be a national popular vote. Youse already have a bicameral legislature predicated on States in different ways. If Presidents couldn’t de facto bypass some ostensible checks on them, probably less of a big deal, but the office has grown in power over time. Can’t say I’d ever be happy to be drafted, granted I’m medically disbarred, but I’d rather it be under a President who carried the country than one who did not. Look, you get a vote and that means you get a say. But there's no guarantee to win. That's fair. That's reasonable. The majority definitely gets a say. But also the minority is perfectly entitled to say that if you don't win them over then the minority win. That's how it works. But it's not like we didn't let the majority vote, and it's not like we didn't let them win the vote, we just didn't let them win the presidency. They still got a say. We heard their voice. Sounds like Commie talk to me
The Bolsheviks would've loved arcane bullshit like the electoral college. Lenin canceled the results of the 1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election because his party didn't win.
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United States43952 Posts
On April 22 2026 02:28 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2026 01:56 KwarK wrote:On April 22 2026 01:36 WombaT wrote:On April 22 2026 00:38 oBlade wrote:On April 21 2026 21:00 Acrofales wrote:On April 21 2026 20:21 oBlade wrote:On April 21 2026 18:46 WombaT wrote:On April 21 2026 17:34 Razyda wrote:On April 21 2026 05:06 maybenexttime wrote:On April 21 2026 03:37 Razyda wrote:
[quote]
Which makes you second person in this thread being able to understand it.
As for how it would work:
"Under the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, states would assign their presidential electors to the winner of the popular vote, regardless of the results within the state."
You either don't understand the legislation or you're making a bad faith argument. NPVIC would come into effect only if adopted by enough states to constitute a majority of electoral votes. Nobody would be disenfranchised by it. Everyone's vote counts equally towards the popular vote. Let's say people in Alabama vote for a Republican and their electoral votes go to a Democrat, who won the popular vote. So what? That's just an accounting artifact. Their votes still mattered. They were just not enough to give a Republican candidate a plurality/majority. On April 21 2026 04:19 RenSC2 wrote:
[quote]
No, most people understand what you're saying. It's just stupid.
You're worried about people being disenfranchised from the Electoral College. Sure, they are. In return, they get franchised in the presidential popular vote where every single vote matters. The Electoral College is just a middle man, it serves no other purpose.
Most people would say that giving everyone an equal vote in the presidential election is a lot more important than giving them a vote towards a middle-man whose only purpose is to pick the president. So why not just cut out the middle man? The NPVIC is a workaround to effectively remove that middle-man. Actually, the electoral college as envisaged by the Founding Fathers (aside from being a logistical necessity at the time) was meant to be a buffer preventing dangerous demagogues from being elected by the masses. Ironic. ;-) How do you even post the bolded in the same paragraph? In your very example people of Alabama get disenfrinchised. It is not even that they votes dont count, they go towards exact opposite what they were voting for. Which is exactly what happens in every voting constituency in the UK if you cast your vote for a losing candidate In the US, you cast your vote for electors from your state for a candidate for president. That's the process and that's literally what it says on the ballot. If voters in the state of Louisiana voted 70/30 Trump/Clinton, and the state of Louisiana looked at the result of other elections like a bunch of people in California and New York voting for Clinton and says they add up to more than the results of even other elections and says you know how electors for Trump won 70%, we're undoing that - that's insane and that's the problem with the popular vote compact. Louisiana 70/30 Trump/Clinton -> electors go to Trump -> Clinton voters not disenfranchised, just lost Louisiana 70/30 Trump/Clinton -> electors go to Clinton -> Trump voters "disenfranchised" for lack of a better word, not mine The idea that the state legislature of say Pennsylvania can decide to give its state's electoral votes to whoever the "popular vote winner" is (remembering there is no nationally counted and certified popular vote to begin with), is constitutionally no different than the state legislature of Alabama passing a law that its electoral votes go to the Republican period. That would be an assortment of states sidestepping the Constitution and the amendment process. Almost no country in Europe directly elects an executive to begin with so criticisms of US being behind on muh democracy fairness are moot. "Almost no country", except almost all the non-monarchies (I want to just say all except Germany and Italy, but I might be missing some). Your main point is probably that the president in most European countries has far less power than in the US, but France is a pretty strong counterexample. Regarding the point of whether the NPVIC disenfranchises voters in Alabama or not will greatly depend on whether the Alabaman electorate agrees with you: they arey electing their state electors, or whether they agree with the NPVIC: they are electing the president. If the people of Alabama think they are electing their state electors to make the decision on their behalf, then they will indeed be disenfranchised when the electors' choice is determined not only by the people of Alabama, but also by the rest of the country. If, however, they believe they are electing the president, then with the functioning of the NPVIC, the votes of people in Alabama count exactly as much under the NPVIC as the votes of people in California, so they have no reason to be disenfranchised. In fact, if anything, the Democratic voters of Alabama will feel empowered and invigorated, because their voice is now counted, whereas otherwise their voice is irrelevant due to the large Republican majority in Alabama. And the reverse happens in California, where, unlke the few hundred thousand voters that get ignored in Alabama, there's a few million Republican voters that don't ever really get a say (similar to the few million Democratic voters in Texas). Campaigning would also change, because instead of tailoring campaigns to the dozen or so purple states scattered mostly throughout the midwest, a viable option would be to campaign to get Democrat votes in Texas and Alabama or Republican votes in Oregon and New York. The thing is that you need to change your thinking from "electoral college" to "despite the electoral college". But it's clear that the NPVIC is a kludge to bypass exactly that and implement "national popular vote" without amending the constitution. Whether that's constitutional? No clue. I suspect the bigger problem is whether it even works at all. There's a clear incentive for a lot of states to defect. They can believe they are electing the tooth fairy, that isn't the system. France is the only European counterexample. Has nothing to do with power vs the US. Nobody is as powerful as the president of the US. Has to do with power in their own systems. As far as I know there are ~3 "meaningful" parliamentary countries that directly elect a powerful president. France, Japan, and Russia. In almost all cases the power is in the prime minister, or Germany's chancellor. In Russia's case it's a Putinocracy where the power lies with whatever position Putin holds at the time. Direct election of the top guy is not a norm and I laugh when the continent saved by the US can't stomach 538 people choosing the US president. Campaigning would not change in the way you theorycraft. It would be the opposite. The reason is it's easier to get more votes where there are more votes. "Democrats" would not try to get more votes in "Texas." They would try to get more votes in California and New York. You get pure population center dominance, which is not good because it's the president of the US not the president of New York. The Founders knew this which means the case for the EC, which was half from technological limitations, has only grown from a systemic perspective as the US has grown in size and population. Your idea that millions of Californians have no say, is again based on the idea that you have to win to have a say. Then you can't assess who had a say until after the election. That doesn't make sense. The vote is the say. It doesn't depend on the outcome. There is no guarantee to win, especially when multiple groups are choosing one thing. The millions of Republican votes are "saying" "if you don't have at least this many blue team votes, we win." Whether cooperative (let's all get together and give our votes to someone else) or adversarial (let's arms race gerrymander each of our states so the other side dominates theirs) the idea of collusion at that level is anathema to a healthy system. Nonsense. The power of the current US President (as a role, not the literal incumbent) is precisely why it should be a national popular vote. Youse already have a bicameral legislature predicated on States in different ways. If Presidents couldn’t de facto bypass some ostensible checks on them, probably less of a big deal, but the office has grown in power over time. Can’t say I’d ever be happy to be drafted, granted I’m medically disbarred, but I’d rather it be under a President who carried the country than one who did not. Look, you get a vote and that means you get a say. But there's no guarantee to win. That's fair. That's reasonable. The majority definitely gets a say. But also the minority is perfectly entitled to say that if you don't win them over then the minority win. That's how it works. But it's not like we didn't let the majority vote, and it's not like we didn't let them win the vote, we just didn't let them win the presidency. They still got a say. We heard their voice. Sounds like Commie talk to me
This is hilarious in the context of oblade’s following “democracy is communism” a minute later.
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Curious on people’s guesses on what happens when the ceasefire ends tomorrow.
Poll: Will the US start bombing Iran on Wednesday?No, ceasefire extended (3) 60% Yes war back on (2) 40% No, peace reached (0) 0% 5 total votes Your vote: Will the US start bombing Iran on Wednesday? (Vote): Yes war back on
(Vote): No, peace reached
(Vote): No, ceasefire extended
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United States43952 Posts
“It’s very important to avoid tyranny of the majority.”
“But you’re proposing tyranny of the minority.”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t make you anti tyranny, that makes you anti majority.”
“But it’s very important to avoid tyranny of the majority.”
If they were genuinely concerned about tyranny of the majority they would support stronger limits on what the executive can do. But they don’t, they love the overreaching executive because it is selected in a way that gives the minority additional voting power. It is controlled by them. “Tyranny of the majority” is a catchphrase to them, there’s no underlying political philosophy. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq famously avoided tyranny of the Shia majority.
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On April 22 2026 02:46 Billyboy wrote:
Curious on people’s guesses on what happens when the ceasefire ends tomorrow.
I predict Trump will announce a ceasefire, maybe the Strait will open for some number of hours, then Israel will violate the ceasefire and it'll be back to how it was.
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Northern Ireland26703 Posts
On April 22 2026 02:28 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2026 01:36 WombaT wrote:On April 22 2026 00:38 oBlade wrote:On April 21 2026 21:00 Acrofales wrote:On April 21 2026 20:21 oBlade wrote:On April 21 2026 18:46 WombaT wrote:On April 21 2026 17:34 Razyda wrote:On April 21 2026 05:06 maybenexttime wrote:On April 21 2026 03:37 Razyda wrote:On April 21 2026 01:45 maybenexttime wrote:
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I'm pretty sure Razyda is talking about, say, Alabama voting overwhelmingly Republican and the EC votes going to a Democratic winner of the popular vote. Which makes you second person in this thread being able to understand it. As for how it would work: "Under the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, states would assign their presidential electors to the winner of the popular vote, regardless of the results within the state." You either don't understand the legislation or you're making a bad faith argument. NPVIC would come into effect only if adopted by enough states to constitute a majority of electoral votes. Nobody would be disenfranchised by it. Everyone's vote counts equally towards the popular vote. Let's say people in Alabama vote for a Republican and their electoral votes go to a Democrat, who won the popular vote. So what? That's just an accounting artifact. Their votes still mattered. They were just not enough to give a Republican candidate a plurality/majority. On April 21 2026 04:19 RenSC2 wrote:On April 21 2026 03:37 Razyda wrote:
[quote]
Which makes you second person in this thread being able to understand it.
As for how it would work:
"Under the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, states would assign their presidential electors to the winner of the popular vote, regardless of the results within the state."
No, most people understand what you're saying. It's just stupid. You're worried about people being disenfranchised from the Electoral College. Sure, they are. In return, they get franchised in the presidential popular vote where every single vote matters. The Electoral College is just a middle man, it serves no other purpose.Most people would say that giving everyone an equal vote in the presidential election is a lot more important than giving them a vote towards a middle-man whose only purpose is to pick the president. So why not just cut out the middle man? The NPVIC is a workaround to effectively remove that middle-man. Actually, the electoral college as envisaged by the Founding Fathers (aside from being a logistical necessity at the time) was meant to be a buffer preventing dangerous demagogues from being elected by the masses. Ironic. ;-) How do you even post the bolded in the same paragraph? In your very example people of Alabama get disenfrinchised. It is not even that they votes dont count, they go towards exact opposite what they were voting for. Which is exactly what happens in every voting constituency in the UK if you cast your vote for a losing candidate In the US, you cast your vote for electors from your state for a candidate for president. That's the process and that's literally what it says on the ballot. If voters in the state of Louisiana voted 70/30 Trump/Clinton, and the state of Louisiana looked at the result of other elections like a bunch of people in California and New York voting for Clinton and says they add up to more than the results of even other elections and says you know how electors for Trump won 70%, we're undoing that - that's insane and that's the problem with the popular vote compact. Louisiana 70/30 Trump/Clinton -> electors go to Trump -> Clinton voters not disenfranchised, just lost Louisiana 70/30 Trump/Clinton -> electors go to Clinton -> Trump voters "disenfranchised" for lack of a better word, not mine The idea that the state legislature of say Pennsylvania can decide to give its state's electoral votes to whoever the "popular vote winner" is (remembering there is no nationally counted and certified popular vote to begin with), is constitutionally no different than the state legislature of Alabama passing a law that its electoral votes go to the Republican period. That would be an assortment of states sidestepping the Constitution and the amendment process. Almost no country in Europe directly elects an executive to begin with so criticisms of US being behind on muh democracy fairness are moot. "Almost no country", except almost all the non-monarchies (I want to just say all except Germany and Italy, but I might be missing some). Your main point is probably that the president in most European countries has far less power than in the US, but France is a pretty strong counterexample. Regarding the point of whether the NPVIC disenfranchises voters in Alabama or not will greatly depend on whether the Alabaman electorate agrees with you: they arey electing their state electors, or whether they agree with the NPVIC: they are electing the president. If the people of Alabama think they are electing their state electors to make the decision on their behalf, then they will indeed be disenfranchised when the electors' choice is determined not only by the people of Alabama, but also by the rest of the country. If, however, they believe they are electing the president, then with the functioning of the NPVIC, the votes of people in Alabama count exactly as much under the NPVIC as the votes of people in California, so they have no reason to be disenfranchised. In fact, if anything, the Democratic voters of Alabama will feel empowered and invigorated, because their voice is now counted, whereas otherwise their voice is irrelevant due to the large Republican majority in Alabama. And the reverse happens in California, where, unlke the few hundred thousand voters that get ignored in Alabama, there's a few million Republican voters that don't ever really get a say (similar to the few million Democratic voters in Texas). Campaigning would also change, because instead of tailoring campaigns to the dozen or so purple states scattered mostly throughout the midwest, a viable option would be to campaign to get Democrat votes in Texas and Alabama or Republican votes in Oregon and New York. The thing is that you need to change your thinking from "electoral college" to "despite the electoral college". But it's clear that the NPVIC is a kludge to bypass exactly that and implement "national popular vote" without amending the constitution. Whether that's constitutional? No clue. I suspect the bigger problem is whether it even works at all. There's a clear incentive for a lot of states to defect. They can believe they are electing the tooth fairy, that isn't the system. France is the only European counterexample. Has nothing to do with power vs the US. Nobody is as powerful as the president of the US. Has to do with power in their own systems. As far as I know there are ~3 "meaningful" parliamentary countries that directly elect a powerful president. France, Japan, and Russia. In almost all cases the power is in the prime minister, or Germany's chancellor. In Russia's case it's a Putinocracy where the power lies with whatever position Putin holds at the time. Direct election of the top guy is not a norm and I laugh when the continent saved by the US can't stomach 538 people choosing the US president. Campaigning would not change in the way you theorycraft. It would be the opposite. The reason is it's easier to get more votes where there are more votes. "Democrats" would not try to get more votes in "Texas." They would try to get more votes in California and New York. You get pure population center dominance, which is not good because it's the president of the US not the president of New York. The Founders knew this which means the case for the EC, which was half from technological limitations, has only grown from a systemic perspective as the US has grown in size and population. Your idea that millions of Californians have no say, is again based on the idea that you have to win to have a say. Then you can't assess who had a say until after the election. That doesn't make sense. The vote is the say. It doesn't depend on the outcome. There is no guarantee to win, especially when multiple groups are choosing one thing. The millions of Republican votes are "saying" "if you don't have at least this many blue team votes, we win." Whether cooperative (let's all get together and give our votes to someone else) or adversarial (let's arms race gerrymander each of our states so the other side dominates theirs) the idea of collusion at that level is anathema to a healthy system. Nonsense. The power of the current US President (as a role, not the literal incumbent) is precisely why it should be a national popular vote. Youse already have a bicameral legislature predicated on States in different ways. If Presidents couldn’t de facto bypass some ostensible checks on them, probably less of a big deal, but the office has grown in power over time. Can’t say I’d ever be happy to be drafted, granted I’m medically disbarred, but I’d rather it be under a President who carried the country than one who did not. The whole country up to and including the president is based on the states that's why it's called the United States. They could come together and 3/4ths ratify an amendment if they have changed their mind about the electoral college they signed up to, otherwise there isn't even such a thing as the "national popular vote" until you federalize elections. Otherwise the same concerns that underlie the structure of the legislature are exactly why you choose the president in an arithmetic mix of the two. People can "muh Republicans" and "muh conservatives" all they want, there is nothing in the Constitution that makes New York and California blue but Texas and Georgia red. There is nothing in the rules of the EC that says only small states won by a small margin are allowed to outweigh landslide large states, but large states won by a small margin aren't allowed to outweigh landslide small states. Or that only one color is allowed to win an electoral majority without a popular majority or plurality. It curbs tyranny in multiple dimensions. The idea everything must be equal and democracy failed when it's not is an import from communism or the naivete that spawned it. Results are not proportional. A system forcing them to be is workable in a tiny country like The Netherlands. The fact there are more bullshit "compact" states than states that just take the step to proportionalize their own electors is what tells you it's a virtue signaling solution to a made up problem.
Thanks for the civics lesson.
Incidentally the tiny Netherlands in the modern day has a population about 8x the nascent US, but hey. These things can’t work at scale.
I don’t especially care for the Constitution in a purely abstract discussion, more is x or y a good system or not.
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Northern Ireland26703 Posts
On April 22 2026 02:35 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2026 02:28 WombaT wrote:On April 22 2026 01:56 KwarK wrote:On April 22 2026 01:36 WombaT wrote:On April 22 2026 00:38 oBlade wrote:On April 21 2026 21:00 Acrofales wrote:On April 21 2026 20:21 oBlade wrote:On April 21 2026 18:46 WombaT wrote:On April 21 2026 17:34 Razyda wrote:On April 21 2026 05:06 maybenexttime wrote:
[quote]
You either don't understand the legislation or you're making a bad faith argument. NPVIC would come into effect only if adopted by enough states to constitute a majority of electoral votes. Nobody would be disenfranchised by it. Everyone's vote counts equally towards the popular vote. Let's say people in Alabama vote for a Republican and their electoral votes go to a Democrat, who won the popular vote. So what? That's just an accounting artifact. Their votes still mattered. They were just not enough to give a Republican candidate a plurality/majority.
[quote]
Actually, the electoral college as envisaged by the Founding Fathers (aside from being a logistical necessity at the time) was meant to be a buffer preventing dangerous demagogues from being elected by the masses. Ironic. ;-) How do you even post the bolded in the same paragraph? In your very example people of Alabama get disenfrinchised. It is not even that they votes dont count, they go towards exact opposite what they were voting for. Which is exactly what happens in every voting constituency in the UK if you cast your vote for a losing candidate In the US, you cast your vote for electors from your state for a candidate for president. That's the process and that's literally what it says on the ballot. If voters in the state of Louisiana voted 70/30 Trump/Clinton, and the state of Louisiana looked at the result of other elections like a bunch of people in California and New York voting for Clinton and says they add up to more than the results of even other elections and says you know how electors for Trump won 70%, we're undoing that - that's insane and that's the problem with the popular vote compact. Louisiana 70/30 Trump/Clinton -> electors go to Trump -> Clinton voters not disenfranchised, just lost Louisiana 70/30 Trump/Clinton -> electors go to Clinton -> Trump voters "disenfranchised" for lack of a better word, not mine The idea that the state legislature of say Pennsylvania can decide to give its state's electoral votes to whoever the "popular vote winner" is (remembering there is no nationally counted and certified popular vote to begin with), is constitutionally no different than the state legislature of Alabama passing a law that its electoral votes go to the Republican period. That would be an assortment of states sidestepping the Constitution and the amendment process. Almost no country in Europe directly elects an executive to begin with so criticisms of US being behind on muh democracy fairness are moot. "Almost no country", except almost all the non-monarchies (I want to just say all except Germany and Italy, but I might be missing some). Your main point is probably that the president in most European countries has far less power than in the US, but France is a pretty strong counterexample. Regarding the point of whether the NPVIC disenfranchises voters in Alabama or not will greatly depend on whether the Alabaman electorate agrees with you: they arey electing their state electors, or whether they agree with the NPVIC: they are electing the president. If the people of Alabama think they are electing their state electors to make the decision on their behalf, then they will indeed be disenfranchised when the electors' choice is determined not only by the people of Alabama, but also by the rest of the country. If, however, they believe they are electing the president, then with the functioning of the NPVIC, the votes of people in Alabama count exactly as much under the NPVIC as the votes of people in California, so they have no reason to be disenfranchised. In fact, if anything, the Democratic voters of Alabama will feel empowered and invigorated, because their voice is now counted, whereas otherwise their voice is irrelevant due to the large Republican majority in Alabama. And the reverse happens in California, where, unlke the few hundred thousand voters that get ignored in Alabama, there's a few million Republican voters that don't ever really get a say (similar to the few million Democratic voters in Texas). Campaigning would also change, because instead of tailoring campaigns to the dozen or so purple states scattered mostly throughout the midwest, a viable option would be to campaign to get Democrat votes in Texas and Alabama or Republican votes in Oregon and New York. The thing is that you need to change your thinking from "electoral college" to "despite the electoral college". But it's clear that the NPVIC is a kludge to bypass exactly that and implement "national popular vote" without amending the constitution. Whether that's constitutional? No clue. I suspect the bigger problem is whether it even works at all. There's a clear incentive for a lot of states to defect. They can believe they are electing the tooth fairy, that isn't the system. France is the only European counterexample. Has nothing to do with power vs the US. Nobody is as powerful as the president of the US. Has to do with power in their own systems. As far as I know there are ~3 "meaningful" parliamentary countries that directly elect a powerful president. France, Japan, and Russia. In almost all cases the power is in the prime minister, or Germany's chancellor. In Russia's case it's a Putinocracy where the power lies with whatever position Putin holds at the time. Direct election of the top guy is not a norm and I laugh when the continent saved by the US can't stomach 538 people choosing the US president. Campaigning would not change in the way you theorycraft. It would be the opposite. The reason is it's easier to get more votes where there are more votes. "Democrats" would not try to get more votes in "Texas." They would try to get more votes in California and New York. You get pure population center dominance, which is not good because it's the president of the US not the president of New York. The Founders knew this which means the case for the EC, which was half from technological limitations, has only grown from a systemic perspective as the US has grown in size and population. Your idea that millions of Californians have no say, is again based on the idea that you have to win to have a say. Then you can't assess who had a say until after the election. That doesn't make sense. The vote is the say. It doesn't depend on the outcome. There is no guarantee to win, especially when multiple groups are choosing one thing. The millions of Republican votes are "saying" "if you don't have at least this many blue team votes, we win." Whether cooperative (let's all get together and give our votes to someone else) or adversarial (let's arms race gerrymander each of our states so the other side dominates theirs) the idea of collusion at that level is anathema to a healthy system. Nonsense. The power of the current US President (as a role, not the literal incumbent) is precisely why it should be a national popular vote. Youse already have a bicameral legislature predicated on States in different ways. If Presidents couldn’t de facto bypass some ostensible checks on them, probably less of a big deal, but the office has grown in power over time. Can’t say I’d ever be happy to be drafted, granted I’m medically disbarred, but I’d rather it be under a President who carried the country than one who did not. Look, you get a vote and that means you get a say. But there's no guarantee to win. That's fair. That's reasonable. The majority definitely gets a say. But also the minority is perfectly entitled to say that if you don't win them over then the minority win. That's how it works. But it's not like we didn't let the majority vote, and it's not like we didn't let them win the vote, we just didn't let them win the presidency. They still got a say. We heard their voice. Sounds like Commie talk to me This is hilarious in the context of oblade’s following “democracy is communism” a minute later.
Yeah it’s really quite something
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Tyranny of the minority is not the same as a bunch of veto points. Might as well call all checks and balances "tyranny of [a] minority." Majorities can still get their way they just have to work for it. And why on God's green earth the people supposedly "for the little guy" or worried about oppressed minorities are such big fans of pure democracy will never make sense. It's just a myopic view of rhe system both in the forward and backward direction.
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On April 22 2026 03:04 Introvert wrote:
Tyranny of the minority is not the same as a bunch of veto points. Might as well call all checks and balances "tyranny of [a] minority." Majorities can still get their way they just have to work for it. And why on God's green earth the people supposedly "for the little guy" or worried about oppressed minorities are such big fans of pure democracy will never make sense. It's just a myopic view of rhe system both in the forward and backward direction.
Wow, you wrote a full paragraph without saying anything of substance while managing to sound quite clever, albeit a bit snobby. You running for office?
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On April 22 2026 03:09 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2026 03:04 Introvert wrote:
Tyranny of the minority is not the same as a bunch of veto points. Might as well call all checks and balances "tyranny of [a] minority." Majorities can still get their way they just have to work for it. And why on God's green earth the people supposedly "for the little guy" or worried about oppressed minorities are such big fans of pure democracy will never make sense. It's just a myopic view of rhe system both in the forward and backward direction. Wow, you wrote a full paragraph without saying anything of substance while managing to sound quite clever, albeit a bit snobby. You running for office?
A) it's dumb to call anything not 50% + 1 a "tyranny of the minority."
B) if you think the majority is oppressing you, you probably don't want them to vote on it directly.
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tl;dr
49% telling 51% what to do=good, American
51% telling 49% what to do=tyranny of the majority, mob rule, this is why ancient Athens collapsed (?), communist
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Northern Ireland26703 Posts
On April 22 2026 02:18 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2026 01:10 WombaT wrote:On April 21 2026 20:10 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 21 2026 18:44 WombaT wrote:On April 21 2026 08:56 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 21 2026 08:50 Acrofales wrote:On April 21 2026 07:45 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 21 2026 07:41 WombaT wrote:On April 21 2026 07:26 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 21 2026 07:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
[quote]
Yes. This also reminds me of how the platforms, ideals, and titles for "Republican" and "Democratic" parties haven't always matched their current identities. It's cringeworthy when a modern-day Republican tries to brag about Abraham Lincoln being a Republican, or how the Civil Rights Act of 1964 may have had more Republican support than Democratic support, as if that translated to 2026 Republicans being pro-equality or anti-discrimination. Democrats have really only been the "good" party for less than they weren't. That's part of why the whole obsession with thinking of US politics based on party affiliation is pretty ridiculous in the first place. It's not some deep ideological consistency that aligns them. They are leverage consolidators. Contrary to naïve popular belief, they aren't consolidating it for their voters, they're consolidating it for their donors while squeezing some bribes out for their trouble. Yeah it is patently ridiculous to consider the politics of a place through the prism of how it actually functions Why would anyone ever do that? You say that sarcastically, but it's literally the argument I'm making about a leverage based theory of change (supported by the historical evidence) and an "elections/party" based theory of change that is basically a recent product of the political equivalent of a "diamonds are forever" propaganda campaign. With "recent" you mean since the founding of your country, + Show Spoiler + right? Because there have been a bunch of changes to your constitution, but not much at all has changed about how Congress or the president are chosen. The fact that the parties aren't stable and are, instead, descriptive of the main voting blocks in the country is, if anything, an argument against your thesis: burning down the apparatus and starting again will most likely lead to something within the currently achievable political spectrum, and not something wildly new, and the USA has probably not been further away from a communist revolution than it is right now, maybe ever. Finally I understand you are piggybacking on the point about the political parties working for the elite and always having done so, in a "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" kinda way. That's partially true but there is clearly a meaningful difference in ideologies between the parties. Maybe your ideology isn't reflected and everything east of social democracies is "basically fascism" in your book, but that's about as meaningful as a colourblind person claiming green is the same as red, because they can't see the difference anyway. Would I rather have less corporatism and lobbying? Hell yes. Does that mean all corporations are the same? Obviously not, and the choice between the parties isn't meaningless because they are both beholden to large donors. Lists like these make it quite clear what the lesser evil is: https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/biggest-donorsAre elections going to solve it all? Almost certainly not. But that doesn't make them meaningless. No, I'm talking about the distinct shift in how people understood politics in the US that came after the civil rights movement. I previously described it this way: Doesn't matter what you want politically really, what you need to get it is leverage. Small d democratic majorities and elections are one aspect of how you get that leverage, but historically, they typically come at the end after the work on the ground has made the status quo less tolerable than giving in to at least some of the demands.
Since the Civil Rights Movement, the pitch was "Hey women and Black people! We're (mostly) letting you vote now! Isn't that great! This is how you are to make any changes politically now! No more of that silly mass disruption stuff until demands are met! You can have big fun protests, just make sure to keep them symbolic"
We got mass incarceration (with legal slavery), women lost bodily autonomy, the surveillance state is out of control, Nixon's EPA is being dismantled, and the list goes on.
The idea that lining up behind Democrats after they finally parted ways with their most virulent racists in the 60's as part of a democratic political block to accomplish the things the poor people's campaign was aiming at before the US government conspired to subvert the campaign and assassinate MLK jr. for it looking too promising has categorically failed.
Any and all progress that can be said to have been gained since then must be recognized as happening despite the Democrat party, not because of it. That said, I agree with your belief that elections won't solve it all and aren't meaningless. The thing is, being enfranchised into the voting process and things like legalistic rights is a huge driver of quite a few of those kind of movements in the first place. You’re almost framing it as some carrot dangled to placate these movements, rather than it being a key demand that’s being met. + Show Spoiler +And they tend to dissipate when momentum stalls as the kinda main goals that glue the broad coalition together, and we get into various stretch goals that are more niche.
Or to put it another way, a big driver of mass disruptive/revolutionary movements often isn’t to overturn a system, merely to be enfranchised within it. Plenty are more structurally transformative too of course but I think broadly in either instance you’ve got a handful of quite clear grievances that are sufficiently shared for some kind of critical mass of people to garner enough momentum to move the needle.
Not to downplay the importance of such movements, my position is rather the opposite. I just don’t see the appetite from Americans for radical transformation, nor am I sure what the ‘civil rights issue of our time’ is that could rally sufficient people to that banner. Sort of? Those aren't mutually exclusive. I'm pretty familiar with the history, so you know you're not bringing new information to my attention. What exactly in the quoted post are you trying to dispute? Your previous narrative almost presents these approaches as parallel if not directly oppositional. I may be misunderstanding you on certain points, fair enough that may be on me. + Show Spoiler +I assume we agree that public sentiment and electoral politics don’t enjoy a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship, the leverage is required but what is the pivot?
I think your characterisation of historic political movements is either incorrect, or alternatively I’m just reading you wrong. Which makes adoption into modern contexts strategically flawed, assuming I’m not reading you wrong.
It’s very frequently ‘I want to be in the club too’, and not ‘let’s destroy the club’, a movement pushes the Overton Window sufficiently that political, legal or cultural norms become broadly acceptable to the movement and it somewhat dissipates.
I think a minority in this thread would disagree with you on the importance of movements shifting the political ground, but a lot of your rhetoric seems to suggest just bypassing codified political structures because they’re broken. Or bypassing other things that characterise successful movements more generally.
If I’m misinterpreting I mean that’s somewhat on me but I don’t think I’m the only one somewhat confused as to what your vision of action encompasses Let's start there. I meant: " [being enfranchised into the voting process and things like legalistic rights being] some carrot dangled to placate these movements, rather than it being a key demand that’s being met." aren't mutually exclusive. Are we understanding each other that far?
They’re not mutually exclusive, they are just different framings.
If person A’s goal is simply to be enfranchised in the electoralism machine, and that’s granted, it’s not some carrot or pseudo-bribe being dangled, it’s simply their ambitions being met. If person B’s goal is huge systemic change and their pressure gets the same concessions, it doesn’t meet their goals.
Certainly in the Northern Irish example, our Civil Right’s movement was mostly person As, with person Bs helping to push that along.
Your rhetoric seems to shit on boring old electoralism, and your evidence frequently invokes past movements whose actual goal was merely to be a meaningful part of that process.
If my read is off well, my bad
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On April 22 2026 03:17 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2026 03:09 Acrofales wrote:On April 22 2026 03:04 Introvert wrote:
Tyranny of the minority is not the same as a bunch of veto points. Might as well call all checks and balances "tyranny of [a] minority." Majorities can still get their way they just have to work for it. And why on God's green earth the people supposedly "for the little guy" or worried about oppressed minorities are such big fans of pure democracy will never make sense. It's just a myopic view of rhe system both in the forward and backward direction. Wow, you wrote a full paragraph without saying anything of substance while managing to sound quite clever, albeit a bit snobby. You running for office? A) it's dumb to call anything not 50% + 1 a "tyranny of the minority." B) if you think the majority is oppressing you, you probably don't want them to vote on it directly.
A) it's not "anything", it's a specific thing: the electoral college.
B) uh, okay?
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EPT
