US Politics Mega-thread - Page 5774

On June 09 2026 19:46 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Donald Trump went to last night's NBA Finals, Game 3: Knicks vs. Spurs.

Unsurprisingly, he was booed at NYC's Madison Square Garden.

I hear Trump is rooting for the Spurs, since they saved him from going to Vietnam.

On June 10 2026 03:21 Falling wrote:
A reasonable ask would be, hey California could you speed up your process, we need results in a more timely manner.
That is not what is happening.

2016 Election is RIGGED rigged! (wins anyways)
2020 Election is rigged. RIGGED! (loses but try to rig the election in his favour by leaning on States to find votes for him)
2024 Election is rigggggged RIGGED RIGGED! rigggggged! (wins anyways)
California election RIGGGGGGGGGGGED!

Rigged! RIGGGED! From the President of the United States of America and his cronies and his followers. Is NOT the same thing 'California should be faster'

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

On June 10 2026 03:39 Simberto wrote:


Exactly this. It just feels completely dishonest. It is immediately obvious that none of the people complaining about the process in California care in the slightest about that process. They would completely love that exact same process if it lead to their guy winning. This is all the typical dishonest rightwing smoke and mirror bullshit. I will pay attention and maybe even believe them once they start to criticize an election in which their team is winning.

As i think my post about German elections makes clear, i think it is a bit silly for the counting of votes to take this long. But clearly that is not why our rightwing people talk about it right now. They just dislike that their guy is losing, and thus they attack the election process. Because any process that does not lead to their guy winning must be a bad process.

I'd honestly think that the US could use a non-partisan rework of how their elections are handled. But that is unlikely to happen because no one in the US really cares about getting a good system that makes voting easy and where the results represent the will of the population as much as possible, while working as effectively as possible.

Everyone just wants their guy to win. Especially the right, whose whole modus operandi is to game the system in as absurd a way as possible to win, but democrats would also always prefer a bad system where they win to a good system where they lose.

And that just does not sound like a good ground to have an honest debate about how to best structure elections.

On June 10 2026 03:21 Falling wrote:
A reasonable ask would be, hey California could you speed up your process, we need results in a more timely manner.
That is not what is happening.

2016 Election is RIGGED rigged! (wins anyways)
2020 Election is rigged. RIGGED! (loses but try to rig the election in his favour by leaning on States to find votes for him)
2024 Election is rigggggged RIGGED RIGGED! rigggggged! (wins anyways)
California election RIGGGGGGGGGGGED!

Rigged! RIGGGED! From the President of the United States of America and his cronies and his followers. Is NOT the same thing 'California should be faster'

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

On June 10 2026 03:50 Introvert wrote:


First, LA is overwhelmingly dem. There's no illusion Pratt was going to win.

Second, you might want to look in the mirror. You could just stop at "yeah it's silly to take that long." Instead you and others are twisting yourselves into defending-it but-not-really because you don't like the people who are loudest about it. And i object to, as I called them, absurd rules written to ensure a particular outcome. Just because Democrats run California as a single party state and they are supposed to be the "good ones" doesn't mean everyone here has to deflect. I get accused of "but Democrats!" And here comes "but Republicans" for the millionth time.


Edit:
"But that is unlikely to happen because no one in the US really cares about getting a good system that makes voting easy and where the results represent the will of the population as much as possible, while working as effectively as possible."

Plenty of States have fine voting systems. The attempt to pass this off onto the rest of the country is misplaced

On June 10 2026 04:18 Simberto wrote:


How much overlap is there between your list of "States with fine voting systems" and "States where republicans win"?

You don't seem to grasp the problem. I don't trust you. You jump onto anything that is against democrats, and that is the only reason you care about this right now. I would maybe trust you that you want an honest discussion about a voting system if you were criticizing the voting systems in republican states, but you don't. And you never will. Because you don't care about the voting system at all. You care about your side winning at all costs, and nothing else.

You very one-sidedly select the topics you want to talk about. Criticize your own side for once, and people may eventually no longer assume that everything that you says is purely partisan. So far, my very simple introvert predictor is "Does this help republicans win or make democrats look bad?". If it does, you are for it. If it doesn't, you are against it. I don't think i recall you ever taking any position that does not fit that simple heuristic even once. Which makes it very hard to believe that you truly care about the california elections beyond that.

On June 10 2026 04:21 Introvert wrote:


I care because I'm a California resident right next door to LA and the people we elect in this state affects me directly. You yourself called it silly. Like I said, no reason to immediately backtrack when you *know* it's rediculous.

Edit: pretty much every state is better than California.

On June 10 2026 04:18 Simberto wrote:


How much overlap is there between your list of "States with fine voting systems" and "States where republicans win"?

You don't seem to grasp the problem. I don't trust you. You jump onto anything that is against democrats, and that is the only reason you care about this right now. I would maybe trust you that you want an honest discussion about a voting system if you were criticizing the voting systems in republican states, but you don't. And you never will. Because you don't care about the voting system at all. You care about your side winning at all costs, and nothing else.

You very one-sidedly select the topics you want to talk about. Criticize your own side for once, and people may eventually no longer assume that everything that you says is purely partisan. So far, my very simple introvert predictor is "Does this help republicans win or make democrats look bad?". If it does, you are for it. If it doesn't, you are against it. I don't think i recall you ever taking any position that does not fit that simple heuristic even once. Which makes it very hard to believe that you truly care about the california elections beyond that.

On June 10 2026 03:59 dyhb wrote:
Have you thought about whether the anger over why it takes weeks to find out tight election results advances conspiratorial thinking? Why is it taking so long, why can't we be like every other state (including big states) and countries? Oh, this guy knows the REAL reason why...

On June 10 2026 03:50 Introvert wrote:


First, LA is overwhelmingly dem. There's no illusion Pratt was going to win.

Second, you might want to look in the mirror. You could just stop at "yeah it's silly to take that long." Instead you and others are twisting yourselves into defending-it but-not-really because you don't like the people who are loudest about it. And i object to, as I called them, absurd rules written to ensure a particular outcome. Just because Democrats run California as a single party state and they are supposed to be the "good ones" doesn't mean everyone here has to deflect. I get accused of "but Democrats!" And here comes "but Republicans" for the millionth time.


Edit:
"But that is unlikely to happen because no one in the US really cares about getting a good system that makes voting easy and where the results represent the will of the population as much as possible, while working as effectively as possible."

Plenty of States have fine voting systems. The attempt to pass this off onto the rest of the country is misplaced

On June 10 2026 04:23 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:

You responded to a post about presidential elections. Falling mentioned the last 3 presidential elections, none of which had people holding their breath to see which way California was going to vote. When was the last time during a presidential election that California had "tight election results"? And also... weeks? Really? It doesn't take weeks for California to announce they voted blue during the presidential elections. It takes a few hours, like most states. California isn't a swing state.

If you're talking about finally announcing the exact number of votes in the presidential election, then that's very different from knowing that California is going to give its electoral votes to the Democratic candidate. In fact, almost all states are "called" for a certain candidate long before the exact number of votes for each candidate is established. That's not unique to California.

And if you're talking about other elections that aren't presidential... well, then, you merely responded to the wrong post.

On June 10 2026 04:59 Falling wrote:

No. Just because people don't understand the normal process doesn't validate conspiratorial thinking.
For instance, in BC we normally have fairly quick election results. However, most people (including myself) did not realize that there is a bunch of counting of mail in ballots, etc that happens well after election date. It's just normally you do not hear about it because BC elections are usually pretty decisive and there are only a handful of close races that trigger recounts and where waiting to count the mail in and absentee votes would matter. (Upon researching the actual timeline and process for all elections, I was satisfied that the process was working as intended. We just happened to have a uniquely close election where some of the under the hood processes were revealed.)

We happened to have a very close election where the balance of power mattered on a number of closely contested ridings. And it was a drawn out process. I've never seen so much conspiratorial thinking about our elections. Nothing has changed about our process. The outcome was rather unique but what I was seeing was the rigged rhetoric from the States spread like a virus into right wing voter base within BC. Colleagues of mine were suddenly declaring that the election results were being manipulated. I've never seen anything like it in BC until this last election.

Speed up the process by all means. But it doesn't stop conspiratorial thinking when people are fed a steady diet of conspiracy theories by the online MAGA media apparatus and the most powerful man in the world. How fast were the last three presidential declared? Yet the conspiracies are pushed ever more stridently despite the facts on the ground (Trump's judge nominations are pretty much all incapable of declaring who won the 2020 election. It is THE loyalty purity test to be a part of Trump's administration.)