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Northern Ireland22452 Posts
On October 31 2024 01:09 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:One of Trump's judicial appointees in Florida, Judge Aileen Cannon, is back in the news for a reason other than her controversial actions in the Trump vs. United States case that involved Trump's mishandling of classified documents. This new reason is that she's also been selected to handle the case of Ryan Routh, the man who allegedly tried to assassinate Trump a second time at/near Trump's golf course. She has refused to recuse herself from this other trial, despite being appointed by Trump and being considered for Attorney General by Trump: https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4959386-us-district-judge-refuses-recuse/ I don't care about Ryan Routh, but holy crap is that unfortunate for him. The guy still deserves a fair trial.
I feel recusal is absolutely the appropriate move here
On the other hand, the only way this guy isn’t screwed is to have an actively unfair trial in his favour. I think he’s a bit fucked short of that
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On October 31 2024 01:14 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2024 01:09 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:One of Trump's judicial appointees in Florida, Judge Aileen Cannon, is back in the news for a reason other than her controversial actions in the Trump vs. United States case that involved Trump's mishandling of classified documents. This new reason is that she's also been selected to handle the case of Ryan Routh, the man who allegedly tried to assassinate Trump a second time at/near Trump's golf course. She has refused to recuse herself from this other trial, despite being appointed by Trump and being considered for Attorney General by Trump: https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4959386-us-district-judge-refuses-recuse/ I don't care about Ryan Routh, but holy crap is that unfortunate for him. The guy still deserves a fair trial. I feel recusal is absolutely the appropriate move here On the other hand, the only way this guy isn’t screwed is to have an actively unfair trial in his favour. I think he’s a bit fucked short of that
Yeah I can't imagine him being found Not Guilty of everything, but it'd be interesting to see how things play out.
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On October 30 2024 18:29 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
This happened with KBJ too, where we discussed how her being selected from a pool of top-tier candidates could have absolutely had sex/race be a potential tiebreaker, but it's not like she was unqualified and chosen over better candidates merely because of race/sex.
Biden specifically said he was going to nominate a black woman for Supreme Court. So the “pool of candidates” were all black women. Explain how race/sex was a “potential tiebreaker.” Was Kentaji Brown Jackson blacker and more womanly than the other candidates? Or do you just make this up as you go?
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On October 31 2024 01:32 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 18:29 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
This happened with KBJ too, where we discussed how her being selected from a pool of top-tier candidates could have absolutely had sex/race be a potential tiebreaker, but it's not like she was unqualified and chosen over better candidates merely because of race/sex. Biden specifically said he was going to nominate a black woman for Supreme Court. So the “pool of candidates” were all black women. Explain how race/sex was a “potential tiebreaker.” Was Kentaji Brown Jackson blacker and more womanly than the other candidates? Or do you just make this up as you go?
This was answered in depth when you first brought it up in late January 2022 lol. As I said before, I'm not interested in repeating this conversation with you. You have your opinions on KBJ and Harris, and that's that.
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Biden: I’m going to nominate a black woman for Supreme Court
Gavin Newsom: I’m gonna pick a black woman for this vacant Senate seat
Biden again: Kamala Harris is an example of the strengths of DEI
This thread: why do conservatives want to bring up sex and race
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On October 31 2024 01:32 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 18:29 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
This happened with KBJ too, where we discussed how her being selected from a pool of top-tier candidates could have absolutely had sex/race be a potential tiebreaker, but it's not like she was unqualified and chosen over better candidates merely because of race/sex. Biden specifically said he was going to nominate a black woman for Supreme Court. So the “pool of candidates” were all black women. Explain how race/sex was a “potential tiebreaker.” Was Kentaji Brown Jackson blacker and more womanly than the other candidates? Or do you just make this up as you go?
You have brought this up over and over again. Are you a hundred percent certain that he had now decided that Kentaji Brown Jackson was not the best candidate before he said he was going to nominate a black woman? It is a pretty common tact for promotion of basically everything to give a teaser before the full answer? Is it impossible that she was simply the best candidate?
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On October 30 2024 18:41 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 17:51 BlackJack wrote:On October 30 2024 16:30 Uldridge wrote:
I can see the angle that bringing in Kamala to look more attractable for a certain voter group.
I can also see why that's literally a non-issue and we should stop bringing it up. Why does this seem to be relevant? Why play the dogwhistling semantics hide-and-seek game here, when you know that's all it is when you bring it up and then raise your hands like: I didn't actually say DEI, that's you explicitely saying I'm implying this. Does it, or doesn't it matter? If it doesn't matter, then why talk about it?
Let's just let BJ make a summary of why he feels the need to bring Kamala's sex/race into the conversation every so often and then just accept that is his position and we can move on. He won't mention it any longer, and we won't mention it any longer. Simple, no? Imagine the Los Angeles Lakers decided they are not diverse enough. There are too many black players and they want to be more inclusive. So when the draft comes along they skip over some more highly touted prospects to draft a white player. Do you think if that white player doesn’t play very well the fan base won’t (rightfully) talk about the reason they were drafted? Of course they would. Of course they should. I’d talk about it. I don’t care who tries to shout me down. That is if anyone tries to shout me down for talking shit about the white player that got picked, y’know, double standards and all. And that's the same issue you've been wrong about in the past. It's *all else being equal*, not choosing bad players over good ones. It's breaking a general tie with the smallest distinction, selecting from a pool of highly qualified players and candidates of all races and sexes. We're choosing people like Larry Bird, not some random white kid who can't play ball.
In my analogy you’re not drafting “some white kid that can’t play ball.” You’re skipping over a few black people to select a white player that might have gone 10th in the draft with your 5th pick. The white guy is still very much qualified to play in the NBA which is the reason he is in the draft in the first place. The reason you have to change my analogy to “some white kid who can’t play ball” is because you need it for your strawman where KJB and Harris have no business being in their positions. Keep beating that strawman.
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Northern Ireland22452 Posts
On October 31 2024 01:50 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 18:41 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 30 2024 17:51 BlackJack wrote:On October 30 2024 16:30 Uldridge wrote:
I can see the angle that bringing in Kamala to look more attractable for a certain voter group.
I can also see why that's literally a non-issue and we should stop bringing it up. Why does this seem to be relevant? Why play the dogwhistling semantics hide-and-seek game here, when you know that's all it is when you bring it up and then raise your hands like: I didn't actually say DEI, that's you explicitely saying I'm implying this. Does it, or doesn't it matter? If it doesn't matter, then why talk about it?
Let's just let BJ make a summary of why he feels the need to bring Kamala's sex/race into the conversation every so often and then just accept that is his position and we can move on. He won't mention it any longer, and we won't mention it any longer. Simple, no? Imagine the Los Angeles Lakers decided they are not diverse enough. There are too many black players and they want to be more inclusive. So when the draft comes along they skip over some more highly touted prospects to draft a white player. Do you think if that white player doesn’t play very well the fan base won’t (rightfully) talk about the reason they were drafted? Of course they would. Of course they should. I’d talk about it. I don’t care who tries to shout me down. That is if anyone tries to shout me down for talking shit about the white player that got picked, y’know, double standards and all. And that's the same issue you've been wrong about in the past. It's *all else being equal*, not choosing bad players over good ones. It's breaking a general tie with the smallest distinction, selecting from a pool of highly qualified players and candidates of all races and sexes. We're choosing people like Larry Bird, not some random white kid who can't play ball. In my analogy you’re not drafting “some white kid that can’t play ball.” You’re skipping over a few black people to select a white player that might have gone 10th in the draft with your 5th pick. The white guy is still very much qualified to play in the NBA which is the reason he is in the draft in the first place. The reason you have to change my analogy to “some white kid who can’t play ball” is because you need it for your strawman where KJB and Harris have no business being in their positions. Keep beating that strawman.
In this analogy there aren’t really structural impediments that have historically blocked good white players from excelling
Which arguably do exist in other domains, and form the justification for affirmative action programs in the first place.
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Kavanaugh is in his seat just as much due to his identity as KJB. Trump bragged about his age the same way Biden bragged and her race and gender. But zero outrage, why?
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On October 30 2024 04:32 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 02:59 PremoBeats wrote:On October 30 2024 01:34 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 29 2024 23:33 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 29 2024 22:52 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 29 2024 21:55 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 29 2024 21:26 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 29 2024 21:06 Biff The Understudy wrote:On October 29 2024 18:22 Gorsameth wrote:On October 29 2024 14:11 GreenHorizons wrote:[quote] In the most general sense I'm talking socialism as a system to pursue conscientização or critical consciousness [quote] And generally aligned with Fanon, Freire, Kwame Ture, and that general flavor of revolutionary socialism. But at an even more basic level I'm just arguing in favor of socialism being a superior paradigm to pursue a "more perfect union" so to speak than capitalism and liberal democracy. As far as I can tell outside of the right-wingers, everyone agrees with that premise (socialism>capitalism going forward) at this point. The fighting is around what to do about that. Since your pointing to thinkers and not history I guess the answer to Biffs question is ' something that has never existed'. Yeah. That’s my point a little bit. And since most of us haven’t read those authors, we are talking without a clear reference over what any of that means, which dooms the conversation imo. I find though that the cultivated confusion about the word socialism is one of the reason the political debate in the US is so sterile. Republicans voluntarily entertain the confusion between « slightly more like Denmark » and « Moscow 1928 » and the progressives never explain if they want a completely new utopian system that has never existed, + Show Spoiler + or again, if we are talking increasing taxes and getting what most advanced countries already have, such as free healthcare, free education and so on.
Then everybody goes on talking with their definition in mind. Which is a major reason I've spent 7+ years trying to get you guys to read some of them. It also demonstrates how the inquiries are just bad faith sealioning. Seems like the US is getting forced into the choice of fascism or something new that hasn't existed and most US voters favor fascism over their fear of something new/reading socialists instead of hundreds of pages of oBlade type arguments. I know, but you have to realize that there are little chance anyone here is interested in another poster’s thought quite enough to read 2000 pages to understand what they are talking about. I am quite certain that you wouldn’t do it for me, and that’s really quite normal. So saying, go read my sources is not really a way to go in a discussion, because we could all do that. If I yold you: “you would understand me better if you read Spinoza and its commentary by Deleuze - and I believe you would - so your enquiries about what i say are done in bad faith” you would not take me very seriously. What I understand a bit from seven years of and and off discussion - and really, correct me if i am wrong - is that you think your ideas are deeper and worth more time and attention than any of us here. And that really limits the possibility of exchange. Except they have read thousands of pages of utter bollocks from the oBlades over the years. It's a matter of prioritization and they don't prioritize learning about socialism because they're addicted to capitalism and liberal democracy. "My ideas" are but a drop in an ocean of socialist thought, they aren't an a-z blueprint for a perfect socialist revolution. If I wanted people to take away one thing it'd be that we'd be better off trying to address all of the issues we face under a socialist paradigm rather than the profit driven capitalist one we live under now that promises global ecological catastrophe and nuclear annihilation. As such, we're all obligated to past, present, and future generations to do as much as we can to make that transition into a socialist paradigm a reality imo. I know GH but do you understand the problem? Look, I can tell you that my problem with your attitude is well summarized by Jaques Rancière in his seminal book, Althusser’s Lesson and his subsequent works, in which he explains how socialists revolutions have failed abjectly because of the arrogant position in which well-read revolutionaries that knew the theory and that were dogmatically entranched in a position of intellectual superiority were naturally the ones who knew what had to be done and how to do it, and considered they had nothing to learn from the people for whom the revolution was meant to be. Are you going to go to the library and read Rancière instead of, you too, read oBlade’s bs? No. You will keep reading oBlade. Rancière is one of the greatest french left wing philosopher of the XXth century. But you won’t take that from me or anyone here, yet you expect us to do the work you are absolutely not willing to do. And that, for me, kills all possibility of learning from each other. I recommend to read Althusser too by the way. “Reading the Capital” is a great work, but mainly to understand the problem Rancière had with him. Much better read that oblade, but that’s a lot of pages, I give you that. I don't really read oBlade or the responses and want a successful socialist revolution, so I'll probably read this "Althusser's Lesson" soon (long before you see me reply to oBlade) and recommend others do to. What immediately jumps out to me though is how such an analysis conflicts with my understandings of the Freirean concepts of empowering the masses through critical consciousness. Based on a cursory examination it seems people have discussed Freire and Rancière in relation to each other and there are some interesting points raised. I would find that conversation infinitely more interesting than the next red herring, but I imagine you can see the problem with that? EDIT: You know if Rancière wrote about the Black Panther Party specifically? Although Rancière's critiques of Marxist and revolutionary intellectualism can be applied to some aspects of their approach, I am not aware that he ever wrote directly about the BPP. In regards to Biff's response: While CC aims to empower marginalized individuals to understand and act against their oppression, the idea has limitations that echo some of the same criticisms Rancière applies to traditional socialist revolutions. Freire’s method often presupposes that the educator or organizer has a more enlightened view of oppression, which could create a hierarchy between the teacher (as liberator) and the learner (as oppressed). This mirrors Rancière's critique of socialist intellectuals who, from a perceived position of intellectual authority, impose their vision of revolution on the masses rather than co-creating it with them. Freire’s approach still risks creating a dependency on educators to guide students toward 'liberation,' assuming the educator’s interpretation of oppression and liberation is definitive. This relationship can be paternalistic, making Freirean pedagogy susceptible to the same elitism that Rancière critiques in revolutionary socialism. In essence, it can reduce critical consciousness to a form of 'enlightenment' imposed on the people, rather than a process that genuinely emerges from their own experiences and understanding. Both Freire and traditional socialist thinkers, including Althusser, envision an emancipatory process but do so with assumptions (uniformity of oppression, intellectual authority, defined paths to liberation) that may inadvertently re-establish hierarchies - which psychologists argue are a natural state of human societies. Freire's educational model, while less overtly hierarchical, still risks positioning the educator as a figure of authority on what constitutes 'oppression,' potentially reinforcing the top-down power dynamics it seeks to dismantle. Consequently, without careful attention to inclusivity and genuine co-learning, both approaches may struggle to fully engage the people they aim to empower. Thus, CC rings several bells that most socialist movements do, due to an optimistic, noble or idealistic idea that probably will face difficulties in the "real world". Moreover - and this is more myself speaking, although Rancière also mentions this when talking about the supposed "will of the people" that socialist/revolutionary movements assume - Freire's emphasis on collective liberation through awareness and reflection does not account for the diverse motivations, interests, and values among individuals, which can dilute the cohesiveness of such movements. Especially in diverse societies where individuals and groups have differing views on what liberation should entail... thus, I asked before, if there is an actual, let's say practical blueprint for this revolution and the kind of goal(s) it wishes to achieve. Haven't read it yet (just the foreword to the English version and preface, which is further than some people have gotten in PotO in 7+ years...) but that's basically what I was getting from it. I don't think Freire is flawless so I can certainly see those risks. That's part of why I emphasize that the socialism I subscribe to is not about me telling people the steps or having an a-z blueprint to a successful revolution, but us creating them together. You're right that it could be messy, but capitalism and liberal democracy is too. Takes a LOT of killing, oppression, and a little genocide for Democrats to maintain their capitalist liberal democracy.
CC is a never-ending process though, a way of life. How can it be used in group discussions to create a set of static guidelines for a better society? The inputs (experiences of participants) that would lead to its formation are always changing, stochastically even. But the discussion can’t be never-ending, because a time has to come where the group says “OK this is the best we can come up with, the time has come to act.” And when that time comes, the guidelines have to be made static to allow for collective cohesion of praxis, otherwise needed members will back out and the discussion has to begin again. If a set of principles is being used to create something as stable as a government, they need to be codified. But the moment you cease the discussion, you’re denying the opportunities of others to share their voice.
Obviously you don’t believe in the idea that we need to wait for the “discussion” to run its full course before acting, because you’re engaging in praxis now while the theorycrafting is ongoing. By necessity, aren’t you then oppressing those individuals whose voices you haven’t yet heard and accounted for in your worldview?
How does one genuinely use Frier-style education to lead to group consensus on praxis, without sneaking in some other judgments to prioritize above it, necessitating immediate action?
EDIT - To clarify, I’m not asking what THE (definitive) answers are to these questions, I’m asking what YOUR (non-definitive) answers are.
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On October 31 2024 00:27 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 23:38 oBlade wrote:On October 30 2024 22:32 Simberto wrote:On October 30 2024 22:24 oBlade wrote:On October 30 2024 22:07 Simberto wrote:On October 30 2024 22:05 oBlade wrote:On October 30 2024 21:57 Simberto wrote:On October 30 2024 21:50 oBlade wrote:
Senators in California and mayors in Chicago are not subject to an electoral college. Ask people if their votes for Senator and mayor there matter more than for president. And were we just talking about senators? No, we were talking about presidents. Also, of course you specify senators in California. But if you talk about senators in general, you once again get the problem that some votes matter a lot more than others. If you live in California, you get about 1 in 20 millionth of a senator. If you live in Montana, you get about 1 in 500kth of a senator, or 40 times as many senators. Once again, some votes count more than others. And multiply that by 2 and you get the share of a governor that a citizen is voting for. What percent of the mayor does a resident of Chicago vote for vs. a resident of Bozeman? Dude, you can't be this daft and not get this. We were talking about the presidency. Some votes matter for the presidency, most don't. That is a problem. I will not let myself get distracted into the sidepoint you are trying to talk about. You already know what was meant, and are trying to obfuscate and distract. You are not as stupid as you act. If you have no answer, that's fine. Obviously I'm going to be making a different point than you as we're different individuals. You specifically said "your vote only matters in a state that might go both ways." NOT "your vote is worth more in low population states." Obfuscate your own damn self. But fine, let's take your new idea. Explain something to me. Why is it, or not, a problem that a Montana vote for governor counts for more than a California vote for governor? Presidency. We were talking about the presidency. Stop distracting. In other words, your vote for President in a non-swing state doesn't matter, but your vote for Senator does? Inquiring minds want to know. I understand you were originally talking about the president because you didn't consider the repercussions of your point. However, since you brought up the issue of close races, can you do me the courtesy of expending the least amount of effort to figure out what you think about it? People in Montana do not vote for the equivalent of 40 times as many presidents as people in California. Not even close. I'll take this to mean you've backed off your initial "close race" claim because you realized it's not self-consistent. The reason the US uses what you pejoratively refer to as "FPTP" (normally referred to as "winning") is that the Electoral College and Senate are specifically created to balance each other. Not the checkers or chess balance where everyone gets the same thing. But the Starcraft balance. I'll be extreme as possible: At the moment 51% of the 12 biggest states could choose the president at the expense of even 100% of the other states. The difference is those states would have 76 Senators, controlling half of Congress. This is by design for 2 reasons: 1) it creates an inherently safe, long-lasting system that operates with a balance of power and doesn't result in one group gaining total control and fucking everything up, which is why there have been like 7 Germanies and Frances in the same time as there have been two Americas, the Founders knew what the Continent was like, and 2) after becoming independent, it was a necessary compromise to unify the sovereign and autonomous colonies into more than a confederation, and for each subsequent state that joined the union. You keep trying to get me to talk about different things then "why do some votes for the presidency count more than others?". I am willing to do that after we are done with this topic. I have not backed off from anything. There are multiple problems with the US system which all make it not very democractic. One is that most votes for president don't count.
You have proposed two methods of votes counting more than others, being worth more than others:
1) Votes in tight races ("state that might go both ways.") are worth more than ones with apparently foregone conclusions. For obvious reasons, this claim is not limited to presidents, but I guess that was an inconvenient truth.
2) Votes for the same position among populations of different size allocate individual voting power inversely with population size, giving a greater unit power per vote to members of the smaller population. This most starkly affects the Senate, which has disproportionate representation on purpose by design, creating a max 65x gap in "voter strength," and also in the Electoral College, which has a max gap of about 3.5x, between the smallest states at 200k per electoral vote with the trend limit being about 700k voters per electoral vote at this point in history (if the US were one state it'd be about 600k each).
However. You apparently realized after trying this second argument instead that it's insufficient, because you don't want to say a voter in Wyoming, the smallest state, with therefore the most "powerful" voter, which was also the most lopsided in 2020 at 70% Republican, you don't want to say his vote is worth more than a voter in a comparatively huge swing state like PA or GA or NC. Because whether the guy in Wyoming votes red or blue, the state is still red. The guy in Georgia might flip it though. Which was the first argument.
When I ask about either one, you switch to the other one. You aren't even moving goalposts, you've set up two and just alternate between which one you stand in front of, or hide in the middle somewhere. First you go "no I'm talking about how Montana voters have more power than California for the Senate." Then if I explain other races than the president can be tight, you say "waa I'm only talking about the president, not the Senate." Make up your fucking mind.
This is obnoxious and wasting time deliberately. I cannot simplify this any further so if you still cannot see the relevance of this question, everyone here can assume you're stonewalling because you're afraid of some kind of rhetorical trap (which I take as a compliment), are physically incapable of understanding the relevance, or are hiding the fact that you don't know what you actually think, which would be nothing to be ashamed of if you hadn't been sat there calling me daft while not understanding the very obvious implications of your own words.
If "race tight" means "vote power unfair"
The 2020 Illinois Senate election, at a spread of 16%, was almost equally lopsided as the 2020 Illinois Presidential election at a spread of 16.9%. Therefore a person's vote was almost equally worthless in each. Right? Correct or no? This is what I assume we mean. Do you agree or disagree?
Consider this a new subject, not limited by the borders of what you were repeating before. I am curious about it because I want to probe the limits of US democracy.
I have become extraordinarily suspicious of the fact you can't answer it, probably because you realized Senators are elected directly with no "gerrymandering" or "electoral college," and maybe started to realize all you were originally claiming was a revamped form of "in a close election, the people who change their minds decide it" rather than something about a vote being meaningless or votes having no power or votes being worthless. I'm sure everybody in 2016 in Wisconsin who thought their vote didn't matter because they weren't a swing state got an interesting awakening when their state swung. In a huge amount of US elections, basically every midterm, abstainers are the most powerful voting block. It's two whole other parties worth, a whole other country's worth of voters.
On October 31 2024 00:27 Simberto wrote:
Another is that someone can become president despite getting less votes than the other candidate.
Other candidates. Plural.
Why is that a problem? It's a system. UK and Germany don't vote for heads at all. The US has a clear and objective system. Like saying checkers is a problem because you can only move diagonally, unlike chess. That's not a problem per se, they're simply different. You can't put every rule in one game.
On October 31 2024 00:27 Simberto wrote:
There are other problems with senators, or mayors, or whatever. But i am not currently talking about these.
I understand you don't think you are, but I am directly asking you about because the mechanism you have proposed is exactly the same. There is a list of candidates. People vote. The one with the most votes wins. This is exactly the same for a senator within a state as it is for electoral votes for presidents in a state. Take a look at any US ballot. What the fuck is "i am not currently talking about these." You are being asked a question. Figure out what you think about it, or say you don't care or don't know, or don't answer at all.
Do me one favor and please put these votes for president in order of power (or whatever exact word you're using for talking about relative vote strength, worth, etc.) in your view of what's wrong with the US system, if any are equal feel free to say so without shame:
A) vote in tiny 70/30 state
B) vote in huge 70/30 state
C) vote in tiny 50/50 state
D) vote in huge 50/50 state
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Norway28443 Posts
On October 30 2024 23:38 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 22:32 Simberto wrote:On October 30 2024 22:24 oBlade wrote:On October 30 2024 22:07 Simberto wrote:On October 30 2024 22:05 oBlade wrote:On October 30 2024 21:57 Simberto wrote:On October 30 2024 21:50 oBlade wrote:
Senators in California and mayors in Chicago are not subject to an electoral college. Ask people if their votes for Senator and mayor there matter more than for president. And were we just talking about senators? No, we were talking about presidents. Also, of course you specify senators in California. But if you talk about senators in general, you once again get the problem that some votes matter a lot more than others. If you live in California, you get about 1 in 20 millionth of a senator. If you live in Montana, you get about 1 in 500kth of a senator, or 40 times as many senators. Once again, some votes count more than others. And multiply that by 2 and you get the share of a governor that a citizen is voting for. What percent of the mayor does a resident of Chicago vote for vs. a resident of Bozeman? Dude, you can't be this daft and not get this. We were talking about the presidency. Some votes matter for the presidency, most don't. That is a problem. I will not let myself get distracted into the sidepoint you are trying to talk about. You already know what was meant, and are trying to obfuscate and distract. You are not as stupid as you act. If you have no answer, that's fine. Obviously I'm going to be making a different point than you as we're different individuals. You specifically said "your vote only matters in a state that might go both ways." NOT "your vote is worth more in low population states." Obfuscate your own damn self. But fine, let's take your new idea. Explain something to me. Why is it, or not, a problem that a Montana vote for governor counts for more than a California vote for governor? Presidency. We were talking about the presidency. Stop distracting. In other words, your vote for President in a non-swing state doesn't matter, but your vote for Senator does? Inquiring minds want to know. I understand you were originally talking about the president because you didn't consider the repercussions of your point. However, since you brought up the issue of close races, can you do me the courtesy of expending the least amount of effort to figure out what you think about it? People in Montana do not vote for the equivalent of 40 times as many presidents as people in California. Not even close. I'll take this to mean you've backed off your initial "close race" claim because you realized it's not self-consistent. The reason the US uses what you pejoratively refer to as "FPTP" (normally referred to as "winning") is that the Electoral College and Senate are specifically created to balance each other. Not the checkers or chess balance where everyone gets the same thing. But the Starcraft balance. I'll be extreme as possible: At the moment 51% of the 12 biggest states could choose the president at the expense of even 100% of the other states. The difference is those states would have 76 Senators, controlling half of Congress. This is by design for 2 reasons: 1) it creates an inherently safe, long-lasting system that operates with a balance of power and doesn't result in one group gaining total control and fucking everything up, which is why there have been like 7 Germanies and Frances in the same time as there have been two Americas, the Founders knew what the Continent was like, and 2) after becoming independent, it was a necessary compromise to unify the sovereign and autonomous colonies into more than a confederation, and for each subsequent state that joined the union.
This would be a fair argument for keeping FPTP for the senate. I've actually agreed with that in the past. But having the same system for the presidency if anything makes it more possible that the same potential minority will control both. Having the senate designed the way it is as a bulwark against The Tyrrany of The Big States, you know what, I'm fine with that. It's a reasonable design. But the EC is just fucking stupid. While it's not a given that all states stay the same forever, I'm guessing at least 35 states could effectively have been ignored by all campaigning presidents for the past 20 years. Add to it that the winning president has lost the popular vote twice in the past 20 years and there's a real issue.
And changing to a popular vote over the EC wouldn't make it so that people in Wyoming don't matter anymore. They'd matter exactly as much as people in California. However, it would mean that the democratic voters in Wyoming and the Republican voters in California would have a real reason to show up on election day - something they currently don't have - notable by how everyone who comes here admitting that they're going to vote third party end up prefacing their post with a 'also I don't live in a swing state so it doesn't matter'. That shit is just bad design with no benefit.
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On October 31 2024 01:50 BlackJack wrote:
In my analogy you’re not drafting “some white kid that can’t play ball."
On October 30 2024 17:51 BlackJack wrote:
Do you think if that white player doesn’t play very well
Here's a new question: Let's assume that Trump becomes president and we fast forward to 2028 where Trump is not running for a third term (because it's illegal, because he doesn't want to, whatever the reason may be). In this hypothetical scenario, the 2028 Republican primary is wide open. Assuming that Republicans were reasonably happy with the Trump/Vance term, do you think JD Vance would have a good chance of being the next Republican nominee, given his (hypothetically) pretty successful term as vice president (from the point of view of Republicans)? Who do you think comes after Trump?
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On October 30 2024 23:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 23:41 Razyda wrote:On October 30 2024 23:30 NewSunshine wrote:On October 30 2024 23:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 30 2024 23:08 EnDeR_ wrote:On October 30 2024 22:38 Magic Powers wrote:On October 30 2024 22:30 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 30 2024 12:16 Turbovolver wrote:On October 30 2024 10:07 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Cool gaslighting, bro. You've mentioned that phrase over and over again in the past, and aimed it squarely at Harris and KBJ. Maybe stop bringing up their race and sex. I got curious about this so I searched all BlackJack posts. Five come up, all of them extremely recent, and four of them in response to others' posts. The first one, this one, “Is there any way we can brag about Kamala Harris being a DEI success story while simultaneously denying that her success is attributable to DEI?” sort of implies that BlackJack thinks her success is attributable to DEI, but is also a response to ongoing discussion in the thread. I'm not sure where the arguments about KBJ are, but no, BlackJack has not repeatedly used "this phrase" over and over again in the past. That was oBlade. EDIT: To be clear, I'm not invested in defending BlackJack's apparent opinions about Kamala's credentials, I just wanted to see if any gaslighting was going on. I agree that oBlade has talked a lot about that too. I don't want to relitigate all of the previous conversations surrounding BlackJack's takes on DEI, only caring about race and sex, diversity hires, what is/isn't racist or sexist, and other positions he's had about whether or not KBJ's and Harris's qualifications were truly considered by Biden/Democrats, but he's written a lot of posts in those conversations. Here's the bottom line for me: Merit also matters, period. BlackJack said that merit doesn't matter. I think that's wrong, and it seems to be the case that most people here also think that's wrong, because Harris (and KBJ) are indeed qualified individuals. To add to this, merit not only matters within the Democrat party, it is visibly the only thing that matters. I posted two infographics roughly a week ago proving this point. If DEI is responsible, then it has resulted in the ethnic/gender makeup of the party to be highly representative of the American population. That is as close to real merit as it gets (so far). Unless someone were to argue that merit should lead to unequal representation - not likely an argument that would convince a Democrat. The Republican party is the exact opposite. They represent white males above all else. It's close to 90%. If I had to judge these two parties based on merit, Democrats would get an A and Republicans would get an F. The argument is flawed from the start. Merit simply does not matter, just look at Trump. There was no one more "meritorious" than Hillary Clinton and look how far that got her. Merit doesn't matter for Trump supporters, but merit does matter for those who thought/think that Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris would be good presidents. Yeah, something like this. How the two party's candidates get treated by the media is obviously a nauseating double standard, Kamala has 0 room for mistakes but Trump gets to be a bumbling racist moron and gets every pass in the world. But in terms of the Democrat's priorities, they can and should be pushing for competency on the ground level. Harris has no shortage of qualifications for the job, especially when you consider that "be a citizen over 35" is the actual qualification and so many presidents, especially Trump, barely clear that much. Bolded - Claim that Trump is treated by media better than Kamala is surreal.Italic - most important qualification of president is ability to get elected, in primaries and presidential election. So far Trump won 3 primaries and one presidential. Kamala won exactly 0 of each. Trump is treated more fairly by the media than Harris is, when comparing what Trump is/says/does and what Harris is/says/does, and what the media decides to focus on. And for your italics part, I think you mean candidate, not president. The candidate needs to win the election, but the president needs to be able to actually do the job.
Bolded - literary in this thread, some pages ago, I posted links showing that Kamala interview was edited to make her look better and Joe Rogan was edited to make it look like he is supporting Kamala. I am sorry, but anyone able to remain
even a little objective should be able to admit that those two aren't treated the same and that Kamala gets clearly preferential treatment.
Italic - you are correct, my bad.
On October 31 2024 00:20 NewSunshine wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 23:41 Razyda wrote:On October 30 2024 21:55 Magic Powers wrote:
Trump is 100% unqualified to be president. Nobody in this thread has ever brought up the fact that he's so unqualified because he's a rich white male, but that case can certainly be made (I certainly would). Do we all agree that Trump is an unqualified DEI hire? If so, then we have a very valid starting point from which we can also discuss Harris' merit based on DEI or otherwise. Because then at least I see no double standard.
We wouldn't be talking about Harris being a DEI-based presidential candidate if someone else was VP instead of her. Assume, purely hypothetically, that any white male with equal qualifications was chosen as Biden's VP. Strike that, the white male could even be less qualified. If that VP was then chosen to run for office as Biden's replacement, no one would bat an eye. Literally not a single person would be saying anything about that white male's identity. The fact that we're having this discussion, but we literally never have that same discussion in the other direction, proves a double standard.
Why are white male Republicans never being criticized for being unqualified due to their white-maleness? Bolded - we definitely dont. First of all he was not hired he got elected (whether he is qualified or not is a different discussion). Claiming that Trump is DEI hire has as much sense as claiming that Bezos is DEI hire. Edit: On October 30 2024 23:30 NewSunshine wrote:On October 30 2024 23:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 30 2024 23:08 EnDeR_ wrote:On October 30 2024 22:38 Magic Powers wrote:On October 30 2024 22:30 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 30 2024 12:16 Turbovolver wrote:On October 30 2024 10:07 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Cool gaslighting, bro. You've mentioned that phrase over and over again in the past, and aimed it squarely at Harris and KBJ. Maybe stop bringing up their race and sex. I got curious about this so I searched all BlackJack posts. Five come up, all of them extremely recent, and four of them in response to others' posts. The first one, this one, “Is there any way we can brag about Kamala Harris being a DEI success story while simultaneously denying that her success is attributable to DEI?” sort of implies that BlackJack thinks her success is attributable to DEI, but is also a response to ongoing discussion in the thread. I'm not sure where the arguments about KBJ are, but no, BlackJack has not repeatedly used "this phrase" over and over again in the past. That was oBlade. EDIT: To be clear, I'm not invested in defending BlackJack's apparent opinions about Kamala's credentials, I just wanted to see if any gaslighting was going on. I agree that oBlade has talked a lot about that too. I don't want to relitigate all of the previous conversations surrounding BlackJack's takes on DEI, only caring about race and sex, diversity hires, what is/isn't racist or sexist, and other positions he's had about whether or not KBJ's and Harris's qualifications were truly considered by Biden/Democrats, but he's written a lot of posts in those conversations. Here's the bottom line for me: Merit also matters, period. BlackJack said that merit doesn't matter. I think that's wrong, and it seems to be the case that most people here also think that's wrong, because Harris (and KBJ) are indeed qualified individuals. To add to this, merit not only matters within the Democrat party, it is visibly the only thing that matters. I posted two infographics roughly a week ago proving this point. If DEI is responsible, then it has resulted in the ethnic/gender makeup of the party to be highly representative of the American population. That is as close to real merit as it gets (so far). Unless someone were to argue that merit should lead to unequal representation - not likely an argument that would convince a Democrat. The Republican party is the exact opposite. They represent white males above all else. It's close to 90%. If I had to judge these two parties based on merit, Democrats would get an A and Republicans would get an F. The argument is flawed from the start. Merit simply does not matter, just look at Trump. There was no one more "meritorious" than Hillary Clinton and look how far that got her. Merit doesn't matter for Trump supporters, but merit does matter for those who thought/think that Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris would be good presidents. Yeah, something like this. How the two party's candidates get treated by the media is obviously a nauseating double standard, Kamala has 0 room for mistakes but Trump gets to be a bumbling racist moron and gets every pass in the world. But in terms of the Democrat's priorities, they can and should be pushing for competency on the ground level. Harris has no shortage of qualifications for the job, especially when you consider that "be a citizen over 35" is the actual qualification and so many presidents, especially Trump, barely clear that much. Italic - most important qualification of president is ability to get elected, in primaries and presidential election. So far Trump won 3 primaries and one presidential. Kamala won exactly 0 of each. Except saying "the most important qualification upon which to elect someone is their ability to get elected" is inherently circular. Which kind of gets at the fact that there are no hard qualifications a candidate needs to have, despite Republicans pretending so when it comes to Harris. Trump's biggest qualification was that he was a TV personality. If you really want to get in the "hard skills" weeds, Republicans lose immediately. She was a prosecutor, attorney general, and a senator, and is directly experienced with things that lend to a position of Presidential leadership.But still, somehow, we're pretending that she's "not qualified" (again, whatever that means), and that she's the candidate solely because of her demographic qualities. I recognize the argument that we didn't get to pick her in a primary election, but likewise, there's the argument that all the delegates rallied behind Harris so rapidly for a reason. She's the candidate because she's the Democrats best bet right now. That's all there is to it.
Bolded - You do realise that Trump was an actual president?
Italic - they didnt have much choice though, did they?
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@dpb not to answer for BJ, but in that circumstance if they have a good 4 years in the "eyes of the republicans" then id assume he would be the front runner. A lot would come down to if him and Trump get along for 4 years, Does Trump endorse him ect. Also like it depends how visual he ends up being as a VP, For the sake of this scenario let's say he's really
in the limelight and gets a lot of media coverage while VP, that would really help him. Anyways that doesn't mean he's for sure the candidate but in this instance I think it'd be a no brainer right.
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Northern Ireland22452 Posts
On October 31 2024 02:25 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 23:38 oBlade wrote:On October 30 2024 22:32 Simberto wrote:On October 30 2024 22:24 oBlade wrote:On October 30 2024 22:07 Simberto wrote:On October 30 2024 22:05 oBlade wrote:On October 30 2024 21:57 Simberto wrote:On October 30 2024 21:50 oBlade wrote:
Senators in California and mayors in Chicago are not subject to an electoral college. Ask people if their votes for Senator and mayor there matter more than for president. And were we just talking about senators? No, we were talking about presidents. Also, of course you specify senators in California. But if you talk about senators in general, you once again get the problem that some votes matter a lot more than others. If you live in California, you get about 1 in 20 millionth of a senator. If you live in Montana, you get about 1 in 500kth of a senator, or 40 times as many senators. Once again, some votes count more than others. And multiply that by 2 and you get the share of a governor that a citizen is voting for. What percent of the mayor does a resident of Chicago vote for vs. a resident of Bozeman? Dude, you can't be this daft and not get this. We were talking about the presidency. Some votes matter for the presidency, most don't. That is a problem. I will not let myself get distracted into the sidepoint you are trying to talk about. You already know what was meant, and are trying to obfuscate and distract. You are not as stupid as you act. If you have no answer, that's fine. Obviously I'm going to be making a different point than you as we're different individuals. You specifically said "your vote only matters in a state that might go both ways." NOT "your vote is worth more in low population states." Obfuscate your own damn self. But fine, let's take your new idea. Explain something to me. Why is it, or not, a problem that a Montana vote for governor counts for more than a California vote for governor? Presidency. We were talking about the presidency. Stop distracting. In other words, your vote for President in a non-swing state doesn't matter, but your vote for Senator does? Inquiring minds want to know. I understand you were originally talking about the president because you didn't consider the repercussions of your point. However, since you brought up the issue of close races, can you do me the courtesy of expending the least amount of effort to figure out what you think about it? People in Montana do not vote for the equivalent of 40 times as many presidents as people in California. Not even close. I'll take this to mean you've backed off your initial "close race" claim because you realized it's not self-consistent. The reason the US uses what you pejoratively refer to as "FPTP" (normally referred to as "winning") is that the Electoral College and Senate are specifically created to balance each other. Not the checkers or chess balance where everyone gets the same thing. But the Starcraft balance. I'll be extreme as possible: At the moment 51% of the 12 biggest states could choose the president at the expense of even 100% of the other states. The difference is those states would have 76 Senators, controlling half of Congress. This is by design for 2 reasons: 1) it creates an inherently safe, long-lasting system that operates with a balance of power and doesn't result in one group gaining total control and fucking everything up, which is why there have been like 7 Germanies and Frances in the same time as there have been two Americas, the Founders knew what the Continent was like, and 2) after becoming independent, it was a necessary compromise to unify the sovereign and autonomous colonies into more than a confederation, and for each subsequent state that joined the union. This would be a fair argument for keeping FPTP for the senate. I've actually agreed with that in the past. But having the same system for the presidency if anything makes it more possible that the same potential minority will control both. Having the senate designed the way it is as a bulwark against The Tyrrany of The Big States, you know what, I'm fine with that. It's a reasonable design. But the EC is just fucking stupid. While it's not a given that all states stay the same forever, I'm guessing at least 35 states could effectively have been ignored by all campaigning presidents for the past 20 years. Add to it that the winning president has lost the popular vote twice in the past 20 years and there's a real issue. And changing to a popular vote over the EC wouldn't make it so that people in Wyoming don't matter anymore. They'd matter exactly as much as people in California. However, it would mean that the democratic voters in Wyoming and the Republican voters in California would have a real reason to show up on election day - something they currently don't have - notable by how everyone who comes here admitting that they're going to vote third party end up prefacing their post with a 'also I don't live in a swing state so it doesn't matter'. That shit is just bad design with no benefit.
Aye that would be my take as well.
The President is ultimately a national figure, they represent the totality of the nation.
The composition of the Senate already accounts for State interests, and can be disproportionately weighted. The House of Representatives also does, but it’s weighted by population
I don’t think you have to subject the Presidency to the same constraints. It’s a national office
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On October 31 2024 02:43 Taelshin wrote:
@dpb not to answer for BJ, but in that circumstance if they have a good 4 years in the "eyes of the republicans" then id assume he would be the front runner. A lot would come down to if him and Trump get along for 4 years, Does Trump endorse him ect. Also like it depends how visual he ends up being as a VP, For the sake of this scenario let's say he's really
in the limelight and gets a lot of media coverage while VP, that would really help him. Anyways that doesn't mean he's for sure the candidate but in this instance I think it'd be a no brainer right.
agreed
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On October 31 2024 02:37 Razyda wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 23:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 30 2024 23:41 Razyda wrote:On October 30 2024 23:30 NewSunshine wrote:On October 30 2024 23:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 30 2024 23:08 EnDeR_ wrote:On October 30 2024 22:38 Magic Powers wrote:On October 30 2024 22:30 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 30 2024 12:16 Turbovolver wrote:On October 30 2024 10:07 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Cool gaslighting, bro. You've mentioned that phrase over and over again in the past, and aimed it squarely at Harris and KBJ. Maybe stop bringing up their race and sex. I got curious about this so I searched all BlackJack posts. Five come up, all of them extremely recent, and four of them in response to others' posts. The first one, this one, “Is there any way we can brag about Kamala Harris being a DEI success story while simultaneously denying that her success is attributable to DEI?” sort of implies that BlackJack thinks her success is attributable to DEI, but is also a response to ongoing discussion in the thread. I'm not sure where the arguments about KBJ are, but no, BlackJack has not repeatedly used "this phrase" over and over again in the past. That was oBlade. EDIT: To be clear, I'm not invested in defending BlackJack's apparent opinions about Kamala's credentials, I just wanted to see if any gaslighting was going on. I agree that oBlade has talked a lot about that too. I don't want to relitigate all of the previous conversations surrounding BlackJack's takes on DEI, only caring about race and sex, diversity hires, what is/isn't racist or sexist, and other positions he's had about whether or not KBJ's and Harris's qualifications were truly considered by Biden/Democrats, but he's written a lot of posts in those conversations. Here's the bottom line for me: Merit also matters, period. BlackJack said that merit doesn't matter. I think that's wrong, and it seems to be the case that most people here also think that's wrong, because Harris (and KBJ) are indeed qualified individuals. To add to this, merit not only matters within the Democrat party, it is visibly the only thing that matters. I posted two infographics roughly a week ago proving this point. If DEI is responsible, then it has resulted in the ethnic/gender makeup of the party to be highly representative of the American population. That is as close to real merit as it gets (so far). Unless someone were to argue that merit should lead to unequal representation - not likely an argument that would convince a Democrat. The Republican party is the exact opposite. They represent white males above all else. It's close to 90%. If I had to judge these two parties based on merit, Democrats would get an A and Republicans would get an F. The argument is flawed from the start. Merit simply does not matter, just look at Trump. There was no one more "meritorious" than Hillary Clinton and look how far that got her. Merit doesn't matter for Trump supporters, but merit does matter for those who thought/think that Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris would be good presidents. Yeah, something like this. How the two party's candidates get treated by the media is obviously a nauseating double standard, Kamala has 0 room for mistakes but Trump gets to be a bumbling racist moron and gets every pass in the world. But in terms of the Democrat's priorities, they can and should be pushing for competency on the ground level. Harris has no shortage of qualifications for the job, especially when you consider that "be a citizen over 35" is the actual qualification and so many presidents, especially Trump, barely clear that much. Bolded - Claim that Trump is treated by media better than Kamala is surreal.Italic - most important qualification of president is ability to get elected, in primaries and presidential election. So far Trump won 3 primaries and one presidential. Kamala won exactly 0 of each. Trump is treated more fairly by the media than Harris is, when comparing what Trump is/says/does and what Harris is/says/does, and what the media decides to focus on. And for your italics part, I think you mean candidate, not president. The candidate needs to win the election, but the president needs to be able to actually do the job. Bolded - literary in this thread, some pages ago, I posted links showing that Kamala interview was edited to make her look better and Joe Rogan was edited to make it look like he is supporting Kamala. I am sorry, but anyone able to remain even a little objective should be able to admit that those two aren't treated the same and that Kamala gets clearly preferential treatment. Italic - you are correct, my bad. Show nested quote +On October 31 2024 00:20 NewSunshine wrote:On October 30 2024 23:41 Razyda wrote:On October 30 2024 21:55 Magic Powers wrote:
Trump is 100% unqualified to be president. Nobody in this thread has ever brought up the fact that he's so unqualified because he's a rich white male, but that case can certainly be made (I certainly would). Do we all agree that Trump is an unqualified DEI hire? If so, then we have a very valid starting point from which we can also discuss Harris' merit based on DEI or otherwise. Because then at least I see no double standard.
We wouldn't be talking about Harris being a DEI-based presidential candidate if someone else was VP instead of her. Assume, purely hypothetically, that any white male with equal qualifications was chosen as Biden's VP. Strike that, the white male could even be less qualified. If that VP was then chosen to run for office as Biden's replacement, no one would bat an eye. Literally not a single person would be saying anything about that white male's identity. The fact that we're having this discussion, but we literally never have that same discussion in the other direction, proves a double standard.
Why are white male Republicans never being criticized for being unqualified due to their white-maleness? Bolded - we definitely dont. First of all he was not hired he got elected (whether he is qualified or not is a different discussion). Claiming that Trump is DEI hire has as much sense as claiming that Bezos is DEI hire. Edit: On October 30 2024 23:30 NewSunshine wrote:On October 30 2024 23:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 30 2024 23:08 EnDeR_ wrote:On October 30 2024 22:38 Magic Powers wrote:On October 30 2024 22:30 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On October 30 2024 12:16 Turbovolver wrote:On October 30 2024 10:07 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Cool gaslighting, bro. You've mentioned that phrase over and over again in the past, and aimed it squarely at Harris and KBJ. Maybe stop bringing up their race and sex. I got curious about this so I searched all BlackJack posts. Five come up, all of them extremely recent, and four of them in response to others' posts. The first one, this one, “Is there any way we can brag about Kamala Harris being a DEI success story while simultaneously denying that her success is attributable to DEI?” sort of implies that BlackJack thinks her success is attributable to DEI, but is also a response to ongoing discussion in the thread. I'm not sure where the arguments about KBJ are, but no, BlackJack has not repeatedly used "this phrase" over and over again in the past. That was oBlade. EDIT: To be clear, I'm not invested in defending BlackJack's apparent opinions about Kamala's credentials, I just wanted to see if any gaslighting was going on. I agree that oBlade has talked a lot about that too. I don't want to relitigate all of the previous conversations surrounding BlackJack's takes on DEI, only caring about race and sex, diversity hires, what is/isn't racist or sexist, and other positions he's had about whether or not KBJ's and Harris's qualifications were truly considered by Biden/Democrats, but he's written a lot of posts in those conversations. Here's the bottom line for me: Merit also matters, period. BlackJack said that merit doesn't matter. I think that's wrong, and it seems to be the case that most people here also think that's wrong, because Harris (and KBJ) are indeed qualified individuals. To add to this, merit not only matters within the Democrat party, it is visibly the only thing that matters. I posted two infographics roughly a week ago proving this point. If DEI is responsible, then it has resulted in the ethnic/gender makeup of the party to be highly representative of the American population. That is as close to real merit as it gets (so far). Unless someone were to argue that merit should lead to unequal representation - not likely an argument that would convince a Democrat. The Republican party is the exact opposite. They represent white males above all else. It's close to 90%. If I had to judge these two parties based on merit, Democrats would get an A and Republicans would get an F. The argument is flawed from the start. Merit simply does not matter, just look at Trump. There was no one more "meritorious" than Hillary Clinton and look how far that got her. Merit doesn't matter for Trump supporters, but merit does matter for those who thought/think that Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris would be good presidents. Yeah, something like this. How the two party's candidates get treated by the media is obviously a nauseating double standard, Kamala has 0 room for mistakes but Trump gets to be a bumbling racist moron and gets every pass in the world. But in terms of the Democrat's priorities, they can and should be pushing for competency on the ground level. Harris has no shortage of qualifications for the job, especially when you consider that "be a citizen over 35" is the actual qualification and so many presidents, especially Trump, barely clear that much. Italic - most important qualification of president is ability to get elected, in primaries and presidential election. So far Trump won 3 primaries and one presidential. Kamala won exactly 0 of each. Except saying "the most important qualification upon which to elect someone is their ability to get elected" is inherently circular. Which kind of gets at the fact that there are no hard qualifications a candidate needs to have, despite Republicans pretending so when it comes to Harris. Trump's biggest qualification was that he was a TV personality. If you really want to get in the "hard skills" weeds, Republicans lose immediately. She was a prosecutor, attorney general, and a senator, and is directly experienced with things that lend to a position of Presidential leadership.But still, somehow, we're pretending that she's "not qualified" (again, whatever that means), and that she's the candidate solely because of her demographic qualities. I recognize the argument that we didn't get to pick her in a primary election, but likewise, there's the argument that all the delegates rallied behind Harris so rapidly for a reason. She's the candidate because she's the Democrats best bet right now. That's all there is to it. Bolded - You do realise that Trump was an actual president? Italic - they didnt have much choice though, did they?
Sure, but again, the bearing any of this has on whether either candidate is "qualified" is either subjective and/or circular in reasoning. So any argument that Harris was picked "because of her race and in spite of her qualifications" is just a bunch of hot air, as well as arguably a racist dogwhistle. She got picked because the party found her to be their best shot at winning the election. That's all that needs to happen.
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On October 31 2024 02:25 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2024 23:38 oBlade wrote:On October 30 2024 22:32 Simberto wrote:On October 30 2024 22:24 oBlade wrote:On October 30 2024 22:07 Simberto wrote:On October 30 2024 22:05 oBlade wrote:On October 30 2024 21:57 Simberto wrote:On October 30 2024 21:50 oBlade wrote:
Senators in California and mayors in Chicago are not subject to an electoral college. Ask people if their votes for Senator and mayor there matter more than for president. And were we just talking about senators? No, we were talking about presidents. Also, of course you specify senators in California. But if you talk about senators in general, you once again get the problem that some votes matter a lot more than others. If you live in California, you get about 1 in 20 millionth of a senator. If you live in Montana, you get about 1 in 500kth of a senator, or 40 times as many senators. Once again, some votes count more than others. And multiply that by 2 and you get the share of a governor that a citizen is voting for. What percent of the mayor does a resident of Chicago vote for vs. a resident of Bozeman? Dude, you can't be this daft and not get this. We were talking about the presidency. Some votes matter for the presidency, most don't. That is a problem. I will not let myself get distracted into the sidepoint you are trying to talk about. You already know what was meant, and are trying to obfuscate and distract. You are not as stupid as you act. If you have no answer, that's fine. Obviously I'm going to be making a different point than you as we're different individuals. You specifically said "your vote only matters in a state that might go both ways." NOT "your vote is worth more in low population states." Obfuscate your own damn self. But fine, let's take your new idea. Explain something to me. Why is it, or not, a problem that a Montana vote for governor counts for more than a California vote for governor? Presidency. We were talking about the presidency. Stop distracting. In other words, your vote for President in a non-swing state doesn't matter, but your vote for Senator does? Inquiring minds want to know. I understand you were originally talking about the president because you didn't consider the repercussions of your point. However, since you brought up the issue of close races, can you do me the courtesy of expending the least amount of effort to figure out what you think about it? People in Montana do not vote for the equivalent of 40 times as many presidents as people in California. Not even close. I'll take this to mean you've backed off your initial "close race" claim because you realized it's not self-consistent. The reason the US uses what you pejoratively refer to as "FPTP" (normally referred to as "winning") is that the Electoral College and Senate are specifically created to balance each other. Not the checkers or chess balance where everyone gets the same thing. But the Starcraft balance. I'll be extreme as possible: At the moment 51% of the 12 biggest states could choose the president at the expense of even 100% of the other states. The difference is those states would have 76 Senators, controlling half of Congress. This is by design for 2 reasons: 1) it creates an inherently safe, long-lasting system that operates with a balance of power and doesn't result in one group gaining total control and fucking everything up, which is why there have been like 7 Germanies and Frances in the same time as there have been two Americas, the Founders knew what the Continent was like, and 2) after becoming independent, it was a necessary compromise to unify the sovereign and autonomous colonies into more than a confederation, and for each subsequent state that joined the union. This would be a fair argument for keeping FPTP for the senate. I've actually agreed with that in the past. But having the same system for the presidency if anything makes it more possible that the same potential minority will control both. Having the senate designed the way it is as a bulwark against The Tyrrany of The Big States, you know what, I'm fine with that. It's a reasonable design. But the EC is just fucking stupid. While it's not a given that all states stay the same forever, I'm guessing at least 35 states could effectively have been ignored by all campaigning presidents for the past 20 years. Add to it that the winning president has lost the popular vote twice in the past 20 years and there's a real issue. And changing to a popular vote over the EC wouldn't make it so that people in Wyoming don't matter anymore. They'd matter exactly as much as people in California. However, it would mean that the democratic voters in Wyoming and the Republican voters in California would have a real reason to show up on election day - something they currently don't have - notable by how everyone who comes here admitting that they're going to vote third party end up prefacing their post with a 'also I don't live in a swing state so it doesn't matter'. That shit is just bad design with no benefit.
The states are not swing states because they don't get campaigned in. They don't get campaigned in because they aren't swing states. Irrespective of who the current presidential candidate is. They, in that moment in time, aren't competitive in any relevant races. There is an entire world of politics. There are a ton of people who want political power in Wyoming. They want to be mayors, state reps, state senators, governors, senators, Congressmen, and even Vice Presidents. They are working overtime. But for whatever reason the people of Wyoming aren't choosing them for now.
Swing is a wrong level of analysis to begin with, I know its not yours but it is really a just cable news fabrication. And it's a complete misnomer. People use it to describe things that are coin flips. That's not what a swing does. A swing would be from 60/40 one year to 40/60 the next cycle. Swing and close are different concepts in theory.
It would be nice to have the benefits of abolishing the EC, but you can't do that without losing the benefits of having it that you don't see because the entire reference of history is predicated on the benefits of the EC. It's not like if you get rid of the EC then Joe Blow can just show up and woo Wyoming the error of their ways. He can't do that now either because they just aren't interested. But no EC and he can target population in an unprecedented way.
Campaigning in close states is a better proxy for national decision making than what would happen without the EC. Not only do you have Republicans not voting in California, you also have Democrats not voting in California. And independents not voting.
No EC, then you're campaigning in California and New York to harvest every last one of them. Out of pure efficiency. You go where the votes are concentrated. And not only campaigning. That's what you now build your parties and entire political machine out of. I prefer Texas and Florida vs. New York and California to the above 4 vs. everyone else. Seems like a healthier shuffling of the country.
20 years is nothing either, the Democrats had control of the House for 40 straight. Just because the coin is heads every time doesn't mean flipping is broken.
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On October 31 2024 02:43 Taelshin wrote:
@dpb not to answer for BJ, but in that circumstance if they have a good 4 years in the "eyes of the republicans" then id assume he would be the front runner. A lot would come down to if him and Trump get along for 4 years, Does Trump endorse him ect. Also like it depends how visual he ends up being as a VP, For the sake of this scenario let's say he's really
in the limelight and gets a lot of media coverage while VP, that would really help him. Anyways that doesn't mean he's for sure the candidate but in this instance I think it'd be a no brainer right.
Yeah I think that makes sense. An endorsement from Trump would probably go a very long way.
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EPT
