deskthority

The US electoral system is soo brillaint I love reading this news now...

Clinton's lead in the popular vote surpasses 2 million

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/c ... 016-231790

seebart wrote: The US electoral system is soo brillaint I love reading this news now...

Clinton's lead in the popular vote surpasses 2 million

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/c ... 016-231790

It's utterly ridiculous, that's what it is.

I believe that I have stated this before, but the main reason the electoral college still exists is so the political parties can dampen the influence of third parties and independent candidates, and not have to craft a campaign that actually appeals to all voters. The electoral college allows the parties to craft their message to a subset of swing voters in 10 or less swing states, and basically ignore all the other states and the other segments of the voting population.

The main argument I still hear about the electoral college is that it prevents the most populous states and cities from determining the election and gives more power to small states. That argument can be easily disproven with a few key facts explained in a short YouTube video (which I won't link or explain here because I'm using wifi on a bus) or brief article. The electoral college actually reduces the power of the individual vote because, for example, a vote for a non-Democrat in California has no influence on the outcome of the electoral college. With a national popular vote, you can be assured that a California's vote towards a Republicans candidate will have more influence on the election results. In addition, the population of the US is actually more widely distributed between large cities and smaller cities than people realize (there is evidence for this, but again, bus wifi). And Congress does a heck of a job giving power to the small states. We could, at the very least, give some power back to the people by allowing each vote to count rather than be drowned out by heaping all the states electoral votes into one pile.

vivalarevolución wrote:
the main reason the electoral college still exists

The Electoral College is a ridiculous and heinous anachronism that made sense in a age when the speed of communication was limited by how fast and far a series of men could ride a series of horses, and the Republic was set up so that the Federal government was intended to be a limited superset of the State governments.

"The Popular Vote" was not really all that important to the Founding Fathers, they were still locked into the "Confederation" mindset.

It is not likely to change because amending the Constitution requires the cooperation of a lot of small states, who will not want to give up their power.

fohat wrote: The Electoral College is a ridiculous and heinous anachronism that made sense in a age when the speed of communication was limited by how fast and far a series of men could ride a series of horses, and the Republic was set up so that the Federal government was intended to be a limited superset of the State governments.

"The Popular Vote" was not really all that important to the Founding Fathers, they were still locked into the "Confederation" mindset.

It is not likely to change because amending the Constitution requires the cooperation of a lot of small states, who will not want to give up their power.

If I did not know yet that would sum it up nicely for a foreigner like myself. We have many many ancient outdated laws as well here, many of which should be changed. No easy task.

There is more than one issue here:
1. Majority vote within a state. This is what makes states into "swing states".
2. Electors are people and they could actually have changed their minds when it comes down to actual vote, which still has not happened yet.
3. Uneven distribution of elector seats to states. Some hail this as a positive as it requires presidential candidates to cater to the needs of the entire country and not just to the populous states with the big cities.

The biggest problem is 1), but people often muddle 1) and 3) together in discussions I have seen.
Individual states are allowed to distribute their elector seats relative to the popular vote inside their state but most don't. Only a couple small states do that, such as Maine. (I forgot the other one, or two?).
So, yes, that problem could change without changing the US constitution but apparently the people in power don't want to.

2) means that Hillary Clinton could - in theory - still win. (even without examination of supposedly hacked voting machines)

It's all about what benefits the political parties and allows them to stay in power and maintain control. That's what it comes down to. They will sell you some crap about states' rights or not allowing the big cities and states to determine the election (which, by the way, contain more than Democrats), but all that matters is party politics.

vivalarevolución wrote:
It's all about what benefits the political parties and allows them to stay in power and maintain control.

Certain problems like fairness of elections and gun control are vastly more difficult because their origins are ingrained in the Constitution itself rather than being "law-related" and thus subject to change by the passage of "simple" new laws.

Realistically, how would you propose to rectify election problems, specifically electors and gerrymandering, when the Constitution very deliberately and specifically placed these responsibilities in the realm of states' powers?

vivalarevolución wrote: It's all about what benefits the political parties and allows them to stay in power and maintain control. That's what it comes down to. They will sell you some crap about states' rights or not allowing the big cities and states to determine the election (which, by the way, contain more than Democrats), but all that matters is party politics.

Which is why I was particularly disgusted this year. I blame the RNC and the DNC for the candidates we were presented. Bread and Circuses, my friends. Bread and Circuses. More like a reality TV show than a political process.

chuckdee wrote:

vivalarevolución wrote: Which is why I was particularly disgusted this year. I blame the RNC and the DNC for the candidates we were presented. Bread and Circuses, my friends. Bread and Circuses. More like a reality TV show than a political process.

Judging by the popularity of reality tv and what happened with channels such as TLC, History, and Discovery, I can only say that this is what America has always wanted, and that's exactly what it got.

Sorry, my most recent rant was referring specifically to the continued existence of the electoral college, not any other issues.

Parak wrote:

chuckdee wrote:

vivalarevolución wrote: Which is why I was particularly disgusted this year. I blame the RNC and the DNC for the candidates we were presented. Bread and Circuses, my friends. Bread and Circuses. More like a reality TV show than a political process.

Judging by the popularity of reality tv and what happened with channels such as TLC, History, and Discovery, I can only say that this is what America has always wanted, and that's exactly what it got.

Sing it, brother!

And Happy Black Friday, America!

Looks like some are quite serious about the matter...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... nnsylvania

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/green-pa ... d=43746839

seebart wrote: Looks like some are quite serious about the matter...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... nnsylvania

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/green-pa ... d=43746839

On the one hand, the margin is so slim that I can see doing the recounts. On the other hand, I'm just ready for this election cycle to be over, and don't think that the results will be nearly as bad as rehashing all of this again.

Jill Stein is an attention seeker who doesn’t really care about recounts, but is happy to get her name back in the papers, raise some money, collect a nice donor list, and stir up whatever shit she can. This recount fundraising effort is more about Jill Stein than about electoral accountability.

I’m happy to see recounts and audits of the election results, but it seems very unlikely anything will come of it (if there were some real chance of flipping the election, Clinton’s people would be on top of it). Don’t get your hopes up.

It is on the other hand a travesty that many states have voting machines which don’t make any kind of paper trail, and could conceivably be hacked without leaving any trace, beyond any ability for a recount to fix.

It is also a travesty that the one time a recount was in fact likely to flip the results, in Florida in 2000, the US Supreme Court stepped in and on a purely partisan vote, with no reasonable legal rationale, stomped on the decision of Florida state courts in the interest of installing GWB in the White House.

Looks like it's happening looking forward to the results.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/pow ... -petition/

We even have the manual here!

http://elections.wi.gov/sites/default/f ... _17034.pdf

Farting in the wind.

fohat wrote: Farting in the wind.

Go for it, don't wait on the recount.

Related to the potential nomination of Gen. David Patreaus as Secretary of State, Snowden says we have an obviously two-tiered justice system. To be completely honest, I trust Snowden more than our high level politicians, he has nothing to lose because he has lost it all already.

https://www.yahoo.com/katiecouric/exclu ... 12222.html

What I find interesting and troubling about United States politics and culture is that we have a tendency to blame the problems of the country onthe most vulnerable and voiceless populations poor minorities, welfare recipients, working poor, immigrants, refugees, etc. They are an easy target and have great difficulty in mobilizing a response to accusations against them.

Yet the actual people in power that abuse their power tend to get away with nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

Now that we are in desperate survival mode, the "lesser of 2 evils" and "pick your battles" principles have come into focus for me.

Former military men trouble me far less than members of the financial ultra-elite or rabid religious fundamentalists.

At least the military is constantly facing and analyzing the world as a whole and our interactions with the other nations in it. And they are tasked with formulating realistic solutions to extremely complex problems that are effective and efficient. Whether you agree with the underlying politics of war or not, they are the workers and problem-solvers.

The entire post 9/11 Middle East fiasco was dreamed up and sold to the public by a small cabal of people with no military training or experience, and the military was then faced with the impossible task of making it succeed. My guess is that outside of the usual dose of haters and psychopaths, most of them wish that they had never even heard of Iraq and Syria.

Considering the insane pool of worse/worst choices floating around these days, Patraeus and even Mattis look considerably more rational and less troubling than any of the potential civilian picks, whose careers have been spent fleecing the American people with ever-accelerating ruthlessness and abandon. Or else the most rabid of religious zealots like Sessions and Pence.

Ben “the pyramids were really grain silos” Carson might be the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Likely because he’s black and Trump can’t think of any other black people, and the job has “urban” in the title. Doesn’t know the first thing about housing policy? Who cares!?

Note: this is the same Ben Carson who Trump once claimed had a temper comparable to child molestation (or something) http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/d ... d-molester

jacobolus wrote:
Ben “the pyramids were really grain silos” Carson might be the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

I am glad that he never got close to me with a knife.

http://lawnewz.com/politics/complaint-t ... dorsement/

North Carolina Republicans are un-American cowards: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the ... ovs-power/

Not to mention national level GOP officials (and a significant proportion of GOP voters) who don’t care about foreign subversion of our political process. FBI finally agrees w/ CIA assessment but of course everyone knew about this all along. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/we-all-knew-this

Worth repeating and repeating. Republican policymakers, party officials, pundits, donors, and many if not most voters don’t actually care about American society or democracy or their children’s future. They certainly don’t care about “life”, or “conservatism”, or “community”, or “national security”, or “the Constitution”, or “markets”, or “freedom”, or whatever other bullshit buzzwords. Only about making sure their side “wins” and especially making sure everyone else “loses”, even if it involves going back on their word, cheating, stealing, or lying through their teeth, and even if it destroys their own communities, the country, or the planet. The institutional Republican party is a cancer.

* * *

While we were on the subject of cabinet appointments: US Secretaries of Energy:
2009-2013, Steven Chu, winner of the Nobel prize in physics, professor of physics at UC Berkeley, director of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab;
2013-2017, Ernest Moniz, professor of nuclear physics at MIT, former under secretary of Energy;
2017–, Rick Perry, the man who couldn’t remember the department’s name.
* * *

By the way, perhaps more directly relevant for the European audience here: Trump and Bannon want to effectively break up the EU. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/tru ... -up-the-eu (sorry, details at non-free podcast; not sure if there’s writing about this elsewhere)

Rule #1 in the post-Obama era: You can't blame Obama for everything anymore. Shift blame to Russia, China, and Mexico.

vivalarevolución wrote: Rule #1 in the post-Obama era: You can't blame Obama for everything anymore. Shift blame to Russia, China, and Mexico.

Wow, thanks Obama

scottc wrote:

vivalarevolución wrote: Rule #1 in the post-Obama era: You can't blame Obama for everything anymore. Shift blame to Russia, China, and Mexico.

Wow, thanks Obama

You're right, he led us to this point!

More of this please, everyone:

Countless wonderful quotes coming out of that speech.

"The miasma of nonsense coming across social media channels."

"Truth does win out, and you can't keep fighting reality."

"When someone takes to an absurd length a completely erroneous position, it unmasks the error in such a vivid way that it allows everyone else to refute, join together, and emboldens them to move forward."

Now that man has some fucking energy.

What kind of assholes cut down the biggest cedar tree they can find in a city park to turn into a temporary backdrop for El Cheeto’s victory tour? That’s right, Alabama republicans:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mor ... -backdrop/

jacobolus wrote:
What kind of assholes

The same ones who strip tens of millions of people of Affordable Health Care and Social Security, of course.

They're only people if they look like me.

—Conservatism 101.