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 DrGiggles wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Again, that's a result of the Electoral College. The main issue wasn't that people were too tired of the "same old", it's that some people's votes are worth more than others and that these people were comvinced to vote Trump.

Ripped off of Wiki, for 2012:

Spoiler:

A vote in Wyoming is worth more than three times a vote in New York. Even ignoring the monumental bias that a first past the post system introduces, this is just dumb. A vote in Maine or New Hampshire is literally 3/5ths of a Wyoming vote.

When a large number of the voters are effectively disenfranchised, of course the system is broken. Shuffling around the candidates doesn't change the fact that you have a system that's the antithesis of egalitarianism.

I'm going to preface this by saying I did not vote in the last presidential election since I found both major party candidates to be morally corrupt to say the least. But the electoral college was somewhat designed with this in mind to ensure that the smaller communities would be able to check the power of the larger communities, see the federalist papers #10. I'm not saying that this check is well balanced since it can lessen the worth of a vote as you pointed out.

I know that's the reason, I just think it's a really awful reason.

Even though I'm an independent voter in Maryland (a state that always goes Democratic) I think it's a very good reason. Without that system, huge areas of the country could be completely discounted. There are drawbacks, of course, but the alternative has huge ones, as well.

I also have very little sympathy for the democrats in this regard, since they basically rigged their primary results, so have little room to complain when the lackluster candidate they railroaded into the nomination couldn't defeat a candidate like Trump . If anything, I want more reforms for voting in primaries! As an independent, Maryland doesn't even allow me to vote in them...

 RiTides wrote:
Even though I'm an independent voter in Maryland (a state that always goes Democratic) I think it's a very good reason. Without that system, huge areas of the country could be completely discounted. There are drawbacks, of course, but the alternative has huge ones, as well.

I also have very little sympathy for the democrats in this regard, since they basically rigged their primary results, so have little room to complain when the lackluster candidate they railroaded into the nomination couldn't defeat a candidate like Trump . If anything, I want more reforms for voting in primaries! As an independent, Maryland doesn't even allow me to vote in them...

These primaries. Do they allow voters to choose who gets to stand for each party?

Someone getting more votes than someone else and thus being nominated isn't rigging.

Also, no, no one would be discounted. There'd still be votes to gain in Wyoming, or Vermont, or Alaska. It'd just stop a few swing states from being the ones that matter and force candidates to actually bother campaigning in the entire country.

It's also worth pointing out that the electoral college system was designed when the total population of the US was less than the population of just the Dallas-Fort Worth area today.

 RiTides wrote:
I wonder if going through this now might help us as a nation in the long run, though. If people rely on what they read online without considering the source, our country's democracy was always going to be vulnerable to outside influence.

I tend to think this is the case. I remember the big 'crash' in internet display advertising that occurred back when people stopped clicking on the little banners to see where they'd take them.

Although few have ever gone broke underestimating the intelligence of the public, I think ordinary citizens are mostly capable of learning to ignore the bullgak on FB, etc., and to understand the various political leans of different news outlets and their $imple motivation$ for their re$pective lean$.

 Future War Cultist wrote:

 RiTides wrote:
Even though I'm an independent voter in Maryland (a state that always goes Democratic) I think it's a very good reason. Without that system, huge areas of the country could be completely discounted. There are drawbacks, of course, but the alternative has huge ones, as well.

I also have very little sympathy for the democrats in this regard, since they basically rigged their primary results, so have little room to complain when the lackluster candidate they railroaded into the nomination couldn't defeat a candidate like Trump . If anything, I want more reforms for voting in primaries! As an independent, Maryland doesn't even allow me to vote in them...

These primaries. Do they allow voters to choose who gets to stand for each party?

If you are registered as a member of that party, you can vote in the primaries. I believe some states allow independents to vote as well. Example, my parents are both republican, I am an independent. They could vote in the republican primary when it came to Pennsylvania, but I couldn't vote in either parties primary. However, I don't get harassed for money or surveys as often as they do, so worse has happened.

 Future War Cultist wrote:

 RiTides wrote:
Even though I'm an independent voter in Maryland (a state that always goes Democratic) I think it's a very good reason. Without that system, huge areas of the country could be completely discounted. There are drawbacks, of course, but the alternative has huge ones, as well.

I also have very little sympathy for the democrats in this regard, since they basically rigged their primary results, so have little room to complain when the lackluster candidate they railroaded into the nomination couldn't defeat a candidate like Trump . If anything, I want more reforms for voting in primaries! As an independent, Maryland doesn't even allow me to vote in them...

These primaries. Do they allow voters to choose who gets to stand for each party?

Depends on the party. The democrat nomination committee was terrified that the public might choose a dark horse candidate again and so made two major changes in the past few years to theirs: 1) The creation of SuperDelegates, which consist or the party powerful and major donors. These guys get a major chunk of voting power, so a popular candidate has to be significantly more popular than the party favorite to succeed. 2) The labeling of the voting outcome as a recommendation instead of a mandate, with the DNC making the final determination. In theory, they could disregard the outcome of the primary voting although the political ramifications would be pretty ugly.

The republication primary is pretty open ended. Consider that Trump, for example, had been a democratic donor and supporter up until a couple years before and terrified the crap out of the RNC. They tried everything to stop him, but didn't really have any controls in place to prevent his supporters from showing up and voting for him in greater numbers than the other candidates. It kinda worked in that they had a candidate that did win an election, even if it's someone they spent most of their careers calling an enemy of the people and the first pro-gun control presidential candidate in a long time for them.

Finally you get systems like the Libertarians. Almost anyone can show up, give a speech, and seek votes in their primary. During the last election cycle, one candidate stripped on stage, another decried the evil of secret government conspiracies and the winner had only been a libertarian for about 3 months. The craizest part was that this meant the far-right party actually fielded the most centered candidate - being one in favor of less gun control, no restrictions on marijuana, gay marriage and freedom of religon.

Primaries are crazy spectacles and next cycle's look to be just as crazy.

AlmightyWalrus - Sorry if I wasn't clear, I was referring to the Democratic primary's practice of using "Super Delegates" to determine about 15% of their primary vote, regardless of the actual voting. Here's the Wikipedia entry and a quote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdelegate

In American politics, a superdelegate is an unpledged delegate to the Democratic National Convention who is seated automatically and chooses for themselves for whom they vote. These Democratic Party superdelegates (who make up just under 15% of all convention delegates) include elected officials and party activists and officials.

Democratic superdelegates are free to support any candidate for the presidential nomination. This contrasts with convention "pledged" delegates who are selected based on the party primaries and caucuses in each U.S. state, in which voters choose among candidates for the party's presidential nomination. Moreover, superdelegates are permitted to participate in the primary elections as regular voters.

At least in name, superdelegates are not involved in the Republican Party nomination process. There are delegates to the Republican National Convention who are seated automatically, but they are limited to three per state, consisting of the state chairsperson and two district-level committee members. Republican Party superdelegates are obliged to vote for their state's popular vote winner under the rules of the party branch to which they belong.[1]

Although the term superdelegate was originally coined and created to describe a type of Democratic delegate, the term has become widely used to describe these delegates in both parties,[2] even though it is not an official term used by either party.

This, combined with the email leaks scandal where it was portrayed that the democratic establishment was "rigging" things in favor of Hillary Clinton, is where my comment came from.

Like I said, as an independent voter in Maryland I'm not allowed to vote in either the Democratic or Republican primary (as Inquisitor Lord Bane replied above, that is what we call our process of selecting the presidential candidate from each party). But with the way that process plays out, and the fact that almost all Super Delegates went for Clinton, it absolutely played a large role in her winning the primary.

So while I think the national introspection on the security of our election process (regarding foreign actors And domestic financing) is a good one, it really is hard to feel bad for a candidate that benefited greatly from the Super Delegate mechanism to get her primary nod. It also is something the Democrats really need to take a look at, since right now their primary nomation process is actually much less "democratic" than the Republicans'! (And note I tend to lean democratic on many issues, or at least centrist)

Gerrymandering is a horrendous problem both in Canada and the US. Giving people in more sparsely populated areas more of a voice SOUNDS good. But when 40% of the country gets to decide what the entire country does, that is not at all good.

A minority should never be in a position to overrule the majority, at least not with a delta of that significance. If a significant majority of the country feels one way, and the empowered, gerrymandered minority feels different, what impetus do they have to meet in the middle? Or to adjust to the overall country?

Right now, again, one party, usually the one with the most nationalistic, radical views rigs the system via gerrymandering. The moderate other side doesn't pull crap like this, or, at least no on the same scale. On top of it, they then tell their people that it is in fact THEY who the system is rigged against... disgusting.

I'll tell you what, if multiple millions of people vote for one person to be president, that person should be president. Keep electoral colleges for house seats, but the president should be popular vote. Making every individual vote count for President might make people think more about who they are voting for.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
PS - Steve - California, jumping coasts bud

I honestly don't see why anyone who's not part of the party should be allowed to vote on who that party nominates as their candidate. It's not like we expect Swedish citizens to be allowed to vote in UK elections, or Irish citizens to vote in German elections, or members of the Teacher's Union to be voting for representatives in the Steelworkers' Union.

AlmightyWalrus, given the great power of the primary election process, I'm surprised to see you arguing For going with a straight popular vote nationwide, and Against allowing all voters to participate in Primary voting. As far as I know, no state allows you to vote in Both primaries (you have to choose one) but unless I tie myself to one party or the other, in my state I cannot vote in Any.

I saw your post above about going with a straight popular vote forcing candidates to campaign across the entire country, but the effect would just be to shift where they campaign away from "purple" states, and towards the population centers on both coasts. I live near D.C. and Baltimore, so we'd get plenty of attention here, but I think we get enough attention without being the focus of the presidential campaigning.

And Tom, again I'm in Maryland, and we're one of two states being considered in the Supreme Court for gerrymandering, but it's the democrats who are in power, and who did the clear gerrymandering, in my state (Also, darn, was hoping you'd be closer to the east coast )

Imo, we need a bit less "tribalism", and more independent thinking, in our political process. Both parties abuse power when they have very large majorities, and a lot of the policies I would like to see enacted (such as campaign finance reform) affect both parties. They're both deeply funded by outside entities (and in fact, last I saw the democrats actually had the fundraising edge in large donations), and both need to be reformed in that regard.

At least we agree something needs fixing but to me, it's improving fairness of the process and closing loopholes within the current structure, not fundamentally shifting power in the nation as a whole by doing something like abolishing the electoral college. Since that would need ratifying by the majority of states (more of which would be neglected under such a system) or a massive 2/3 majority in the Senate (with 2 senators from each state meaning it's also reflective of a similar spread of opinions), that will likely never be much of a possibility anyway, though...

Bear in mind that I'm speaking from a perspective that assumes that you should also change to proportional representation ASAP. If there's a bunch of different parties that are actually represented then you also have a number of parties to choose to engage in. I'll concede the point when there's effectively just two parties to choose from though.

I'd still argue that proportional representation would be more fair than the current situation. Even if most of the efforts of campaigning was spent in the population centers, the people in the purple states would still have an impact on the outcome of the election, whereas under the current system a Democrat in Texas or a Republican in California is effectively meaningless. How is it fair that some people's votes don't count at all just because they happen to live in a certain place?

Yes, it'd suck for Vermont that they can't punch well above their population's weight anymore, but that's the point. Why should a larger number of people accept that a smaller number of people get to make decisions for them just because the roles would be reversed otherwise? I'd be more interested in hearing about any drawbacks that proportional representation would lead to that isn't drawbacks that already exist.

I think the main drawback of such a system, is that with such a massive country land-area-wise, with such a concentration of population on the coasts, a large "geographic" area of the country would feel disenfranchised, whereas now a certain percentage in very populous states do. But it would just shift the problem, not eliminate it, imo.

Since I live in a state that is very polarized towards one party, but I myself vote for candidates of both parties (although I've voted Democratic in the last 3 presidential elections) I personally feel the negative effects of the current system. But for me, it is worth it, because my state and others like it already have a lot of sway.

California's predicament in particular rings a bit hollow to many folks in the US, because California has a Lot of sway in the country already. Down to small things like labeling on a package, to much larger policies like emissions standards, if California goes a certain way, a lot of times that sets the policy for the rest of the country, since it is such a massive state with a large population.

I think the argument you're making also kind of shows the natural check-and-balance of the current setup, in that a voter for the minority party in Texas has the same problem as a voter for the minority party in California. It divides the national race up into smaller contests within state borders, for whichever states are swinging closer to centrist that election cycle. I think this is a good thing, personally, since it forces politicians to engage in regions rather than just nationally, but I can see the drawbacks. I just don't see a straight popular vote being better for the USA, and despite current political drama, the system has historically worked pretty well so far, imo!

Our country is designed to be 50 different states who have a combined defense budget, and a shared currency. This is why the electoral college came into being, to give the states equal power, because (on paper) on a federal level, they are all equal. Over time this thought process has changed quite a bit, but the system hasn't caught up yet. This is also why you hear screaming about States Rights, and why our states have conflicting laws. The federal government has much, much more power than our founding fathers designed it to have, and there has been no changes to our election process.

EDIT: Hit submit a bit too early on that one.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Bear in mind that I'm speaking from a perspective that assumes that you should also change to proportional representation ASAP. If there's a bunch of different parties that are actually represented then you also have a number of parties to choose to engage in. I'll concede the point when there's effectively just two parties to choose from though.

I'd still argue that proportional representation would be more fair than the current situation. Even if most of the efforts of campaigning was spent in the population centers, the people in the purple states would still have an impact on the outcome of the election, whereas under the current system a Democrat in Texas or a Republican in California is effectively meaningless. How is it fair that some people's votes don't count at all just because they happen to live in a certain place?

Yes, it'd suck for Vermont that they can't punch well above their population's weight anymore, but that's the point. Why should a larger number of people accept that a smaller number of people get to make decisions for them just because the roles would be reversed otherwise? I'd be more interested in hearing about any drawbacks that proportional representation would lead to that isn't drawbacks that already exist.

People don't elect the President, the States do. Each state has the same representation in the Electoral College as they have in Congress. Every resident in every state has the same Electoral representation as they have Legislative representation. The lack of competitive races in states like California has nothing to do with the Electoral College the Electoral system isn't the reason why the Republican Party isn't competitive in California. Since the States elect the President the votes in one state don't affect the election in other states. Clinton won California by 3 million votes, Trump won Wisconsin by 23,000 votes, the popular vote in one state doesn't and shouldn't have any effect on the results of the election and Electoral apportionment in another state. Abolishing the electoral college in favor of a national popular vote would be the same as abolishing the Senate and having 100 senators elected by a national vote ignoring state boundaries. As long as we have states we'll have Federalism and it doesn't make sense to make presidential elections the one glaring exemption to that Federalist system.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
I honestly don't see why anyone who's not part of the party should be allowed to vote on who that party nominates as their candidate. It's not like we expect Swedish citizens to be allowed to vote in UK elections, or Irish citizens to vote in German elections, or members of the Teacher's Union to be voting for representatives in the Steelworkers' Union.

The problem for me is that primaries are treated as if they are simply intra-party elections to determine who the nominee of the party will be.

But in reality the individual states are tasked with running the primary elections, which means that the state has to print the ballots, spend the money on the infrastructure to hold the elections, pay for the cost of administering them, and to count the ballots. The state pays for the machines, the state pays for the training of workers and volunteers, the state pays for all of it. And if the state pays for it, that means that in reality we all pay for it.

Now, if my any random business in my state decides they need a new board of directors, they can't get the state to run their board elections for them. If my HOA wants a new president, we don't get to have the state run that election for us. If I want to know which business in the metro area has the best pizza, they don't get to have the state run a "vote for the best pizza" question on the ballot.

But somehow we have decided that political parties are able to proclaim primaries as "internal affairs" that are closed to participation by everybody else, while getting everybody else to pay for the cost of those "internal" elections.

I think if parties want to keep their primaries closed, they should be billed by the state for the cost of administering their private elections.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Bear in mind that I'm speaking from a perspective that assumes that you should also change to proportional representation ASAP. If there's a bunch of different parties that are actually represented then you also have a number of parties to choose to engage in. I'll concede the point when there's effectively just two parties to choose from though.

I'd still argue that proportional representation would be more fair than the current situation. Even if most of the efforts of campaigning was spent in the population centers, the people in the purple states would still have an impact on the outcome of the election, whereas under the current system a Democrat in Texas or a Republican in California is effectively meaningless. How is it fair that some people's votes don't count at all just because they happen to live in a certain place?

Yes, it'd suck for Vermont that they can't punch well above their population's weight anymore, but that's the point. Why should a larger number of people accept that a smaller number of people get to make decisions for them just because the roles would be reversed otherwise? I'd be more interested in hearing about any drawbacks that proportional representation would lead to that isn't drawbacks that already exist.

People don't elect the President, the States do. Each state has the same representation in the Electoral College as they have in Congress. Every resident in every state has the same Electoral representation as they have Legislative representation. The lack of competitive races in states like California has nothing to do with the Electoral College the Electoral system isn't the reason why the Republican Party isn't competitive in California. Since the States elect the President the votes in one state don't affect the election in other states. Clinton won California by 3 million votes, Trump won Wisconsin by 23,000 votes, the popular vote in one state doesn't and shouldn't have any effect on the results of the election and Electoral apportionment in another state. Abolishing the electoral college in favor of a national popular vote would be the same as abolishing the Senate and having 100 senators elected by a national vote ignoring state boundaries. As long as we have states we'll have Federalism and it doesn't make sense to make presidential elections the one glaring exemption to that Federalist system.

The interesting thing is that as far as the constitution is concerned, there is not even any actual right to have any sort of popular vote of any kind for POTUS. Oklahoma could pass a law saying that we will pick our electors by randomly selecting names out of a hat, Texas could pass a law stating that their electors will be picked by holding a shooting contest in each district, California could pass a law saying that they will pick electors by selecting the next folks to cross the border, and Kansas can pick their electors from a group of grade school kids. Every one of those methods of choosing electors would be constitutional.

The electoral college has failed twice in the last five elections to match the popular vote. It does not help that in the two instances this has occurred, it has resulted in quite possibly the least popular and most divisive administrations this nation has seen in recent memory, and losing the popular vote undercut the popular trust in those administrations frm day 1.

Given that the electoral college has also been divorced from its independent "super citizen" / senatorial equivalent role in almost all respects (and instead is allocated on pure majority vote in each state, regardless of the magnitude of the victory, largely cancelling out millions of votes and allowing someone to win election with as little as a quarter of the popular vote), this dramatically undercuts its role and the public trust in that role. It is difficult to see what sort of check or balance it continues to serve in such light, and largey just instead looks to be another partisan gaming mechanism instead of serving any meaningful balance of power function. It disenfranchises millions of red voters in blue states and millions of blue voters in red states, stands in the way of any third party having any realistic chance, and gives some very small states radically outsized power than they have any real reason to wield.

The sooner the EC goes bye-bye, the better American democracy will be for it.

In Quebec, we have a system much akin to the US electoral college. It has been used by nationalists and separatists to essentially put the boonie minority in charge of the province. People who rarely if ever encounter minorities like English speakers and people of color, but who are told they are under threat from these 'others' by their nationalist party. They have no direct experience really, it is entirely a world view based on propaganda. (Sound familiar, to quote Trump just today, country is being stolen, dems are trying to dismantle our (whatever our means) way of life etc etc.

Here's the thing, I'm on the other end of this. I am an English speaking white male in Quebec. That, unlike anywhere else in North America, makes me an undesirable minority that must be assimilated entirely or never be considered a Quebecer, even being born here. I have heard my whole life from the govt how I am a problem, that I am responsible for hollywood, music and cultural invasion, and my language is offensive in a lot of this province. As far as Quebec at large is concerned, I might as well be wearing a hijab.

Ok, so besides the obvious, this is what is pissing me off. The mixed, more tolerant 'progressive' parts of this province, mostly Montreal itself, drive 60-70% of Business in the entire province. We pay the lion's share of taxes. Yet despite this, we are subject to the will of people who don't live in our reality whatsoever and want to govern based on fear and ignorance. They take our money happily enough, but they don't want to let us be equal. They think being a Quebecer means being a Francophone that's been here several generations... there is even a name for it, 'Pure-leine' - which means pure wool.

So even though the majority of this province doesn't want to seperate, and a significant portion of it's biggest city, and it's biggest economic engine, wants bilingualism and to let the society make progress instead of being locked into the 1960's forever, we have been shackled to the minority for decades. It has hurt us, socially and economically. It has divided us. It makes business difficult, because you can't simply succeed, that's not good enough to just have a viable business, you have to do it their way (in french) or get out.

Any of this sound familiar to you down there?

I have gotten to watch the results of gerrymandering, fear of the other politics my entire life. I have been the native minority that is told they are doing wrong even while they suceed. I am not antifrench at all. I speak french. I identify more with a Quebecer than I ever would with a british colombian, or a new brunswicker. I love so much about the french culture here. But unless I can fool someone into thinking my family has been here generations, it's not good enough. If they (they being the self-identified nationalist/seperatists) detect an accent, even if my french is otherwise perfect, it is offensive and not good enough.

The amount of businesses that left Quebec because of this is staggering. The amount of brain power that migrated out of here is staggering. There is a reason Toronto became the most powerful city in the last 50 years, it's because montreal went there to do business. We lost so much, and are still losing, because due to the exodus, due to the badly run government that never focused on improving anything if it was perceived to cost anything to french culture instead of doing things to help business thrive, to attract ip and brain power, taxes went up, cost of doing business went up.

We are only now barely crawling out of it into viable growth, but for the longest time, we were the definition of a nanny state with bloated bureaucracy and poor policy.

At the time, everyone here was like 'ya ya, let them go, we will make our shining city ourselves, the way we want, we won't mix our cultures, we will be supreme'. It didn't work. The world moved on without us. We were left behind and too proud to change or ask for help.

If it were not for the culture clash here leading to nationalism and seperatism, strict language laws and resultant terrible tax rates, I am 100% convinced Quebec, and Montreal, would still reign supreme in Canada as they did prior to 1960. We did this to ourselves. In the name of protecting our culture against the other. In the name of pride.

What I see happening down there makes me scared for you guys, not because I hate you, because I know where this road leads and anyone telling themselves what is happening now is going to be good for the US for any meaningful duration is delusional in the worst way. Doing wrong while being so convinced you are right with a complete inability to see what is sitting right in front of you... yeah.

Here's another thing that should ring familiar, even when federalist govt's are elected here (it goes back and forth just as it does with you guys), they won't touch the subject of minority rights or bilingualism. Why? For much the same reason that the Democrats avoid guns. The French Cultural lobby here is so strong, is such a hot-button issue, that those who would otherwise address the problems abstain out of terror of mobilizing every single last person with even mild seperatist leanings like an army, because much like the NRA and guns, they have convinced the self-identified population that any concession, and discussion, is tantamount to throwing everything away. French cultural supremacy is Quebec's second amendment. You can't even debate it with any hope of agreement on facts or intent to compromise. It is equivalent to questioning a religious person's faith, you just don't do it, and if you do, get ready to throw down.

It depends on how those votes can effect people in the lower pop areas. It would be bad if liberals in a city could domineer over rural areas with no checks.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Here's a question. Since we're asking who's the future of the Democratic Party, who's the future of the Republican Party?
Some people like to trot out the line that Trump only won because Hillary was "that bad", but that same reason would also apply to everyone on the Republican side who ran against Trump, meaning Rubio, Jeb, Cruz, etc., were also all "that bad".

While I generally like the direction this administration is going... holee fark balls I just wished Trump would stop tweeting! It NEVER fails when there's some good news, the Tweeter-In-Chief puts his foot in his big mouth.

As for the Republican's future?

People talk about the current GOP are mainly driven by *Legacy Republicans* or even *lefty Rockafeller Republicans*.

Something I don't think enough professional Republicans understand/appreciate about the frustrations of GOPers like Flake, Kasich or Corker...

He and other Republicans never talk about liberals, hardcore lefty types, the way they do about parts of the GOP coalition they don't like (ie, Freedom Caucas, Tea Party Caucas).

You may say that the parts of the GOP they/you don't like are worse than anything on the left, ok. But that's not going to move your voters.

Flake has been on MSNBC saying it's wrong for the GOP to talk about cultural issues. That's not something a Democrat would ever say. EVER. They simply don't believe that Politics is downstream from culture. 'Tis why liberals/lefties/Democrats dominates pop culture/Hollywood/Colleges...

There are a lot of GOP/GOP leaners who see an onslaught from the liberals/left, which the elected Democrats gleefully participate in and then they see... the GOPers not just fail to push back but hem&haw to obliquely say that pushing back is just not what the right people do.

People simply want the party they support to support them. Right or wrong a LOT of Republican voters don't see the GOP politicians supporting them.

The current GOP leadership class has made it clear they aren't interested in those fights. Fair enough...

But don't be upset when those people seek someone who will.... enter the Tweeter-In-Chief. Factor in the media giving El Trumpo 3 billion dollars of free airtime during the GOP primary and this.... you have a recipe of "how Trump happened".

It's supply and demand.

I'm not arguing either side is right or wrong (I'm sympathetic to both), but unless and until people accept that these parties are coalitions and everyone sees they are getting a reasonable return on investment...here we are.

My guess is, it's too late though. Trumpism is here to stay and as long as Democrats don't go insane, they'll have great chances in re-taking Congress and the WH.

And don't tell me the current professional GOP wing are the adults in the room.

They ran on the idea that ObamaCare was destroying the country. They then walked away from it in months after winning.

How the hell can you do that and expect people to say, "yeah, you guys are worth following and tying our fate to".

Not going to lie... I saw this a mile away.... when the Democrats retake Congress and WH, watch for the Tea Party Part Two-The Electricbugaloo.

Sure it does, because the Senators are already representatives for their respective State. The President's job isn't to be representative of any one State.

The fact that it's the States that elect the President is irrelevant, the point still stands: the Electoral congress effectively discriminates citizens in more popolous states.

Proportional representation on a State level could work as a compromise; you wouldn't make people's votes worthless and the smaller states would retain their advantage.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The electoral college has failed twice in the last five elections to match the popular vote. It does not help that in the two instances this has occurred, it has resulted in quite possibly the least popular and most divisive administrations this nation has seen in recent memory, and losing the popular vote undercut the popular trust in those administrations frm day 1.

Given that the electoral college has also been divorced from its independent "super citizen" / senatorial equivalent role in almost all respects (and instead is allocated on pure majority vote in each state, regardless of the magnitude of the victory, largely cancelling out millions of votes and allowing someone to win election with as little as a quarter of the popular vote), this dramatically undercuts its role and the public trust in that role. It is difficult to see what sort of check or balance it continues to serve in such light, and largey just instead looks to be another partisan gaming mechanism instead of serving any meaningful balance of power function. It disenfranchises millions of red voters in blue states and millions of blue voters in red states, stands in the way of any third party having any realistic chance, and gives some very small states radically outsized power than they have any real reason to wield.

The sooner the EC goes bye-bye, the better American democracy will be for it.

I don't know that the EC has to go, but it could does need to be improved by the individual states. I think even changing the voting mechanism to more closely match the mechanism by which the number of electors is determined would be a major improvement. Instate of having a statewide vote for all electors, assign electoral votes to each district with two electors chosen by the statewide vote. I don't have the time (and honestly I don't think I really have the desire either) to see how past elections would have turned out if electors were chosen that way, but it could only be an improvement. The other approach would be to assign electors proportionally to the total statewide vote.

The "by district" approach wouldn't have changed any of the Electoral votes in Oklahoma, but the proportional vote would have. I vote against the grain in Oklahoma, so I would have benefited from a proportional selection, but I still prefer the "by district" approach better I think.

A by district approach leads to district gerrymandering having a greater effect. Hopefully the Supreme Court puts a stop to it like the PA Supreme Court did (Though they were then impeached...Go figure...)

 Grey Templar wrote:
It depends on how those votes can effect people in the lower pop areas. It would be bad if liberals in a city could domineer over rural areas with no checks.

And it's ridiculous that a sparsely populated rural area can override the population of a city.

You don't get to have it both ways talking about how "if liberals in a city could domineer over rural areas with no checks" when we have conservatives in rural areas doing exactly that right now.

 skyth wrote:
A by district approach leads to district gerrymandering having a greater effect. Hopefully the Supreme Court puts a stop to it like the PA Supreme Court did (Though they were then impeached...Go figure...)

Yeah, you would have to figure out how to fix the gerrymander problem.

Really, my solution to the electoral problem is Ranked Voting (In both elections and primaries), getting rid of gerrymandering (make the circumference of each district in a state divided by the square root of the area be roughly equal would be a start), and a tax credit for voting.

There is an answer to be had here. There is a way to vet gerrymandering scientifically... It's not witchcraft, it's stats. If the dems gerrymandered too, then they should be forced to re-district just like the GOP had to.

The solutions are available, don't kid yourselves guys, it's the political will to do it that is lacking and nothing else. If data strategy can lead to gerrymandering, then data policy can eliminate it.

 MajorTom11 wrote:

Spoiler:

In Quebec, we have a system much akin to the US electoral college. It has been used by nationalists and separatists to essentially put the boonie minority in charge of the province. People who rarely if ever encounter minorities like English speakers and people of color, but who are told they are under threat from these 'others' by their nationalist party. They have no direct experience really, it is entirely a world view based on propaganda. (Sound familiar, to quote Trump just today, country is being stolen, dems are trying to dismantle our (whatever our means) way of life etc etc.

Here's the thing, I'm on the other end of this. I am an English speaking white male in Quebec. That, unlike anywhere else in North America, makes me an undesirable minority that must be assimilated entirely or never be considered a Quebecer, even being born here. I have heard my whole life from the govt how I am a problem, that I am responsible for hollywood, music and cultural invasion, and my language is offensive in a lot of this province. As far as Quebec at large is concerned, I might as well be wearing a hijab.

Ok, so besides the obvious, this is what is pissing me off. The mixed, more tolerant 'progressive' parts of this province, mostly Montreal itself, drive 60-70% of Business in the entire province. We pay the lion's share of taxes. Yet despite this, we are subject to the will of people who don't live in our reality whatsoever and want to govern based on fear and ignorance. They take our money happily enough, but they don't want to let us be equal. They think being a Quebecer means being a Francophone that's been here several generations... there is even a name for it, 'Pure-leine' - which means pure wool.

So even though the majority of this province doesn't want to seperate, and a significant portion of it's biggest city, and it's biggest economic engine, wants bilingualism and to let the society make progress instead of being locked into the 1960's forever, we have been shackled to the minority for decades. It has hurt us, socially and economically. It has divided us. It makes business difficult, because you can't simply succeed, that's not good enough to just have a viable business, you have to do it their way (in french) or get out.

Any of this sound familiar to you down there?

I have gotten to watch the results of gerrymandering, fear of the other politics my entire life. I have been the native minority that is told they are doing wrong even while they suceed. I am not antifrench at all. I speak french. I identify more with a Quebecer than I ever would with a british colombian, or a new brunswicker. I love so much about the french culture here. But unless I can fool someone into thinking my family has been here generations, it's not good enough. If they (they being the self-identified nationalist/seperatists) detect an accent, even if my french is otherwise perfect, it is offensive and not good enough.

The amount of businesses that left Quebec because of this is staggering. The amount of brain power that migrated out of here is staggering. There is a reason Toronto became the most powerful city in the last 50 years, it's because montreal went there to do business. We lost so much, and are still losing, because due to the exodus, due to the badly run government that never focused on improving anything if it was perceived to cost anything to french culture instead of doing things to help business thrive, to attract ip and brain power, taxes went up, cost of doing business went up.

We are only now barely crawling out of it into viable growth, but for the longest time, we were the definition of a nanny state with bloated bureaucracy and poor policy.

At the time, everyone here was like 'ya ya, let them go, we will make our shining city ourselves, the way we want, we won't mix our cultures, we will be supreme'. It didn't work. The world moved on without us. We were left behind and too proud to change or ask for help.

If it were not for the culture clash here leading to nationalism and seperatism, strict language laws and resultant terrible tax rates, I am 100% convinced Quebec, and Montreal, would still reign supreme in Canada as they did prior to 1960. We did this to ourselves. In the name of protecting our culture against the other. In the name of pride.

What I see happening down there makes me scared for you guys, not because I hate you, because I know where this road leads and anyone telling themselves what is happening now is going to be good for the US for any meaningful duration is delusional in the worst way. Doing wrong while being so convinced you are right with a complete inability to see what is sitting right in front of you... yeah.

Here's another thing that should ring familiar, even when federalist govt's are elected here (it goes back and forth just as it does with you guys), they won't touch the subject of minority rights or bilingualism. Why? For much the same reason that the Democrats avoid guns. The French Cultural lobby here is so strong, is such a hot-button issue, that those who would otherwise address the problems abstain out of terror of mobilizing every single last person with even mild seperatist leanings like an army, because much like the NRA and guns, they have convinced the self-identified population that any concession, and discussion, is tantamount to throwing everything away. French cultural supremacy is Quebec's second amendment. You can't even debate it with any hope of agreement on facts or intent to compromise. It is equivalent to questioning a religious person's faith, you just don't do it, and if you do, get ready to throw down.

This is a great post. I can't even add anything to this.

On a pleasant note, I work with a lot of Quebecois out of province (they make up a disproportionate amount of our military) and the majority of them who have spent time outside of Quebec all agree how ridiculous a lot of Quebec policies are.

That said, I'd kill for those university tuition rates or childcare costs.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
It depends on how those votes can effect people in the lower pop areas. It would be bad if liberals in a city could domineer over rural areas with no checks.

And it's ridiculous that a sparsely populated rural area can override the population of a city.

You don't get to have it both ways talk about how "if liberals in a city could domineer over rural areas with no checks" when we have conservatives in rural areas doing exactly that right now.

But "have it both ways" is the central problem with our politics. And it's a problem with both sides.

Obama was an idiot for ever proposing face-to-face meetings with North Korea, and Trump is a genius for agreeing to face-to-face meetings with North Korea.
Trump is a monster for cheating on his wife with prior to being elected, and it shouldn't matter that Clinton got blown by an intern while being President.

75% of what people bitch about has nothing at all to do with what actually happened. It only matters because someone they don't like did anything at all, which becomes obvious as soon as someone they like does it and then they stop caring.