2016 USA Presidential election thread II: And. Here. We. Go!

[Day]

And I'm not following that argument. You think it's a bad thing to let the majority of people actually decide?

I mean just look at this map waraji posted, so yeah I do.

[Tyrath]

What does the map have to do with anything?

You think the larger space of land should have a bigger say than the larger group of people? Going by the majority vote is as democratic as it gets. Third world countries have figured this out (rampant corruption aside), not sure how America still isn't there.

[Seha]

Recently someone replied to me(not the smartest poster mind you, but maybe you'll find he has a point Idk), that they don't want a democracy in the US.

[Olo401]

I would make a minor change to the electoral college so that when the popular vote nationwide is higher for the candidate that doesn't win the electoral vote, they win rather than the one who gets the most EVs.

[Tyrath]

I would make a minor change to the electoral college so that when the popular vote nationwide is higher for the candidate that doesn't win the electoral vote, they win rather than the one who gets the most EVs.

So why not just go by the pop vote instead since it will always come down to that in this scenario?

[Fondue]

I would make a minor change to the electoral college so that when the popular vote nationwide is higher for the candidate that doesn't win the electoral vote, they win rather than the one who gets the most EVs.

...why would you keep the Electoral College?

[Krandor]

I would make a minor change to the electoral college so that when the popular vote nationwide is higher for the candidate that doesn't win the electoral vote, they win rather than the one who gets the most EVs.

Then what the fuck is the point of the electoral collage?

[TummieGaruda]

Electoral college probably won't change until we have the perfect nightmare scenario where a candidate wins with only 24% of the popular vote.

[Tymon]

If you do that you effectively end the entire concept of the states as sovereign bodies on the national scale. It's one step towards abolishing the state alltogether and moving entirely federal.

I'm all for getting rid of it and replacing it with something that better represents the people. It could be done so much better. But getting rid of it entirely would sow chaos. It'd never, ever work as a method to represent the will of the people. A lot of people sure, but not a lot of people, too.

[Tyrath]

But that's already happening. I don't see how you guys have an issue with the majority being the will of the people rather than going by arbitrarily divided groups of people.

[Vandalhart]

One vote for one person, are people talking about setting up a system where one person's vote means more than another persons?

[Day]

You are ignoring that the majority live in these tiny pockets on the map. They would always get their person in, completely ignoring the reset of the map. Going off popular vote alone is crazy talk, it seems like a true representation of the country but it's really not. And something like that, that works for you in this instance may not always be the case. I would be very hesitant to mess with the current system very much.

A better EC system I could get behind but I never see much presented in the way of improving it, not that I go out of my way to review ways to improve the EC.

I hit enter Sath

[BerenTebogo]

You are ignoring that the majority live in these tiny pockets on the map. They would always get their person in, completely ignoring the reset of the map. Going off popular vote alone is crazy talk, it seems like a true representation of the country but it's really not. And something like that, that works for you in this instance may not always be the case. I would be very hesitant to mess with the current system very much.

A better EC system I could get behind but I never see much presented in the way of improving it, not that I go out of my way to review ways to improve the EC.

I hit enter Sath

It's beautiful.

[Restrat]

"Cities ruling" is just not true. How many people do you think live in NYC LA and Dallas?
The population of the top 25 cities in the US combined amounts to 12% of the United States Population. There are only 11-12 cities with more than 1million people.
These top 25 cities would have 62 electoral votes.

Even if you include the entire city metro area, which includes suburbs, exburbs, and ex-exburbs, which are often not the same make up or political preference as the city itself (see all of Long Island compared to NYC, Marin County compared to San Fransisco etc., less than 50% of the country lives in the top 25 city-areas.

[Byrthnoth]

I think a more reasonable criticism is that urbanites ruling isn't solved by the electoral college. A reasonable question is whether urbanites ruling is a bad thing.

The original "states rights" push that generated the electoral college system (EC doesn't define how electors are picked) was designed to compensate for disparate values between the different states.

However "states" is a bad clustering mechanism for grouping people with similar values. There are obviously huge disparities between states, but it's mostly driven by demographics other than the state the person lives in.

[Mertron]

You are ignoring that the majority live in these tiny pockets on the map. They would always get their person in, completely ignoring the reset of the map. Going off popular vote alone is crazy talk, it seems like a true representation of the country but it's really not. And something like that, that works for you in this instance may not always be the case. I would be very hesitant to mess with the current system very much.

A better EC system I could get behind but I never see much presented in the way of improving it, not that I go out of my way to review ways to improve the EC.

I hit enter Sath

the wall just got ten feet lower

[Seha]

The solution is reshaping the states!

[BerenTebogo]

The solution is reshaping the states!

Really, the solution is that America is far too fucking big to be one country, but yeah. That works too.

[Wulfgang]

Eh, the US is a democratic republic, not a democracy. People say potato, potahto but they are not the same thing. Maroo had a great wall of text on why this is a while back, but the short of it is:

We actually don't want a system that has absolute enfranchisement-- pure Democracy is a terrible thing, simply because the majority can enforce its whims on the minority. Safeguards are a good thing. The goal of a Democratic Republic isn't to, as the Warren Court put it, make sure that 1 Person, 1 vote, is the absolute, but to make sure that the system meaningfully hears and represents those of minority status, whether it be race, religion, philosophy, lifestyle, whatever, and includes them in the process in such a way that they can stop abuses against themselves. This means that, to some degree, the majority must be under-represented and must persuade to at least some extent "the other".

The irony here is that a minority was able to enforce its will on a majority. Honestly, the chances of eliminating the electoral college any time soon are effectively zero; any fundamental shift in the governing structure of the United States will not happen outside of a revolution. I don't love it, simply saying that your time is better spent on other efforts/causes.

Full wall o text post is below; thought it was insightful regardless of your party affiliation:

https://www.bluegartr.com/threads/12...=1#post6782687

[Zoner]

I get it. And TPP dying is maybe the one silver lining out of all of this. But either TPP will morph into some "good" trade deal with a different name that gets passed anyway because Trump doesn't really give a shit about anyone but himself, *or* Trump actually does withdraw from NAFTA, start trade wars, etc., and we quickly realize how much damage that will do to the economy and to the people who are most vulnerable.

It's still not worth all the other shit that comes with a Trump administration.

Seems Obama is trying to push TPP thro before he leaves office

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/796460354142208000