I am just going to leave this here (part two)
- Thread starter hailtoyourvictor
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anon_0astpxev9h4gk
Well-Known Member
This thread was necessary and exactly what this board needed.
This thread was necessary and exactly what this board needed.
OP's post would get lost if not for a new thread.
I read your first link. And for a guy so wrapped up in other people’s racism....it almost sounds like he is talking about himself. If he ever stumbles into some self awareness he is going to feel pretty awkward. I can’t imagine being consumed so much by race that he takes issue with the shape of Obama’s cartoon head—a ****ing cartoon head lol. I’m not sure where you dug this guy up, but it was def worth reading. A perfect example of new racism.
Yeah, you missed several points. And it's time to literally go to the literal pool here, so good luck figuring it out on your own.
If there was just the popular vote though everyone's vote would be equal. That map just shows you the populations of those states. That doesn't make their votes worth more than anyone else's it just means lots of people live there.
Currently under electoral college it would be silly for someone to argue that living in certain "swing" states doesn't make your vote seemingly more important than those in other states. If you're a democrat in Texas or a republican in California your vote for president is basically worthless under the current system:
Currently under electoral college it would be silly for someone to argue that living in certain "swing" states doesn't make your vote seemingly more important than those in other states. If you're a democrat in Texas or a republican in California your vote for president is basically worthless under the current system:
It really speaks for itself imo. If you need more evidence just look at his tweets. It’s a diary of how to look like the most progressive leftist possible. Including a nice children’s book....jacobs new dress.
A nose bleed delayed the pool, but briefly...
The things you do... are they ever motivated by what you're trying to look like, or are they sincere expressions of who you are and what you believe?
The cartoonist wail posted in the OP is a well-known conservative who has come under fire for alleged racism and various insensitivities as far back as 2003. If you're criticizing the source I cited expressing some of that criticism, you obviously missed the part where I said that citing a cartoon deserves no better.
Your question needs specificity. Way to vague to tackle. I wouldn’t say I was criticizing the source, just noting the source comes off as more racist than the petty cartoon guy.....the irony is that the sources lack of self awareness is brutal.
I was seriously surprised and equally disappointed to find out so many supposedly rational adults would actually think like this after this past election. I'm not saying the current way is or isn't perfect right now, but to think it's a good idea to go to a popular vote is beyond crazy.
If it was simply a popular vote, a candidate could go to California, New York, Texas and Florida and campaign on a platform that everyone in these states would no longer have to pay taxes. But not only they, they could also say that all remaining states would be required to pay triple their taxes to cover this plan. I don't know of anyone who thinks any form of slavery is ever a good idea. But, this would end up ushering in a new version of slavery.
Now, most people who think it's a good idea to scrap the electoral college usually quickly say that this type of candidate would never be elected. The irony in that, is that its usually the people who think it'd never happen, are also the same people who despise Trump and at one time say that theres no way he would ever get elected.
The absolute best analogy for this is if you have 4 wolves and 3 sheep doing a popular vote on what's for dinner tonight....its not going to work out for the sheep.
49 of 50 states could elect Candidate A by 300,000 votes and California would still have enough popular vote power to elect Candidate B.
This pretty much gave away your bias.
In Wyoming, 143K votes = 1 electoral college point. In California, 500K = 1 electoral college point. That overvalues Wyoming and undervalues California.
The two houses of Congress... the Senate is designed to give each state equal voice; the House of Reps is designed to acknowledge the pop size in each state. The Electoral College is weighted against the most populous states. A good start would be for every state to lose 2 EC votes -- one for each Senator -- leaving only the number of Reps as the EC count. That would give each state proportional representation in the EC.
And Trump still would have won in 2016.
Eyeroll Yes, you can do that with any single state or DC if you set the margin just right. You're pretending California is less a state than others, when it is the most populous state there is. It's the same technique conservatives use when they act like the only real Americans are rural Americans, or when they act as if what everyone else believes is an "agenda" but their own beliefs aren't.
I think that proportion that matching it proportionally to the number of house reps makes sense.
It's the technique I use to show that the electoral college helps keep any one state from having too much political pull when the needs from state to state vary so much.
And I pointed out how flawed it is. If you agree that House reps is a good way to assign EC votes, you seem to recognize we've gone too far in the other direction, giving small states undo representation.
Hillary took about 61% of the pop vote in California. Trump had around 31%. She got all 55 EC votes. If it were determined by popular vote, surely Trump would have spent more time campaigning there, but if EC votes were proportional, he'd have received 17 of them or so to her 33. That's essentially the same as using the popular vote, and even in California it wouldn't be as bad as the EC as it currently operates.
This is misleading at best, and profoundly stupid at worst. In this scenario, the persons in 49 of 50 states could not by themselves "elect" anyone at all, so that's just dishonest (and wrong) framing meant to shape the narrative to your preferred outcome (I assume you just stole this from somewhere else, so I'm not casting aspersions on your motivations here). In a popular vote scenario, states do not "elect" anyone; people elect candidates. So, really, who effing cares if the "last" votes for the winning candidate came from flaming liberals in SF or the lone liberal couple in Blount County, AL? Or if the winning vote for Trump came from west Texas or NYC? Because the winner is the one that gets the most votes, period.
But look at a similar scenario where the California boogeyman (and that's what it is) is not involved. Say there are 10,000 people divided into N rooms of random size. In any scenario, if the # of people in Room N > marginal vote difference between the candidates from votes in Rooms 1 through N-1, then you can misleadingly claim that the voters of Room N could swing the election. But that's not what happens, because the winning candidate needs a plurality of the pool of all 10,000 votes, not just the votes in less than all rooms. But, again, who effing cares when it's a popular election?
If you support the electoral college, would you support an electoral college type system using counties for statewide elections? Why or why not? How about for neighborhoods or HOAs for citywide office? Maybe school districts for countywide office? How small should we go? Maybe it should be on a household basis?
The only change (besides how votes are actually tallied, and that eliminating the electoral college would makes each person's vote actually equal for once) would be to how candidates campaign. So there would be some shift away from current battleground states, but how much? Probably not as much as you'd think due to how geographical sorting, national campaigns, and (mostly) national media work. I'd say that's a fair trade off considering that the alternative, the electoral college, literally dilutes the votes of some citizens and is an example of the everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others idea from Animal Farm.
As to other concerns (not yours, saw them somewhere else upstream), like promising to eliminate taxes for people of NY or Cali or Texas, they are plainly unconstitutional. For the legal argument as to why, look up Shelby County v. Holder, particularly Robert's comments about the "fundamental principle of sovereignty among the States."
As to the map, it's fundamentally flawed because it presumes that states actually matter when it's one person, one vote. They wouldn't. If you replaced the word "California" with "18.2 million American citizens," it's not so scary now, is it? It's a scare tactic, and a stupid one at that.
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The only time that states matter in a national election is when you have a system like the electoral college. In a pure popular vote, it's citizens versus citizens regardless of where they live. And smaller states already have disproportionate representation in the Senate (by design) and the House of Representatives (due to incompetence or intent or both). (and the real division of needs tends to be urban/rural, so at best the electoral college is a sloppy proxy)
49 of 50 stats could vote for Sanders over Trump by 200,000.
Texas could say "hold my beer" and make sure Trump stays in office.
And then you would be crying about something different.
I think it's good to have states continue to matter. Thankfully, the Electoral College isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
I feel bad for people like dattier. People like you (on both sides of the political spectrum) are what is ruining this country.
Could you imagine how much worse pandering and lobbying would be if the popular vote won? It's bad enough now.
Trump won the elections because he won more counties in more states. That’s the way it should be. If a dem had won we would be hearing about how great the EC is from dems and how it isn’t from reps
If you are a religious person just thank your god every day that he sent us trump to beat Hillary. Trump may be the least presidential person in the history of presidents but he did a presidential deed by defeating the soul sucker Hillary
If you are a religious person just thank your god every day that he sent us trump to beat Hillary. Trump may be the least presidential person in the history of presidents but he did a presidential deed by defeating the soul sucker Hillary
Politics are playing too big of a role in people's lives. Mainly social politics. I saw a video of a dude wearing a Trump jersey in Hollywood. Didn't go over very well. Turned into a street fight. In what world do we wear jerseys representing our president? You wear one of those in L.A., you get what you get.
No, I wouldn't. I think the electoral college should be eliminated because it changes the power of the vote for people, a position I've held since the late 1990s and that I've maintained, even when the EC benefited my preferred candidate in 2000, GWB. The EC is a flawed idea, period, and I'm more than happy to accepts the results because institutionalizing and maintaining a system of democracy is far more important than the possible swing in results of an election or two.
But if you're interested in an actual discussion, answer how far down the electoral college type system should go. Counties for statewide? Households for, say, school board? If you support EC, you should support some form of it all the way down, right? Because if Michigan has 50 counties, and 49 of them vote for Candidate A by an aggregate total of 2000 votes, then the 50th county could tip the scales for Candidate B. Apparently this is a horror that must be avoided, right?
And frankly if you're so consumed by the supposed boogeymen here (CA, TX), then shouldn't you be more concerned that a bare plurality in those states gives each and every one of those EC votes to a candidate? It's far more concerning to me that Rs in Orange County, CA, and Ds in Austin, TX, are effectively neutered than it is that some states have bigger populations than others. Remember that democracy should represent its citizens. It's people that matter.
Literally the first thing you said to me in this thread was:
"This is misleading at best, and profoundly stupid at worst."
Don't come back at me coy with:
"But if you're interested in an actual discussion"
You're not interested in actual discussion. You are interested in telling everyone why you are right and how stupid other ideas are.
Honest question: why should treating states as politically homogeneous matter for a national election? Does that logic apply at lower levels of government? Why or why not?
It wouldn't. Politicians would never pander to densely populated cities. It could never and would never happen.
