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Electoral College Elects Donald Trump As President (nbcnews.com)
mi writes: The drama is over, Donald J. Trump passed the 270 electoral votes necessary to become President. A few electors dissented, resulting in their prompt dismissal and replacement per their state's laws. Ironically, more dissenters turned on Clinton than on Trump... The sky may not be falling yet, but the Earth is already in peril.
I fear the drama is just beginning.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
She did win the popular vote though.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I saw something (could be wrong) that said most of her popular votes excess came from 3 precincts in CA.
I think she lost 200 counties/precincts? that President Obama won twice in fly over country.
Maybe if she connected better with everyday middle class voters and those votes were spread out. She would be taking office Jan 20th.
Dems lost because hillary sucks, period!
And because they were too arrogant to elect her instead of bernie who was overall ranking higher than her against trump.
This story was submitted by mi, who is pretty much a partisan hack. It's written with little substance and is very misleading about the faithless electors. Although a couple of Democratic electors attempted to switch their vote to Sanders, that's not the main reason for faithless electors from that party. And two faithless Republican electors from Texas cast a single vote each for Kasich and Ron Paul. One of the faithless Democratic electors cast a protest vote because of the North Dakota pipeline. The others were actually casting votes for Republican candidates other than Trump to try to entice Republican electors to join them and send the election to the House of Representatives. That's why three Democratic faithless electors cast votes for Colin Powell. The story is so misleading and lacks so much substance that it's an embarrassment, even for Slashdot.
Yep, Trump is definitely going to be relying on the Anonymous Cowards of the nation to do his dirty work for him. This checks out.
Well thank 48 of the states, which adopted the idiotic winner take all formula, which pretty much completely undermined the original intent of the Electoral College. Walter Bagehot put it best:
Walter Bagehot - The English Constitution 2nd Edition - 1873
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
She did win the popular vote though.
The popular vote is trivia. Neither side was trying to win the popular vote. They spent their time and money to maximize the electoral. If the popular was the goal then they would have spent their time and money very different and we would have a very different popular vote as a result. Focusing on the popular vote is like focusing on the fact that the losing team in a football game moved the ball more yards. Interesting but neither team was trying for that.
We had a guaranteed democrat win this time, then they gave us Clinton. I'm so embarrassed.
Anyone else and it would have been a different story. Idiots.
I voted for Johnson in a state where it didn't matter, but I wish I and most of the other Johnson voters had swallowed our pride and voted for Trump so he'd have his majority. Every passing day with every passing bit of left-wing craziness over Trump's win makes me that much more glad that Hillary lost. If her supporters are so bad-shit insane over a loss, I dread how they'd've behaved with a win.
She did win the popular vote though.
Yes, only in America can you win by 3 million votes and still somehow lose. Thanks, Electoral College!
Somehow? There is no mystery. She was not trying for the popular vote, both Hillary and Trump were allocating time and money for the electoral vote. If the popular vote were the goal they both would have allocated time and money very differently and that popular vote would have been very different. The current popular vote is a side effect, trivia.
Also its not the electoral college that is the problem. The Electoral College only has a small effect itself, a small bump due to the two electors every state gets that correspond to their Senators, the remaining number of electors corresponding to their House representation which is proportional to population. The real huge bump is due to the states going winner take all. That is a state problem, not a federal problem. Some states do proportional rather than winner take all. Two states?
My only hope is that he will do something that can get him impeached relatively quickly, before too much damage can be done.
Trump has already put a fail-safe in place for that. Unless someone really wants to see Mike Pence as president, they would do their very best to make sure that doesn't happen.
The mountains of madness have many little plateaus of sanity - Terry Pratchett.
I can only imagine the outcry, if HRC had won and the republicans were asking to ignore the votes of Americans, because they voted incorrectly. Seriously, the people who were honestly hoping that the electoral college voters would ignore the votes of the people of their states, and simply disenfranchise however many million voters it would take, just so they can get their way?
I personally think Trump will be a horrible, horrible president. I cannot imagine any good coming from his presidency. The world climate alone may never recover. My only hope is that he will do something that can get him impeached relatively quickly, before too much damage can be done. Having said that, I still cannot understand the thought process behind attempting to tell 50% of the country, "your vote doesn't count, unless you vote the way you are supposed to". If that actually happened, the utter and complete demise of any semblance of democracy in the USA would have happened, and there would either be a) a revolt, or b) a new, non-democratic country.
Can you imagine the outcry if China had hacked the RNC and tipped the election so that HCR won? Do you really think that all we'd have at this point would be a bipartisan call by the handful of remaining still rational Rep. and Dem. senators for action, a call that will come to nothing, and a few media personalities expressing 'concern'? We'd have a full scale armed uprising on our hans complete with convoys of camo coloured pickup trucks full of tacticool 2nd amendment people carrying tricked out M4s and AK-47s cruising through the streets and sweeping house to house looking for 'librul China lovin traitors'.
You are equally at fault. You should have elected literally any other candidate in the Democratic primary.
Somehow, viable Democrats (Bernie is really an Independent) seem to have stayed out of the primary this year. Its really strange, there was no Democratic incumbent running for re-election. There should have been a wide selection of viable candidates like in 2008, as happens all the time in non-incumbent years. But somehow, no big names but Hillary showed up. Yes there was the token opponent who mostly agreed with Hillary and said she would be a good President; and there was the Independent Bernie who re-registered to run as a Democrat. How was there not a contested field like in 2008?
Except that the whole point of the electoral college is that electors can block the winner if they don't like the result. If you take faithless electors out of the equation, then there's no longer any point to having an electoral college.
Yes, only in America can you win by 3 million votes and still somehow lose. Thanks, Electoral College!
I think that's actually the Electoral College working as designed and intended.
Would it really be fair if the population of New York City alone got to boss around the 10 lowest population states? Without the Electoral College, would politicians even bother courting anyone except cities with Population Density Disorder?
I'm starting to become a believer in states' rights and a more limited federal government so that like minded people can live together and govern themselves, rather than urbanites getting to dictate how everyone should be forced to live.
Obama weaponized the IRS against his foes, he expanded all the spying regimes, started killing US citizens with drones in deliberately targeted attacks, and prosecuted more leakers than ever. Inasmuch as this is the most transparent administration ever, we have Wikileaks to thank for that.
What kind of fake news have you been watching, CNN?
She did win the popular vote though.
Yes, only in America can you win by 3 million votes and still somehow lose. Thanks, Electoral College!
As someone who voted for Clinton (not as a vote for her, but a vote against the Orangegutan), don't thank the EC. Thank the DNC for crowning a fucking crook, HRC. The DNC lived in a fucking bubble not grasping how much hate there is for HRC.
It doesn't fucking matter if the hate is deserved or not. That's reality, and a politician should have had a pulse on it. Instead HRC chose ambition over country and against all logic, she went for it. From the moment she was nominated by the DNC, I knew the gig was (almost) over. I knew it when I cast my vote for her. You had to be living in a fucking bubble to not see it.
So here we are, today. The Electoral College did its work. Don't blame it for the output. Blame the input provided by both major parties. Garbage in, garbage out.
Ah, yes. The new liberal mantra: If you didn't vote for Hillary, you're racist, misogynist, sexist, xenophobic...
Trust me, it's not new.
1. Take control of the language.
2. Redefine what your opponent does using inapplicable-yet-nasty-sounding terms.
3. Dismiss anyone who disagrees with your redefinition as part of the problem.
4. Use "new" language to cast your opponents as Hitler reborn.
Only problem is it didn't work this time. Liberals went full-bore mental on Trump and, as a result, he looked mild by comparison. Liberals and their water carriers looked like complete fucking idiots as a result. Trump's election has as much to do with their frothing zealotry as anything he might've said or done as a candidate. His election was quite simply a repudiation of all this ridiculous PC, safe-space, diaper-pin-wearing, everything-offends-me culture.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Also, Democrats seem to like the idea of a limited federal government again.
"His name was James Damore."
As a counterpoint, if you read the federalist papers (specifically those written by Alexander Hamilton), one of the many reasons given for the electoral college (vs just having the house of representatives pick the president), was to limit the problem of institutional corruption. Electors were to be chosen only for the task of electing a president and no other purpose and weren't allowed to be holding office in the House or Senate to minimize any institutional influence and corruption. Since electors were only chosen to pick the president (and vice president), you couldn't easily say trade a future vote on a specific policy for an electoral vote nor would it be too easy for a foreign power attempt to corrupt or install rogue electors all over the united states if they aren't a standing body. Also an electoral college style of vote side-steps the issue of stuffing the ballot box in one area of the country and allows for geographic diversity considerations to be "burned-into" the system.
But the Englishfolk are welcome to keep their current scheme which brought them Theresa May (who advocated for "remain" instead of "brexit" even though "brexit" seemed to be the majority sentiment). No system is "perfect", but no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Um, who do you think won the popular vote?
Nobody, because there is no "popular vote" for President of the US.
"Popular vote" is a fiction invented by those who are unhappy that their candidate lost the election, or by those who won and want to claim some "huge mandate from the public" to do something. The rest of us know what it takes to win.
It is ridiculous to assume that the "popular vote" would be the same were it the actual system in use to elect the President, and that's why it is ridiculous to assume it means anything when it is not. If the voters (and candidates) operated under a "popular vote" system, the results could be, and probably would be, very much different. There are too many instances of people who don't bother voting because they know their state will go to the "other person". For example, if you live in California why bother voting for a Republican president when you know that the Democrat is going to win anyway? Many of those non-votes would have voted had "popular vote" been the rule of the day, and it is unlikely that the California statewide vote total would have been as lopsided as it was. Or maybe it would be. That's the point -- you can't know until it happens, and it didn't happen.
And because they were too arrogant to elect her instead of bernie who was overall ranking higher than her against trump.
^^^ This.
Electing the first woman became more important that our fucking economy and natural security. Now we have alt-rights advising our president, chairs of oil companies being appointed to office, collusion w/ Russia, and we are the laughing stock of the world. My fucking god they failed.
Why wouldn't it be fair if 10 million people had their votes counted equally as 10 million other people? As it is, politicians basically spend all their time in swing states. People make a big deal about how they would go to dense population areas, but as it is, they DON'T go to those places because they already have the vote for that state in the bag.
It may also have to do with the fact that California has invested in higher education more than any other state. Look where the founders of these companies come from! It may also have to do with California having things like public transportation so that people can actually get to work. The weather in Florida is just as good as California and no earthquakes. We have no tech industry to speak of and much lower taxes.
When I think about this election. I can not help but think of Issac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy.. And the various eras of leadership and government the foundation went through.
;)
Maybe we are transitioning from the era of the modern profession elite career politician (which I think may have started with Kennedy). And now it has ended with poor corrupt incompetent status quo leadership. Ending with presidents, Clinton, Bush and Obama. They were not bad presidents, they just were not very good at the job.
To the new era of Corporate Business Tycoons (no elite political background). But (I hope) strong leadership and competence. Maybe the next 50 years will be a succession of Business Tycoons from both political parties. And in 50+ years Business Tycoons will be the corrupt incompetent status quo. And something new will arise.
But that will be for future generations
Probably because any one of the scandals surrounding him would have forced other candidates to drop out.
Remember Herman Cain had some women makes some claims about him? Trump actually admitted to sexually assaulting women in a recording!
Remember Ron Paul had some shady racist letters in his past? Trump had to settle a lawsuit because of being racist
This list goes on...
White males hate a powerful women.
You know what I hate? Collusion w/ Russia. Oil execs running our government. Invitations to hack our political system. Alt-right activists advising the president. Well tell me, was it worth it? Is all of that worth to run H and have her lose?
This isn't some college campus where we push the envelope of society and learn about ourselves in the process. This may mean our dads, sons, and brothers dying in conflicts over big business interest. This may mean a global conflict war. This means loss of our national healthcare. This means spiraling to our nation debt and setting the stage for a recession 4 years from now. This means loss of respect in the world stage.
There was more at stake here than getting a woman elected and our subconscious fear of a powerful woman.
But Trump's opponents appear to be almost entirely comprised of racists.
As they say on Avenue Q, everyone is a little bit racist. Denying the obvious doesn't help.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RovF1zsDoeM
We can not force the rest of the world to not emit CO2. The best way to stop them is to make renewable/less polluting power less expensive than coal. In California, we have drought - which is famous for lots of sun and few clouds. Think we can find a better use of land than growing almond trees?
Once we perfect solar, we can bankrupt Texas dirty manufacturing with power that literally falls on us for free from the sky. In the process, we are going to bring lots of jobs and revenue into the state and build up technology export industry for the rest of the world.
Wallowing in self pity over Trump is not solving any problems. Even with Hillary, we would have hard time convincing China, India and Russia to do much about greenhouse gases. Anyone who claims want to save the Earth needs to actually get their hands dirty.