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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.
There is no stopping him; Trump will soon be president. And I for one welcome our new orange overlord. I’d like to remind him that as a trusted slashdot personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in his underground cheeto dust cave hotels.
(Disclaimer: I didn't vote for the SOB.)
I note that in all the discussion of how Clinton won the popular vote, in CalExit America, she actually lost by about half a million votes. California's vote was that lopsided.
Trump is ... an embarrassment, at best, but the overheated histrionics of the Left wore very very thin a long time ago.
I've been saying for years: Never give powers to your very favorite president in history that you wouldn't want to see in the hands of the president who horrifies you the most. The current administration has spent 8 years weaponizing the Federal government to go after his opponents. For those who applauded that... we'll see how that works out for you in the next 4-8 years.
Maybe we'll get some actual consensus that federalism and limited powers are a good thing again. If so, a Trump presidency might be just the medicine we need, no matter how bad it tastes.
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.
We sort of do, just not on national popular vote. We elect them, in general, based on state popular votes. While states are technically allowed to choose their electors any way they want, most choose the group affiliated with the ticket that won their state popular vote (apart from Maine and Nebraska who partition the votes). While they could if they wanted to, none of the states do crazy things like choosing electors based on a mouse race or paintball fight or any such nonsense. Barring some drastic change in the future, the way the majority of your state votes is the way your electors vote for the most part.
Fun Fact: The majority of emissions in the US come from states which literally are taking action, no matter what the feds say.
Fun Fact: US solar power (in annual output per device) literally doubled in the last three months.
Fun Fact: All - and I do mean all - fossil fuels are much more expensive than both solar and wind. Today. In the USA.
Fun Fact: plug in electric vehicles - which are mostly used in cities which have green energy, and are frequently charged by solar panels - literally doubled in the US during the last six months. There's a factory in Detroit that churns out 600 of them a day. Range 200 miles on a charge. Costs less than 30k.
It really doesn't matter what you do, we're changing the world already. And we will leave you in the dust with more efficient, CHEAPER, green energy and more efficient factories.
Capitalism doesn't care about your failed ideology or your political persuasions. It literally does. not. care.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
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.
As opposed the the dems selling out to Saudi Arabia and going to war with Russia ?
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.
Obama did a few odds/ends executive orders that could have been shut down by Congress if they cared to bother. Mostly he didn't lock up non-violent drug offenders and he didn't go out of his way to deport illegal immigrants who were holding down jobs (though his admin still did a fuck load of deporting). The right didn't care that much about #1 and actively support #2 so long as they don't have to admit it to their base (they can't get enough of that sweet, sweet cheap labor).
We don't need federalism. The federal gov't were the ones that put a stop to the farce that was "Separate but Equal". They broke up the Trusts. They enabled the Unions that created the middle class. They bring in real and effective disaster relief and keep our shipping ports open. The State governments have proven themselves powerless to stand against even the smallest tyrannies time and time again. Look at Flint, Mi's Water supply (that Gov Snyder is still fighter the cleanup of) and the complete breakdown in Democracy it represented.
What's the phrase about small gov'ts? Small enough to drown in a bathtub? That's your democracy. Small enough to drown in a bathtub...
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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.
I was going to bitch about linking that fucking goddamned WaPo article complaining about all the darned country bumpkins who are too stupid to understand AGW, but then I saw that mi was writing. I wasn't sure mi was capable of sarcasm but stranger things have happened.
California!? What do they know? Oh yeah, how to build a economic powerhouse that respects cultural diversity.
Not exactly. The fact that several high value tech companies decided to locate somewhere over there has more to do with mundane things (like weather and geography) than any political factors. If New England was one state instead of several, you'd see basically the same landmass only with a bigger economy.
The electoral college were the agreed upon rules of the competition, before the competition started. If enough people dislike the system, it can be changed. However everyone who was running for president knew all the rules before the votes were cast. Asking to go back and change the rules based on the results is never a good idea.
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 honestly believe that the incoming President Trump showed great insight when he said this:
https://twitter.com/realDonald...
You are welcome on my lawn.
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'.
... Trump isn't going to destroy the planet. We are going to be just fine.
On the other hand, "the planet" and "we" are not one in the same.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Democrats haven't been this mad since Republicans freed their slaves
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.
I can get a 4 door death mobile (Versa/Elantra/Fit/Yaris) for 1/3 that. Yeah, I won't survive a crash with an SUV, but looking at what I'm driving you gotta ask yourself, do I want to?
And your right about Capitalism. It doesn't give a rats ass. When food becomes scarce because of climate change that's just more profits for the folks who own the farms. Sure, 10% of the population will starve (that seems to be the # you can really take a dump on before you get problems) but hey, Capitalism doesn't care about anything. Especially morality and human suffering.
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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?
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?
Interestingly, the Wikileaks dump had this snippet about Joe Biden:
Ron Klain, a Democrat stalwart who served as chief of staff to Biden and Vice President Al Gore, sent an email to Podesta suggesting the Clinton campaign wasn’t sitting idly by while Biden was agonizing as to whether or not to stage a campaign for president, just months after the tragic death of his son Beau.
“It’s been a little hard for me to play such a role in the Biden demise – and I am definitely dead to them — but I’m glad to be on Team HRC, and glad that she had a great debate last night,” he wrote to Podesta and Clinton Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri.
I make no judgement about this - it's how politics is done - but note that Joe Biden would probably have been a stronger opponent than HRC was.
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
Except that the whole point of the electoral college is that electors can block the winner if they don't like the result.
Or one could say the point of the electoral college is that sometimes the popular vote is a bad choice.
"His name was James Damore."
Also, Democrats seem to like the idea of a limited federal government again.
"His name was James Damore."
We won, simply by the fact that both the Bush and the Clinton dynasties were shut down in this election cycle.
Trump is sort of the political equivalent of Drano. Nobody wants to drink it or get any of it on their skin, but there are times when pouring some Drano into a sink will fix problems.
I doubt if he'll get a second term. You don't need to use Drano that often.
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.
If New England was one state instead of several, you'd see basically the same landmass only with a bigger economy.
Except California doesn't have snow to deal with. It's hard to be productive in a t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops during a blizzard.
Except that Drano is often a bad choice to fix a blockage, as it can damage pipes and won't clear some kinds of debris. It's the proper tool for someone too lazy to use proper tools or too cheap to call a professional.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/garden/24fix.html as one example.
It's even "terrible for the environment." Hey, look at that, so is Trump.
Thanks for the oddly-appropriate metaphor.
Can you imagine the outcry if China had hacked the RNC and tipped the election so that HCR won?
You mean after the sitting Republican president had already claimed there was no evidence of any such influence?
But yes, I can imagine the outcry. It would be a larger version of the rioting and looting and burnings and shootings every time the Daley machine rigged the elections in Chicago. Oh, wait, the Republicans didn't riot or loot when that happened ...
I think they call your "argument" projection. You know what you'd do, and you assume that others would do the same thing. Or you just want to insult others and spread fear.
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.
Seriously, I shouldn't bother posting in political threads. The butt hurt is so strong, I only ever get modded down, despite not trying to troll, but simply not repeating the same line as everyone else. But I'm a glutton for punishment, so I'll bite, again.
The "whole point" of the electoral college is not to block a winner that the college doesn't like. The main effect has always been to elevate the voice of lower population centers. It was clear, even at the start of the country, that more rural areas of the country, while being lower in population, need to have a way to have their voice heard, and their interests protected. The electoral college provides votes for states based on population, but gives a larger voice to the smaller population states. While it is true that states like Florida, California, and New York have very large populations and therefore more electoral votes, the voice of those states alone cannot dictate the course of the country.
But whatever... I'm sure I'm just an ignorant troll, so mod me down accordingly.
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.
94.5% of voters voted for one of the two worst major-party presidential candidates in history.
This country is getting what it deserves.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
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.
Or one could say the point of the electoral college is that sometimes the popular vote is a bad choice.
No, the point of the electoral college is that the President is president of the united states and needs to have the interests of ALL the states in mind, not just the few most populous ones. "Bad choice" is highly subjective; the result of the election is a quantitative measure.
Well, you can spend the next 8 years complaining about Trump and his supporters, or spend the next 4 years coming up with something positive for the Dems to be for (not identity politics, that's inherently negative). If all you've got by then is someone who's against Trump, it will be 2004 all over again. See you in 2020.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
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.
It was to have a mechanism to block a bad popular candidate
An it worked perfectly. Hillary was a bad popular choice.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
We won, simply by the fact that both the Bush and the Clinton dynasties were shut down in this election cycle.
Trump is sort of the political equivalent of Drano. Nobody wants to drink it or get any of it on their skin, but there are times when pouring some Drano into a sink will fix problems.
I doubt if he'll get a second term. You don't need to use Drano that often.
While not scientific, the friends and family that I argued with prior to the election I actually got to sit down with (yay holidays) recently. I always argued that Clinton would make a better president and a would represent the status-quo. I.e. keep us chugging along while we as a country found ourselves and found a candidate that we could mostly agree was okay together (one step at a time right?). Everyone I talked to hated Clinton, they _hated_ her but they also did not like Trump. They, took a deep breath and swallowed the Drano in hopes that in four years they are not blind. They _needed_ someone other than Clinton. Whether it is logical or not, Clinton was a damaged candidate (I have logical reasons why she was, but I could not support Trump).
If you took the candidate away and discussed her policies they pretty much agreed the policies were okay. They did want a merging of the two a little bit (H1B issues for one thing, like me a few of our family members are in the STEM field (none at this gathering, but they were looking out for their kids)). They wanted to feel safer and if that meant extra vetting of refugees that was okay, as long as the refugees were in good conditions (i.e. halfway point) and not in immediate danger. I even got a couple to admit his cabinet picks so far is not what they considered draining the swamp, one also used the sewage works term (she was very much TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP! before hand).
Two did admit they hope Trump and the Republican Congress would install Christianity as the national religion - I did not even have to argue this one, the others were quick to tell them to shut up and if they want to something akin to a national religion there are other counties they can immigrate to, so until they leave, let the rest of us practice our faith (or not at all if we do not believe) in peace and quiet without them sticking their nose in (that made me smile).
It was a good conservation - the ultimate take away I took from it was a) Should NEVER have been Clinton, b) They felt us progressives were being to pushy with our social agenda, while they were not opposed, they said we need to learn how to speak to those that do not agree with us better, c) They don't even know what to believe in the media anymore and they work to much to sift through all the BS.
Even in cities with several ethnic groups the are all in clusters, like oil drops in water.
You mentioned Silicon Valley in the 1980's. That's not Silicon Valley today. I live in what used to be a predominately white apartment complex outside of downtown San Jose. Except for the folks in the leasing office, I'm the only white person in this complex. When I get on the bus, I'm usually the only white person on board and a half-dozen languages other than English is being spoken at any time. When I go to work in Palo Alto, I'm the only white person in the IT department.
California [...] the racial war zone it actually is.
As we say in California: "What are you smoking and where can I get some?"
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
What public transportation? BART?
Your life is the reason why war is inevitable.
Because I accept other people as human beings? Grow up!
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.
The funny thing is that half my coworkers at the startup where I first worked in the Valley were originally from Florida and used to work at a tech company there. Florida, despite its favorable tax structure, used to have a tech industry and basically no longer does. Keeping a knowledge-based industry requires a certain critical mass, and if you don't have that, the industry disintegrates.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
The "whole point" of the electoral college is not to block a winner that the college doesn't like.
True. That's a BS claim created out of a misreading of Federalist 68, promoted recently by people like Lawrence Lessig and the so-called "Hamilton Electors." I'm not going to bother rehashing all of this here, because I already explained Federalist 68 in detailed historical context in a post here.
The main effect has always been to elevate the voice of lower population centers.
Well, that's partially true. But if that were the main concern of the Founders, they could have just had Congress pick the President. Or they could have just assigned a set of weighted abstract "votes" to states based on Congressional representation numbers. Instead they chose to have actual Electors. Why? Again, I already explained it before in posts here and here.
For those who need a TL;DR explanation...
Basically, the Electoral College was conceived by the Founders at a time when political parties didn't exist and they couldn't imagine consensus over any candidates extending much beyond state borders. So, they first thought of having people on the national political scene (e.g., Congress) select the President, but they were afraid of corruption. So they came up with this wacky system of the Electoral College which was both designed in very specific (and arcane) ways to make regional candidates "float to the top" (you'll have to read my previous posts to understand how) AND put that power of in the hands of Electors who held no government office (and thus were less likely to collude or be corrupted). They built in all sorts of safeguards to prevent this collusion among Electors, which is why (among other things) they meet in separate states instead of all together.
Anyhow, the entire system was basically rendered useless with the emergence of political parties in 1796. It served some vague function for the next few decades, but became completely useless by the 1820s when most states adopted "general ticket" party-chosen slates of electors, rather than independent free thinking educated folks selected by the states to choose the President.
All of these other more modern justifications for the existence of the Electoral College are post hoc and don't take into account the situation the Founders were originally in.
It's amazing that we live through this twice. Back in 2008, Obama beat Hillary by focusing on delegates when she just kind of assumed she was going to win. Same bad strategy there and assuming her team could just win everything for her. It's amazing she can manage to get the press to go along with the seeming inevitability of her win when she's lost so much.
Speaking of which, for anyone who didn't see the Newsweek special edition that got recalled, one of the articles about her is entitled "Queenmakers." You can't make this stuff up. It's on p. 92-93 if you have a copy. Here's a sample from the end of the article:
Snopes says this is just a cover. I have to wonder if the same article is in the Trump version, which I don't have? It's completely focused on her and only mentions him in passing, so I kind of doubt the Trump one is just a cover swap.
With the popular vote, everyone has exactly the same voting power. A person from California's vote is the same as a person from North Dakota's. No one is "lesser" in that case. What you prefer is for some peoples' votes to count more because they choose to live farther away from other people.
I can't believe I'm about to defend this ridiculous place...
BUT
I was born and raised in the San Joaquin Valley, and what you say doesn't even begin to resemble my experience. While it's certainly true that I've known a handful of racist white people, they've been an oddity in my life. As for segregated neighborhoods, I'm a white guy surrounded by Mexicans. I've also had Black neighbors in this same neighborhood, in years past, so I'm really not seeing where you're coming from, there. Furthermore, I've never seen anyone turned away from a bar, due to their race (granted, I don't spend a lot of time in bars).
As for the Bi-Lingual Education thing, that came about because Spanish-speaking students had a lower collective GPA than English-speaking students. The thought was that the students were failing because they couldn't understand the language in which the lessons were being taught. So, they teach the primary curriculum to them in Spanish, and then they're supposed to also teach them English as a Second Language. I went through the local public school system, and I haven't met any Mexicans who both grew up here and don't know English. Generally the Mexicans I know who don't speak English very well, are immigrants, and especially immigrants who came over here later in life. I've had friends whose elderly grandparents didn't learn English at all, but if you're 75 and immigrating just to be with your kids and grandkids, then I think that you can be forgiven for not learning the language, and I don't think I'd expect you to, let alone require it.
Don't get me wrong. We've got an abundance of hateful, intolerant people in this state, but they're usually not racists, unless they're racist toward white people, but even that isn't terribly common around here. There's a lot of man-haters, rich-people-haters and Trump-haters (can't swing a cat without hitting one), but people hating on Mexicans, Black people or Asians are strange and unusual. If you told me that this was the most hateful state in the union, I'm not sure that I could disagree so easily, but to describe California as racist just doesn't mix with what I see around me.
Learning about brewing beer, by brewing beer.
That is democracy isn't it? Better than two wolves and three sheep deciding the wolves should get to decide.
Before the Republicans went absolutely insane, "Blue" states voted for Republican presidential candidates plenty of times.
The Republicans are the ones desperately trying to hang-on to power. They're the ones passing all those voter ID laws, which courts keep striking down. They're the former home of Jim Crow laws. They're the ones gerrymandering voting districts, which is the only reason the GOP is able to keep their House numbers up, even though the population is mostly Republican. It's a Republican governor and senate in North Carolina stripping the powers of the incoming Democratic governor. Lets be clear which party the facts show are desperately trying to corrupt the democratic process to hang on to power...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
If you ride the bus, you probably don't make as much as those who drive their car to work, which means you live with the poorer demographic.
I pay $140 per month to ride the express bus to Palo Alto (one hour each way) to avoid taking the local buses (two hours each way) and driving on the freeway (20 minutes in the morning, 45 to 90 minutes in the evening). I'm sure my fellow passengers who work at Tesla, SAP, vmWare, Google, HP, Lockheed and Stanford will get a kick out of being considered a "poor demographic" in Silicon Valley.
How many people that live in actual houses there are non-white or non-asian?
One of the Indian engineers who worked at HP complained about owning a five-year-old condo with 20-foot-tall ceilings.
[...] and poor black people tend to like run-down apartments [...]
My 50-year-old apartment complex looked like 1960's housing project when I first moved in nearly 12 years ago. After four different corporate owners in recent years, these "luxury" apartments with new paint and appliances are going for the same monthly rate as a new luxury apartment complex down the street.
Er, that's a broken way of looking at it. If she ONLY got votes in three precinct in California, she wouldn't have won the popular vote. But in fact she got votes in every part of the country, which add up to a substantial (2.8 million) margin of popular vote victory.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
You know, instead of signalling your worry, you might try being "hopeful". Like the title to your post.
It hasn't really occurred to the left, but Trump is more capable and has more integrity than they give him credit for.
I will give you competence maybe and I would have given you intelligence if you had asked. Clearly people have underestimated Trump. If you think that trump might have integrity you need your head examined. Take a look at the details of the Trump University case - there is a reason the thing was settled out of court. If that's not enough have a look into trumps charity or ask yourself what is the deal with the obvious nepotism and failure to disengage with current business activities on the grounds of conflict of interest. Imagine that the same things were being said of Obama and see how ok you are with it.
This is obvious when you consider all their predictions have been wrong, in every case. Trump won't win the nomination, Trump is melting down, Trump has *completely* melted down, Trump will never win the election, and on and on.
To be fair the best information we had put Hillary way ahead this wasn't just the left, for instance the people offering bets on the outcome of the election had the odds at 5:1 against trump a week from the election those odds did schrink to 2:1 against the day before the election - I would say these people had a pretty strong motivation to accurately predict the winner.
Why should we believe anything the left says, when none of their past predictions have come true?
It's also obvious because everyone is running around looking for the "why" of his success. I mean, it's Russia, it's Wikileaks, it's white supremacists, it's "fake news", it's Breitbart, it's Clinton, and on and on. Do you think that maybe Trump is more capable than you gave him credit for?
Part of the reason this is so hard to accept is because the man is so clearly full of shit. It's really hard to accept that anybody would think it a good idea to go with the guy who when asked a question repeats the same phrase again and again without actually saying anything coherent. I know that politicians are generally good at this but trump takes it to a whole new level. In the cases where Trump did propose policy it did not match the rhetoric.
And now everyone is running around with their hair on fire over every subtle thing he does. And I mean *really* "hair on fire" over some of his appointments: he'd going to dissolve the EPA and make our pollution worse than China,
The reason that people think that Trump is going to dissolve the EPA is because he himself said that he wanted to eliminate the EPA. More recently he softened that stance to strongly limiting the powers of the EPA. The question then is - did he say those things because he wanted to appeal to the red team or because he wants to limit the powers of the EPA? Judging from the appointments made I would lean it favour of the later
he's going to stage a military coup and install a fascist regime, [non-political] industry leader appointees are not "draining the swamp", an actual brain surgeon will be incompetent because he has no experience, and on and on.
Many of those appointments (but not all) do look like the opposite of draining the swamp, it's not just the left saying this. Being a surgeon doesn't particularly qualify for being in charge of housing policy, I am genuinely supprised that somebody would think that it would.
A lot of us on the alt-right get a big chuckle over the histrionics and fake emotion. We like seeing your heads explode over these things. You, for example, are signalling deep worry, in a way meant to infect everyone else into a state of deep worry. Go for it! (*snicker*)
We on the alt-right are noticing that a) he's not the president yet, b) he's appointing capable people, and c) he's still inten
Are you a moron or something? Those political nonprofits were trying to register AS POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS. Maybe you don't understand this, but there is a distinct category of nonprofit status just for organizations like them. The lazy auditors figured it out because the applicants checked the "political" box on the form.
The problem is that all but one or two of the left wing applications sailed through without a hitch, and a whole bunch of right wing groups got stuck in the IRS tar baby. Yes, the left does do that too. Some of them are still waiting, 2 elections later.
This was in the run up to the 2012 elections. Do you get that? Obama's administration actively suppressed the ability of citizens to organize opposition to his reelection campaign.
See that "Preview" button?
Actually its quite the opposite. Trump supporters have always taken him seriously and not literally. There's a reason he got tens of thousands of people to attend his rally's. But Democrats never listened to him, and never will, and only go by strictly what he says as gospel. So yeah, will be interesting to watch.
No, you can't conclusively say that if it was by popular vote Clinton would have won. All you can say is that if you run an electoral race, Clinton had more popular votes. If you ran a popular race, the voting outcomes could be very different than they were. You can't change the rules of a game and assume the players would make the same moves... It's like saying that if the queen was the piece that determined victory in chess you would have won against that grand master who sacrificed his queen. Well not really, you just don't want to admit you lost...
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
When an area has gone from 100% white to having a very small population of white people, that's clearly also ethnic cleansing.
Not in Silicon Valley. Many white people bought their homes for $30K to $60K in the 1960's and 1970's when the south bay was a still a bedroom community to San Francisco. If they kept their houses until the today, they could sell their house for $1M+, move out of the area or the state to buy a cheaper, larger house elsewhere, and retire off the remaining proceeds. The people buying the houses are likely to be young professionals of a different ethnic background. That's not ethnic cleansing, it's economics.
It's interesting how leftists consider the displacement of native people in foreign nations to be ethic cleansing, but consider it progressive and wonderful when the same thing happens in the west.
If you believe leftists are hiding underneath your bed, you need professional help.
Why do you hate yourselves so much?
I have a group of Jewish friends who are always complaining how this or that person is a self-hating Jew out to destroy Israel. One day I asked them: "Does a self-hating Jew actually think of themselves as a self-hating Jew or are they too busy living life to apply your label to themselves?" After a long silence, hey admitted that many self-hating Jews are probably too busy living life.
The point of a democracy is to represent people, this is why the popular vote is important. The electoral college was not designed to give one bunch of people more representation than another bunch. It was designed sensibly for a bunch of conditions present in 1776, but had sadly become obsolete by about 1800.
We are not a democracy however. We are a constitutional republic. The electoral college was designed to form "a more perfect union" and to balance states rights thereby preventing a tyranny of the majority (i.e. the popular vote). Those conditions have not changed. It is no coincidence that the number of electors is equal to the each states combined representation in congress.
In addition, the electoral college was established by the Constitutional Convention of 1787, not in 1776, and the first election was not held until 1789 which is a mere 11 years from when you say the conditions for it became obsolete (without any supporting arguments).
The more you know...
The main effect has always been to elevate the voice of lower population centers.
That's the Senate's job, not the Electoral College's job.
The size of each state's Electoral College delegation is primarily defined by the number of House seats. The founders intended there to be no more than 100,000 people per House district, but Connecticut's ratification of that amendment was literally lost in the mail. They did use that formula for number of House seats for roughly the first hundred years. Then the number of people per district started creeping up, mostly due to logistical issues. By the 1910s, we had crept up to 200,000 per House district....and we stopped expanding the House. So now we get fun things like Los Angeles county having more people in it than 40 US states, but Los Angeles county only has 18 House districts.
If we kept going at 200,000 people per district, then the House would have about 1200 seats, and the Electoral College would be utterly dominated by the most populous states. The Electoral College is only "elevating the voice of lower population centers" because of the fluke of not expanding the size of the House for a century. Keeping the size of the House stagnant for so long was never intended.
TL:DR: We vote for three federal offices.
1) Senate, over-represents small states by design.
2) House, over-represents small states by not expanding the House for the last 100 years.
3) President, over-represents small states due to #2.
Only #1 was intended by the founders. #2 and #3 were not.
Why bother posting easily falsifiable lies? All California does on voter registration is look up your DOB and SSN from your DMV information, and cross-check that with the SSA citizenship records, arguably more secure than relying on visual examination of paper records. They don't even allow people registering for the "illegal" driver's license" to attempt to register to vote, and getting a regular DMV license requires proof of citizenship. If you actually live in CA and have been through the DMV license application process, you're either wilfully ignorant, or are one of Drumpf's army of propagandists attempting to spread the meme that the HRC California win is "invalid". Face it, your candidate lost the popular vote by 3+ million votes, and the only reason he "won" is due to an antiquated and undemocratic mechanism designed in the era of slavery.
All the drama about recounts and "renegade electors" meant that Hillary Clinton lost three times. Which is great.
Too bad that meant Donald Trump won three itimes.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.