It seems to me like the House and Senate can represent the needs and ideals of individual states and districts, they do that in different ways, and that's the reason they are constructed the way they are. The Supreme Court is supposed to represent no one but objectively interpret the law of the land (yeah right). And the Executive is supposed to represent the nation.
Perhaps I am naive.
This. Conservatives have used loopholes and gerrymandering to win elections for decades because when it comes down to it (especially in modern times) progressive ideals generally poll at over 50% It's all about how they can divy up and group together unfavorable votes and repackage those ideas with icky terms (I.E. renaming the estate tax the death tax). It's just so transparently dishonest.
The primary effect of America's federalist presidential election process is to protect the freedom of individuals -- particularly those in small states and sparsely populated areas. Perhaps the best method of demonstrating the benefits of federalism is to expose the evils suffered without it.
As the system stands today, presidential candidates have no incentive to poll large margins in any one state. Winning 50.1 percent of the votes in a state is as effective as winning 100 percent of the votes. Presidential candidates therefore tour the nation, campaigning in all states and seeking to build a national coalition that will enable them to win a majority of states' electoral votes.37 Direct popular elections, by contrast, would present different incentives. Suddenly, winning 100 percent of the votes is better than winning 50.1 percent of the votes. In fact, it may be easier to rack up votes in a friendly state than to gain 50.1 percent of votes in each of two states of similar size, although the payoff would be essentially the same.
The result? Democrats would almost certainly spend most of their time in the large population centers in California and New York. Republicans would campaign in the South and Midwest. Large cities would be focused on almost exclusively as the candidates seek to turn out as many votes as possible in "their" region of the country. Small states, rural areas, and sparsely populated regions would find themselves with little to no voice in presidential selection. In this scenario, a handful of states (or heavily populated cities) win, while the remaining states and less-populated areas suffer significantly.38
The primary effect of America's federalist presidential election process is to protect the freedom of individuals -- particularly those in small states and sparsely populated areas. Perhaps the best method of demonstrating the benefits of federalism is to expose the evils suffered without it.
As the system stands today, presidential candidates have no incentive to poll large margins in any one state. Winning 50.1 percent of the votes in a state is as effective as winning 100 percent of the votes. Presidential candidates therefore tour the nation, campaigning in all states and seeking to build a national coalition that will enable them to win a majority of states' electoral votes.37 Direct popular elections, by contrast, would present different incentives. Suddenly, winning 100 percent of the votes is better than winning 50.1 percent of the votes. In fact, it may be easier to rack up votes in a friendly state than to gain 50.1 percent of votes in each of two states of similar size, although the payoff would be essentially the same.
The result? Democrats would almost certainly spend most of their time in the large population centers in California and New York. Republicans would campaign in the South and Midwest. Large cities would be focused on almost exclusively as the candidates seek to turn out as many votes as possible in "their" region of the country. Small states, rural areas, and sparsely populated regions would find themselves with little to no voice in presidential selection. In this scenario, a handful of states (or heavily populated cities) win, while the remaining states and less-populated areas suffer significantly.38
I see your point, I guess we're just going to have to agree to disagree. I just see no value in the current system, where they ignore population centers in favor of 6 or 7 swing states.
The primary effect of America's federalist presidential election process is to protect the freedom of individuals -- particularly those in small states and sparsely populated areas. Perhaps the best method of demonstrating the benefits of federalism is to expose the evils suffered without it.
As the system stands today, presidential candidates have no incentive to poll large margins in any one state. Winning 50.1 percent of the votes in a state is as effective as winning 100 percent of the votes. Presidential candidates therefore tour the nation, campaigning in all states and seeking to build a national coalition that will enable them to win a majority of states' electoral votes.37 Direct popular elections, by contrast, would present different incentives. Suddenly, winning 100 percent of the votes is better than winning 50.1 percent of the votes. In fact, it may be easier to rack up votes in a friendly state than to gain 50.1 percent of votes in each of two states of similar size, although the payoff would be essentially the same.
The result? Democrats would almost certainly spend most of their time in the large population centers in California and New York. Republicans would campaign in the South and Midwest. Large cities would be focused on almost exclusively as the candidates seek to turn out as many votes as possible in "their" region of the country. Small states, rural areas, and sparsely populated regions would find themselves with little to no voice in presidential selection. In this scenario, a handful of states (or heavily populated cities) win, while the remaining states and less-populated areas suffer significantly.38
I see your point, I guess we're just going to have to agree to disagree. I just see no value in the current system, where they ignore population centers in favor of 6 or 7 swing states.
And the small states would have a voice in that if the dems didnt campaign there, they could just vote republican, and their vote would count just as much as everyone elses. The country is fairly 50/50, I don't see it disenfranchising anybody. Would a small state maybe be denied a campaign rally? maybe. I don't see that as a problem though.
I guess the founders cared a lot more about the people of, for example, Rhode Island having a say rather than New York City driving the agenda of the entire country than you do.
I guess the founders cared a lot more about the people of, for example, Rhode Island having a say rather than New York City driving the agenda of the entire country than you do.
I don't think we're in that provincial of a country anymore. I care about every single individual voice in this country being heard. That's not happening right now, period, end of story. If every single voice was heard, we wouldn't have a fascist buffoon as our president elect.
I guess the founders cared a lot more about the people of, for example, Rhode Island having a say rather than New York City driving the agenda of the entire country than you do.
Also, the founders weren't infallable. They thought it was acceptable for people to own other people.
I guess the founders cared a lot more about the people of, for example, Rhode Island having a say rather than New York City driving the agenda of the entire country than you do.
It's not JUST NYC, or just the coasts, though. The West coast and the NE were blue but there were plenty of Hillary Clinton voters in the Midwest and South. They just didn't win their states. If it was "just" the coasts or just NYC, she wouldn't be able to win the popular vote.
But you also have to remember this is the count with the game with the current rules. The calculus of political operations changes mightily if you go to a straight vote system. I wonder what the Democratic operation in New York City and the Republican operation in Texas would look like.
To be fair to you all ... she hasn't actually won the popular vote yet. Latest counts have her ahead by about 200,000 votes. You still have absentee ballots of every state as well.
For example, as of two hours ago, Arizona (which Trump won) still has 600,000 ballots to process.
A great number of absentee ballots are military men and women which typically vote Republican.
So, I'm not saying she won't have the popular vote when it's all tallied. It's been called because there is no hope for her in getting the electorates.
Your outrage is a little premature ... though, I suspect, if Clinton had been declared the victor ... you wouldn't be calling for a rework of the Electoral College process.
To be fair to you all ... she hasn't actually won the popular vote yet. Latest counts have her ahead by about 200,000 votes. You still have absentee ballots of every state as well.
For example, as of two hours ago, Arizona (which Trump won) still has 600,000 ballots to process.
A great number of absentee ballots are military men and women which typically vote Republican.
So, I'm not saying she won't have the popular vote when it's all tallied. It's been called because there is no hope for her in getting the electorates.
Your outrage is a little premature ... though, I suspect, if Clinton had been declared the victor ... you wouldn't be calling for a rework of the Electoral College process.
I would in fact be talking about this if she had won the electoral vote but he won the popular. And you can damn well bet he would be crowing about it for years. For all his talk of the election being rigged, this is an actual concrete example of voter will being ignored. I'll stop crowing about this myself, I just think it's foolish to think that this is preferable to everyone's vote having equal weight. Especially in a national media landscape where candidates messages reach all 50 states anyway.
If you're willing to sign, there is a petition going around to eradicate the electoral vote system.
And replace it with what? It's great that people want to get rid of it, but if no solution has been given that would "fairly" weight the national vote, it would be a hard sale to many.
uhhh just a straight popular vote? I'm sorry but I think all the states rights arguments on this issue are bullshit. The electoral college was a compromise to satisfy slave owning states. It's antiquated and flawed. 1 vote=1 vote.
we discussed this in another thread (or maybe this one). Over all popular vote would t work either (ideal maybe, but it doesn't fix the disparity that would remain).
If you're willing to sign, there is a petition going around to eradicate the electoral vote system.
And replace it with what? It's great that people want to get rid of it, but if no solution has been given that would "fairly" weight the national vote, it would be a hard sale to many.
I'm not sure what the point of that would be. There were similar petitions in 2000. This isn't meant to be insulting, but this will accomplish little.
Did you mean to quote me? I am looking for a variable to solution before we can even discuss the matter.
I don't mean to argue but what disparity? disproportionate state representation? I don't mean to be crass but who cares? states are arbitrary lines drafted on a map. If the majority of the country wants something, that's how a democracy should work. (I understand we're a democratic republic, but there is nothing democratic about the currently segmented methods of voting). Also, I just wanna make it clear I (and a lot of people I know) have been saying this for years. This isn't sour grapes over this election. This one particularly stings though, because it allowed a fascist to take power in an electoral landslide despite the fact that he had less votes than this opponent.
Ask people in the smaller states who cares like I said I am open for dialog in getting rid of the system, we just need something that would 1) be accepted 2) not disproportionally affect smaller states. Our system is what it is and "blowing it up immediately" isn't going to work. We have to work within the system that was built to make the changes we can. I mean why not dissolve the United States since really all it is made up of are arbitrary lines made up by previous generations. I mean our country is bounded by "arbitrary lines" what's the point? (I am making extreme examples on purpose). Let's just get rid of the "lines". Again, extreme talk will go no where, as I said I'm for getting rid of the EC, I just want a viable solution for everyone.
I'm really not trying to be combatative I'm just really running up against a brick wall with this logic. How is it better to respect smaller states rights at the cost of essentially disenfranchising the majority of voters? It just seems really silly.
Like I dont think it's extreme to say that every vote should count. I live in New York. My votes have never helped to decide a presidential election. In one of the most populated states in the country. That's ridiculous.
Correct it COULD happen ... it hasn't happened yet.
2000 occurred with a margin of over 500,000 votes ... and the last time it happened before that was 112 years ago.
Though the merits of a Popular Election process vs the Electoral College have been debated plenty of times ... there has yet to be a viable alternative that satisfies the intricacies of the political process fairly.
The EC hasn't matched the popular vote on 4 occasions in 228 years or 56 elections. Sounds like a pretty good record.
Your deep level fear of a particular individual isn't a valid reason to change the Constitution. Sorry.
If your outrage was that, "The Electoral College has ACCURATELY represented the Will of the People 93% of the time in the history of this country and I'm not satisfied until I have a system that is 100%" then you might have a place to start.
Correct it COULD happen ... it hasn't happened yet.
2000 occurred with a margin of over 500,000 votes ... and the last time it happened before that was 112 years ago.
Though the merits of a Popular Election process vs the Electoral College have been debated plenty of times ... there has yet to be a viable alternative that satisfies the intricacies of the political process fairly.
The EC hasn't matched the popular vote on 4 occasions in 228 years or 56 elections. Sounds like a pretty good record.
Your deep level fear of a particular individual isn't a valid reason to change the Constitution. Sorry.
If your outrage was that, "The Electoral College has ACCURATELY represented the Will of the People 93% of the time in the history of this country and I'm not satisfied until I have a system that is 100%" then you might have a place to start.
That is exactly my outrage and I don't really get why you're misrepresenting it. I said that I would be equally calling for the electoral college to be outlawed if he won the popular but she won on EC. It delegitimizes the presidency of anyone that wins without actually winning the popular vote.
America is NOT a Democracy ... in fact, the Founding Fathers used "democracy" as a term to be ridiculed.
America is a Republic in that we choose representatives to vote on laws and the President.
The men that founded our country did not trust the Majority to make decisions in the best interest of our country. Sorry.
"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
That is exactly my outrage and I don't really get why you're misrepresenting it. I said that I would be equally calling for the electoral college to be outlawed if he won the popular but she won on EC. It delegitimizes the presidency of anyone that wins without actually winning the popular vote.
I understand that this is driven by emotion right now, but to say it de-legitimizes the presidency is simply not true. This is how the Constitution currently works, it's not a "trick", as you yourself stated we are a democratic republic, rather than a pure democracy. It's the reality. Maybe the EC changes somewhere down the road, but changing law retroactively because the law didn't benefit one party over another is a slippery slope.
One could argue with the same logic that we should abolish the Senate, as they can technically (and mathematically easily) have influence over decisions that do not involve the will of 50% of the citizens. And any requirement that needs a super majority of representation should also be abolished, as that requires more than 50% of a vote. I'm intentionally being facetious to illustrate that much of our political system is not a simple democratic or popular vote, and that there are reasons for it.
Nothing is perfect in our checks and balances system that is meant to require collaboration and compromise and you are certainly within your right to do what you feel you need to do to propose change, and it is possible more progress will be made on this front in light of this election.
America is NOT a Democracy ... in fact, the Founding Fathers used "democracy" as a term to be ridiculed.
America is a Republic in that we choose representatives to vote on laws and the President.
The men that founded our country did not trust the Majority to make decisions in the best interest of our country. Sorry.
"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
The republic versus democracy argument is a meaningless distinction. They refer to the same concept with different root. So the US is a republic and a representative democracy, not a pure democracy. But it is still a democracy. I mean, Jefferson and Madison created the Democratic Republican party, so it is hard to argue the they didn't see it as form of democracy. And the electoral college was created and kept for one reason only. Slavery. So to argue it should remain in place is insane. Parties don't want to give it up because it benefits them. Nothing to do with being fairer.
It's amazing that Michael Moore predicted all of this in chilling detail, in July. He is the true prophet, and I guess he never lost touch with where he came from.
Russia helping Trump, confirmed. Yes, this is blatantly illegal but EMAILS. Fuck you.
Also can I just say that for all the people that are saying we need to unite and listen to what Trump supporters have to say to think about that for a moment?
To me it is extremely troublesome that people of this nation are alright with the bigotry, sexism, xenophobic, etc that is at play and it is more troublesome that they think it's alright for us, as a nation to try to convince our fellow citizens that it is okay too. It is not okay. In fact, the more and more that I think about it, the more absurd it is. I know for the most part that we have all tried to at some level educate, and to coddle, or to just laugh at the people we've seen as sexist, racist, homophobic, etc. The problem is not that we haven't taken their opinions seriously but we have treated them unfairly, we have denied them personal responsibility, when they should face it.We should fight for them to reassess their opinions and when their opinions affect people negatively, we should fight for consequence to their actions.
Was just listening to the Cracked.com podcast analyzing the election result and David Wong had some good points about where some of the sentiment comes from (he's written articles about it and spoken about it before on the podcast as well) and some suggestions on how to internalize it. I'm coming from the same place, obviously. Our family does stand to be hurt in a financial way if the ACA is rolled back (we have two young special needs children) although not as severely as others, and I think it's reasonable to assume that his campaign and election relaxes the social mores against overt *ism (or as his people would call it, political correctness), which as white people doesn't directly affect us--either as a direct threat or as a cloud over the country except insofar as it's depressing. That said, the march of progress has always been one that takes two steps forward and then one step back--there's a reason why partisan control of government changes on a pretty regular basis, and that benefited Trump this time. The way to convince people that gays/blacks/muslims/whoever deserve their respect and to be treated equally isn't by mocking them even though that feels good, the way people are convinced is by being exposed to something and making up their own mind about it by realizing they didn't know anything about it. As in pretty much all things, experience is the best teacher. That's a big part of why the nation has generally gotten more progressive with striking speed (see the popular polling on gay marriage, recreational marijuana, etc): As people have been exposed to something they've come to realize that it's not what they were told it was. It's very hard to convince someone not to believe something they were told (and brought up to believe) just by telling them something else.
I'm not sanguine about the prospect of a Trump presidency, I think it'll be awful for a lot of people (especially the politically weak), for the environment and planet, possibly even for the Pax Americana. But that die is cast, there are no do-overs, now we have to take a good hard look at ourselves and figure out where we go from here.
I was really hoping that this outcome would send your nation's economy into such a devastating tailspin that I could pick up a Vive for cheap. But so far the market actually seems to be *up*? Things just keep getting stranger.
I feel like I'm living in 1984 neither party actually has anything to do with their stated agenda. Sure the Dems are progressives but they also are more than happy to take Saudi oil money. Who execute gay people.
The supposed conservative republicans have overseen the biggest build of government the nation has ever seen.
Orwell was onto something. People care more about the ideas than the actual reality of a situation.
I was really hoping that this outcome would send your nation's economy into such a devastating tailspin that I could pick up a Vive for cheap. But so far the market actually seems to be *up*? Things just keep getting stranger.
give it a while, once we remove all banking regulations there's a decent chance we'll have a replay of 2008 before too long. unfortunately it might mess up your economy too again.
Comments
As the system stands today, presidential candidates have no incentive to poll large margins in any one state. Winning 50.1 percent of the votes in a state is as effective as winning 100 percent of the votes. Presidential candidates therefore tour the nation, campaigning in all states and seeking to build a national coalition that will enable them to win a majority of states' electoral votes.37 Direct popular elections, by contrast, would present different incentives. Suddenly, winning 100 percent of the votes is better than winning 50.1 percent of the votes. In fact, it may be easier to rack up votes in a friendly state than to gain 50.1 percent of votes in each of two states of similar size, although the payoff would be essentially the same.
The result? Democrats would almost certainly spend most of their time in the large population centers in California and New York. Republicans would campaign in the South and Midwest. Large cities would be focused on almost exclusively as the candidates seek to turn out as many votes as possible in "their" region of the country. Small states, rural areas, and sparsely populated regions would find themselves with little to no voice in presidential selection. In this scenario, a handful of states (or heavily populated cities) win, while the remaining states and less-populated areas suffer significantly.38
https://www.facebook.com/eric.cunanan.737/posts/10207331453635092
The supposed conservative republicans have overseen the biggest build of government the nation has ever seen.
Orwell was onto something. People care more about the ideas than the actual reality of a situation.