The GTP Unofficial 2020 US Elections Thread

[Joey D]

But they were incorrect in that she did not have the most votes she actually needed to win- electoral votes.

Probably because the electoral college is dated and doesn't work very well anymore.

 

[Danoff]

But they were incorrect in that she did not have the most votes she actually needed to win- electoral votes.

Polling is hard.

You know I'm reminded about how you decided to never trust science ever again after a non-scientist published a book in the 1940s that contained some bad advice. It seems as though you look for instances of intellectual failure as a way to discredit any and all evidence that contrasts with your echo-chamber. This is a cognitive bias known as "confirmation bias", and also presents itself in "selective rigor". You build an echo-chamber for yourself by being critical of anything that contrasts your views, while refusing to examine everything that doesn't.

This is a recipe for being wrong.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

Probably because the electoral college is dated and doesn't work very well anymore.

Actually it works as intended and that is to prevent a handful of highly populated states and high population dense urban areas from making the choices of who will be president for the entire country including areas and states that are less populated and face different issues or have different outlooks as a result of their lifestyle differences.

 

[mustafur]

Actually it works as intended and that is to prevent a handful of highly populated states and high population dense urban areas from making the choices of who will be president for the entire country including areas and states that are less populated and face different issues or have different outlooks as a result of their lifestyle differences.

So instead we ignore the Big populated states that carry most of the people, just because we know what direction they will vote.

 

[Rallywagon]

Actually it works as intended and that is to prevent a handful of highly populated states and high population dense urban areas from making the choices of who will be president for the entire country including areas and states that are less populated and face different issues or have different outlooks as a result of their lifestyle differences.

Sure, it's great. But just like with Trump, who was against it at first, its suddenly a great system because it's now gerrymandered to benefit your side rather than give equal representation to all people.

 

[Joey D]

Actually it works as intended and that is to prevent a handful of highly populated states and high population dense urban areas from making the choices of who will be president for the entire country including areas and states that are less populated and face different issues or have different outlooks as a result of their lifestyle differences.

It's still broken. It would work better if the electoral votes with each state were distributed based on the amount of vote each candidate received. So say a state has 10 electoral votes and Candidate A gets 60% of the popular vote in that state, that mean 6 votes would go to Candidate A. Candidate B get 30% of the vote and therefore is awarded 3 votes, and Candidate C gets 10% leaving them with 1 vote. I believe some states already do this or at least something similar to it.

 

[Danoff]

Actually it works as intended and that is to prevent a handful of highly populated states and high population dense urban areas from making the choices of who will be president for the entire country including areas and states that are less populated and face different issues or have different outlooks as a result of their lifestyle differences.

The President represents all people. The president cannot partially represent some kinds of people and partially represent other kinds of people. What you're thinking of is a system where there are specific representatives that are supposed to represent those different populations. Something where there is a conglomeration of different representatives that come together and vote in like... a some kind of "congress" if you will. If this "congress" we'll call it, had representatives that were decided based region rather than population, then it would address the concern you talk about. But then there's also the need to represent by population. So what we could do is separate congress into two parts, one of which represents populations, and the other represents regions.

Let's call the one that represents regions the "Senate".

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Actually it works as intended and that is to prevent a handful of highly populated states and high population dense urban areas from making the choices of who will be president for the entire country including areas and states that are less populated and face different issues or have different outlooks as a result of their lifestyle differences.

Why should people in less populated areas have more power than people in urban areas?

 

[VFOURMAX1]

The President represents all people. The president cannot partially represent some kinds of people and partially represent other kinds of people.

Why should people in less populated areas have more power than people in urban areas

They do not have more of a voice but more of an equal voice in who is elected. A state like Montana and Wyoming for instance the entire states population combined is about 1.6 million people. The population of New York CITY alone is over 19 million, the population of the city of L.A. is right about 4 million people.
So if those two entire states have differing viewpoints on the issues and who should be elected without the electoral college just the city of New York could make it to where their votes from 2 entire states would carry little weight in who won the election.

Prime example is 2nd amendment and gun rights issues are viewed entirely different in rural areas where about every household may own a firearm and they are just looked at as another tool where in urban areas many citizens either the police or the criminals are the only ones that own firearms and they are considered in a negative light and to be evil in that environment.

If you look at the liberal Democratic party most of its higher leaders are from either the state of California or the state of New York. Most Democratic strongholds are all highly populated urban areas and yes they would be thrilled if a couple of liberal cities could cancel the votes of several entire conservative voting states.

In the 2016 presidential election the Democrats only won by majority 19 states, that would mean that the Republican party won 31 states by majority vote. I would say that the right person went to the white house since way over half the states voted in the majority for him.

 

[Danoff]

They do not have more of a voice but more of an equal voice in who is elected. A state like Montana and Wyoming for instance the entire states population combined is about 1.6 million people. The population of New York CITY alone is over 19 million, the population of the city of L.A. is right about 4 million people.
So if those two entire states have differing viewpoints on the issues and who should be elected without the electoral college just the city of New York could make it to where their votes from 2 entire states would carry little weight in who won the election.

Prime example is 2nd amendment and gun rights issues are viewed entirely different in rural areas where about household may own a firearm and they are just looked at as another tool where in urban areas many citizens either the police or the criminals are the only ones that own firearms and they are considered in a negative light and to be evil in that environment.

If you look at the liberal Democratic party most of its higher leaders are from either the state of California or the state of New York. Most Democratic strongholds are all highly populated urban areas and yes they would be thrilled if a couple of liberal cities could cancel the votes of several entire conservative voting states.

In the 2016 presidential election the Democrats only won by majority 19 states, that would mean that the Republican party won 31 states by majority vote. I would say that the right person went to the white house since way over half the states voted in the majority for him.
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We have the senate. Also, the constitution is not up for vote.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

We have the senate. Also, the constitution is not up for vote.

That has nothing to do with the votes for the office of the president of this country and commander in chief of our military.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

They do not have more of a voice but more of an equal voice in who is elected. A state like Montana and Wyoming for instance the entire states population combined is about 1.6 million people. The population of New York CITY alone is over 19 million, the population of the city of L.A. is right about 4 million people.
So if those two entire states have differing viewpoints on the issues and who should be elected without the electoral college just the city of New York could make it to where their votes from 2 entire states would carry little weight in who won the election.

Prime example is 2nd amendment and gun rights issues are viewed entirely different in rural areas where about household may own a firearm and they are just looked at as another tool where in urban areas many citizens either the police or the criminals are the only ones that own firearms and they are considered in a negative light and to be evil in that environment.

If you look at the liberal Democratic party most of its higher leaders are from either the state of California or the state of New York. Most Democratic strongholds are all highly populated urban areas and yes they would be thrilled if a couple of liberal cities could cancel the votes of several entire conservative voting states.

In the 2016 presidential election the Democrats only won by majority 19 states, that would mean that the Republican party won 31 states by majority vote. I would say that the right person went to the white house since way over half the states voted in the majority for him.
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Your argument appears to be that states (an arbitrary abstraction of geography/cartography) are more important than people in the right of representation. Isn't that kind of absurd? Why not collect all of Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Idaho into an arbitrary new state called "Nowhere" and give them 2 senators total. It's just as rational as giving them 2 senators each. In it's current form, the Senate (again, the more powerful of the 2 bodies of congress) majority represents 18% of the population of the USA. 18% of the population decides who serves on the supreme court and, largely, who gets to be president. Do you really think that is democracy? I'm not asking if you prefer it that way, because you clearly do. But you can't say you like democracy when in reality, you actually just like power.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

Do you really think that is democracy? I'm not asking if you prefer it that way, because you clearly do. But you can't say you like democracy when in reality, you actually just like power.

First off this countries government is not a true DEMOCRACY where majority rules that is where your line of thought makes its first mistake. I prefer the representative government we have honestly.

"The United States is not a direct democracy, in the sense of a country in which laws (and other government decisions) are made predominantly by majority vote. Some lawmaking is done this way, on the state and local levels, but it’s only a tiny fraction of all lawmaking. But we are a representative democracy, which is a form of democracy.

To be sure, in addition to being a representative democracy, the United States is also a constitutional democracy, in which courts restrain in some measure the democratic will. And the United States is therefore also a constitutional republic. Indeed, the United States might be labeled a constitutional federal representative democracy. But where one word is used, with all the oversimplification that this necessary entails, “democracy” and “republic” both work. Indeed, since direct democracy — again, a government in which all or most laws are made by direct popular vote — would be impractical given the number and complexity of laws that pretty much any state or national government is expected to enact, it’s unsurprising that the qualifier “representative” would often be omitted. Practically speaking, representative democracy is the only democracy that’s around at any state or national level."

You may prefer the majority rules by numbers but when the numbers of citizens that prefer one way f doing things are clustered in a few densely populated areas I do not think they should be making the rules for the 80% of the country dictated by geography and area where the lifestyle of those citizens is entirely different than those that live on top of each other.

 

[huskeR32]

Actually it works as intended and that is to prevent a handful of highly populated states and high population dense urban areas from making the choices of who will be president for the entire country including areas and states that are less populated and face different issues or have different outlooks as a result of their lifestyle differences.

It's been pointed out here several times now that that is not the original reason for the Electoral College, despite the revisionist history that many will try and spout.

Slaveholding states insisted that voting for president be indirect, so that they could count their slaves as population that needed representation (or, 3/5th of them anyways), but not have to bother with actually letting them vote.

While this may have had a side-effect of giving smaller states more power, it wasn't the original intent. And since the Senate was always the one and only way the founders meant to bolster small states, the EC ought to have been tossed in the bin with slavery.

It simply doesn't make any sense for the one office meant to represent all Americans to be elected by any other means than a direct national vote.

EDIT:

You may prefer the majority rules by numbers but when the numbers of citizens that prefer one way f doing things are clustered in a few densely populated areas I do not think they should be making the rules for the 80% of the country dictated by geography and area where the lifestyle of those citizens is entirely different than those that live on top of each other.

Why is the inverse any better?

How is it wrong for the more heavily-populated areas to "make rules for" the rest of the country, but okay for the lightly-populated areas to do so instead?

Seriously, besides neatly aligning with your personal bias, what is any better about it?

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

You may prefer the majority rules by numbers but when the numbers of citizens that prefer one way f doing things are clustered in a few densely populated areas I do not think they should be making the rules for the 80% of the country dictated by geography and area where the lifestyle of those citizens is entirely different than those that live on top of each other.

Your argument:

Rural folks good
City folks bad



As I just posted in the America thread, I've lived in basically every type of geography and population density in this fair country, and I can tell you that
1: Your bias is garbage
2: Rural folks have no moral/other superiority to urban folks that would make it reasonable for them to have more representational power. The opposite is also true.

 

[Danoff]

That has nothing to do with the votes for the office of the president of this country and commander in chief of our military.

You want more rural say in how the president conducts military operations? Like I said, the president is a single person, it's not possible for that one person to carve up their brain and represent different portions of the US differently. You get one person, and that one person has to represent all of the people and all of the regions. They can't represent rhode island or montana less than texas but proportionally more based on EC weighting within their mind. The notion that the president is of the regions is absurd. The president represents the people. I know that it has been proposed that the president represents the states and not the people, but that is inconsistent with the reality of the US government today. Especially a post-civil war America is a single nation, with a single representative in the executive. We're not simply a collection of states, but a nation.

If you're worried that the small states are under-represented in a scenario where the presidency is determined by popular vote, fear not, the Senate is actually absurdly powerful, and is straight-weighted according to the states. It's a phenomenal amount of power for small states. More than they deserve actually.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

I'd be curious to know how @VFOURMAX1 would feel about the proportional power of the currently-lightly populated states if New York and California gave them some population "donations" just enough to tip their balance. It wouldn't be hard for just LA and NYC to incentivize a colonial settlement program to flip the entire center of the country to blue-state status. The latte invasion. The horror.

With how expensive larger cities have become, it might just naturally occur....

 

[Danoff]

I'd be curious to know how @VFOURMAX1 would feel about the proportional power of the currently-lightly populated states if New York and California gave them some population "donations" just enough to tip their balance. It wouldn't be hard for just LA and NYC to incentivize a colonial settlement program to flip the entire center of the country to blue-state status. The latte invasion. The horror.

With how expensive larger cities have become, it might just naturally occur....

If the people of montana want more power, all they need to do is split the state into 4 states, getting 8 senators instead of 2. If they split into 10 states they'd be almost unstoppable with 1 out of every 6 senators.

 

[Keef]

@Danoff So I was making friends in the libertarian subreddit the other day (gag), talking about how their own ideologoy precludes them from forming a party with any influence, and there of all places I managed to find those Bernie supporters who think the most senior doctors and airline pilots in the country "make too much money" basically. Something about "people who make $500k a year are in the 1%." I went off about 40 years of seniority, scarcity, achievement, etc. There aren't many airline pilots who make $500k a year, but they exist, and they spent most of their lives achieving it, and they're not even in the highest tax bracket yet, etc. These are normal people with great jobs, and they're not the problem. That said, 95% of FBOs in the US are showing Fox News this very moment and it's not a regional phenomenon, it's a cultural one.

Anyways, I tried to clarify to these people that it's not the most skilled, most senior, most certified employees that they need to worry about. It's the executives who own those employees. The ol' brain surgeon or 777 captain still goes to work just like the rest of us and they don't have time to lobby congress and influence policy. When it comes to the cronyism problem, apparently "1%" isn't quite descriptive enough.

 

[Danoff]

@Danoff So I was making friends in the libertarian subreddit the other day (gag), talking about how their own ideologoy precludes them from forming a party with any influence, and there of all places I managed to find those Bernie supporters who think the most senior doctors and airline pilots in the country "make too much money" basically. Something about "people who make $500k a year are in the 1%." I went off about 40 years of seniority, scarcity, achievement, etc. There aren't many airline pilots who make $500k a year, but they exist, and they spent most of their lives achieving it, and they're not even in the highest tax bracket yet, etc. These are normal people with great jobs, and they're not the problem. That said, 95% of FBOs in the US are showing Fox News this very moment and it's not a regional phenomenon, it's a cultural one.

Anyways, I tried to clarify to these people that it's not the most skilled, most senior, most certified employees that they need to worry about. It's the executives who own those employees. The ol' brain surgeon or 777 captain still goes to work just like the rest of us and they don't have time to lobby congress and influence policy. When it comes to the cronyism problem, apparently "1%" isn't quite descriptive enough.

What do you think the "problem" is that you're trying to fix? Cronyism? The solution to cronyism is to scale back government interference.

 

[Keef]

The solution to cronyism is to scale back government interference.

How do we scale back government interference when most of America isn't interested in voting for candidates who want to scale back government interference? The Libertarian Party won't even organize to properly promote those candidates. The current crop of congresspeople borderline aren't in control of their own bodies and are at the mercy of corporate lobbying (corporations which exist to create profit only for the dozen people who own majority shares).

 

[Danoff]

How do we scale back government interference when most of America isn't interested in voting for candidates who want to scale back government interference? The Libertarian Party won't even organize to properly promote those candidates.

I don't know. We need people who are interested in voting for it. The short answer is that the supreme court can scale it back on their own in a lot of cases, and simply don't. The reason is... politics. But the courts are becoming more politicized rather than less.

 

[Keef]

But the courts are becoming more politicized rather than less.

Right. Which is why many people are afraid that a big culture shift needs to occur sooner rather than later, before the courts are stacked by cronyists. The path to modern Russia-style oligarchy is unnervingly clear.

The number of presidential candidates who actually care about what they say is 1 in my opinion. It's not Ron Paul, but could that candidate inspire a culture shift powerful enough to actually effect ethical changes? Bill Weld ain't happening.

 

[Danoff]

Right. Which is why many people are afraid that a big culture shift needs to occur sooner rather than later, before the courts are stacked by cronyists. The path to modern Russia-style oligarchy is unnervingly clear.

The number of presidential candidates who actually care about what they say is 1 in my opinion. It's not Ron Paul, but could that candidate inspire a culture shift powerful enough to actually effect ethical changes? Bill Weld ain't happening.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. I'm guessing that you're trying to suggest that people throw away their vote on someone who doesn't represent them because they have a better chance of winning.

 

[Dotini]

...you're trying to suggest that people throw away their vote on someone who doesn't represent them because they have a better chance of winning.

Are you suggesting it's more important to hold the high moral ground than it is to win? When it comes to politics and elections, what's more important than winning?

 

[Danoff]

Are you suggesting it's more important to hold the high moral ground than it is to win? When it comes to politics and elections, what's more important than winning?

Is that how you vote? Try to guess who is going to win and vote for them so that you can say you voted for the winner?

The most important thing about the speech of voting, is to speak accurately.

 

[Dotini]

Is that how you vote? Try to guess who is going to win and vote for them so that you can say you voted for the winner?

The most important thing about the speech of voting, is to speak accurately.

In all my 5 decades of voting (regularly in every election), I have never voted for the winner except once for Carter.
I've always voted my conscience.

That said, in the election of 2020, there is a grand contest between fervent young progressive idealists (for Bernie) and those pragmatists who would do anything within or beyond their own rules or anyone else's rules to achieve the moral imperative of winning.

In this primary scenario as opposed to the general election, younger more highly motivated voters are more likely to turn out.

 

[Danoff]

In all my 5 decades of voting (regularly in every election), I have never voted for the winner except once for Carter.
I've always voted my conscience.

Sounds like winning isn't the most important thing.

That said, in the election of 2020, there is a grand contest between fervent young progressive idealists (for Bernie) and those pragmatists who would do anything within or beyond their own rules or anyone else's rules to achieve the moral imperative of winning.

If only people would realize that there is a middle ground between Trump and Bernie.

 

[Chrunch Houston]

Bloomberg goes after Trump.

 

[Keef]

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. I'm guessing that you're trying to suggest that people throw away their vote on someone who doesn't represent them because they have a better chance of winning.

That's one way it could be interpreted. Another way is this: Believing in something doesn't change anything; doing something does. And one interesting thing I've learned about libertarianism while studying it - I think I landed on minarchism - is that libertarians don't agree on anything at all.

As a group, they achieve nothing. The philosophy is so ideological it actually precludes organization into a party with political clout. What I realized is that no matter how logical or ethical a philosophy might be, it's utterly useless if society rejects it. Even a simple trolley problem, 90% of people will say "flip the switch and kill the one person" and wholly believe it. Our society is utilitarian, that's just the way it is.

So my options are to either 1. simply stop caring that nothing is changing and go about my life like an idiot in an attempt to avoid pointless stress, or 2. shift focus away from ideology and toward practical baby-step changes. I wholeheartedly agree with voting for one's beliefs which is why I voted for Ron Paul in both Ohio primaries that he ran in, and Gary Johnson in another. But I'm tired of associating with a group who cannot even manage to build a political party around the concept of limited government. It's a super simple concept shrouded in the absolute chaos they call "freedom".

EDIT: In a coalition-style legislature, voting for a libertarian party which actually exists would be a practical choice. But currently, they can barely get on all the ballots because one party in particular has rigged so many rules in their favor, and the other party actually hates their leading candidate. It's simply impossible. It cannot happen with the rules as they are. The rules have to change, and to do that we need people who actually want to change the rules. Even Ron Paul's son supports Trump and his conspiracies, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills out here.