Again, I must reiterate the point that the popular vote in Presidential elections here in the United States is an irrelevant statistic. We do not have one generalized election for President; instead, we have 51 separate yet simultaneous elections for President. The only statistic which has any meaning are the State-wise results where the winner is the candidate who wins either plurality (the most votes if no one earns a simple majority) or a simple majority.
Jill Stein isn't trying to change the results of the election (which isn't going to happen) and she isn't trying to figure out if she got more votes (this is possible but not likely). No, she is pushing for hand recounts in order to ingratiate herself to the Democrat leadership in hopes that she will be able to switch parties and try to run as a Democrat in 2020.
If that is what Jill Stein is trying to do, I'll eat the laptop I'm typing this on. For one thing, if Jill Stein wanted to be a Democrat, she would be one. Nothing was stopping her before. Her entire campaign (like any Green Party or Libertarian campaign) was nothing but a vanity run, destined to go nowhere, not even the 5% threshold for federal matching funds. For another, my shoelaces have a better chance of getting picked for the Democratic nomination in 2020 than Jill Stein does.
So it turns out that, of the manufacturing jobs the US has lost, 85% of them have been to technology and automation, not trade. So the real story here is that the same blue collar, rust-belt conservatives who constantly scream about minorities in cities being "too lazy" to get a job, were, in fact, themselves, "too lazy" to realize that technology was moving on without them and thought they were entitled to the same job for the rest of their lives, regardless of the world moving on while they didn't notice.
So it turns out that, of the manufacturing jobs the US has lost, 85% of them have been to technology and automation, not trade. So the real story here is that the same blue collar, rust-belt conservatives who constantly scream about minorities in cities being "too lazy" to get a job, were, in fact, themselves, "too lazy" to realize that technology was moving on without them and thought they were entitled to the same job for the rest of their lives, regardless of the world moving on while they didn't notice.
This is incorrect information. Also, your link doesn't go anywhere. Jobs may be lost due to technology, but different jobs are always created, usually ones that require different skills or education. If this theory was true, our entire population would be unemployed since the fifties, seeing as manufacturing has been around since the turn of he century and before. Technology has been improving for centuries, and, overall, jobs have remained steady. The problem is outsourcing our technology heavy industry to children laborers who work for peanuts in other countries. Thanks, Bill Clinton.
If she inadvertently exposes any more Democratic voter fraud, she may just kiss that opportunity goodbye!
Pretty sure some nobody on youtube's video doesn't qualify as knowing actually what's going on in michigan. But sure that foreign accented guy can spin a good story if you like conspiracy theories.
So it turns out that, of the manufacturing jobs the US has lost, 85% of them have been to technology and automation, not trade. So the real story here is that the same blue collar, rust-belt conservatives who constantly scream about minorities in cities being "too lazy" to get a job, were, in fact, themselves, "too lazy" to realize that technology was moving on without them and thought they were entitled to the same job for the rest of their lives, regardless of the world moving on while they didn't notice.
This is incorrect information. Also, your link doesn't go anywhere. Jobs may be lost due to technology, but different jobs are always created, usually ones that require different skills or education. If this theory was true, our entire population would be unemployed since the fifties, seeing as manufacturing has been around since the turn of he century and before. Technology has been improving for centuries, and, overall, jobs have remained steady. The problem is outsourcing our technology heavy industry to children laborers who work for peanuts in other countries. Thanks, Bill Clinton.
And just so no thinks I'm blowing smoke, here is a source. The video's sources are in the description.
If she inadvertently exposes any more Democratic voter fraud, she may just kiss that opportunity goodbye!
Pretty sure some nobody on youtube's video doesn't qualify as knowing actually what's going on in michigan. But sure that foreign accented guy can spin a good story if you like conspiracy theories.
Yeah, those crazy Russians frauding all our voting methods amitrite?
So it turns out that, of the manufacturing jobs the US has lost, 85% of them have been to technology and automation, not trade. So the real story here is that the same blue collar, rust-belt conservatives who constantly scream about minorities in cities being "too lazy" to get a job, were, in fact, themselves, "too lazy" to realize that technology was moving on without them and thought they were entitled to the same job for the rest of their lives, regardless of the world moving on while they didn't notice.
This is incorrect information. Also, your link doesn't go anywhere. Jobs may be lost due to technology, but different jobs are always created, usually ones that require different skills or education. If this theory was true, our entire population would be unemployed since the fifties, seeing as manufacturing has been around since the turn of he century and before. Technology has been improving for centuries, and, overall, jobs have remained steady. The problem is outsourcing our technology heavy industry to children laborers who work for peanuts in other countries. Thanks, Bill Clinton.
I was able to read the story after a Google search, but apparently the direct link is behind a Financial Times subscription paywall.
If she inadvertently exposes any more Democratic voter fraud, she may just kiss that opportunity goodbye!
Pretty sure some nobody on youtube's video doesn't qualify as knowing actually what's going on in michigan. But sure that foreign accented guy can spin a good story if you like conspiracy theories.
Yeah, those crazy Russians frauding all our voting methods amitrite?
I didn't think that guy's accent was russian. Just some rando dude who wanted to spread conspiracy theories.
I looked up "Rusty TV." It's a Youtube channel with a distinctly right-wing bent, judging by the names of the video titles, but I can't figure out where it came from--it has no website or anything, and no other pages seem to link to it. It seems like just another niche political group.
No idea what the accent was, but the voice acting was weak. It doesn't seem like a professional organization.
For the record, nobody is seriously claiming that Russians hacked American voting infrastructure (besides perhaps some niche conspiracy theorists no one cares about). The "Russian hacking" thing is about the DNC hack, ostensibly done to hurt the Democratic party, or perhaps just make American democracy look bad. I like Clinton, but the latter motive has a longer precedent in Putin's Russia, and I consider it more likely.
America's intelligence officials have found no evidence that any foreign groups (or domestic groups, in fact) tampered with the election results. But they did report "high confidence" that the Russian government was ultimately responsible for the DNC hack. It was the 2016 campaign that possessed any kind of shadow, not the 2016 election.
For the record, nobody is seriously claiming that Russians hacked American voting infrastructure (besides perhaps some niche conspiracy theorists no one cares about). The "Russian hacking" thing is about the DNC hack, ostensibly done to hurt the Democratic party, or perhaps just make American democracy look bad. I like Clinton, but the latter motive has a longer precedent in Putin's Russia, and I consider it more likely.
America's intelligence officials have found no evidence that any foreign groups (or domestic groups, in fact) tampered with the election results. But they did report "high confidence" that the Russian government was ultimately responsible for the DNC hack. It was the 2016 campaign that possessed any kind of shadow, not the 2016 election.
The Russian hack was aimed squarely at disaffected Bernie voters, to make it appear as if he was screwed out of the nomination, and elements in the Trump campaign have all but admitted to collusion in this regard. I supported Bernie all through the primaries, but he wasn't screwed. The fact that he had no mathematical chance after the Ohio primary, yet portions of the left-leaning online media kept pushing the IDEA that he did allowed a sense of being screwed by the DNC to fester. The DNC absolutely supported Hillary over Bernie. If they hadn't, the results would have been the same. Bernie's problem was that he got into the race on a whim when he saw there was no one in the field opposing Clinton. If he'd gotten in 9-12 months earlier, built the relationships with key constituencies he needed to build, and actually had a plan and not done it flying by the seat of his pants, he would have won the nomination. The truth is, Bernie, much like Trump, never really expected to win. He was as surprised as anyone when it started getting competitive. His goal was always to move the Democratic platform to the left, and the fact is, Hillary Clinton adopted a large portion of Bernie's ideas in the Democratic Party platform, which was possibly the most progressive one in history. But the Clinton campaign never focused on it. They (not irrationally) decided that focusing on what a monster of a human being Trump is and hanging him with his own words would be enough. And it was, except in the 3 states it needed to be. And to reiterate, the Russian hack worked exactly as intended. The margin in WI, PA, and MI was so small that it can almost certainly be chalked up to people on the left simply refusing to pull the lever for Clinton.
Nobody is claiming there was russian attacks on the actual vote. I guess it could have happened - very very unlikely. The Russian did had a favorite side on the campaign they really wanted the guy that owes them millions of dollars from loans to win.
Anyway, it's concerning to me how much pushback the GOP has shown to the recount effort. They are like all "there's nothing to see here, stop your lawsuit" while the evidence seems to be very much that there is something to see there. Many counties with minorities seem to be the ones with "problems" with their machines and thousands of votes are being ignored. Why is that?
If the conspiracy video was true where it was the DNC that did something nefarious, why is it the GOP is suing and hollering and using republican officials to stop the recount? Wouldn't they be more than pleased to expose democratic efforts to affect the vote?
Why do they want the recount to be stopped so bad? Surely they have confidence that the recount would reinforce their candidates claims that he won?
It's more about who is requesting the recount and for what reason. Stien is demanding the recount, but why? Does she really think a recount in a few states would earn her the presidency even if it was discovered that every voter had in reality voted for her? That is the purpose of the recount when requested by a presidential candidate, but everyone knows that's not why she is doing it. She is manipulating the system for her own benefit, not to expose voter fraud. If anything, this recount has only strengthened Trump's victory in those states. Hillary won't request a recount because part of her campaign was to intentionally undermine Trump's cries of voter fraud. Before the vote, the left was crying "We will accept the results of the election, there is no voter fraud," and the right was crying, "If we lose, it's only because of voter fraud." Now the right is crying, "We must accept the results of the election, there is no voter fraud," and the left is crying, "We only lost because of voter fruad."
Both sides are like two toddlers tantruming. It's pretty undignified, if you ask me.
It's more about who is requesting the recount and for what reason. Stien is demanding the recount, but why? Does she really think a recount in a few states would earn her the presidency even if it was discovered that every voter had in reality voted for her? That is the purpose of the recount when requested by a presidential candidate, but everyone knows that's not why she is doing it. She is manipulating the system for her own benefit, not to expose voter fraud. If anything, this recount has only strengthened Trump's victory in those states. Hillary won't request a recount because part of her campaign was to intentionally undermine Trump's cries of voter fraud. Before the vote, the left was crying "We will accept the results of the election, there is no voter fraud," and the right was crying, "If we lose, it's only because of voter fraud." Now the right is crying, "We must accept the results of the election, there is no voter fraud," and the left is crying, "We only lost because of voter fruad."
Both sides are like two toddlers tantruming. It's pretty undignified, if you ask me.
agreed about hillary putting herself in the spot where she couldn't request a recount.
But anyway, Stein says she wants to verify the integrity of the vote. Mathematically the vote in those three states looks wrong. It doesn't matter if shes going to win or lose (Stein) she's getting involved in the government so it's a win for her as opposed to always being on the outside. Anyway, I believe verifying if the "vote is rigged" as Trump claimed is a fine thing to figure out. What's the problem GOP? Why can't we verify our institutions, that Donald Trump spent the whole time bashing, let's see if they really are broken? Why so much resistance?
It's more about who is requesting the recount and for what reason. Stien is demanding the recount, but why? Does she really think a recount in a few states would earn her the presidency even if it was discovered that every voter had in reality voted for her? That is the purpose of the recount when requested by a presidential candidate, but everyone knows that's not why she is doing it. She is manipulating the system for her own benefit, not to expose voter fraud. If anything, this recount has only strengthened Trump's victory in those states. Hillary won't request a recount because part of her campaign was to intentionally undermine Trump's cries of voter fraud. Before the vote, the left was crying "We will accept the results of the election, there is no voter fraud," and the right was crying, "If we lose, it's only because of voter fraud." Now the right is crying, "We must accept the results of the election, there is no voter fraud," and the left is crying, "We only lost because of voter fruad."
Both sides are like two toddlers tantruming. It's pretty undignified, if you ask me.
Most of the left is resigned to the fact that Trump is going to be President, and claiming voter fraud, again, is not useful. There IS voter suppression, especially in Wisconsin, but it likely had no impact on the outcome. I'm far, far more agitated that the person who is going to end up getting nearly 3 million more votes isn't being sworn in. The Electoral College was designed for a world and country that bears almost no resemblance to the one we currently live in. I have a problem when the voting citizens of Wyoming have their vote weighted at THREE times that of a resident of California. As @Mathsorcerer said earlier, we certainly do have 50 separate state elections. We do not, however, have 50 state elections that are given equal weight in the end result. But then again, this country has a long history of only viewing certain people as fractions of human beings, so why should our national elections be any different?? The fact is, if you live in California, your vote as a citizen DOES NOT mean as much or carry as much influence as someone living in a less-populated rural state. If it did, California would have 199 electoral votes. It has 55.
There is absolutely NOTHING unfair about a national popular vote. You are a citizen, you vote once, your vote is counted. The votes are tallied, and the winner is who gets more. This is such a fundamental truth that nearly EVERY other country that holds elections does it this way. American is not exceptional because we have this byzantine system that is a relic of the 18th century. It just makes us look stupid, even stupider for not doing anything about it. I mean, we still vote on a TUESDAY, when most normal people are forced to take time off from work (and lose money) if they want to exercise their constitutional right. This is because farmers in the late 1700s would have to make the trek to town to vote by carriage or horseback, and this gave them time to get to town. This is literally why we vote on Tuesdays. In 2016. But the chance that it would be changed to a weekend is inconceivable. Why?? Because it would increase turnout, which historically favors Democrats. That Election Day is not a national holiday, but the celebration of a genocidal monster (Columbus Day) is sums up America in a nutshell.
@mashedtaters: I've heard a LOT of liberals offer their interpretation of the election results, and not a single one has cried voter fraud. Without fail, they blame the electoral college, not voter fraud, for the result.
No, the liberal position is not hypocritical. It's exactly the same as it was before: in-person voter fraud is close to nonexistent, and the electoral college is bad. We said that when we thought Clinton would win, and we're saying it now that Trump has won.
As a Hillary supporter, I've been touting the legitimacy of America's democratic processes since long before Trump won the election. And immediately afterward, in this thread and others, I've said the results should stand, even though they didn't put my favored candidate in power. I made the exact same comments on Brexit, even though I disagreed with that as well.
Sticking to the same position whether you win or lose is the very opposite of hypocritical.
If there was no suspicion of voter fraud, there would be no support to do a recount.
Edit: @semiticgod And by this I mean if there was no suspicion of voter fraud from the left, there would be no support from the left To do a recount. The Green Party certainly couldn't raise the money and garner enough support to make it happen just among their own voters.
Look, I don't like the electoral college either, mainly because it means people like Ron Paul and Jill Stien will never have a chance to become president as members of their parties. But it seems all I read on this thread are complaints about how dumb it is, but failing to acknowledge that a popular vote would be subject to the exact same form of manipulation that we have today, except it would be worse. Instead of campaigning and catering only to the swing states (Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin), only the four most populated states would see campaigning and catering from the presidential candidates: New York, California, Texas, and Florida, all of which have a population together totaling 100,000,000,. The US population is only 300,000,000. Suck up to those 4 states, specifically the cities in those states, which would be much easier than doing so to 11 states cities and counties, and you can have the presidency. Swing states change and fluctuate over the years, but without significant motivational economic power change, it is very unlikely that any state could boost its population dramatically especially if the four highest population states are being incentivized by a new president. If changing the electoral college is really important, then get involved with local politics. The only way it will ever happens is if it starts on a local level, by electing senators and house reps who will change the electoral college or abolish it.
On a side note somewhat related: We are not a democracy: we are republic that recognizes the vote of democracy. The powers of the left are very bent on moving our government towards a federally controlled, centralized democracy, and moving away from local, state control. That type of government may work on a small scale (which incidentally is why it works in states), but commonalizing everything for everyone is exactly why our public schools are in such poor shape: it takes away the ability to cater to specific needs. Of course, the powers of the right's approach is differently bad, making rich people richer and poor people poorer. There is corruption on both sides, but the right is generally correct in this specific thing (only), to give power to the states and limit the power of the Feds.
If there was no suspicion of voter fraud, there would be no support to do a recount.
Edit: @semiticgod And by this I mean if there was no suspicion of voter fraud from the left, there would be no support from the left To do a recount. The Green Party certainly couldn't raise the money and garner enough support to make it happen just among their own voters.
There is no suspicion of voter fraud. There is mathematical based evidence of machine failure or possibly machine tampering.
The GOP who often are in charge of these machines want to stop recounts. I wonder why. Jill Stein wants to see if our voting system works basically.
@mashedtaters: Recounts are also done in response to suspicions of human and mechanical error, not just fraud.
Mechanical error is even less likely to be an issue than intentional voter fraud. Of every machine? Maybe one or two, but enough machines to make a difference? Definitely not. I work with machines for a living; they are utilized because they don't make mistakes unless by design or very occasional failure. Human error, I might be able to get behind. But the law of averages indicates that the lager the number, the less power human error has to make a difference.
If there was no suspicion of voter fraud, there would be no support to do a recount.
Edit: @semiticgod And by this I mean if there was no suspicion of voter fraud from the left, there would be no support from the left To do a recount. The Green Party certainly couldn't raise the money and garner enough support to make it happen just among their own voters.
There is no suspicion of voter fraud. There is mathematical based evidence of machine failure or possibly machine tampering.
The GOP who often are in charge of these machines want to stop recounts. I wonder why. Jill Stein wants to see if our voting system works basically.
The voter system seems to have been working fine for the last decade every year. Why suddenly check them now, if the only reason is to make sure they are working? Seems like it would have been better to do this before the votes came in, proactively. This is really about one thing: casting doubt on the results in the name of crying voter fraud, under the guise of "we're just double checking." The results of the victory is just continuing to be strengthened, much to everyone's (including mine) dismay.
I call BS on the whole recount thing with regards to the Democrats. I remember the Democrats attacking Trump in horror when he claimed that the election is rigged. They burned the bridge of any form of recourse when they said that the results of the election should stand as is as a counter to Trump's claims. For them to get behind Stein now is hypocrisy.
If Stein wants a recount, that is fine. That is her right (probably, although I question the motives of someone with 5% of the vote demanding a recount). But the Democrats should shut the hell up and leave it alone because of their previous screamings.
I am sorry, but there is nothing by Democrat supporters that leads me to believe that they are not hypocrites in the extreme. The likes of de Niro, the Baldwins, Gaga, Dunham, Schumer, Cher, ad nauseum, all made claims of intentions that they have ALL since reneged on. That is hypocrisy. Then we have the hypocrisy of Democrat supporters claiming that others were intolerant and violent when they themselves were filmed attacking a homeless woman whose only crime is to try and defend Trump's star. The list goes on and on and on.
You will have to do far more than what is being done now to convince me that this recount is not hypocrisy by the Democrats. Recent Democrat history says that hypocrisy is Occam's Razor where they are concerned. I have said before, and I will say it again: I am not for a Trump win, but I am DEFINITELY for a Clinton loss.
The hypocrisy, violent, deceit and defamation by the rabid left is the reason why.
I call BS on the whole recount thing with regards to the Democrats. I remember the Democrats attacking Trump in horror when he claimed that the election is rigged. They burned the bridge of any form of recourse when they said that the results of the election should stand as is as a counter to Trump's claims. For them to get behind Stein now is hypocrisy.
If Stein wants a recount, that is fine. That is her right (probably, although I question the motives of someone with 5% of the vote demanding a recount). But the Democrats should shut the hell up and leave it alone because of their previous screamings.
I am sorry, but there is nothing by Democrat supporters that leads me to believe that they are not hypocrites in the extreme. The likes of de Niro, the Baldwins, Gaga, Dunham, Schumer, Cher, ad nauseum, all made claims of intentions that they have ALL since reneged on. That is hypocrisy. Then we have the hypocrisy of Democrat supporters claiming that others were intolerant and violent when they themselves were filmed attacking a homeless woman whose only crime is to try and defend Trump's star. The list goes on and on and on.
You will have to do far more than what is being done now to convince me that this recount is not hypocrisy by the Democrats. Recent Democrat history says that hypocrisy is Occam's Razor where they are concerned. I have said before, and I will say it again: I am not for a Trump win, but I am DEFINITELY for a Clinton loss.
The hypocrisy, violent, deceit and defamation by the rabid left is the reason why.
This would hold water if Democrats had called for, had anything to do with, or expected anything out of the recount. Except they haven't, and aren't. Hillary Clinton hasn't said a single word about it, and hasn't made the slightest noise at all about Trump becoming President aside from some short remarks at the Children's Defense Fund a few weeks ago. She went away VERY quietly, more quietly than who got nearly 3 million more votes than the winner could reasonably be expected to. To talk about Democrats demanding a recount and thinking the election result is going to be overturned is the same as talking about unicorns and dragons. It isn't happening. And, as I just said, Hillary Clinton herself has disappeared from the face of the Earth since the Election. Jill Stein is NOT a Democrat, and has nothing to do with them. Her recount, as I've stated countless times, is pointless, but perfectly legal. There is no hypocrisy here. I don't know how many times we have to say it. I don't think the RESULTS of the election are wrong, I think the way we decided who becomes President is archaic and ridiculous, and I thought so long before this election. We aren't disputing that Trump is GOING TO BE President, but pointing out the fact that the United States is going to be under minority rule for the next 4 years, and the problems that presents.
And to address @mashedtaters point above, I don't see how in the world a national popular vote can be "manipulated" in any way. The fact that most of the people in this country live in cities doesn't change the fact that that is, in fact, where the people live. What we are doing now is artificially making grassland in Nebraska and Wyoming have electoral significance. One person is one person and they live where they live. That isn't some magic conspiracy, and we aren't assigning extra, artificial weight to New York and Los Angeles, that is where the people actually are. The Electoral College is what is artificially propping up the importance of rural states that have just as many cows as people. You can make hypothetical arguments of how campaigns would conduct themselves, but candidates aren't visiting these rural red states or solid blue states like NY and CA anyway. Right now, residents of the largest urban centers in the country are being PUNISHED in terms of the weight of their vote in order to prop up the idea that more people live in rural states than actually live there. The argument seems to be that if it isn't done this way, no one will pay attention to the poor, rural states. So it's better to pretend and manufacture their importance so their feelings aren't hurt?? Calling for a straight popular vote isn't some radical idea, because people live where they live. The only reason it seems to be a problem is because it would benefit liberal ideas.
And in the end, this wouldn't be such a problem if Hillary Clinton had won the popular vote by 10,000, or even 100,000. But it wasn't. It's going to be almost 3 million. And the discrepancy as to what individual people actually voted for vs. what happened, because of a system originally implemented to oversee 13 states, and that hasn't been looked at for a change even though 37 more states across a land-mass more than 10x the size of the original colonies has been added since it's inception, is absolutely insane. We are talking about an election system put into place before electricity and indoor plumbing. It may very well have been the best thing for the country in the late 1700s. We are in the 21st century, and living in a world the founders couldn't have imagined in their wildest dreams. It's time we stopped treating them like deities and the Constitution they wrote as if it was chiseled in stone by God himself. It's a flawed document that causes just as many problems as it does solutions.
It's pretty funny how people supporting the result are crying "you don't know what democracy is" when in a democratic country Hillary would now be the president elect.
Hillary hasn't. Doesn't mean the Democrat establishment didn't. What you came up with is a complete strawman.
The Democratic establishment hasn't done anything either. Jill Stein crowd-funded the recount. I've said from the beginning it's pointless and will mean nothing. There IS NO effort on the part of the Democratic Party to overturn these election results (such as they are). Jill Stein is as far removed from the Democratic Party establishment as Mercury is to Pluto. She isn't some cipher being used to do their bidding.
@jjstraka34 You say you don't understand how people can be manipulated? How about by using the same tactics Trump used in the swing states: "I'll bring back your jobs, I'll stop trading with China, I'll do whatever you blue collar people want." All essentially impossible promises that voters bought, and how they were manipulated. It would be no different in a popular vote: it would just be easier, because you only have to convince the people in New York, California, Florida, and Texas. More people may live in cities, but please refer to my point about local, customized governments as opposed federal, centralized control. I believe that sums it up properly. I am not sure why you think it is a "punishment" that a vote for a candidate that has almost no bearing on your state's living conditions is weighted. It's not about hurt feelings, although I want to be sensitive, as I get the impression from your post that your feelings are hurt and I apologize to you if that is the case. My argument isn't that the people in rural states will be ignored, or that it would only benefit liberal ideals. On the contrary, I believe that the republicans and conservatives would turn the battlefield to the big cities (as they have only paid attention to the swing states lately). I think that it would probably be just as intense, and both parties would eventually see the same success and result eventually as everything balanced out to what we have now. My point is that the electoral college is being manipulated by campaigners, and that the popular vote would be manipulated in the same way because of our country's demographics. My point is that abolishing the electoral college would change nothing.
So it turns out that, of the manufacturing jobs the US has lost, 85% of them have been to technology and automation, not trade. So the real story here is that the same blue collar, rust-belt conservatives who constantly scream about minorities in cities being "too lazy" to get a job, were, in fact, themselves, "too lazy" to realize that technology was moving on without them and thought they were entitled to the same job for the rest of their lives, regardless of the world moving on while they didn't notice.
This is incorrect information. Also, your link doesn't go anywhere. Jobs may be lost due to technology, but different jobs are always created, usually ones that require different skills or education. If this theory was true, our entire population would be unemployed since the fifties, seeing as manufacturing has been around since the turn of he century and before. Technology has been improving for centuries, and, overall, jobs have remained steady. The problem is outsourcing our technology heavy industry to children laborers who work for peanuts in other countries. Thanks, Bill Clinton.
There are a lot of inaccurate points here.
1) Technology hasn't being improving "for centuries", it has been improving for over 100,000 years (with the occasional regional dip).
2) Jobs haven't remained "steady", since the number of humans on the planet has increased by around a factor of four in the last hundred years alone, the number of jobs must have increased by a proportionate amount.
3) If we wanted to create a society where 80% didn't need to work, but still had plenty of food and shelter, the technology already exists to do so. The reason employment has remained relatively high is people have actively worked to keep it that way. It's didn't happen by accident.
4) Acquiring new skills don't just take work - it requires money. You need to pay for the teachers and the textbooks and the IT; you may need to pay for people to reallocate to different regions, where property prices could be much higher, since there is no guarantee that new jobs will be in the same location as the old jobs; you need money to rebuild the social structures that are disrupted by all the change moving about. It's the failure to redistribute the wealth generated from globalisation to those who inevitably lose out that has lead to people who feel they have nothing to lose by smashing everything.
Hillary hasn't. Doesn't mean the Democrat establishment didn't. What you came up with is a complete strawman.
The Democratic establishment hasn't done anything either. Jill Stein crowd-funded the recount. I've said from the beginning it's pointless and will mean nothing. There IS NO effort on the part of the Democratic Party to overturn these election results (such as they are). Jill Stein is as far removed from the Democratic Party establishment as Mercury is to Pluto. She isn't some cipher being used to do their bidding.
"Changing the result" was never the point of the exercise. The object is to weaken the office of president by undermining claims of legitimacy. On the grounds that a weak president can do less damage. Of course, that does long term damage to both the "parties of government", which is why the Democrats are so ambivalent about it.
So it turns out that, of the manufacturing jobs the US has lost, 85% of them have been to technology and automation, not trade. So the real story here is that the same blue collar, rust-belt conservatives who constantly scream about minorities in cities being "too lazy" to get a job, were, in fact, themselves, "too lazy" to realize that technology was moving on without them and thought they were entitled to the same job for the rest of their lives, regardless of the world moving on while they didn't notice.
This is incorrect information. Also, your link doesn't go anywhere. Jobs may be lost due to technology, but different jobs are always created, usually ones that require different skills or education. If this theory was true, our entire population would be unemployed since the fifties, seeing as manufacturing has been around since the turn of he century and before. Technology has been improving for centuries, and, overall, jobs have remained steady. The problem is outsourcing our technology heavy industry to children laborers who work for peanuts in other countries. Thanks, Bill Clinton.
There are a lot of inaccurate points here.
1) Technology hasn't being improving "for centuries", it has been improving for over 100,000 years (with the occasional regional dip).
2) Jobs haven't remained "steady", since the number of humans on the planet has increased by around a factor of four in the last hundred years alone, the number of jobs must have increased by a proportionate amount.
3) If we wanted to create a society where 80% didn't need to work, but still had plenty of food and shelter, the technology already exists to do so. The reason employment has remained relatively high is people have actively worked to keep it that way. It's didn't happen by accident.
4) Acquiring new skills don't just take work - it requires money. You need to pay for the teachers and the textbooks and the IT; you may need to pay for people to reallocate to different regions, where property prices could be much higher, since there is no guarantee that new jobs will be in the same location as the old jobs; you need money to rebuild the social structures that are disrupted by all the change moving about. It's the failure to redistribute the wealth generated from globalisation to those who inevitably lose out that has lead to people who feel they have nothing to lose by smashing everything.
Very well, I concede on all these points. They strengthen my original argument anyway. Lol
Comments
https://www.ft.com/content/dec677c0-b7e6-11e6-ba85-95d1533d9a62
Jobs may be lost due to technology, but different jobs are always created, usually ones that require different skills or education. If this theory was true, our entire population would be unemployed since the fifties, seeing as manufacturing has been around since the turn of he century and before. Technology has been improving for centuries, and, overall, jobs have remained steady.
The problem is outsourcing our technology heavy industry to children laborers who work for peanuts in other countries. Thanks, Bill Clinton.
No idea what the accent was, but the voice acting was weak. It doesn't seem like a professional organization.
America's intelligence officials have found no evidence that any foreign groups (or domestic groups, in fact) tampered with the election results. But they did report "high confidence" that the Russian government was ultimately responsible for the DNC hack. It was the 2016 campaign that possessed any kind of shadow, not the 2016 election.
Anyway, it's concerning to me how much pushback the GOP has shown to the recount effort. They are like all "there's nothing to see here, stop your lawsuit" while the evidence seems to be very much that there is something to see there. Many counties with minorities seem to be the ones with "problems" with their machines and thousands of votes are being ignored. Why is that?
If the conspiracy video was true where it was the DNC that did something nefarious, why is it the GOP is suing and hollering and using republican officials to stop the recount? Wouldn't they be more than pleased to expose democratic efforts to affect the vote?
Why do they want the recount to be stopped so bad? Surely they have confidence that the recount would reinforce their candidates claims that he won?
She is manipulating the system for her own benefit, not to expose voter fraud. If anything, this recount has only strengthened Trump's victory in those states.
Hillary won't request a recount because part of her campaign was to intentionally undermine Trump's cries of voter fraud.
Before the vote, the left was crying "We will accept the results of the election, there is no voter fraud," and the right was crying, "If we lose, it's only because of voter fraud." Now the right is crying, "We must accept the results of the election, there is no voter fraud," and the left is crying, "We only lost because of voter fruad."
Both sides are like two toddlers tantruming. It's pretty undignified, if you ask me.
But anyway, Stein says she wants to verify the integrity of the vote. Mathematically the vote in those three states looks wrong. It doesn't matter if shes going to win or lose (Stein) she's getting involved in the government so it's a win for her as opposed to always being on the outside. Anyway, I believe verifying if the "vote is rigged" as Trump claimed is a fine thing to figure out. What's the problem GOP? Why can't we verify our institutions, that Donald Trump spent the whole time bashing, let's see if they really are broken? Why so much resistance?
There is absolutely NOTHING unfair about a national popular vote. You are a citizen, you vote once, your vote is counted. The votes are tallied, and the winner is who gets more. This is such a fundamental truth that nearly EVERY other country that holds elections does it this way. American is not exceptional because we have this byzantine system that is a relic of the 18th century. It just makes us look stupid, even stupider for not doing anything about it. I mean, we still vote on a TUESDAY, when most normal people are forced to take time off from work (and lose money) if they want to exercise their constitutional right. This is because farmers in the late 1700s would have to make the trek to town to vote by carriage or horseback, and this gave them time to get to town. This is literally why we vote on Tuesdays. In 2016. But the chance that it would be changed to a weekend is inconceivable. Why?? Because it would increase turnout, which historically favors Democrats. That Election Day is not a national holiday, but the celebration of a genocidal monster (Columbus Day) is sums up America in a nutshell.
No, the liberal position is not hypocritical. It's exactly the same as it was before: in-person voter fraud is close to nonexistent, and the electoral college is bad. We said that when we thought Clinton would win, and we're saying it now that Trump has won.
As a Hillary supporter, I've been touting the legitimacy of America's democratic processes since long before Trump won the election. And immediately afterward, in this thread and others, I've said the results should stand, even though they didn't put my favored candidate in power. I made the exact same comments on Brexit, even though I disagreed with that as well.
Sticking to the same position whether you win or lose is the very opposite of hypocritical.
Edit: @semiticgod
And by this I mean if there was no suspicion of voter fraud from the left, there would be no support from the left To do a recount. The Green Party certainly couldn't raise the money and garner enough support to make it happen just among their own voters.
But it seems all I read on this thread are complaints about how dumb it is, but failing to acknowledge that a popular vote would be subject to the exact same form of manipulation that we have today, except it would be worse. Instead of campaigning and catering only to the swing states (Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin), only the four most populated states would see campaigning and catering from the presidential candidates: New York, California, Texas, and Florida, all of which have a population together totaling 100,000,000,. The US population is only 300,000,000. Suck up to those 4 states, specifically the cities in those states, which would be much easier than doing so to 11 states cities and counties, and you can have the presidency. Swing states change and fluctuate over the years, but without significant motivational economic power change, it is very unlikely that any state could boost its population dramatically especially if the four highest population states are being incentivized by a new president.
If changing the electoral college is really important, then get involved with local politics. The only way it will ever happens is if it starts on a local level, by electing senators and house reps who will change the electoral college or abolish it.
On a side note somewhat related: We are not a democracy: we are republic that recognizes the vote of democracy. The powers of the left are very bent on moving our government towards a federally controlled, centralized democracy, and moving away from local, state control. That type of government may work on a small scale (which incidentally is why it works in states), but commonalizing everything for everyone is exactly why our public schools are in such poor shape: it takes away the ability to cater to specific needs.
Of course, the powers of the right's approach is differently bad, making rich people richer and poor people poorer. There is corruption on both sides, but the right is generally correct in this specific thing (only), to give power to the states and limit the power of the Feds.
Edit: forgot some zeros in the populations.
The GOP who often are in charge of these machines want to stop recounts. I wonder why. Jill Stein wants to see if our voting system works basically.
Human error, I might be able to get behind. But the law of averages indicates that the lager the number, the less power human error has to make a difference. The voter system seems to have been working fine for the last decade every year. Why suddenly check them now, if the only reason is to make sure they are working? Seems like it would have been better to do this before the votes came in, proactively.
This is really about one thing: casting doubt on the results in the name of crying voter fraud, under the guise of "we're just double checking."
The results of the victory is just continuing to be strengthened, much to everyone's (including mine) dismay.
If Stein wants a recount, that is fine. That is her right (probably, although I question the motives of someone with 5% of the vote demanding a recount). But the Democrats should shut the hell up and leave it alone because of their previous screamings.
I am sorry, but there is nothing by Democrat supporters that leads me to believe that they are not hypocrites in the extreme. The likes of de Niro, the Baldwins, Gaga, Dunham, Schumer, Cher, ad nauseum, all made claims of intentions that they have ALL since reneged on. That is hypocrisy. Then we have the hypocrisy of Democrat supporters claiming that others were intolerant and violent when they themselves were filmed attacking a homeless woman whose only crime is to try and defend Trump's star. The list goes on and on and on.
You will have to do far more than what is being done now to convince me that this recount is not hypocrisy by the Democrats. Recent Democrat history says that hypocrisy is Occam's Razor where they are concerned. I have said before, and I will say it again: I am not for a Trump win, but I am DEFINITELY for a Clinton loss.
The hypocrisy, violent, deceit and defamation by the rabid left is the reason why.
And to address @mashedtaters point above, I don't see how in the world a national popular vote can be "manipulated" in any way. The fact that most of the people in this country live in cities doesn't change the fact that that is, in fact, where the people live. What we are doing now is artificially making grassland in Nebraska and Wyoming have electoral significance. One person is one person and they live where they live. That isn't some magic conspiracy, and we aren't assigning extra, artificial weight to New York and Los Angeles, that is where the people actually are. The Electoral College is what is artificially propping up the importance of rural states that have just as many cows as people. You can make hypothetical arguments of how campaigns would conduct themselves, but candidates aren't visiting these rural red states or solid blue states like NY and CA anyway. Right now, residents of the largest urban centers in the country are being PUNISHED in terms of the weight of their vote in order to prop up the idea that more people live in rural states than actually live there. The argument seems to be that if it isn't done this way, no one will pay attention to the poor, rural states. So it's better to pretend and manufacture their importance so their feelings aren't hurt?? Calling for a straight popular vote isn't some radical idea, because people live where they live. The only reason it seems to be a problem is because it would benefit liberal ideas.
And in the end, this wouldn't be such a problem if Hillary Clinton had won the popular vote by 10,000, or even 100,000. But it wasn't. It's going to be almost 3 million. And the discrepancy as to what individual people actually voted for vs. what happened, because of a system originally implemented to oversee 13 states, and that hasn't been looked at for a change even though 37 more states across a land-mass more than 10x the size of the original colonies has been added since it's inception, is absolutely insane. We are talking about an election system put into place before electricity and indoor plumbing. It may very well have been the best thing for the country in the late 1700s. We are in the 21st century, and living in a world the founders couldn't have imagined in their wildest dreams. It's time we stopped treating them like deities and the Constitution they wrote as if it was chiseled in stone by God himself. It's a flawed document that causes just as many problems as it does solutions.
You say you don't understand how people can be manipulated? How about by using the same tactics Trump used in the swing states: "I'll bring back your jobs, I'll stop trading with China, I'll do whatever you blue collar people want." All essentially impossible promises that voters bought, and how they were manipulated. It would be no different in a popular vote: it would just be easier, because you only have to convince the people in New York, California, Florida, and Texas.
More people may live in cities, but please refer to my point about local, customized governments as opposed federal, centralized control. I believe that sums it up properly.
I am not sure why you think it is a "punishment" that a vote for a candidate that has almost no bearing on your state's living conditions is weighted.
It's not about hurt feelings, although I want to be sensitive, as I get the impression from your post that your feelings are hurt and I apologize to you if that is the case.
My argument isn't that the people in rural states will be ignored, or that it would only benefit liberal ideals. On the contrary, I believe that the republicans and conservatives would turn the battlefield to the big cities (as they have only paid attention to the swing states lately). I think that it would probably be just as intense, and both parties would eventually see the same success and result eventually as everything balanced out to what we have now.
My point is that the electoral college is being manipulated by campaigners, and that the popular vote would be manipulated in the same way because of our country's demographics. My point is that abolishing the electoral college would change nothing.
1) Technology hasn't being improving "for centuries", it has been improving for over 100,000 years (with the occasional regional dip).
2) Jobs haven't remained "steady", since the number of humans on the planet has increased by around a factor of four in the last hundred years alone, the number of jobs must have increased by a proportionate amount.
3) If we wanted to create a society where 80% didn't need to work, but still had plenty of food and shelter, the technology already exists to do so. The reason employment has remained relatively high is people have actively worked to keep it that way. It's didn't happen by accident.
4) Acquiring new skills don't just take work - it requires money. You need to pay for the teachers and the textbooks and the IT; you may need to pay for people to reallocate to different regions, where property prices could be much higher, since there is no guarantee that new jobs will be in the same location as the old jobs; you need money to rebuild the social structures that are disrupted by all the change moving about. It's the failure to redistribute the wealth generated from globalisation to those who inevitably lose out that has lead to people who feel they have nothing to lose by smashing everything.