I always find it bizarre that Conservatives appeal to fairness when talking about the EC, which disenfranchises the voting power of people based on population in an entirely unfair manner.
If someone wants to make an argument for keeping the EC - fine, but at least ensure the argument isnt disingenuous from the outset. Until that very (very) low bar can be cleared, I dont see much point in the conversation.
RE @ThacoBell 's quoted tweet: You know, except for the planned attack on the counting facilities in Philadelphia and the fact that some of the people in charge of counting in Georgia are in hiding because they fear for their lives...
@WarChiefZeke "Why should states where vast majorities disagree with everything you think and believe be governed by you?"
Why should states that where vast minorities disagree with everything you think govern you? This argument works both ways, and I've never seen a conservative able to explain this away...
"I find this hard to take seriously, given the fact that it is written in the Constitution and the fact that changes it creates a tidal wave of other changes to the system of government."
I mean, the Constitution has been changed, what, 33 times? In the past. "But it was written this way!" isn't an argument.
________
HOO BOY, the butthurt grows:
What are conservatives 'telling people' they have to do? Conservatives are not generally about 'telling people' what they have to do (barring the far religious right, maybe) but rather preventing government from 'telling people' what they have to do.
@WarChiefZeke "Why should states where vast majorities disagree with everything you think and believe be governed by you?"
Why should states that where vast minorities disagree with everything you think govern you? This argument works both ways, and I've never seen a conservative able to explain this away...
"I find this hard to take seriously, given the fact that it is written in the Constitution and the fact that changes it creates a tidal wave of other changes to the system of government."
I mean, the Constitution has been changed, what, 33 times? In the past. "But it was written this way!" isn't an argument.
________
HOO BOY, the butthurt grows:
What are conservatives 'telling people' they have to do? Conservatives are not generally about 'telling people' what they have to do (barring the far religious right, maybe) but rather preventing government from 'telling people' what they have to do.
The religious right basically controls the party platform on every cultural policy issue. An enacted full-list of Republican Party goals would essentially be a Christian theocracy. They wanted to enshrine second-class citizenry for gay people into the Constitution itself as recently as 2004. This position was why Bush won Ohio in his reelection bid, and you don't need to take my word for it, you can ask Karl Rove. And Republicans wouldn't win any election anywhere ever again without these voters.
I have done the math on who has the most electoral power in regards to both the House, Senate and Electoral College, and presented it here, at length, at least three separate times. And I based it on the power of the vote of an individual citizen of each state. I even directly compared it to the populations of the 13 original colonies that became the first states, and why the situations are simply no longer remotely analogous. I put more work into it than anyone should for an internet message board, and I'm not doing it again. Suffice to say, California, New York and Texas were not at the top of the list. I wasn't using my feelings or opinion when doing so, I was simply using the populations of each state, their number of House members, their number of Senators, their number of electoral votes, and a calculator.
The response I got was basically "I don't care what the numbers are, it's just OBVIOUS these other states have more outsized power". It was the same argument I got back on a liberal blog back during the Ferguson unrest when I presented numbers that proved policing is not a particularly dangerous job compared to DOZENS of others, which was "I don't care what your numbers say, everyone just KNOWS policing is more dangerous." So, I'm just not gonna do it anymore. It's pointless.
I mean I appreciate the numbers and all but the premise of your argument is wrong so it's all for nothing. Wyoming doesn't have more power than New York or California. Wyoming has 3 electoral college votes. You can not seriously say they are more powerful than California, with their 55 electoral votes. If anything, this goes to show how little power some of these groups of people have.
But yes, you're right that on a per capita basis Wyoming has more representatives than it should have. This is by design, not a flaw. It means that it is more valuable to have a majority of voters across the entire country than it is to have a supermajority of voters in a single area. I find this far a better model of representation for the country, where it takes the entire country to elect a President rather than 2 states and a handful of counties.
I'm noticing more and more that people on the left are increasingly adopting a right wing style of mockery, up to and including the use of far right memes. No judgement, just an observation.
@WarChiefZeke "Because to win the EC means to win a majority of the people in a large amount of states."
Except it doesn't. If this was true, winning the EC vote would also mean winning the popular vote. But because the EC is weighted towards districts (which are drawn to favor a single party) and not population, we get a huge imbalance.
As for the memes, the short answer would be "turnabout is fair play."
The long answer is that Trump has made racism safe to express in public again. That is 100% his only appeal. The only reason racism was less widespread compared to previous decades, was because it was made distasteful to be openly racist. We've lost a lot of that in the last 4 years, so racists need to be made to feel the social pressure and shame all over again.
When is the last time a Presidential candidate ever campaigned in California OR Wyoming?? Or New York or Idaho?? Every single campaign is fought almost exclusively in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. We can now add a couple more states to that list for the near future (Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, North Carolina). That is 8 states out of 50. I'd argue that two of them (OH and FL) aren't even really swing states anymore. So now we're down to six. Which means 88% of the states are relatively meaningless in regards to the "attention" they receive for their needs, because the outcome in each of them is at least a 95% guarantee.
- the electoral college is a minor part of the whole democratic apparatus. Changing it would thus be a minor step, not the major change suggested above.
I find this hard to take seriously, given the fact that it is written in the Constitution and the fact that changes it creates a tidal wave of other changes to the system of government. The change in the EC would ripple across every state, the House and Senate, the Executive Branch and the Supreme Court. It is a fundamental, seismic change and any opinion which takes the opposite approach isn't really worth much.
Please explain why you think this. As far as I'm aware the electoral college is only used in the election of the president - it doesn't affect any of the other things you refer to (and changing many aspects of the current system does not require a change to the Constitution). Even in relation to the president, historically it's been pretty rare for the electoral college to have a clear influence on the outcome of the election.
I agree with @jjstraka34 that the above analysis is based on the assumption that the majority of the people in the US should not be regarded as full citizens.
What a joke. "You don't see them as full citizens" isn't an argument, it's an accusation. It says nothing about which is the better model of representation to ensure the entire country has some measure of electoral power and instead boils things down to thought terminating clichés.
Why should states where vast majorities disagree with everything you think and believe be governed by you? You can't argue that they will actually have any sort of electoral power and thus representation under the model you want, because they won't, so this question is always ignored. Is your status as a "full citizen" lessened by your inability to dictate laws to people you do not live with? Or is your status as a full citizen lessened by your inability to impact your own government and country? The answer is obvious. The ones who are not full citizens here are the ones who you want to have no say in their own lives and the laws they live under, not the other way around. If and when they decide your government is illegitimate for this reason, should you get the changes you want, it will be entirely justified.
As if the people with the most electoral power and the most influence in the government out of anyone else in the Union are the ones who are not full citizens and are not represented enough. Even as they rule over others, they claim victimhood and repression, as they deny the ways they victimize and repress others.
This argument also seems to be based on the idea that the electoral college affects the entire system of government. It also seems to assume that a president will only act for his 'side', rather than representing the country as a whole - that's an idea I would like to see disappear at the same time as Trump.
I already acknowledged in my earlier post that there was a need for local people to have influence and control over their own local affairs. That's the case in every country, but I take your point earlier that it's even more the case in such a large and varied country as the US. However, if the US is to remain a single country then people elsewhere in the country should also have some measure of influence. Just what the balance should be is clearly a matter for dispute and I have no problem with someone making an argument that the electoral college should stay as it is to represent the best balance between local and national interests. I do though think that to be productive an argument should acknowledge that there does need to be a balance between local and national (or clearly state a preference for states to secede).
individual states have it in their hands now to base electoral college votes on the popular will in their state.
The biggest flaw in the EC is that electors don't have to follow the popular vote in their state and can essentially do what they want. Trump is exploring this option now to just "win" states he never won the election in. This law is the same principle. Your electoral votes belong to your state and they should have to follow the popular vote of your state, by law. The fact that so many blue states are doing this is simply a way to prevent them being "flipped" by Republicans by them winning the popular vote there.
I can't imagine anything more undemocratic than this and can't imagine how you can possibly support what is obviously a subversion of a state election.
Most of the workings of the electoral college are up to individual states at the moment - hence my earlier point that states can already make changes if they wished to, without the need for changes to the Constitution or any new federal laws. Whether representatives are mandated to vote as dictated by their appointers or according to their own conscience has always been a matter of dispute, so it's not surprising that different states follow different lines on this at the moment. Removing the ability of states to choose the method they prefer on this issue would require a Constitutional amendment.
The bit you quoted from me referred to states basing votes on the popular will in their state. That's not the same thing as the existing proposals in many Democratic states to base electoral college votes on the national vote. I don't particularly have a problem with those proposals, but nor do I have a problem with the idea of splitting votes according to the popular vote in each state - which would retain the higher level of influence over the outcome of the election of voters in smaller states. I do though think the current system in most states, which means votes are only meaningful in a fairly small number of them, is bad for democracy. That's not a party political issue, it just reflects that I think political engagement with voters should be done in the country as a whole and not just a fraction of it.
I'm noticing more and more that people on the left are increasingly adopting a right wing style of mockery, up to and including the use of far right memes. No judgement, just an observation.
I will continue to hate memes with an absolute passion no matter who is using them, but to the broader point, I am just flat-out amused that a political movement who basically adapted the slogan of "cry more, lib" is somehow surprised they are getting blowback for it. Liberals learned a harsh lesson in 2016 to not just assume your candidate is going to cakewalk to the White House. And I simply don't think conservatives, by and large, even prepared for this eventuality in 2020. They thought Trump was going to coast to victory.
When I started seeing people with prediction maps of Trump winning 45 states, my immediate thought was "these folks are in for a rude awakening". It's not just that many people think the close swing states were "stolen". I'm getting sent posts from my cousin of relatives who think Minnesota was stolen. Biden won MN by 8 frickin' points. It would be like me saying Trump stole Ohio this round, which I would never do looking at the numbers.
Which brings up another point, using this state as an example. Rural Minnesota might as well be Alabama (I know, I lived there for 20 years). Minneapolis/St. Paul is ALWAYS going to outvote them in a Presidential election. Does this mean we should divide MN into 8 separate states?? The divide is no longer race, or even income as much as it is urban/rural and educated/non-educated (in the sense of post-high school).
I do though think the current system in most states, which means votes are only meaningful in a fairly small number of them, is bad for democracy. That's not a party political issue, it just reflects that I think political engagement with voters should be done in the country as a whole and not just a fraction of it.
Case in point, the Biden campaign was successful almost exclusively because they looked at the razor-thing margins in three states and said "get those back, and that's the ballgame". I they then proceeded to focus absolutely all attention on them, to the exclusion of nearly everything else, so much so they they put blinders on as to not get distracted by flashy objects elsewhere (Arizona and Georgia came through in the end, but those were icing, not the cake). Give or take a few 10s of thousands of votes here or there, Biden did pretty much exactly what has been talked about endlessly for four years. Flip 50,000 votes in each state in the Rust Belt. It was always the most obvious path back to the White House, and they took it. And I still feel fairly correct when I said Biden got them back simply on the virtue of not being a woman.
The future is gonna be 15 year olds denied higher education, careers, and loans later in life because they once expressed mild skepticism of the established order online.
As they slowly ramp up the legitimate fear of penalties for your political beliefs or actions in private life and shut more people up out of nervousness because of it, they will have manufactured their own consent. The dissidents have all been litigated, intimidated, silenced, or shunned out of hearing. Now you don't see any dissidents, do you?
The future is gonna be 15 year olds denied higher education, careers, and loans later in life because they once expressed mild skepticism of the established order online.
As they slowly ramp up the legitimate fear of penalties for your political beliefs or actions in private life and shut more people up out of nervousness because of it, they will have manufactured their own consent. The dissidents have all been litigated, intimidated, silenced, or shunned out of hearing. Now you don't see any dissidents, do you?
I once again am 90% certain he is talking about Trump Administration officials. If he IS talking about random 15-year old conservatives (and from what I know about Jake Tapper, that is just not what he's about), social media has been being used to screen and weed out job candidates LONG before Trump came onto the scene. Pictures of a wild parties in Vegas have been costing people jobs for a decade.
I think this has something to do with the still fall to the ground hilarious press conference at the landscaping company yesterday, and apparently it turns out Rudy's main vote fraud "witness" is an actual sex offender. I take your point, but I honestly, legitimately believe they are talking about, at worst, Administration staffers.
As a side note about that press conference, you can count me among those who is not concerned a group of people who can't even figure out where the Four Seasons Hotel in Philly is are going to be able to overturn the results of a national election.
The present is trying to find a way to punish administration officials. The future- and present, really- is punishing individuals for their political beliefs and voting patterns.
And if they do succeed at it, not that we will be likely to know, they will have successfully created for themselves veto power over Presidents. The next one that comes along they are in opposition to they will simply intimidate everyone under them using whatever means and methods they can get their hands on.
Intimidation of any sort, which is what all of this is, is about as undemocratic as changing votes.
First AOC and now Jake Tapper. Rumor has it Tom Hanks will be the next to try to put all Conservatives into a 1984 surveillance state.
In real news: Trump just fired his secretary of defense. Generally speaking, I dont much care for what he does with his cabinet, but I cannot help but believe that this kind of volatility will make the incoming Biden administration's transition more challenging (although maybe now that Esper has been fired, Biden will be able to freely talk to him?).
Post-election Twitter really is something. I don't buy the election fraud claim as I have already said but any talk of it is covered by warnings and often made unreplyable or likable, and thus unspreadable. They did it with the Hunter Biden story too, which I have paid zero attention to but as far as i'm aware has yet to be proven false or even claimed false. According to Politico the campaign called it "Russian disinformation" but did not say the emails were false. The US Director of National Intelligence says there is no Russian connection.
The majority of adults 45 and under get most of their news from social media. When social media gets to decide what gets to spread and what does not, rather than the people, they have done more to manipulate democracy than the traditional news media could. I blame Trump for this more than anything because he knew this was an issue but did nothing about it because he thought as long as he won it didn't matter. It does. Neither do I buy the special pleading case for conspiracy theories when the conspiracy theory of vote-altering Russians was rampant for years by those making the decisions. What is censorable conspiracy theory and what is a legitimate argument is not in the hands of the permanently biased to decide.
Post-election Twitter really is something. I don't buy the election fraud claim as I have already said but any talk of it is covered by warnings and often made unreplyable or likable, and thus unspreadable. They did it with the Hunter Biden story too, which I have paid zero attention to but as far as i'm aware has yet to be proven false or even claimed false. According to Politico the campaign called it "Russian disinformation" but did not say the emails were false. The US Director of National Intelligence says there is no Russian connection.
The majority of adults 45 and under get most of their news from social media. When social media gets to decide what gets to spread and what does not, rather than the people, they have done more to manipulate democracy than the traditional news media could. I blame Trump for this more than anything because he knew this was an issue but did nothing about it because he thought as long as he won it didn't matter. It does. Neither do I buy the special pleading case for conspiracy theories when the conspiracy theory of vote-altering Russians was rampant for years by those making the decisions. What is censorable conspiracy theory and what is a legitimate argument is not in the hands of the permanently biased to decide.
I know you like this Michael Tracey guy, but if a person actually clicks on the ‘Learn More’ link in the block tweets, it actually brings a person to site with ‘superior evidence and arguments’ with quotes from professionals that is longer than any tweet can provide.
There is no two sides of this. A person can not say there is election fraud without giving substantial claims of it especially when their is enough evidence to dispute the claims.
Remember, this is the same administration that claimed there was millions of votes cast illegally for Clinton the last time and had the Republican led Senate to run an investigation looking for voter fraud. That investigation turned up nothing and I bet if the Senate was to humour Trump again about these unsubstantial voter fraud claims, they will find no evidence as well.
One also has to remember that these warnings were in response to actual misinformation campaigns used in the previous election and elected officials asked multimedia sites to do more to curb the spread of it.
Neither do I buy the special pleading case for conspiracy theories when the conspiracy theory of vote-altering Russians was rampant for years by those making the decisions.
As @jjstraka34 has pointed out on countless occasions, the claim was never that Russia changed votes; it was that they accessed voting systems and could gain the ability to change votes in the future. It's not a "conspiracy theory of vote-altering Russians" if the theory doesn't claim that Russians altered votes.
I get the feeling that you're deeply unfamiliar with liberal positions in general. This is a case in point:
The future is gonna be 15 year olds denied higher education, careers, and loans later in life because they once expressed mild skepticism of the established order online.
No. I've read your previous comments on this subject and your grounds for believing in this idea is you seeing liberals criticizing conservatives on social media. And liberals criticizing conservatives on social media, however impolitely you feel they're doing it, is an act of freedom of speech, not an omen of oppression.
No, we don't want to secretly kick 15 year olds out of school for tweeting stuff. We want campaign finance reform and publicly funded healthcare. We're not out to get you, and bickering on Twitter is not "intimidation."
The majority of adults 45 and under get most of their news from social media. When social media gets to decide what gets to spread and what does not, rather than the people, they have done more to manipulate democracy than the traditional news media could. I blame Trump for this more than anything because he knew this was an issue but did nothing about it because he thought as long as he won it didn't matter. It does. Neither do I buy the special pleading case for conspiracy theories when the conspiracy theory of vote-altering Russians was rampant for years by those making the decisions. What is censorable conspiracy theory and what is a legitimate argument is not in the hands of the permanently biased to decide.
I can see the problem, but what is the solution if social media companies don't take any action? Trump has spent years abusing his position to spread blatant lies - relying on the inability of fact checkers armed with any amount of evidence to overcome a simple, endlessly repeated, fiction.
I think you've talked before about the importance of investigative reporting and bemoaned the fact that declining journalistic standards means that's gone out of favor. That demonstrates you think it's important that someone should tell the truth. If the government won't do so, then who should it be?
Just because adults choose to get most of their news from social media does not mean they have to. And imo they shouldn't. Someone who watched just PBS's the Newshour everyday would be more informed than the average person who spent two hours a day getting their news from social media.
The future is gonna be 15 year olds denied higher education, careers, and loans later in life because they once expressed mild skepticism of the established order online.
Some 15 year olds are posting calls to violence and really are butthurt over the election. Kids at that age may not consider the consequences of crazy threats. Heck, some grown ass adults are saying the same thing like Alabama Sheriff guy calling for shooting Dems and Steve Bannon calling to behead them.
No one is denying people opportunity because of mild skepticism. Old Jake Tapper is not talking to those making mild criticism.
The future is gonna be 15 year olds denied higher education, careers, and loans later in life because they once expressed mild skepticism of the established order online.
Some 15 year olds are posting calls to violence and really are butthurt over the election. Kids at that age may not consider the consequences of crazy threats. Heck, some grown ass adults are saying the same thing like Alabama Sheriff guy calling for shooting Dems and Steve Bannon calling to behead them.
No one is denying people opportunity because of mild skepticism. Old Jake Tapper is not talking to those making mild criticism.
A police chief here in a small town Arkansas was fired Saturday over say the same things. The town where this happened is know for the KKK being active in the surrounding area and a whole area is know to be anti democratic and racial biased.
Trump attorney Jay Sekulow feels he's going to open cases in multiple states then bring them to the US supreme court where he'll respect their decision (to steal the election from Biden).
“This is the very beginning of this, way in the beginning,” the Trump attorney said. “The ultimate determination of this I do not believe is going to be made by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the Supreme Court of New Mexico, or Arizona, actually, or the Supreme Court of Wisconsin or Michigan. I think the ultimate determinations are going to be here, at the Supreme Court of the United States. I think that’s the end result of where this goes.”
This is a slow moving coup going back to Mitch McConnell blocking Merrick Garland.
McConnell has a meeting with Bill Barr this afternoon, then basically backs Trump's "fraudulent election" position. If it wasn't clear before, it's crystal clear now. The GOP would rather burn the country to the ground if they can't have absolute power. Maybe the left should just say they don't accept the results in Kentucky, and Mitch McConnell isn't really the winner. See how easy that is?? Apparently this is why. Pray it backfires:
Let's be CRYSTAL clear here. Hilary Clinton conceded the very next day in an election that was, from every objective measurement, closer than this one. No Democrats challenged the RESULT anywhere. The only talk of a recount was by Jill Stein, another grifter who raised money for it and then walked off with the funds. In the intervening years, the BEHAVIOR of the Trump campaign in regards to Russia was questioned up and down, but there was NEVER any discussion about the results being altered. And the GOP (outside of five Senators) is now claiming the election was stolen despite presenting zero evidence, just buzzwords like "fraudulent, illegal ballots, and irregularities".
Let's get down to brass tacks here, shall we?? Do you know why they have a problem with counting the mail-in ballots in these states from cities like Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia?? It's because they were overwhelmingly cast by black people, and they don't really think those should count. Same as it ever was.
Seriously, what does it even mean to be a liberal or a conservative today? If you invented a time machine and you brought back people from the 1950's who identified with either group, they would see more differences than similarities between them and their contemporary peers. I know conservatives that support the legalization of drugs, support gay marriage, and are pro-choice. Conversely, I also know liberals that are against the use of recreational drugs, are homophobic to the core, and are anti-abortion. It's as if the roles have switched.
What do conservatives and liberals actually believe today? What do they stand for? If you say "justice", "equality", etc., well, in theory everyone is in favor of those things. Who in their right mind would claim that society would greatly benefit by promoting the opposite? Image if a presidential candidate said: "We're gonna make this society more unjust and we will actively promote inequality". Nobody is going to say something like that.
What specific things distinguish liberals from conservatives?
Seriously, what does it even mean to be a liberal or a conservative today? If you invented a time machine and you brought back people from the 1950's who identified with either group, they would see more differences than similarities between them and their contemporary peers. I know conservatives that support the legalization of drugs, support gay marriage, and are pro-choice. Conversely, I also know liberals that are against the use of recreational drugs, are homophobic to the core, and are anti-abortion. It's as if the roles have switched.
What do conservatives and liberals actually believe today? What do they stand for? If you say "justice", "equality", etc., well, in theory everyone is in favor of those things. Who in their right mind would claim that society would greatly benefit by promoting the opposite? Image if a presidential candidate said: "We're gonna make this society more unjust and we will actively promote inequality". Nobody is going to say something like that.
What specific things distinguish liberals from conservatives?
For starters, that everyone has a right to have their vote counted, even if they mailed it in during a once in a century pandemic. Even if there was nothing else, it would be BEYOND enough for me. And the idea that the general consensus on LGBTQ rights and abortion has somehow become a 50/50 proposition between the two parties is, frankly, absurd.
Conservatives stand for limited government, less control of the state over people's lives, balancing the budget, and less waste of taxpayer dollars on frivolous 'pork' projects. I can probably think of some more after I take another hit on my crack pipe...
That is what conservatism is supposed to be. Now it's just the tails side of the abortion coin. Seriously, that's about it...
Let me just state, that today, the President-Elect revealed a COVID-19 task force and response that (gasp!!!) ISN'T being led by his son-in-law, but doctors. And the GOP is basically going full Qanon. That is the difference between the two parties. One is, despite everything else, a serious governing party. The other is an insane asylum.
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If someone wants to make an argument for keeping the EC - fine, but at least ensure the argument isnt disingenuous from the outset. Until that very (very) low bar can be cleared, I dont see much point in the conversation.
RE @ThacoBell 's quoted tweet: You know, except for the planned attack on the counting facilities in Philadelphia and the fact that some of the people in charge of counting in Georgia are in hiding because they fear for their lives...
What are conservatives 'telling people' they have to do? Conservatives are not generally about 'telling people' what they have to do (barring the far religious right, maybe) but rather preventing government from 'telling people' what they have to do.
The religious right basically controls the party platform on every cultural policy issue. An enacted full-list of Republican Party goals would essentially be a Christian theocracy. They wanted to enshrine second-class citizenry for gay people into the Constitution itself as recently as 2004. This position was why Bush won Ohio in his reelection bid, and you don't need to take my word for it, you can ask Karl Rove. And Republicans wouldn't win any election anywhere ever again without these voters.
I mean I appreciate the numbers and all but the premise of your argument is wrong so it's all for nothing. Wyoming doesn't have more power than New York or California. Wyoming has 3 electoral college votes. You can not seriously say they are more powerful than California, with their 55 electoral votes. If anything, this goes to show how little power some of these groups of people have.
But yes, you're right that on a per capita basis Wyoming has more representatives than it should have. This is by design, not a flaw. It means that it is more valuable to have a majority of voters across the entire country than it is to have a supermajority of voters in a single area. I find this far a better model of representation for the country, where it takes the entire country to elect a President rather than 2 states and a handful of counties.
I'm noticing more and more that people on the left are increasingly adopting a right wing style of mockery, up to and including the use of far right memes. No judgement, just an observation.
Except it doesn't. If this was true, winning the EC vote would also mean winning the popular vote. But because the EC is weighted towards districts (which are drawn to favor a single party) and not population, we get a huge imbalance.
As for the memes, the short answer would be "turnabout is fair play."
The long answer is that Trump has made racism safe to express in public again. That is 100% his only appeal. The only reason racism was less widespread compared to previous decades, was because it was made distasteful to be openly racist. We've lost a lot of that in the last 4 years, so racists need to be made to feel the social pressure and shame all over again.
This argument also seems to be based on the idea that the electoral college affects the entire system of government. It also seems to assume that a president will only act for his 'side', rather than representing the country as a whole - that's an idea I would like to see disappear at the same time as Trump.
I already acknowledged in my earlier post that there was a need for local people to have influence and control over their own local affairs. That's the case in every country, but I take your point earlier that it's even more the case in such a large and varied country as the US. However, if the US is to remain a single country then people elsewhere in the country should also have some measure of influence. Just what the balance should be is clearly a matter for dispute and I have no problem with someone making an argument that the electoral college should stay as it is to represent the best balance between local and national interests. I do though think that to be productive an argument should acknowledge that there does need to be a balance between local and national (or clearly state a preference for states to secede).
Most of the workings of the electoral college are up to individual states at the moment - hence my earlier point that states can already make changes if they wished to, without the need for changes to the Constitution or any new federal laws. Whether representatives are mandated to vote as dictated by their appointers or according to their own conscience has always been a matter of dispute, so it's not surprising that different states follow different lines on this at the moment. Removing the ability of states to choose the method they prefer on this issue would require a Constitutional amendment.
The bit you quoted from me referred to states basing votes on the popular will in their state. That's not the same thing as the existing proposals in many Democratic states to base electoral college votes on the national vote. I don't particularly have a problem with those proposals, but nor do I have a problem with the idea of splitting votes according to the popular vote in each state - which would retain the higher level of influence over the outcome of the election of voters in smaller states. I do though think the current system in most states, which means votes are only meaningful in a fairly small number of them, is bad for democracy. That's not a party political issue, it just reflects that I think political engagement with voters should be done in the country as a whole and not just a fraction of it.
I will continue to hate memes with an absolute passion no matter who is using them, but to the broader point, I am just flat-out amused that a political movement who basically adapted the slogan of "cry more, lib" is somehow surprised they are getting blowback for it. Liberals learned a harsh lesson in 2016 to not just assume your candidate is going to cakewalk to the White House. And I simply don't think conservatives, by and large, even prepared for this eventuality in 2020. They thought Trump was going to coast to victory.
When I started seeing people with prediction maps of Trump winning 45 states, my immediate thought was "these folks are in for a rude awakening". It's not just that many people think the close swing states were "stolen". I'm getting sent posts from my cousin of relatives who think Minnesota was stolen. Biden won MN by 8 frickin' points. It would be like me saying Trump stole Ohio this round, which I would never do looking at the numbers.
Which brings up another point, using this state as an example. Rural Minnesota might as well be Alabama (I know, I lived there for 20 years). Minneapolis/St. Paul is ALWAYS going to outvote them in a Presidential election. Does this mean we should divide MN into 8 separate states?? The divide is no longer race, or even income as much as it is urban/rural and educated/non-educated (in the sense of post-high school).
Case in point, the Biden campaign was successful almost exclusively because they looked at the razor-thing margins in three states and said "get those back, and that's the ballgame". I they then proceeded to focus absolutely all attention on them, to the exclusion of nearly everything else, so much so they they put blinders on as to not get distracted by flashy objects elsewhere (Arizona and Georgia came through in the end, but those were icing, not the cake). Give or take a few 10s of thousands of votes here or there, Biden did pretty much exactly what has been talked about endlessly for four years. Flip 50,000 votes in each state in the Rust Belt. It was always the most obvious path back to the White House, and they took it. And I still feel fairly correct when I said Biden got them back simply on the virtue of not being a woman.
As they slowly ramp up the legitimate fear of penalties for your political beliefs or actions in private life and shut more people up out of nervousness because of it, they will have manufactured their own consent. The dissidents have all been litigated, intimidated, silenced, or shunned out of hearing. Now you don't see any dissidents, do you?
I once again am 90% certain he is talking about Trump Administration officials. If he IS talking about random 15-year old conservatives (and from what I know about Jake Tapper, that is just not what he's about), social media has been being used to screen and weed out job candidates LONG before Trump came onto the scene. Pictures of a wild parties in Vegas have been costing people jobs for a decade.
I think this has something to do with the still fall to the ground hilarious press conference at the landscaping company yesterday, and apparently it turns out Rudy's main vote fraud "witness" is an actual sex offender. I take your point, but I honestly, legitimately believe they are talking about, at worst, Administration staffers.
As a side note about that press conference, you can count me among those who is not concerned a group of people who can't even figure out where the Four Seasons Hotel in Philly is are going to be able to overturn the results of a national election.
And if they do succeed at it, not that we will be likely to know, they will have successfully created for themselves veto power over Presidents. The next one that comes along they are in opposition to they will simply intimidate everyone under them using whatever means and methods they can get their hands on.
Intimidation of any sort, which is what all of this is, is about as undemocratic as changing votes.
In real news: Trump just fired his secretary of defense. Generally speaking, I dont much care for what he does with his cabinet, but I cannot help but believe that this kind of volatility will make the incoming Biden administration's transition more challenging (although maybe now that Esper has been fired, Biden will be able to freely talk to him?).
The majority of adults 45 and under get most of their news from social media. When social media gets to decide what gets to spread and what does not, rather than the people, they have done more to manipulate democracy than the traditional news media could. I blame Trump for this more than anything because he knew this was an issue but did nothing about it because he thought as long as he won it didn't matter. It does. Neither do I buy the special pleading case for conspiracy theories when the conspiracy theory of vote-altering Russians was rampant for years by those making the decisions. What is censorable conspiracy theory and what is a legitimate argument is not in the hands of the permanently biased to decide.
I know you like this Michael Tracey guy, but if a person actually clicks on the ‘Learn More’ link in the block tweets, it actually brings a person to site with ‘superior evidence and arguments’ with quotes from professionals that is longer than any tweet can provide.
There is no two sides of this. A person can not say there is election fraud without giving substantial claims of it especially when their is enough evidence to dispute the claims.
Remember, this is the same administration that claimed there was millions of votes cast illegally for Clinton the last time and had the Republican led Senate to run an investigation looking for voter fraud. That investigation turned up nothing and I bet if the Senate was to humour Trump again about these unsubstantial voter fraud claims, they will find no evidence as well.
One also has to remember that these warnings were in response to actual misinformation campaigns used in the previous election and elected officials asked multimedia sites to do more to curb the spread of it.
I get the feeling that you're deeply unfamiliar with liberal positions in general. This is a case in point: No. I've read your previous comments on this subject and your grounds for believing in this idea is you seeing liberals criticizing conservatives on social media. And liberals criticizing conservatives on social media, however impolitely you feel they're doing it, is an act of freedom of speech, not an omen of oppression.
No, we don't want to secretly kick 15 year olds out of school for tweeting stuff. We want campaign finance reform and publicly funded healthcare. We're not out to get you, and bickering on Twitter is not "intimidation."
I can see the problem, but what is the solution if social media companies don't take any action? Trump has spent years abusing his position to spread blatant lies - relying on the inability of fact checkers armed with any amount of evidence to overcome a simple, endlessly repeated, fiction.
I think you've talked before about the importance of investigative reporting and bemoaned the fact that declining journalistic standards means that's gone out of favor. That demonstrates you think it's important that someone should tell the truth. If the government won't do so, then who should it be?
No one has to be on social media to be informed.
Some 15 year olds are posting calls to violence and really are butthurt over the election. Kids at that age may not consider the consequences of crazy threats. Heck, some grown ass adults are saying the same thing like Alabama Sheriff guy calling for shooting Dems and Steve Bannon calling to behead them.
No one is denying people opportunity because of mild skepticism. Old Jake Tapper is not talking to those making mild criticism.
A police chief here in a small town Arkansas was fired Saturday over say the same things. The town where this happened is know for the KKK being active in the surrounding area and a whole area is know to be anti democratic and racial biased.
https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/11/09/gop-states-back-trump-election-challenge-435437
“This is the very beginning of this, way in the beginning,” the Trump attorney said. “The ultimate determination of this I do not believe is going to be made by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the Supreme Court of New Mexico, or Arizona, actually, or the Supreme Court of Wisconsin or Michigan. I think the ultimate determinations are going to be here, at the Supreme Court of the United States. I think that’s the end result of where this goes.”
This is a slow moving coup going back to Mitch McConnell blocking Merrick Garland.
Let's be CRYSTAL clear here. Hilary Clinton conceded the very next day in an election that was, from every objective measurement, closer than this one. No Democrats challenged the RESULT anywhere. The only talk of a recount was by Jill Stein, another grifter who raised money for it and then walked off with the funds. In the intervening years, the BEHAVIOR of the Trump campaign in regards to Russia was questioned up and down, but there was NEVER any discussion about the results being altered. And the GOP (outside of five Senators) is now claiming the election was stolen despite presenting zero evidence, just buzzwords like "fraudulent, illegal ballots, and irregularities".
Let's get down to brass tacks here, shall we?? Do you know why they have a problem with counting the mail-in ballots in these states from cities like Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia?? It's because they were overwhelmingly cast by black people, and they don't really think those should count. Same as it ever was.
What do conservatives and liberals actually believe today? What do they stand for? If you say "justice", "equality", etc., well, in theory everyone is in favor of those things. Who in their right mind would claim that society would greatly benefit by promoting the opposite? Image if a presidential candidate said: "We're gonna make this society more unjust and we will actively promote inequality". Nobody is going to say something like that.
What specific things distinguish liberals from conservatives?
For starters, that everyone has a right to have their vote counted, even if they mailed it in during a once in a century pandemic. Even if there was nothing else, it would be BEYOND enough for me. And the idea that the general consensus on LGBTQ rights and abortion has somehow become a 50/50 proposition between the two parties is, frankly, absurd.
In the US, acceptance of man-made climate change and the need to do something about it, for one profoundly serious example.
Believing the pandemic is real and should actually be addressed in ANY WAY WHATSOEVER would be another.
That is what conservatism is supposed to be. Now it's just the tails side of the abortion coin. Seriously, that's about it...