Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

I continue to keep hearing this thing about the popular vote, but my question is if everyone in the United States is more or less aware of the electoral college, why is this an ongoing point to gesture to? Going solely with the popular vote is nothing but mob rule and heavily favors places with high population centers that do not speak for the vastness of the country. Why is this still brought up? It has never actually meant anything in the United States. To this day, half a year in, I still see this get referred to, no less given it was within the margin of error difference - in part meaning it barely mattered as a difference of no greater than 2.5% or so percent.

[Andreyich]

TBH the British and American election results just go to show that even when outnumbered, the Good Guys still win.

[Vilageidiotx]

I continue to keep hearing this thing about the popular vote, but my question is if everyone in the United States is more or less aware of the electoral college, why is this an ongoing point to gesture to? Going solely with the popular vote is nothing but mob rule and heavily favors places with high population centers that do not speak for the vastness of the country. Why is this still brought up? It has never actually meant anything in the United States. To this day, half a year in, I still see this get referred to, no less given it was within the margin of error difference - in part meaning it barely mattered as a difference of no greater than 2.5% or so percent.

@The Harbinger of Ferocity

Everybody is aware of the electoral college, hence why what you are talking about is usually represented through some move for electoral college reform.

And is it evil for a majority to be represented? Personally I think if the minority keeps dictating terms to the majority, the system will fray apart because people will lose faith in it. I mean, are we a government of the people, by the people, for the people; or are we a government of the square miles, by the square miles, for the square miles?

[Vilageidiotx]

woops

[SleepingSilence]

As biting as the political statements made on here are, I feel like just occasionally posting videos, because I feel like actual discussion is moot. But on the electoral college, and saying letting the minority have a say can lead to problems while in the very same ideal, take the minority of people and make it their biggest causes and pretend it's what they stand for as a whole is a touch ironic. And I mean that statement as people who do it as a whole...

There's many things I've wanted to comment on, but all of them have similar "that's kind of ironic" statements all tied together. This election in general has just shown just how hypocritical both sides have been and its been really embarrassing how immature and absolutely full of s***, so many people actually are. There is no moral principals anymore. At this point both sides seem to behave like petty children. Websites have sunk to an all time low, I respect fewer and fewer people online. I may be genuinely sick of politics, I just wish I'd reach a point of apathy, so people saying stupid and toxic things wouldn't annoy me. <.<

[Vilageidiotx]

As biting as the political statements made on here are, I feel like just occasionally posting videos, because I feel like actual discussion is moot. But on the electoral college, and saying letting the minority have a say can lead to problems while in the very same ideal, take the minority of people and make it their biggest causes and pretend it's what they stand for as a whole is a touch ironic. And I mean that statement as people who do it as a whole...

There's many things I've wanted to comment on, but all of them have similar "that's kind of ironic" statements all tied together. This election in general has just shown just how hypocritical both sides have been and its been really embarrassing how immature and absolutely full of s***, so many people actually are. There is no moral principals anymore. At this point both sides seem to behave like petty children. Websites have sunk to an all time low, I respect fewer and fewer people online. I may be genuinely sick of politics, I just wish I'd reach a point of apathy, so people saying stupid and toxic things wouldn't annoy me. <.<

@SleepingSilence

I'm not going to watch the video because it combines two of the worse things in the world - vlogging and pundits. With that said...

The minority does have a say. Imma assume what you mean by minority is an individual piece of a political party, like gun people or economic libertarians or gay rights people or whatever. The way the American system works is that any individual group votes for the party most representative of their interests. In this situation it becomes the purpose of the party to attempt to pick up as many of those groups as possible. The party who represents the majority of American interests wins.

We aren't supposed to be voting for parties for the sake of parties, so Republican vs Democrat aren't black and white issues and both parties can change to make majorities. If we had democratic elections, the Republicans would just have to restrategize by moving to cover another group. Trump showed they can do that when he got a majority of working class whites in the rust belt. The "They would just compete for the cities" thing is a fallacy because somebody would ultimately do better in the cities and the other party would need to swoop for the rural vote to make up the difference. As of now, parties focus on swing states and we accept this under a weak assumption that swing states are the best representatives of the country, and that we are all in spirit Floridians.

The electoral system was primarily adopted because this country was originally imagined as a federation and it was necessary to placate small states in order to bring them in. It is a technically outdated system that is currently used to game elections. A good example of how outdated the electoral system is comes from imagining what would happen if the other part of the system, the ability of the electoral college to ignore the democratic vote all together, was actually enacted. That's an ugly and disheartening image.

Going forward right now, I think the electoral system is playing a part in the collapse of civil engagement. Americans are getting divorced from their government, and though there are a lot of causes to this problem, one of them is the whole "My vote doesn't matter because I'm a Democrat in Mississipi/I'm a Republican in California/They'll pick the loser anyway" thing.

Mind you, this could end up biting the Republicans in the ass. Defending it now just because the party your are dedicated to took advantage of it a couple of times recently doesn't mean the system won't hiccup later and kick a Republican out of a popular victory.

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

@Vilageidiotx

I have yet to see how it does not work as intended, but more so my focus is on what is considered "the majority". In the strictest definition that additional 2% of the population does skew the numbers into a "majority" over the other percentage, but even that is not really much of a majority; there might be grounds to claim the system is broken and rigged if it were a difference of five percent or so. The actual difference between 46% and a 48% are negligible when factoring in that once again, a number of these people are concentrated in cities. The difference falls into the realm of margin of error - not that there was any - yet more that I mean its difference is statistically negligible to the outcome, which it was.

The election of 2000 was far, far closer in terms of numbers both in popular vote and electoral vote, yet the Bush administration was the one that found itself in office "against the popular vote". The disparity of 2000 was 271 to 266, a far cry from the massive difference of 2016 where the 304 to 227 occurred. Granted I know a number of people do not remember well the election in 2000, myself included, but that information is freely available. There is not much ground to argue that the popular vote is the deciding factor or that this was an upset victory created by a broken system; the win was not even close.

To answer the other component, do I think majority rule to be "evil"? Yes to an extent, because I know for a fact that the "Deep Blue States" do not speak for me or my beliefs. Just because you have a larger, more concentrated number of like minded people does not make you right; it just means you have a larger, more concentrated population of like minds - my state and lifestyle still want to be legally represented, especially as our own local "majority" that is a part of a union. Furthermore, this would have a better basis if, and only if, the numbers were heavily skewed for the majority or for the minority. The electoral college, as dysfunctional as any other system built by man, more or less did what it was designed to do by and large; barring of course the faithless electors, who I view personally as traitors to their people, regardless of their party because of their motives and actions.

But I digress, the notion of "only swing states" is inaccurate within itself; a few of those heavy blue states that have not voted red in many years did vote this time around for them. Swing states are battlegrounds of course however, the argument that if it were a popular vote that you could come in and "Sweep up what the other side doesn't pander to." is not going to work well in a system that games towards a legitimate popularity contest versus the current metric. By the numbers and by location, the rural voters are going to be fewer and further between, it is not as easy to communicate with them, sway them, gather them, motivate them or compel them. No less, their goals and objectives in life are going to be naturally more diverse than major population centers.

Off the cuff but on topic, United States itself never was or is a true democracy, it is an electoral republic, those officials represent on behalf their peoples' districts, or at least should be. It is a democratic process certainly, although in a different forum. The popular vote is mostly irrelevant and only needs to aggregate enough in regions to push an electoral vote. I am not saying this as if you do not know, because that would be arrogant and foolish, but because I cannot see a basis of argument for "Popular vote wins."

About the electoral college ignoring the vote altogether, I am fairly certain they would not do so unless under a situation of extreme duress. If it comes to that, the United States is already beyond repair and likely in a flaming spiral downward that no amount of voting or politicking will save it from.

The disinterest of Americans voting is under their own lack of discipline and nothing but it. I live and work in a traditionally blue state and knew that even if my county was to be particularly red leaning, our electoral votes were going to the Democrats. I still voted out of principal and obligation. If people do not believe their vote matters, not only are they very wrong, they are doing a disservice to the people of the United States. Then again, I find that an unsettling number of American citizens are complacent, so this is not news either.

Even if a Republican won the popular vote, I know that accounts for nothing. It is a relatively meaningless number, not entirely true I will say as the electoral votes are more important, that should not really be used to gauge anything. I remember clearly the Obama administration sweeping the first election they won and a strong follow-up on the second. I would call that more disheartening than having a difference of 1-2% popularity, but life still went on.

[Vilageidiotx]

I have yet to see how it does not work as intended, but more so my focus is on what is considered "the majority". In the strictest definition that additional 2% of the population does skew the numbers into a "majority" over the other percentage, but even that is not really much of a majority; there might be grounds to claim the system is broken and rigged if it were a difference of five percent or so. The actual difference between 46% and a 48% are negligible when factoring in that once again, a number of these people are concentrated in cities. The difference falls into the realm of margin of error - not that there was any - yet more that I mean its difference is statistically negligible to the outcome, which it was.

@The Harbinger of Ferocity

It's not a statistic, it's a vote. Margin of error doesn't apply. Margin of error is a concept that exists to determine whether the population you polled is symbolic of a larger population. If you poll 200 people to inquire how an election will go, the margin of error is telling you how far off that 200 might be as a representative of the larger voting population. But in an election, the voting population isn't just a sample, it is the entire voting population, sooo a margin of error doesn't apply.

To answer the other component, do I think majority rule to be "evil"? Yes to an extent, because I know for a fact that the "Deep Blue States" do not speak for me or my beliefs. Just because you have a larger, more concentrated number of like minded people does not make you right; it just means you have a larger, more concentrated population of like minds - my state and lifestyle still want to be legally represented, especially as our own local "majority" that is a part of a union. Furthermore, this would have a better basis if, and only if, the numbers were heavily skewed for the majority or for the minority. The electoral college, as dysfunctional as any other system built by man, more or less did what it was designed to do by and large; barring of course the faithless electors, who I view personally as traitors to their people, regardless of their party because of their motives and actions.

This is a chaotic argument because it doesn't state why you should legitimately be allowed to impose your values on the majority. That the majority isn't always right is obvious, but the idea that the majority is the closest we can come to legitimate government is the basis of any system with a democratic foundation. Our system was built with the assumption that the government would swallow the more capricious problems of mob rule so that we can have the best of both worlds. You are saying that the majority shouldn't be allowed representation within that government because they live too close to each other or something, which is a weird argument

My Hider

But I digress, the notion of "only swing states" is inaccurate within itself; a few of those heavy blue states that have not voted red in many years did vote this time around for them. Swing states are battlegrounds of course however, the argument that if it were a popular vote that you could come in and "Sweep up what the other side doesn't pander to." is not going to work well in a system that games towards a legitimate popularity contest versus the current metric. By the numbers and by location, the rural voters are going to be fewer and further between, it is not as easy to communicate with them, sway them, gather them, motivate them or compel them. No less, their goals and objectives in life are going to be naturally more diverse than major population centers.

It's very easy to communicate with them. It's the 21st century, location isn't as important as it once was. All you gotta do is make sure the spread out rural population gets your message.

Off the cuff but on topic, United States itself never was or is a true democracy, it is an electoral republic, those officials represent on behalf their peoples' districts, or at least should be. It is a democratic process certainly, although in a different forum. The popular vote is mostly irrelevant and only needs to aggregate enough in regions to push an electoral vote. I am not saying this as if you do not know, because that would be arrogant and foolish, but because I cannot see a basis of argument for "Popular vote wins."

That's how the system works, but the reality is that our system bases its legitimacy on democracy. This is something I get the impression most of the founding fathers didn't completely understand, so throughout history we've seen the presence of democracy insert itself more and more. We are more and more a government of the people yatta yatta yatta. So democracy is the legitimization factor.

About the electoral college ignoring the vote altogether, I am fairly certain they would not do so unless under a situation of extreme duress. If it comes to that, the United States is already beyond repair and likely in a flaming spiral downward that no amount of voting or politicking will save it from.

I agree, and that is good, because if it happened it would be fucking apocalyptic. The point is that the system cannot work the way it was intended, not completely. Electors were not originally tied to the vote because they were supposed to be one of those things defending us from mob rule. But if they were to act like that now, they would delegitimize the government even quicker than the electoral thing currently is.

The disinterest of Americans voting is under their own lack of discipline and nothing but it. I live and work in a traditionally blue state and knew that even if my county was to be particularly red leaning, our electoral votes were going to the Democrats. I still voted out of principal and obligation. If people do not believe their vote matters, not only are they very wrong, they are doing a disservice to the people of the United States. Then again, I find that an unsettling number of American citizens are complacent, so this is not news either.

Which is the effect I am talking about. To say people are just suddenly undisciplined is silly. If they thought that it mattered, they'd show up. Dwindling civil participation is the direct effect of people thinking they don't matter.

Even if a Republican won the popular vote, I know that accounts for nothing. It is a relatively meaningless number, not entirely true I will say as the electoral votes are more important, that should not really be used to gauge anything. I remember clearly the Obama administration sweeping the first election they won and a strong follow-up on the second. I would call that more disheartening than having a difference of 1-2% popularity, but life still went on.

Life is going on. Well, for me at least. Fuck, I didn't have money on either of the twats to begin with. What I am saying is that this shouldn't be a partisan issue. Just because you are enthralled to a particular party doesn't mean their using this trick to get a President means you should assume it is a partisan issue now and you need to do service to you party by defending this trick. I'm not talking about disheartening democrats or something like that; if Trump had swept the thing popular and all, no matter how disheartened democrats were they couldn't really bitch that the system did them in. But in this case a majority voted for a candidate and the minority dictated terms anyway based on a technicality, which creates the effect "What's my vote matter if the winner loses?", which delegitimizes the system.

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

@Vilageidiotx

The margin of error in this case is an example of how utterly negligible 2% or so of the entire United States population is skewed. This is such a relatively insignificant number, the point was to show this is not an issue of "majority vote" and "minority rule". It is a comparison that it has not enough of a factor to be weighted as extreme or important and there was not even a close race. The fact that the Trump administration won 46% of the popular vote to the Hillary campaign's 48% shows there's not a significant enough difference to bring issue here, hence the 2000 election example used which was closer by both popular and electoral vote; there's no issue at all here. Had the 2008 election been 52% to 45% with an electoral victory for the McCain campaign despite massive losses under popular vote, there might be an argument; that never happened however.

You can still use that concept in this comparison, because it shows that the system works as designed.

As for my argument for the electoral college, that is not at all what I stated. I stated that based upon the representatives of my state, that even my "minority" is represented because where I would be - in this hypothetical. If my state is a Deep Red state but I am a blue member and my community is blue, they put forward their votes accordingly. However, if the majority of the state is red - as it is - this will generally lead to that being a Republican collective vote. I was represented, fairly at that, even if I did not win; which is true, because while my district skewed for the Trump administration, the general blueness of the state that represented more of it superseded my little island. That is entirely fair that my minority did not win but was allowed to have a voice in the system.

And no, it is not that easy to communicate or sway voters because of density alone. It is far easier to influence 100,000 people in a single city than it is across an entire county of 100,000 people. This might be the 21st Century where this is easier than ever, but that does not solve the issue of concentration, because availability isn't the issue; mass is easier to market to. Getting more people together in a single place is easier to pander to and talk to their collective situation rather than make pock marks across multiple areas, especially when those people are predisposition to be more sympathetic or interested in your platform or product. This is generally true with just about any marketing.

The system already is a product of legitimacy. It is written, codified, documented, and implemented, no less it includes a history to base itself on that is not part of the modern era. This is not a new process, neither is it one that is not in part a representative democratic process. It is meeting its own criteria, with people crying foul now only because they lost, not because there seems to be any legitimacy to the argument. It is continuing to behave and be validated by its design and its historical track record.

People are undisciplined. If the general population is so hopeless that they cannot be bothered to cast their vote if they win or lose, they more or less lose the right to complain about it. I still voted for the Romney campaign despite the fact I knew the Obama administration was likely to sweep the electoral and popular vote again, which it did. That is discipline and execution of duty. My vote "might not have mattered", but I exercised my right and did what I was supposed to do, regardless of my feelings on it. I do not accept the thought that "peoples votes do not matter". They do, especially en masse.

The electoral voters are supposed to represent their people in ideology. Again, if I was a voter for my district, as much as it would hurt me to vote for the Clinton campaign personally, my objective is to represent the interests of the area I am responsible for as unbiased and impartial as I can be. I have a duty to perform, not a moral obligation to challenge what is "unjust". I would be out of my lane if I did that.

While this time I believe the electoral vote to have been in my personal favor, again I cannot fault it for the previous two elections which I Was strongly against. It did what it was designed to do and I resigned myself to going on with my life and keeping tabs on what I hoped would be a turning tide; which it was. This is not a matter of "technicality", this is a matter of the system doing exactly what it was meant to do. If anything that should legitimize the system because it worked as intended. Again, if the Trump administration had lost by 5%, they might have an argument, but this is a clear cut case that the United States' approach to voting for leaders works within its design. The popular vote was relatively close, especially if we look back to recent events and then further back. A 2% win of popular vote is very, very little.

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

The post has been completed, @Vilageidiotx.

[mdk]

[SleepingSilence]

@Vilageidiotx

I'm not going to watch the video because it combines two of the worse things in the world - vlogging and pundits.

The party who represents the majority of American interests wins.

"They would just compete for the cities" thing is a fallacy.

There's the problem, and makes my point of discussion things moot. I can't recommend you a goddamn book to read...videos are the best and easiest way to express a point. Especially when you yourself had a heart attack when I typed too much stuff. Well how can one remove thousand of words of typing? A video. But I digress.

The majority has never gotten what it's wanted. The majority of people voted proposition 8 in the every/or nearly every state and yet that was completely overruled and changed. Why? Because we "party that represents" has never actually been the reason the majority of people vote. Somebody mentioned "i vote democrats because that party 'pretends' to care and panders to me." and that in a nutshell capitulates, just how the masses actually vote. I don't feel like getting that deep into it but that's been their mindset for decades.

reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2…

President B. Lyndon Johnson: 'I'll Have Those N*****s Voting Democratic for 200 Years'

"We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.”

liveaction.org/news/7-shocking-quotes…

Abortion/Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Sanger.

fivethirtyeight.com/features/black-vo…

theundefeated.com/features/black-vote…

washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/…

Pandering has worked for forever, so why stop now? And I already know debating is pointless. This is reality.

usnews.com/opinion/blogs/erbe/2008/11…

".an overwhelming number—70 percent—of black voters in California...voted for Proposition 8 and helped secure its passage,"

Most of the black community, people in the ghetto's especially. Are probably the most socially conservative demographic...all they've need was the untrue stigma that republicans are racist and evil.



But I know you won't watch. So I'll leave it there by knowing arguing against the pandering at this point is intellectually dishonest and not worth debating over.

And No, because the popular vote has never been a thing. And no, the city thing is not a fallacy. If we only did a popular vote, they WOULD pander to cities. Because they could promise that city endless benefits, and make other states pay for them. Why wouldn't they do that? I won't argue the electoral college is perfect or flawless, but if you are arguing to remove it entirely for a popular vote. I reject that ideal for a very good reason.

Like you've done before and I will correct you again. We aren't a democracy. That is a clear distinction needed to be made. We do not get things done by mob rule and presidents have not all been elected 'because of representation of beliefs' because like I said, many people don't even know who believes what. And it's not just kids and teens either. There's no way I can convince you that the electoral college is needed, if I can't even provide evidence that you'll look at. So what's the point? Probably is none.

[Dolerman]

@The Harbinger of Ferocity@mdk@Vilageidiotx

[Andreyich]

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[Penny]

We aren't a democracy. That is a clear distinction needed to be made.

@SleepingSilence

Does it need to be made? Were we all about to rush up to the Pnyx and cast our votes?

Although something like the electoral college is probably needed to ensure some sort of representation for areas of lower population it is mathematically true that your vote has less potency in California than it does in Wyoming.

[SleepingSilence]

@Penny Yes, that is the point of it. It's not a trick or an error that's exactly how it was designed.

Also if I need to bring up the hundreds of people that use the word "were a deomcracy" as an argument including one I had on the forum...that was completely flawed in understanding we aren't one. I will...but biting as the comment was. Yes...which is why I said it. Because the counter argument had been previous made to the person I responded to.

[Andreyich]

With trump in power it's literally nazism

[Penny]

@Penny Yes, that is the point of it. It's not a trick or an error that's exactly how it was designed.

@SleepingSilence

I get that the point of the system is to make it less democratic, partly because there was some merit to it. I just think its reasonable to question whether it becomes unreasonable to give a voter from Montana so much more impact than one from New York. Id rather see more lower case D democracy than less. It will be interesting to see what the demographics look like a hundred years from now will we have rotten borough style states? Because there is no way the system will change, why would the three people who live in Wyoming sign off on a constitutional amendment that would make their vote less important.

The whole Electoral College/popular vote thing is a bit of a red herring anyway. The real concern is that millions of Americans apparently thought that the current regime was a good idea.

[Dinh AaronMk]

President B. Lyndon Johnson: 'I'll Have Those N*****s Voting Democratic for 200 Years'

@SleepingSilence

Nice meme

[mdk]

<Snipped quote by SleepingSilence>

I get that the point of the system is to make it less democratic, partly because there was some merit to it. I just think its reasonable to question whether it becomes unreasonable to give a voter from Montana so much more impact than one from New York. Id rather see more lower case D democracy than less. It will be interesting to see what the demographics look like a hundred years from now will we have rotten borough style states? Because there is no way the system will change, why would the three people who live in Wyoming sign off on a constitutional amendment that would make their vote less important.

The whole Electoral College/popular vote thing is a bit of a red herring anyway. The real concern is that millions of Americans apparently thought that the current regime was a good idea.

@Penny

Upsides: DOW up 16%. NASDAQ up 19.5%. Drilling & energy sector way up. Regulations way down. 600,000+ new jobs added. Unemployment down to 4.3%. Business and economic enthusiasm way up- record levels.

Downsides: HE'S MEAN!!!!