anti-Trumpism is not the same thing as Leftism. Democrats are going to woo the Old Guard of the Republican Party as hard as they can. Not to bring them into the tent, but to help them clean their own.
2020 US Election (Part Two)
- Thread starter Lexicus
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Berzerker
Deity
the old guard is the swamp
Choose:
- There is no swamp, just entrenched bureaucracy that changes slower than Congress
- There will always be an entrenched bureaucracy, whatever name one choose to call it now.
Large amounts of them serving in the Trump administration now like Barr.
The house is on fire. Put the house fire out first, then afterward we can figure out how to deal with the swamp in the backyard.
Zkribbler
Deity
I've been looking forward to the Democratic Convention. 
It's on now and it it TERRIBLE.
The sopkesperson is an actress
I guess because they're known for their political expertise. 
This was followed by a pablum civics lesson, worthy of a third grader. This convention has all the fire and passion of road kill. 
It's on now and it it TERRIBLE. The sopkesperson is an actress
I guess because they're known for their political expertise. This was followed by a pablum civics lesson, worthy of a third grader. This convention has all the fire and passion of road kill. 
sophie
Break My Heart
The problem is that that "afterward" never seems to happen.
Ajidica
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Honestly that sounds like a voter-problem.
We all know congresscritters can't be relied on to show moral courage* so voter action is needed to keep up the pressure on congresscritters are that aren't absolute scum. In that light, Grandpa Joe is far more likely to respond to public pressure in a positive way on issues ranging from health care, to climate change, to police reform than His Trumpiness.
*Controversial policies lose votes, courageous policies lose elections.
I know, and if the DNC incorporates ‘less extreme’ Republicans e.g. John Kasich then it's a horrendous rightwards shift of the Overton window.
But here's the thing: US voters can also vote for Congress. There's primaries at state and federal level for the legislatures there and they do a lot. It's not the same to have AOC in her district as it would be to suddenly have HRC try to be the congresscritter for AOC's district, right?
In British English: ‘brave proposal’ = ‘insane’.
Also, have I simply broken through the fourth wall in my dreams or is Donald Trump's adviser engaging in a Twitter feud with Marge Simpson now the new normal and as expectable as weird colours in Austin Powers?
If that bureaucracy... those people populating that bureaucracy.... those individual employees... those individual human beings.............. are not functioning at a good enough level....
who is to blame ?
those human beings working there ?
or bad governance from politicians in the executive role ?
generals giving all the time changing orders to soldiers not listened to
insufficient stability, reliability and continuity faciliated by generals
blocking solutions instead of using solutions provided by themselves, by predecessors, by the code and by the employees.
My experience with bureaucracy in civil service and big corporate is that it is simply bad management from the very top to down
causing employees in all levels protecting themselves by fragmentating behind their own walls to have at least there some continuity and predictability
the price you pay is lack of cohesion through the ranks, clogged lines up and down, and comfort seeking by employees.
Perhaps there is in the US as additional issue that the civil workers are more seen as order takers (as remnant from the slave culture) and less seen as valuable empowered partners for a common purpose in which all can have pride.
So I've been using a bunch of different methods to see what likely outcomes there are to the election so far. All of the methods I used have Biden winning with just the margin of victory changing. The closest Trump came to winning was a method I used that gave him an "incumbent bonus" which saw Biden narrowly win the presidency with 271 electoral votes.
Anyway, that's not what I really wanted to talk about. I noticed something interesting when doing all this. It is often said the Republicans are the ones with the advantage in the Electoral College, but I don't know if that's necessarily true. If we stick to stereotypes about which states are red and blue, then a Democrat candidate, on average, has to win fewer states than their Republican counterpart to secure a victory in the Electoral College. A Republican usually has to win about 30 states to get enough electoral votes while a Democrat can generally get by winning around 26 states. So it seems Democrats actually have the electoral advantage contrary to popular belief.
Anyway, that's not what I really wanted to talk about. I noticed something interesting when doing all this. It is often said the Republicans are the ones with the advantage in the Electoral College, but I don't know if that's necessarily true. If we stick to stereotypes about which states are red and blue, then a Democrat candidate, on average, has to win fewer states than their Republican counterpart to secure a victory in the Electoral College. A Republican usually has to win about 30 states to get enough electoral votes while a Democrat can generally get by winning around 26 states. So it seems Democrats actually have the electoral advantage contrary to popular belief.
When people talk about an Electoral College advantage, they usually mean that one party needs to win fewer votes to secure victory than the other party, not fewer states. However it does change around:
That's not really what electoral college advantage means in this context. What people are talking about, when they say that the electoral college gives Republicans an advantage, is that Republicans can (and repeatedly do) win the Presidency, without getting the most votes, precisely because of the electoral college setup. Of course the Democrats could theoretically do the same, except that,as you point out, there are currently states that typically go Red and states that typically go Blue. The blue states are more of the ones that get hosed by the electoral college in terms of receiving less than their proportional representation, while the red states are more of the ones who get the windfall from the electoral college in terms of receiving more than their proportional representation. That is why the Republicans have an "electoral college advantage". The votes in the red states are counting for more than the votes in the blue states.
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So the republicans are really doubling down on this anti-protest vibe:
Missouri couple who pointed guns at BLM protesters 'to speak at Republican convention'
A husband and wife who pointed guns at racial justice protesters in the US will reportedly appear at the Republican Party convention this month.
Mark and Patricia McCloskey, who are both lawyers, were filmed brandishing weapons as demonstrators passed their mansion in St Louis, Missouri, in June.
They gained national prominence after the clip was widely shared, and were later charged over the incident.
The couple said they armed themselves because they felt threatened.
On Monday, their lawyer told the New York Times that Mark McCloskey would "definitely be speaking" at the Republican National Convention (RNC).
A husband and wife who pointed guns at racial justice protesters in the US will reportedly appear at the Republican Party convention this month.
Mark and Patricia McCloskey, who are both lawyers, were filmed brandishing weapons as demonstrators passed their mansion in St Louis, Missouri, in June.
They gained national prominence after the clip was widely shared, and were later charged over the incident.
The couple said they armed themselves because they felt threatened.
On Monday, their lawyer told the New York Times that Mark McCloskey would "definitely be speaking" at the Republican National Convention (RNC).
What would make more sense, assuming that for whatever reason, we wanted to stick with winner-take-all, electoral college voting, would be to decouple the electoral college from Congressional representation and instead make it more proportional. The way I envision that working is that the least populous states would get 1 EC vote and then the more populous states would get more votes based on their relative population size to the smallest one. To simplify things, we could say that Wyoming (the smallest) and any state below 1 million people gets 1 vote, and any state with 1 million, but less than 1.5 million gets 2... and so on... essentially you get another vote for every 500k people. So California would end up with about 79 and Texas with about 57, Florida would get 42, New York would get 38, Ohio would get 23, Massachusetts would get 13, Mississippi would get 5... you get the idea.
Zardnaar
Deity
Sense and America lol lol lol.
Well apparently Trump's behind in the mid west and Florida, Ohio and Texas are competitive.
I think he will lose Florida, Ohio not sure, Texas Trump wins.
I guess I see it as kind of a fair trade-off. Republicans don't need to be as popular with the people and Democrats don't need to win as many states. Each has their own advantage that ensures neither party is ever really out of the running for president.
As for electoral votes being disproportionate, you may have a point there but it's one I'm not really worried about. At least not when it comes to presidential elections. The House is where things are represented proportionally.
The only way I'd support such a system would be to then require more than a simple majority of electoral votes to win. Something like 2/3rds to win the presidency as that would still ensure the small states could stay at least somewhat relevant.
Of course I go the opposite and say it should be one state, one vote. But to get that one vote a candidate must win at least 55% of the popular vote in that state. So if a third party candidate sucks up enough votes to prevent that, then there would either be a run-off election between the two top candidates or the state legislatures will decide it.
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