2020 US Election (Part Two)

[Gorbles]

If you bothered reading the article there is a moment in which a group around Kushner came to the conclusion that since it was only Blue states suffering from the outbreak they could afford to ignore it for political reasons and blame Blue governors for the slaughterhouse numbers. This crosses incompetence. misplaced priorities, and wishful thinking and walks right into criminal malfeasance.

I guess I should clarify that what I meant about going after the previous administration criminally is that this administration will have broken so many laws and norms that the adversarial nature they have developed against everyone not them will lead to a terrible result. This kind of story really upsets people and it will motivate people to act through anger.

I was reminded of this coming across this Tweet. For those who prefer not to click (as much as I use Twitter, believe me, I get it):

Every time I see stories like this I’m reminded that I shut down my tiny Etsy business selling hand-dyed yarn while I was US Atty so there wouldn’t be even the appearance of impropriety.

The account is quoting a Tweet discussing Ivanka Trump's earnings from family business while employed by the White House.

 

[uppi]

Primaries belong in with the elections in the distinction I made. They are a part of it, so before the election = before the primaries. But you are right that this further dilutes the representativeness. My main point was that what most people attack as a problem of multi-party system is actually more of a problem of how the two chambers of parliament are set-up. In that they are a „talking“ parliament where your main purpose is to have big talks or do big maneouvers so that you look good for your constituents. Getting something done in the US means negotiating for the votes you need outside of parliament first. So, on the floor, nothing of value actually happens or rather is pre-determined. (With the caveat of the supervision tasks where these hearings then are also televised or any kind of investigative report into malfeasance). Thas is what I mean with „talking“ instead of „working“. And what results in for example the 3-second session that happened early on during the pandemic in one state.

You can have this kind also in multi-party systems f.e. when two parties control the legislature completely. And you can have „working“ situations in these set-ups when f.e. The governing parties need either a super-majority or the sub-states have to be asked or they want to include actors from the private sector (health insurers). These discussions happen in any case. I personally prefer when they are included in the parliamentary process rather than happen in backroom deals. Transparency and Democracy in general also means a very clear pre-determined process - and I rather have the opposite impression in the Anglo-Saxon world (what‘s a better term for the UK and US?): that they make it up as they go along.

I share your preference about doing the negotiation in parliament instead of some backroom, but I don't think the effect is as big as you make it. More important than how exactly the negotiation about votes for a proposal is conducted is who gets invited to these negotiations in the first place. A multi-party system usually results in minority parties getting their view heard at least some of the time. In a two-party system, these minority views are usually not even properly represented and thus have no way to affect these negotiations.

If the US Congress was a working parliament and the subcommittees would work together in good faith on a compromise regarding a law, there would still be no socialist, green, or libertarian in those subcommittee (except for the rare exceptions). So voters holding these views would still be disenfranchised.

At the same time, the two-party system discourages a working parliament. The Republicans get away with so much obstructionism and destructive behavior, because they can win elections by getting the people to vote against the Democrats and if they manage that, they do not need to provide much reason to vote for them. The examples you cite, the Swiss and the European parliament, have this working mode because of the many parties involved in getting votes. Do you really think that a Swiss parliament would still be a working parliament if the SVP had a majority and the only other party was the SP?

 

[Berzerker]

for the sixth time in American history, the majority choice of voters was ignored because of the Constitutional relic of the EC that was originally designed to appease Slaveholders

how did the EC appease slaveholders?

 

[Patine]

how did the EC appease slaveholders?

With the "3/5 rule," on Slaves. If it the U.S. President had been elected based on direct popular vote based only on eligible voters from the start (and the population count of voters for House of Representatives district apportionment based only on eligible voters from the start), the "Slave Power," institution of U.S. Federal Government in the 1840's and 1850's would have been impossible to establish.

 

[Berzerker]

then it was the 3/5ths rule that appeased slaveholders... and I'd argue it appeased the non-slave states since all people counted fully toward the census 'except' for slaves.

edit: maybe not Indians and I'm not sure if Mexicans and Canadians counted.

 

[Patine]

then it was the 3/5ths rule that appeased slaveholders... and I'd argue it appeased the non-slave states since all people counted fully toward the census 'except' for slaves.

Are you at all aware of the highly lopsided proportion of Slaves to legally-recognized citizens in actual resident population in many of those Antebellum Southern States, especially ones like South Carolina or Mississippi?

 

[Naskra]

especially ones like South Carolina or Mississippi?

Mississippi was not a party to the negotiations. 8 of the 13 signatory states permitted slavery.

 

[Patine]

Mississippi was not a party to the negotiations. 8 of the 13 signatory states permitted slavery.

That wasn't at all my point. Mississippi still fully benefitted from the corrupt compromise, was legally considered a "Slave State," right from Statehood in 1819, with no serious objection at the time, and contributed fully to the phenomenon that was Slave Power. It seems odd to defend the "virtue of Mississippi," among the Slave States of the Antebellum era, unless you're pushing some blatantly transparent "revisionist rehabilitation scheme."

 

[hobbsyoyo]

If anyone is seriously doubting the purpose of the EC as a giveaway to slave owners, just read the founder's words on the matter. There were some weak secondary reasons for it but the primary reason for it to exist was to give slave owners a bigger share of power than they would have been otherwise entitled to and thus give them an incentive to join the union.

 

[Berzerker]

I thought the EC was a giveaway to small less populous states by counting their 2 senators

 

[hobbsyoyo]

The Senate itself is the giveaway to the smaller states.

And it's notable that what was the smaller states of the time were smaller because large chunks of their population were not counted as human beings.

So the EC gave them back much of the headcount for purposes of apportionment and presidential elections as an incentive to join up even as they suppressed human rights in the most vile way.

 

[Zkribbler]

The Senate itself is the giveaway to the smaller states.

Just a gentle reminder that, before the Constitutions was adopted, in Congress each state got one vote. So the Senate wasn't so much a giveaway as it was a continuation.

 

[Berzerker]

Yes, the Senate 'equalizes' the states but by counting each state's 2 senators in the EC that helps the smaller states. If your state has 6 reps and your neighbor has 2, adding 2 senators to both turns a 3-1 advantage into 2-1. Its the 3/5ths compromise that dealt with slavery and the census, not the EC... What is the EC's effect today? Small states get a boost in their EC clout.

 

[RobAnybody]

I mean, I'm not saying it's the best system, but "one Chamber gets the same for all states, one Chamber is based on population, & they have to agree" is a decent idea. Granted the House is no longer proportional to population, but the *idea* can't really be faulted when you're a bunch of 18th century rubes with no internet & conflicting views trying to invent a new system of government from scratch. Flawed, absolutely, but not a terrible proposal on its face.

We shouldn't worship them, as many in this country do, but we should forgive them for not being perfect. The real problem is that it's SO intrinsic it'd be impossible to change short of Civil War 2.0, which honestly no one really wants, even those who might advocate for it while in their AC homes typing on their iPad with grocery stores & McDonalds/Walmart right around the corner.

 

[Lexicus]

Its the 3/5ths compromise that dealt with slavery and the census, not the EC.

The 3/5ths compromise was designed to apply to the census and thus to the number of representatives that each state would get. The EC was designed to apply this compromise to the Presidential election by using the votes of electors whose numbers would be determined by the processes to which the 3/5ths compromise applied.

I mean, I'm not saying it's the best system, but "one Chamber gets the same for all states, one Chamber is based on population, & they have to agree" is a decent idea. Granted the House is no longer proportional to population, but the *idea* can't really be faulted when you're a bunch of 18th century rubes with no internet & conflicting views trying to invent a new system of government from scratch. Flawed, absolutely, but not a terrible proposal on its face.

We shouldn't worship them, as many in this country do, but we should forgive them for not being perfect. The real problem is that it's SO intrinsic it'd be impossible to change short of Civil War 2.0, which honestly no one really wants, even those who might advocate for it while in their AC homes typing on their iPad with grocery stores & McDonalds/Walmart right around the corner.

Here it is from James madison himself (the preceding bit of this quote considers and dismisses the idea of an Executive appointable by the Legislature as making the Executive too dependent on the Legislature, thus the Executive should be drawn from "some other source":

The people at large was in his opinion the fittest in itself. It would be as likely as any that could be devised to produce an Executive Magistrate of distinguished Character. The people generally could only know & vote for some Citizen whose merits had rendered him an object of general attention & esteem. There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections.

Now, on the issue of the Senate...it was also designed as a sop to the slave states, due to the population issue mentioned in the Madison quote here. The North's preponderance in voting-eligible population meant that it would inevitably dominate any legislature which was properly "democratic," ie, one which gave equal representation to people on a one-person, one-vote basis. The Senate meant that rather than having to outweigh the North massively in population so that they could hold their own in the House of Representatives with the right to vote restricted to a smaller subset of white men, all the slave states would need to do was ensure at minimum, an equal number of slave and free states to ensure that their power in the Senate could forever veto any Northern attempts to limit or abolish slavery.

 

[innonimatu]

Thinking about this election over there, as things stand... probably the only not-totally-disastrous possible scenario would be the democrats having a decisive win gaining control of congress, both houses, but Trump winning the presidency again. Though this will sound terrible to people having to live under an incompetent executive already, it's the only way you'll have something like an active opposition with a possible future, rather than a continuation of basically the same policies without opposition.

 

[Zkribbler]

For months, there has been no international mail delivery. Voting by mail will be extremely interesting.

 

[Berzerker]

The 3/5ths compromise was designed to apply to the census and thus to the number of representatives that each state would get. The EC was designed to apply this compromise to the Presidential election by using the votes of electors whose numbers would be determined by the processes to which the 3/5ths compromise applied.

We're talking past each other, the only advantage designed in the EC gave smaller states more clout. The 3/5ths compromise was designed to reduce slave state clout. We'd still be using the EC if slavery didn't exist.

 

[GenMarshall]

Just a gentle reminder that, before the Constitutions was adopted, in Congress each state got one vote. So the Senate wasn't so much a giveaway as it was a continuation.

We do not speak of the Articles of Confederation in this house!
( )

 

[RobAnybody]

@Lexicus (shorthand for not quoting your last post in this case), I'm not disagreeing with anything you wrote, but James Madison was just one guy among many & they had to compromise with a bunch of racist douchebags or else we wouldn't have even have what we have today, as flawed as it is (as you illustrate in your third paragraph). They *had* to find a middle-ground with freakin' slave-owners! I'm willing to cut them some slack for not coming with something perfect.

Could we, today, if we had to forge a new country with Trumpists in the same situation, if the alternative was no USA at all? I'm sure some idealists would say "Yes, absolutely!" but could the 99% live in such a world of perpetual civil war on top of war with Britain & other countries looking to poach half our states? I think at some point even the most hopeful person would be like "this is the best we're gonna get, it's that or nothing". The Articles of Confedartion failed after all - USA 1.0.