The 2016 US Election (Part III)

[Flagg]

I'm not sure why you're so worked up about this. Its not like I said that I agreed with Pence. Hell, I agree that he should be lambasted for his abortion policy.

Because it's unimportant drivel and you seem to think that even though it's wrongheaded and ignorant, that it's a sincerely held belief is worth mentioning. It's not.

[Q99]

I think it's worth mentioning because of how *other people* are going to see it. Will it connect with the base of people who hold beliefs we find detestable? That's a legit question.


---

I think people do underestimate how much Obama did. The amount of stuff in the bailout alone was extremely impressive, Obamacare was huge, and of course, we did get gay marriage.

It's an expectations vs reality thing. Expectations were very high among some, and couldn't realistically be matched.


And... I'm in the camp that Bernie didn't help much, feeding into the 'Hillary's part of the establishment and establishment is corrupt' narrative, but ultimately probably didn't hurt much either since he is now supporting her, and most of the lifting there on the negative was by the lifelong anti-Hillary campaigning.

[SolarpunkFan]

I stopped watching after half an hour. Why couldn't we have watched a rerun of Biden vs Ryan?

Or this:

[The Romulan Republic]

I think it's worth mentioning because of how *other people* are going to see it. Will it connect with the base of people who hold beliefs we find detestable? That's a legit question.


---

I think people do underestimate how much Obama did. The amount of stuff in the bailout alone was extremely impressive, Obamacare was huge, and of course, we did get gay marriage.

It's an expectations vs reality thing. Expectations were very high among some, and couldn't realistically be matched.


And... I'm in the camp that Bernie didn't help much, feeding into the 'Hillary's part of the establishment and establishment is corrupt' narrative, but ultimately probably didn't hurt much either since he is now supporting her, and most of the lifting there on the negative was by the lifelong anti-Hillary campaigning.

I think that while their are lines of good taste, and ethics, that you shouldn't cross in a campaign, its very highly questionable as a rule to blame the loser in a primary for the nominee's difficulties in the general election.

People fight hard primaries. Sometimes nasty things get said. Then you can hopefully come together in the general election (unless the candidate is completely antithetical to democracy or something like that- I fully approve of those all too few Republicans who have refused to endorse Trump). That's the way it is. Bernie vs. Clinton was not the first vicious primary, and I doubt that it will be the last. Shall we blame Clinton for her attacks on Obama in '08? Would we have blamed her if the positions were reversed?

Its a primary. They both fought hard, and Clinton won, and Bernie started working with her when she did. I won't say that I approve of everything that either of them said and did, but to that extent, it worked just like any other primary works. The way primaries should work.

[Q99]

I think that while their are lines of good taste, and ethics, that you shouldn't cross in a campaign, its very highly questionable as a rule to blame the loser in a primary for the nominee's difficulties in the general election.

People fight hard primaries. Sometimes nasty things get said. Then you can hopefully come together in the general election (unless the candidate is completely antithetical to democracy or something like that- I fully approve of those all too few Republicans who have refused to endorse Trump). That's the way it is. Bernie vs. Clinton was not the first vicious primary, and I doubt that it will be the last. Shall we blame Clinton for her attacks on Obama in '08? Would we have blamed her if the positions were reversed?

I agree in general. And I don't think in the long run the effect is anything major, not on Hillary's character or anything like that. There is still something more noteworthy here.

Its a primary. They both fought hard, and Clinton won, and Bernie started working with her when she did. I won't say that I approve of everything that either of them said and did, but to that extent, it worked just like any other primary works. The way primaries should work.

The unusual thing here is that Bernie started switching to those attacks at around the point when most candidates drop out because the writing was on the wall (People that far behind usually drop out)- attacks that were often not based on Hillary at all but the legitimacy of the primary, calling it rigged and such.

Gutpunches to Hillary is one thing- the worry is more convincing people to not vote in the general because they think the opponent cheated, that's the bit that's the problem. Only switching to that strategy once things were decided by "the opponent's home state needs to go for me by double-digits and I'm out of favorable demographic states' made it face-palmy (I think the mispolling of Michigan really went to his head, and was one of the worst things that could happen for both campaigns), and the fact it was directed at young voters and convincing them to not respect the result, when they're one of the hardest groups to get into the votes, was directly counter-productive to his goals of getting more pro-socialist voters in the mix.

When Bernie was fighting to win, he was great. When he was losing, he started swinging at the ref, and that's where I raise a hand.

I do not take issue on any attacks he made on her character or policy (including ones I disagree with), or for him taking so long to concede which was IMO a tactical blunder on his strategist's part- it preventing him from being able to say 'see all the people I brought over!'). I take issue with, "I'm losing therefore she must be cheating," directed at first-time voters.

[Flagg]

I think it's worth mentioning because of how *other people* are going to see it. Will it connect with the base of people who hold beliefs we find detestable? That's a legit question.


---

I think people do underestimate how much Obama did. The amount of stuff in the bailout alone was extremely impressive, Obamacare was huge, and of course, we did get gay marriage.

It's an expectations vs reality thing. Expectations were very high among some, and couldn't realistically be matched.


And... I'm in the camp that Bernie didn't help much, feeding into the 'Hillary's part of the establishment and establishment is corrupt' narrative, but ultimately probably didn't hurt much either since he is now supporting her, and most of the lifting there on the negative was by the lifelong anti-Hillary campaign

You think most people recognize what Obama accomplished? I don't. All I ever seem to hear is "he lied about shutting down Gitmo" which is so far from reality it's disgusting. He gave the order and both Republicans and cowardly Democrats blocked it. The other is that he lied about pulling out of Afghanistan, which is completely true.

[K. A. Pital]

Listen man, I'm just pushing against your contention that Trump is only marginally worse than Clinton, and by "such a tiny margin" at that. If you're hanging your hat on Trump's obviously insincere opposition to bad trade deals, more power to you. But there's no evidence whatever that he'd do anything to stop US free trade deals. He's so insincere about his opposition to them, and such a venal and greedy person, it seems very obvious that it'd only take a little influence peddling to get him to change his tune on free trade. And lord knows that the actual plutocrats in the US are fantastic at peddling influence. So not only is your weird Trumpian hope (he'll heighten the contradictions! He'll kamikaze capitalists into other capitalists) weird, it's frankly pretty delusional.

Whatever you know about economics, and I generally do agree with your critiques of global capitalism, you pretty obviously know nothing useful about American politics. This is why it's disappointing to see you and other left-wingers making common cause with anti-Clinton right-wingers. You basically don't have common cause with them apart from a mutual and apparently deep hatred for Clinton and Obama. This does not strike me as the wisest means to create progressive change or undermine global capitalism.

Hence why I contend you have a do-nothing ideology. You can make all the grouchy criticisms of global capitalism you care to, but since it manifestly isn't going anywhere anytime soon, you don't actually have to take responsibility for anything.

You are right. My ideology has been defeated; as a bitter defeated man, I can make my criticisms.

You are also right that a lot depends on the degree of Trump's dishonesty. I have no doubts he is a lying sack of shit, which makes me wonder just why would anyone vote for him.

As to Hillary, the problem with her is that she is too honest. She honestly will do what she plans. Ut I don't like what she plans, at least as far as foreign policy is concerned. Her domestic actions are not so my focus.

I would take this minute to acknowledge that Barack Obama has been a great president for the US. He has presided over expansion of social programs, extension of social rights and, generally, a mild revival of the social-democratic movement in the country. At the same time, his foreign policy was marked by terrible bloody blunders or sinister massacres, depending on how you evaluate the US' state of knowledge about the islamist Gulf-cash fueled extremism behind the "Arab spring", and US pressure of the EU to accept shitty trade deals. So for the rest of the world, he was not a great asset.

Funnily, most people in countries other than the US recognize Obama's accomplishments while at home he is still reviled. But for mostly the wrong things. Which is sad.

[The Romulan Republic]

Iowa's leaning blue in the Now-cast again.

[bilateralrope]

Now if only we can get SolarpunkFan to lighten up a little.

You rang?

I am happy to announce that the first debate trouncing has gotten me out of my electoral blues.

Oh, and then there's Trump completely losing it as well.

Trump’s porn film past pops up after Twitter ‘sex tape’ rant

The billionaire businessman’s unorthodox bid for the White House has taken another peculiar twist, with the emergence of a clip showing Trump’s own short, non-sexual cameo in a Playboy porn video.

“There’s been a lot of talk about sex tapes today and in a strange turn of events only one adult film has emerged today and its star is Donald Trump,” said Nick Merrill, spokesperson for the Clinton campaign.

That is a problem with any state wide vote. (Governor, state constitutional amendments, referendums, etc.) The way to change that is to have a candidate (or proposal) with broad cross party appeal.

You are also mistakenly assuming the presidency is a single national election. It is actually 51 separate state elections. (D.C. counts as a state for this purpose.) Making the presidency a single national popular vote only makes the problem of minority or underdog votes not counting worse. The electoral college giving the minority candidate a slim chance (as opposed to none) forces candidates in general to be more moderate with broad appeal or lose badly to those that do.

Can you prove that the current system favours minority groups ?
The proof I'm looking for is a list of minorities that are favoured by current state boundaries, along with an explanation of how they are favoured. Two minority groups will be sufficient, though the minorities that aren't on the list will likely lead to questions about why it's considered fair that minority x is on the list but minority y isn't.

[bilateralrope]

The federalism of the US states has one major advantage- it allows us to enjoy political diversity within a uniform country. As it is, some states are (relatively) far left in how they govern their own affairs, and others are far right. The populations of each kind of state would be very unhappy living under policies set by the other kind. But by allowing states a large degree of flexibility, we avoid situations where the national government has to dictate the exact same policy for everyone when there are profound regional divisions within the nation about how to proceed.

This is valuable in, for example, gun control, where there are parts of the country where much of the population intensely desires it and other parts where it would be actively useless and intrusive for them.

Forcing a single solution to this problem through at the federal level won't necessarily make things better.

True. There is an argument to be had for States having the freedom to set their own laws. Which means limiting what laws the Federal government can impose.

At the same time, there are things that the states don't get to decide for themselves. Why should state lines matter when it comes to electing the Federal government ?

The idea of districts is that the congresscritter represents that district specifically. And y'know that's not necessarily a bad thing, because you know who specifically to contact to raise your concerns.

That assumes that everyone in the district agrees on everything.

If your problem is something that your representative doesn't see as a problem, who do you go to ?
For example, who do LGBT people go to when their representative hates them ?
Their representative opposes them. Representatives in other districts don't care, because they can't vote in that representatives district.

Removing the districts and going proportional means that there is someone who they can contact. Sure, that person might be in a party that doesn't have any nearby offices. But the party that supports them will exist. It will be able to get seats because it has a pro-LGBT agenda. If no party has a majority of seats, there will be negotiations to get anything passed. Agreements of "you support us with this bill, we will support you later on that one". Which gives the pro-LGBT party power to set their agenda.

The phrase "tyranny of the majority" seems like it applies to district based elections a lot more than proportional elections.

Because it's a much more reliable strategy for a party seeking election to pander to the urban and suburban voters, while ignoring the rural voters completely.

If there are two or three parties, they will all be seeking to compete for the urban/suburban vote, even at the risk of compromising the interests of their rural voters. Because restricting your support base to a small minority of the population, and rigorously pursuing the interests of that minority, is a recipe for remaining marginal even under a proportional representation system.

Then a third party comes along and tells the rural voters: The big parties are ignoring you. Vote for us because we are listening to you.
Then the third party has seats in government. With luck, neither of the big parties has a majority, which means that they need the third parties support to pass anything the big parties disagree on. So now the third party can say "we will support you with x, but only if you agree to support us with y".

Now, if we're only concerned about Great National Issues, that's not a problem, I suppose. But at least in the US, there are a wide variety of issues where disagreements about social and economic policy break down along regional lines.

If a regional problem is bad enough, a small party promising to do something about it could grab most of the votes of that region. Even if the region straddles the borders of two or more official regions.

[Flagg]

Listen man, I'm just pushing against your contention that Trump is only marginally worse than Clinton, and by "such a tiny margin" at that.

I can kind of see his POV as a foreigner looking at American presidential politics from the outside. We've never really had a nominee in our stupid 2 party system that was so blatantly unqualified for a fucking city council seat in a low 6 digit population municipality, let alone President of the United States, so I can see why they might take his candidacy very seriously as an almost Reaganesque or even Schwarzenegger type figure. The difference of course is that Donnie Douchebag has never held political office of any kind and isn't qualified to.

I mean this asshat spent last week waging a Twitter war with a fucking supermodel.

Meanwhile we have Hillary Clinton whose worst sin is her last name, having a vagina, and an email "scandal" that no one but Clinton-haters and stupid people cared about.

So simple precedent would give someone on the outside the impression that Donnie Douchebag is a dumb far-right celebrity candidate, but a "legitimate" one.

You are also right that a lot depends on the degree of Trump's dishonesty. I have no doubts he is a lying sack of shit, which makes me wonder just why would anyone vote for him.

Racism, nihilism, religious mania, misogyny, sexism, and plain old ignorant straight party voting.

[Patroklos]

Don't be dishonest.

You claimed that neither side said anything about attacking Russia. I addressed that with an example of something they both supported (the no-fly zone) that might lead to firing on Russian forces, which, yes, has nothing to do with bombing Assad because its a different subject. Funny how I never said otherwise. It was you who claimed that they were only talking about bombing Assad. And then when I bring up an example that could involve engaging Russia, you say that its got nothing to do with bombing Assad? Well yes. That's kind of my point.

Wait, you think when anyone talks about a no fly zone over Syria they mean anyone other than just Syrian forces? That such a thing would even attempt to include Russia?



Fuck TRR, you really are out of your depth in such things.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Wait, you think when anyone talks about a no fly zone over Syria they mean anyone other than just Syrian forces? That such a thing would even attempt to include Russia?



Fuck TRR, you really are out of your depth in such things.

Did you even watch the debate last night? Because they were specifically talking about the no-fly zone in the context of relations with Russia. Further, looking on CNN today, the first article talking about the no-fly zone says:

The White House, however, has opposed a no-fly zone in Syria. The safe zone would be an area inside the country that the US and allied planes would defend from Syrian or Russian attack. It raises thorny legal problems, because doing so without the host country's permission means violating international law. And the possibilities for military escalation are very high if a US, Russian or Syrian plane were shot down. At this point, many military experts say a no-fly zone isn't possible.

<snip>

The White House has said a Syrian safe zone is off the table because of the enormous military commitment it would take to effectively enforce it and the ongoing responsibility of protecting its borders. Several Pentagon officials have told Congress that the costs would outweigh the benefits because it would increase the risk of a direct confrontation between US forces and Russia or Syria in the skies.

You seem to literally be the only one talking about this issue who stubbornly refuses to admit that it involves Russia.

[Patroklos]

I have never once said it doesn't involve Russia. Quite the opposite. The claim by TRR was that the candidates talked about attacking Russia. Everything you just posted bolters my position that nobody has ever claimed they want to attack Russia either directly or via TRRs bullshit goal post move of including Russia in a no fly zone.

Nobody, from either party, has said anything about attacking Rusdia in Syria. Only Assad.

This is TRRs claim:

Also, the bellicose posturing on both sides regarding Syria and Russia was terrifying.

Followed by:

going to enforce a no-fly zone in Syria without firing on Russian planes?

He brought up no fly zones that includes the Russians.

It's very simple, quote a candidate advocating attacking Russia in Syria, Hillary or Trump or Pence or Kaine, or shut up.

[Simon_Jester]

At the same time, there are things that the states don't get to decide for themselves. Why should state lines matter when it comes to electing the Federal government ?

1) Because state boundaries are immune to gerrymandering.
2) Because in many cases states are good proxies for territorial interest blocs that deserve representation, such as "farm country" and "areas affected by hurricanes."
3) Because (tying into (2)) many problems are localized to specific regions of the country, and having a single state which cares deeply about the issue represented tends to make it easier to ensure someone speaks up for the issue.
4) Because the federal government relies heavily on state governments to implement certain programs in return for federal funds, and it is irresponsible to create a situation where states as states are not represented at the federal level, if the federal government is routinely going to be telling states how to spend money and how to regulate local affairs.

The idea of districts is that the congresscritter represents that district specifically. And y'know that's not necessarily a bad thing, because you know who specifically to contact to raise your concerns.

That assumes that everyone in the district agrees on everything.

If your problem is something that your representative doesn't see as a problem, who do you go to ?
For example, who do LGBT people go to when their representative hates them ?

Their representative opposes them. Representatives in other districts don't care, because they can't vote in that representatives district.

Removing the districts and going proportional means that there is someone who they can contact. Sure, that person might be in a party that doesn't have any nearby offices. But the party that supports them will exist. It will be able to get seats because it has a pro-LGBT agenda. If no party has a majority of seats, there will be negotiations to get anything passed. Agreements of "you support us with this bill, we will support you later on that one". Which gives the pro-LGBT party power to set their agenda.

The phrase "tyranny of the majority" seems like it applies to district based elections a lot more than proportional elections.

Except that it tends to be a lot easier and more profitable for all parties involved to court majority votes rather than minority votes. Spending your campaign dollars appealing to increase turnout among 90% of the population pays off more than staking out a position which increases your appeal among the other 10%.

This is why if you look at, for example, mass media, minorities tend to be underrepresented. If straight people have trouble relating to gay couples, and vice versa... nearly every time, the producer of a TV show or movie will choose to portray a straight couple. Because there are about nineteen potential audience members who relate to the straight couple for every one who relates to the gay couple.

A minority party that exists solely to represent gays and lesbians and so on might be able to secure a few seats in a proportional election if there are hundreds of legislators total, IF the gays and lesbians and so on become single-issue voters. However, a number of problems arise as a side effect.

1) The constitutent supporters of the LBGT-representing "Rainbow Party" have much less direct control over who represents them, personally. They vote for a party, not an individual. This makes it easier for unsavory individuals to remain in the government through politicking.

2) For this system to work effectively, the electorate has to fragment into a host of minority parties dominated by identity politics. This makes it difficult to keep a broad national perspective on issues that don't directly affect any single one of the 'identity parties' (e.g. income inequality).

3) Broad national parties now have NO incentive to appeal to members of the minority groups. They might make bargains with the Rainbow Party in Congress, but they have no reason to even try to appeal to gay voters in general elections. Whereas appealing to homophobes is still a workable strategy... A pro-worker party can win more votes and power by becoming 'pro-worker' AND homophobic, and it won't lose many voters because all the gays were already voting for the Rainbow Party anyway.

4) Proportional representation means you can't re-fill a seat with a special election if a specific representative dies or retires or is impeached, because you can't even calculate who should have what seats without reapportioning ALL the seats.

I suspect there are other issues, but I'm running out of time to write about them in...

Because it's a much more reliable strategy for a party seeking election to pander to the urban and suburban voters, while ignoring the rural voters completely.

If there are two or three parties, they will all be seeking to compete for the urban/suburban vote, even at the risk of compromising the interests of their rural voters. Because restricting your support base to a small minority of the population, and rigorously pursuing the interests of that minority, is a recipe for remaining marginal even under a proportional representation system.

Then a third party comes along and tells the rural voters: The big parties are ignoring you. Vote for us because we are listening to you.
Then the third party has seats in government. With luck, neither of the big parties has a majority, which means that they need the third parties support to pass anything the big parties disagree on. So now the third party can say "we will support you with x, but only if you agree to support us with y".

This tends to lead to extreme fragmentation of the electorate. As I mention above, the result is that it becomes very hard to maintain broad perspective, because almost everyone is voting for a party that only really cares about accomplishing a specific, narrowly defined set of goals. And the further this trend goes, the greater the pressure towards fragmenting parties rather than building coalitions, because more and more issues are being ignored by the more numerous single-issue parties.

[Civil War Man]

Once again the presidential election is 51* separate state elections not a single national election. *(D.C. counts as a state for this purpose.) This is completely fair because everyone is playing by the same rules. In order to win a candidate must appeal to a broad cross-section of the country and not just focus on a few major population centers.

I just wanted to point out that the idea of "if we go by popular vote Presidential candidates will only visit the big cities" is faulty. By all estimates, NYC, the largest US city by population, is just over 2% of the total US population. If we count all US cities with a population of over 1 million (NYC, LA, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose), we go up to about 8% of the population. If we count the 100 most populous US cities, we get up to around 20%. It's simply not a winning strategy, because there aren't enough people to win a nationwide election by appealing only to people in the big cities.

Major metro areas do provide an advantage by having a larger media market that allows candidates to reach a wider audience, but that's true regardless of whether we use the electoral college or straight popular vote.

If anything, you can easily argue that the electoral college puts more incentive in focusing on major population centers than straight popular vote. NYC is about 2% of the US population, but 43% of New York State's population. Chicago is not even 1% of the US population, but is about 21% of the population of Illinois. And to include a swing state example, Columbus is about 0.2% of the US population, but about 7% of Ohio's population. They're still not enough to win an election on their own, obviously, but they give you more bang for your buck because by definition a city is a larger percentage of their state's population than they are of the country as a whole.

[Elheru Aran]

Bear in mind that major cities these days usually have a massive suburban zone that doesn't really have any distinct boundaries. In my particular case you can drive from Forest Park all the way up to Marietta or Kennesaw (~50+ miles) without any interruption in urban development, passing through the city of Atlanta proper on the way. So while the cities proper might not be that massive as far as populations go, when you include those suburban cities/towns, that gives a respectable bump.

Probably doesn't affect the percentages that much on a national scale, mind...

[Civil War Man]

Bear in mind that major cities these days usually have a massive suburban zone that doesn't really have any distinct boundaries. In my particular case you can drive from Forest Park all the way up to Marietta or Kennesaw (~50+ miles) without any interruption in urban development, passing through the city of Atlanta proper on the way. So while the cities proper might not be that massive as far as populations go, when you include those suburban cities/towns, that gives a respectable bump.

Probably doesn't affect the percentages that much on a national scale, mind...

That is true, but as I said when talking about media markets, that's still true with the electoral college. And, if anything, the electoral college puts more emphasis on focusing on that large metro area because it's a much larger percentage of the state population than the national population. At best, the electoral college only changes which major metropolitan areas get the bulk of a campaign's focus, because cities like NYC, LA, and Dallas are in non-competitive states while cities like Cleveland and Miami are in more competitive states.

[Q99]

You think most people recognize what Obama accomplished? I don't. All I ever seem to hear is "he lied about shutting down Gitmo" which is so far from reality it's disgusting. He gave the order and both Republicans and cowardly Democrats blocked it. The other is that he lied about pulling out of Afghanistan, which is completely true.

Oh, I quite recognize most don't!

He did a ton, and only a fraction of it is recognized, and of that, some of it remains underrated.

[The Romulan Republic]

I have never once said it doesn't involve Russia. Quite the opposite. The claim by TRR was that the candidates talked about attacking Russia. Everything you just posted bolters my position that nobody has ever claimed they want to attack Russia either directly or via TRRs bullshit goal post move of including Russia in a no fly zone.

Nobody, from either party, has said anything about attacking Rusdia in Syria. Only Assad.

This is TRRs claim:

Also, the bellicose posturing on both sides regarding Syria and Russia was terrifying.

Followed by:

going to enforce a no-fly zone in Syria without firing on Russian planes?

He brought up no fly zones that includes the Russians.

It's very simple, quote a candidate advocating attacking Russia in Syria, Hillary or Trump or Pence or Kaine, or shut up.

You are selectively quoting me, and demanding that I provide quotes for a claim that I don't believe I ever made.

No one said directly, to my recollection, that we should attack Russia. True enough in and of itself.

However, they did advocate actions that, realistically, could easily lead to an armed conflict with Russia if carried out, as part of a general approach of anti-Russian posturing. Or do you think that Russia is going to suddenly start being obliging to our efforts to take down Assad, especially considering that they just moved a bunch of anti-aircraft missiles into their base in Syria?

What plausible target could those missiles have? Assad? He's an ally of their's. Daesh? They don't have an airforce.

No, the only plausible target that I'm aware of is the aircraft of America and its allies. The obvious conclusion is that they're their precisely to deter American aircraft from conducting strikes on Assad, which they'd have to in order to enforce a no-fly zone.

I do not see how any of this is goal-post moving.

[Lord Insanity]

That is a problem with any state wide vote. (Governor, state constitutional amendments, referendums, etc.) The way to change that is to have a candidate (or proposal) with broad cross party appeal.

You are also mistakenly assuming the presidency is a single national election. It is actually 51 separate state elections. (D.C. counts as a state for this purpose.) Making the presidency a single national popular vote only makes the problem of minority or underdog votes not counting worse. The electoral college giving the minority candidate a slim chance (as opposed to none) forces candidates in general to be more moderate with broad appeal or lose badly to those that do.

Can you prove that the current system favours minority groups ?
The proof I'm looking for is a list of minorities that are favoured by current state boundaries, along with an explanation of how they are favoured. Two minority groups will be sufficient, though the minorities that aren't on the list will likely lead to questions about why it's considered fair that minority x is on the list but minority y isn't.

What? I am talking about 2 candidates in an election. The minority candidate is the one that doesn't get the majority of votes. (Treating it as if it were a single national election.) See my previous statement above.

Once again the presidential election is 51* separate state elections not a single national election. *(D.C. counts as a state for this purpose.) This is completely fair because everyone is playing by the same rules. In order to win a candidate must appeal to a broad cross-section of the country and not just focus on a few major population centers.

I just wanted to point out that the idea of "if we go by popular vote Presidential candidates will only visit the big cities" is faulty.

Which is why I didn't say big cites. I said major population centers. Draw a few state sized circles on the population density map.


(The 2010 map is a fancy interactive thing and the basic distribution hasn't changed significantly.)

[Flagg]

Once again the presidential election is 51* separate state elections not a single national election. *(D.C. counts as a state for this purpose.) This is completely fair because everyone is playing by the same rules. In order to win a candidate must appeal to a broad cross-section of the country and not just focus on a few major population centers.

That is so far from reality it's obscene. With the stupid, undemocratic (small "d") electoral college, candidates can take for granted electoral votes from certain huge red or blue states (Texas for Republicans (for now) and California for Democrats) and instead focus on a handful of "swing/battleground states". That means that my vote now in WA counts less than my vote in FL 12 years ago. This effectively means that Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania decide who governs the entire United States.

That's pretty goddamned far from "a broad cross-section of the country" .

[Patroklos]

However, they did advocate actions that, realistically, could easily lead to an armed conflict with Russia if carried out, as part of a general approach of anti-Russian posturing. Or do you think that Russia is going to suddenly start being obliging to our efforts to take down Assad, especially considering that they just moved a bunch of anti-aircraft missiles into their base in Syria?

No, realistically it means no such thing.

1.) As you may remember the last time you predicted WWIII in this thread, a western power has already unjustifiably directly targeted and shot down a Russian jet fighter. Not as a side effect of hitting Assad targets, but intentionally attacking the Russians themselves. Did that lead to some sort of "terrifying" fallout? No, it lead to nothing. Russia is still in Syria and now Turkey is in Syria. This was an intentional provocation by Turkey that led to a lack of response by Russia, why the hell would an accidental one by the US lead to anything when doing so would be far more costly for them?

2.) Russia is already attacking our proxies in Syria, and we are doing jack about it. I am not sure why you think Russia will be more protective of their proxies.

3.) Who gives a shit about a single, or even a dozen, AA systems? That may sound impressive to you, but to anyone with knowledge of the capabilities of the US such a paltry showing is less than a speed bump. The Russians know this too, and who says they would use it to defend Assad anyway? Its not like the located it defend anything other than themselves. On top of that, Assad has far more AA assets himself, meant to thwart the entire Israeli airfoce. If that isn't going to deter a US strike against Assad a token from the Russians isn't either.

What plausible target could those missiles have? Assad? He's an ally of their's. Daesh? They don't have an airforce.

Themselves. Just because nobody has claimed they want or attack the Russians now, doesn't mean they won't in the future. Turkey, for instance, has shown an interest in the recent past....

And honestly the most likely target of those missiles is YOU, and other useful idiots they can reliably depend upon to go hysterical on cue and muddy the political situation domestically.

No, the only plausible target that I'm aware of is the aircraft of America and its allies. The obvious conclusion is that they're their precisely to deter American aircraft from conducting strikes on Assad, which they'd have to in order to enforce a no-fly zone.

What is this fetish with no fly zones? Why do you think a strike against Assad means there would be a no fly zone? Or even aircraft (vice cruise missiles) for that matter?

I do not see how any of this is goal-post moving.

Your goal post move was saying that candidates had been bellicose to Assad AND Russia, and when it was pointed out to you that none had been so towards Russia you came up with this crazy accidental shooting down of Russian aircraft. Which still wouldn't help you, because as the name accidental tells us such a thing would not be on purpose and thus not an expression of a candidates desire to attack Russia.

[LaCroix]

Since the point of "electoral colledge makes the candidates care for small states" has come up, again (even though reality of what states they do visit does not support this), this seems to be the time to post these videos, again...



and in case of a tie or no candidate gets 270 votes (if a third party candidate snatches a few, miracolously)

[The Romulan Republic]

The Atlantic blasts Donald Trump, while issuing its third-ever Presidential endorsement for Hillary Clinton (for those who are curious, the other two were for Lincoln in 1860 and LBJ in 1964):

https://www.facebook.com/TheAtlantic/vi ... 189933487/